Wang the Ninth Part 9

CHAPTER XIII

So two winters pa.s.sed and the boy grew. He was wandering about one of the market-places when he caught his first glimpse of the thing which brought the great crisis in his life and fulfilled his destiny. A crowd had gathered in one corner, and was increasing with such rapidity that it was impossible even to guess what they were looking at. By dint of wriggling and pus.h.i.+ng, he finally managed to work his way through and see what was causing the excitement.

In a small open s.p.a.ce, a youth of about his age and size, stripped to the waist, was standing in the rigid posture adopted by native athletes before they do some feat of skill. But it was not this which attracted the crowd: it was the fact that he had grasped in his hands a naked sword which he held within two inches of his eyes. Staring at the glittering edge with savage intentness he muttered a stream of unintelligible words, which fell from his lips rhythmically as in an incantation.

In the midst of the deepest silence the people watched with awe-struck looks, no man moving. Gradually the boy's face was a.s.suming an ashen hue. The intensity of his stare was such that the glittering sword hypnotized him. Now he began to sway rhythmically; his lips gradually ceased moving, and the heavy sword trembled and swung in his hands.

Sheer will-power held him to the ordeal. Then the appointed end came with dramatic suddenness. With a lurch he fell stiff and rigid to the ground. There he lay insensible, his mouth wide open as if uttering a soundless scream.

"What is it?" whispered w.a.n.g the Ninth under his breath to his nearest neighbour, a butcher with the leather ap.r.o.n of his trade still attached to him.

The man looked down at him in a troubled way.

"_I-ho-ch'uan_, the Sword Society," he said abruptly.

A confederate of the boy, who had been standing to one side, now approached. Quickly picking up the fallen sword, he stabbed the boy in the muscles of the arm as he lay there. There was no blood.

"Bear witness," he exclaimed in a thick voice, waving the sword defiantly. "All who embrace the belief need fear no guns or swords."

He swung round to show his red girdle and the amulet on his chest. Necks were craned; no eye missed these details. These were the insignia which soon were to cause an ancient dynasty to totter to its grave.

On the ground the neophyte lay steeped in the deepest unconsciousness.

The crowd had reached the greatest proportions. Packed suffocatingly together, they watched every gesture and every development, chained to the spot by a subtle hysterical impulse. A keen observer might have said that they had long been waiting for this message. w.a.n.g the Ninth stood like the rest consumed with curiosity, until suddenly the neophyte on the ground slightly stirred. Now his eyes opened; he raised himself with a start; and then suddenly sprang to his feet as if possessed. He made a number of dramatic athletic gestures, as his leader touched him on the arm.

"I am born anew," he exclaimed loudly. "My body has received a spirit. I go to the Temple to receive my new name." Then, before most of them could see what had happened, the men with the blood-girdles, had forced a pa.s.sage through the crowd, taking the neophyte with them to the Temple to receive his baptism.

That night in the stables w.a.n.g the Ninth sat up very late telling his mates what he had seen, and indulging in pantomime to demonstrate exactly what had taken place. The rites had strangely impressed him.

"The sword is held close to the eyes like that," he said, showing them with a stick. "Certain powers are given: otherwise how comes it that the sword draws no blood?"

The others had nothing to say. They were like children confronted by the unknown. They were mystified, and attracted as well. Yet all sensed danger; in their rough way they declared it "was not a good business,"

particularly for those in foreign employ.

The next day, at the first idle moment, they all sallied out to see if there would be any repet.i.tion of the demonstration. All in the foreign quarter were talking of the matter; for many foreigners' servants had witnessed what had taken place the previous day and were also dimly disturbed. But to their relief they learnt that the matter had been reported to the authorities, and that fearing disturbances the new brotherhood had been warned to keep outside the city limits. They were now practising, it was said, on the sands outside the city walls.

For some days nothing happened and the idle talk began to die down. Then one afternoon all the stable-hands were requisitioned to ride with their master; and w.a.n.g the Ninth went to riding a white pony.

They sallied out of the city after their wont in a compact body. That day it was the master's whim to ride far and wide--into the country where a whole valley is given up to the walled burial-places of princes and other great dead. It was evening ere they turned back, the master leading the way home on his big black horse.

Just outside one of the city gates they came on a group of men standing in a little knot. They had a banner with them stuck in the ground. w.a.n.g the Ninth instantly recognized what it was.

"The new Brotherhood," he called so excitedly that the master heard him and reined in.

"Where?" he began in the vernacular, although the question was unnecessary. For the men had caught sight of him, and were roundly and bitterly cursing him as a foreign devil who merited death.

Without a word he rode slowly up to them. A youth with a sword in his hand had just commenced the posturing and the incantations, but something made him stop and watch the oncoming horseman as the others were doing. Without a word or an indication of his proposed action, the red-bearded master rode slowly towards the group who no longer dared to curse. When he was a few yards away, he suddenly drove his heels into his horse and was down on them before they knew what had happened. The lash of his mighty hunting-crop whistled through the air and caught the boy stripped to the waist, leaving a blood-red weal which made him shriek. Now as they fled he pursued them, las.h.i.+ng until he was exhausted. Then, slowly he rejoined his own people, who had not stirred or uttered a word.

