II

A year later, nearly. The Lieutenant who had quelled the uprising, with a handful of men armed with rifles of the latest device, as against three hundred natives armed with spears, had been decorated and was very proud.He also continued to exhibit his unique collection of arms to all comers, when the mail boats came in.Nor did he see their pathos.And in the jungles of the interior, where most of them lived, the natives never knew of the existence of the little red flag, and would not have understood if they had been told.Why?The white men were kind and considerate.Easy and indulgent masters who in no wise interfered with life as lived in the jungle.But with the native troops who had fired upon their brothers it was different.

Thus it happened that the small coastwise steamer, going her usual cruise among the islands and along the coast of one of the Seven Seas, carried unusual freight. Being a very little boat, with a light cargo, she was sometimes severely buffeted by the northeast monsoon, which was blowing at that time of the year. On these days, when the monsoon was strongest, the few passengers she carried were not comfortable. On other days, when she found calm weather among the islands, it was very pleasant. She dropped anchor from time to time in little bays bordered with cocoanut tree, and from the bays emerged sampans with vivid painted eyes on their prows, seeking out the steamer and the bales of rice she carried, or the mails.The mails, consisting of half a dozen letters for each port, were tied up in big canvas sacks, sealed with big government seals, and the white men who lived on these remote, desert islands, would come themselves to fetch them.They paddled themselves to the steamer in pirogues or in sampans, white faced, anæmic, apathetic, devoid of vitality.The great, overwhelming heat of the Tropics, the isolation of life, in unknown islands in the southern seas, makes one like that.Yet they were "making money" on their island plantations of rubber or cocoanut, or expecting to make it.It takes seven years of isolation in the tropic seas, after one has started a plantation—and even then, many things may happen——

So the little steamer stopped here and there, at little, unknown bays, at places not mentioned in the guide books, and from the beautiful, desolate islands came out sampans and junks, with the lonely figure of a white man sitting despondent among the naked rowers, eager to get his letters from home.It was his only eagerness, but very dull and listless at that.At night, the islands loomed large and mysterious in the darkness, while now and then a single ray of light from some light house, gleaming from some lost, mysterious island of the southern seas, beamed with a curious constancy.There were dangerous rocks, sunken reefs.And always the soft wind blew, the soft, enervating wind of the Tropics.

On the fore part of the little steamer, that wound its way with infinite care, slowly, among the sunken rocks, the shoals and sandbars, sat a company of fifty men. Natives, such as you might see back there in the jungle, or harnessed to the needs of civilization, bearing the white man in rickshaws along the red streets of the little town. These, however, were native troops—the rickshaw runner used in another way. They were handcuffed together, sitting in pairs on the main deck. In the soft, moist wind, they eat rice together, with their free hands, out of the same bowl. Very dirty little prisoners, clad in khaki, disarmed, chained together in pairs. A canvas was stretched over that part of the deck, which sheltered them from the glaring sun, and prevented the odour of them from rising to the bridge, a little way above, where stood the Captain in yellow crêpe pyjamas.For they were dirty, handcuffed together like that, unexercised, unwashed.They would be put ashore in three days, however, to work on the roads, government roads.Notoriously good roads, the colony has too.Their offense?Grave enough.With the European world at war, this colony, like those of all the other nations, had called upon its native troops.The native troops had been loyal, had responded, had volunteered to go when told they must.Proof of that?Forty thousand of them at the moment helping in this devastating war.It was a good record—it spoke well——

Only this handful had refused. Refused absolutely, flagrantly defiant. Just this little group, out of all the thousands. So they were being sent off somewhere, handcuffed, to make roads. Prisoners for three years to make roads, useless roads that led nowhere. Good roads, excellent, for traffic that never was. Some said they were the soldiers who had been forced to kill their brothers a while back—after that paltry revolution.One didn't know.They are stupid, these natives.Chewing betel nut all day, their mouths a red, bloody gash across their faces.