"It will come," he said, breathing heavily from his exertions. "It will come; it will come everywhere--it will infect the whole city. I who have lived here long know." Then without further ado he resumed his way home as if nothing had happened.

This episode was more exciting to w.a.n.g the Ninth than his first initiation had been.

"The master is a man," he said that evening gleefully again and again.

"He will not be afraid. And I who serve him am not afraid either."

Still fear came into the city gates very soon after that. It slipped in mysteriously just as the first practisers of the strange rites had come.

A vague and curious blanket of apprehension settled visibly on every one, and made men afraid to look their fellows in the face. For once in their lives their garrulous tongues were stilled, and they sat waiting in silence. It was one of the most curious phenomena which has ever been seen--quite inexplicable save on the ground that certain processes of the human mind, which are common to us all, are sometimes induced in such powerful waves that none are capable of resisting them. The development of the drama was taking place as it were behind the scenes, yet understood by everybody. A million people in the capital waited obediently like hostages to learn their fate.

One morning it was reported that carts full of swords had pa.s.sed in through the city gates with inscriptions boldly displayed on banners in blood-red characters. The city guards had not dared to interfere, the scattered crowd following the carts full of awe as though they were tumbrils bearing condemned men to the gallows. It was generally seen and noted how this curious convoy made its way to a big Temple, disappearing inside and giving no clue as to what was to follow.

The sight of those great stacks of swords redoubled all fears. But who was to do anything? There was the emperor and all his ministers inside the great Palace to govern the land; for the common people there was nothing to do but to tremble and submit.

Yet even these developments were distant and irrelevant compared with what w.a.n.g the Ninth saw going on around him. He was filled with surprise and suspicion. For his fellow-servants no longer wore anything foreign--they had carefully removed everything that might indicate that they were in foreign service. With his quick eyes he noticed not only what they did openly, but what they wished to conceal. Being wise beyond his years he said nothing but watched everybody and everything in the compound with the eyes of a hawk.

Just as this critical moment, a development took place which shook even his great self-confidence. Being sent on an errand far beyond the foreign quarter, he deliberately dressed himself up in his foreign boots and gaiters, and put on his head an old felt hat which was the common property of the stable. He was not a quarter of a mile away from his master's house when without notice his hat was struck off his head and he was hustled out of the way. Then a cry arose which was repeated from mouth to mouth in a parrot-like way, and which so strangely affected him that his wits deserted him. He was called a _san-mao-tzu_, a third category foreigner--_i.e._, one who eats foreign rice. He felt he was surrounded by something worse than anger--something too big to be swept aside by retorts. When he made his way home, his spirit of bravado had utterly disappeared.

He asked at once to be admitted to the master's presence, saying that he had an important story to tell. The old steward consented without discussion--a thing he would never have done if the world had not been so upside down. The boy went in breathless and standing there told the master exactly what had taken place so that the warning should be understood.

His red-bearded master leaned back in his chair and watched him reflectively. The boy was surprised to see that his master's bright red hair was shot with grey.

"And were you afraid?" he asked slowly and deliberately.

The boy hesitated and then shook his head.

"It was not fear that I felt," he said in his frank, rough vernacular.

"Yet it is troubling, to come so suddenly and for no reason. The others had removed everything that might give cause for offence. Even watches, it is said, are considered dangerous. But I had not believed it. It is a new thing--and some say that it will be necessary for all of us to go--"

His master sat immersed in thought. Then he asked:

"And you, will you follow the example of the others?"

w.a.n.g the Ninth felt that his reputation was at stake. Still there was no doubt or hesitation in his reply:

"How can I forget that Your Honour's house gave me employment and food when I was in want? Whither should I flee even if there were the great danger since I am without parents?"

The master looked at him with approval.

"Show caution," he remarked. "It is wise to show caution now--"

Outside the house w.a.n.g the Ninth found all the servants already gathered together discussing what had happened.

"_San-mao-tzu_--third-cla.s.s barbarians," they repeated sullenly. "This is a nice business for us who only earn a bare living."

They were plainly frightened. Those who had wives and children in distant parts of the city spoke of the necessity of going. If this suspense continued, the majority would certainly flee. Only the men from the South would not move. For they were strangers, too, that is quasi-foreigners, who feared the mob because of their different speech.

Presently, in a day or two, some foreign soldiers arrived. But there were not many. It was said that thousands might soon come. That night, however, a secret exodus began from all native households scattered throughout the foreign quarter. In carts and on foot the people hastened silently away, abandoning their homes because of their location. The foreigner was becoming accursed--it was not good to continue living near him. The sombre depression grew as before a great disaster. A sudden noise would make every one cease work to see what had happened.

Discipline was so relaxed that w.a.n.g the Ninth was permitted to go and come as he chose, even the head-groom never chiding him. So the thing developed, slowly yet rather fast, the elements of evil gathering from afar under cover of the dark.