The ship stopped finally in some bay.Then a big, unwieldy junk put out from shore, and tacked back and forth, for two hours, against a strong head wind, coming to rest finally against the steamer's side.Two big iron rods were put out, with a padlock at each end, and places for twenty-five feet to be locked in.Then came European guards, with rifles, and revolvers in big leather cases hanging at their sides.The prisoners were very docile, but it was well to take precautions.When all was ready, the prisoners filed out slowly and with difficulty, because of their chains, and descended the gangway ladder to the uncouth junk, with its painted, staring eyes.After that, the junk slowly detached itself from the ship, unrolled its ragged matting sails, and made towards the mainland with the docile cargo.

The third passenger leaned over the rail. A sweet breeze blew in from the island, a scented breeze, laden with the heavy scents of the Tropics.For three years, he said, they would labour at the futile roads, the roads that led nowhere.Really, commented the third passenger, it was impossible to understand the Oriental mind.They had chosen this—this isolation, this cutting off from home and friends, rather then go to Europe to serve the race that had treated them so well.Afraid?Oh, no—too ignorant to be afraid.Brave enough when it came to that—just obstinate.Just refused to serve, to do as they were told.Refused to serve, to fight for the race that had treated them so well, by and large, take it all in all.That had built them towns and harbours, brought in ships and trade—had done everything, according to best western standards.It was incomprehensible—truly it was difficult to fathom the Oriental mind!The revolt a year ago?Oh, nothing!

The big junk with the staring eyes carried them off, the supine, listless prisoners, handcuffed together, foot-locked to an iron bar. They must build roads for three years. Somewhere at the back of those slow minds was a memory of the race course, of the brothers they had slain.Perhaps.Who knows.But the Occidental mind does not understand the Oriental mind, and it was good to be rid of them, dirty little creatures, who smelled so bad under the awning of the main deck.

The anchor chain wound in, grating link on link.The soft, sweet wind blew outward from the cocoanut trees, from the scented earth of the island.The third passenger watched the junk disappear in the shadows of the warm night, then he went below to get another drink.

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PRISONERS

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VI

PRISONERSToC

Mercier was writing his report for the day. He sat at a rattan table, covered with a disorderly array of papers, ledgers and note books of various sorts, and from time to time made calculations on the back of an old envelope. He finally finished his work, and pushing back his chair, lighted a cigarette. Unconsciously, he measured time by cigarettes. One cigarette, and he would begin work. One cigarette and he would start on the first paragraph. One cigarette, to rest after the first paragraph before beginning the second, and so on. It was early in the morning, but not early for a morning in the Tropics. Already the sun was creeping over the edge of the deep, palm-shaded verandah, making its way slowly across the wooden floor, till it would reach him, at his table, in a very short time. And as it slowly crept along, a brilliant line of light, so the heat increased, the moist, stagnant heat, from which there was no escape.Outside some one was pulling the punkah rope, and the great leaves of linen, attached to heavy teak poles, swayed back and forth over his head, stirring slightly the dense, humid atmosphere.

Mercier was a young man, not over thirty. He had come out to the East three years ago, to a minor official post in the Penal Settlement, glad of a soft position, of easy work, of an opportunity to see life in the Tropics. At a port on the mainland, he transshipped from the liner to a little steamer, which two days later dropped anchor in the blue bay of his future home. At that time, he was conscious of being intensely pleased at the picture spread before him. Long ago, in boyhood, he had cherished romantic dreams of the Tropics, of islands in southern seas, of unknown, mysterious life set in gorgeous, remote setting. It had all appealed to his fancy, and then suddenly, after many long years, sordid, difficult years, the opportunity had come for the realisation of his dreams. He had obtained a post as minor official in one of the colonies of his country—overseas in the Far East—and he gladly gave up his dull, routine life at home, and came out to the adventures that awaited him. The island, as he saw it for the first time, was beautiful. Steep hills, rocky and mountainous, rose precipitately out of the blue waters, and the rising sun glinted upon the topmost peaks of the hills and threw their deep shadows down upon the bay, and upon the group of yellow stucco bungalows that clustered together upon the edge of the water, upon the narrow strip of land lying between the sea and the sheer sides of the backing mountains. The bay was a crescent, almost closed, and a coral reef ran in an encircling sweep from the headland beyond, and the translucent, sparkling waters of the harbour seemed beautiful beyond belief. His heart beat wildly when for the first time he beheld his new home—it exceeded in beauty anything that he had ever dreamed of. What mattered it whether or no it was a Penal Settlement for one of the great, outlying colonies of his mother country, two days' sail from the nearest port on the mainland, the port itself ten thousand miles from home. It was beautiful to look upon—glorious to look upon, and it was glorious to think that the next few years of his life would be spent amidst such surroundings.The captain of the coasting steamer told him it would be lonely—he laughed at the idea.How could one be lonely amidst such beauty as that!His thirsty soul craved beauty, and here it was before him, marvellous, complete, the island a gem sparkling in the sunlight, veiled in the shadow of an early morning.Lying somewhere, all this beauty, one degree north or south of the Equator!

No, assuredly, he would not be lonely! Were there not many families on the island, the officials and their families, a good ten or fifteen of them? Besides, there was his work. He knew nothing of his work, of his duties. But in connection with the prisoners, of course—and there were fifteen hundred prisoners, they told him, concentrated on those few square miles of island, off somewhere in the Southern Seas, a few miles north or south of the Equator. He was anxious to see the prisoners, the unruly ones of the colony. Strange types they would appear to his conventional, sophisticated eyes. He saw them in imagination—yellow skins, brown skins, black skins, picturesque, daring, desperate perhaps. The anchor splashed overboard into the shallow water, and the small steamer drifted on the end of the chain, waiting for a boat to come out from shore. With the cessation of the steamer's movement, he felt the heat radiate round him, in an overpowering wave, making him feel rather sick and giddy. Yet it was only six o'clock in the morning. Before the boat arrived from shore, the sun had passed over the highest peak of the mountains and was glaring down with full power upon the cluster of hidden bungalows, the edges and ends of which bungalows protruded a little from the shelter of vines and palm trees. White clad men came down to the beach, and a woman or two appeared on the verandahs, and then disappeared back into the verandahs, while the men came down to the water's edge alone. The rowboat was pulled ashore by strong rowers, dark skinned, brawny men, and as the boat neared the beach, other dark skinned brawny men took a carrying chair and splashed out to meet the boat, inviting him by gestures to step into the chair and be carried ashore. He forgot the heat in the novelty of this new sensation—being carried ashore in a chair, with the clear, transparent water beneath him, and wavy sands, shell studded, over which the bearers walked slowly, with precision. And then came his first hours on shore. How calmly they had welcomed him, those white faced, pale men, with the deep circles beneath their eyes. They looked at him with envy, it seems, as a being newly come from contact with civilization, and they looked upon him with pity, as a being who had deliberately chosen to shut himself off from civilization, for a period of many years. He was taking the place of one who was going home—and the man was in a desperate hurry to get away. He looked ill, withal he was so fat, for he was very fat and flabby, extraordinarily white, with circles beneath his puffy eyes blacker and more marked than those on the other faces. The departing official shook hands hurriedly with Mercier, and kissed his old companions good-bye hurriedly upon both cheeks, and then hastened into the chair, to get to the rowboat, to get to the steamer as soon as possible. The other officials on the beach commented volubly on his good fortune—ah, but he had the chance! What chance! What luck! What fortune! They themselves had no luck, they must remain here how long, ah, who knew how long!They all stood there upon the beach watching the departing one until he reached the steamer, drifting idly at the length of her anchor chain.

Then they remembered Mercier again, and surrounded him, not eagerly, listlessly, and asked him to the office of the Administrator, to have a cup of champagne. A cup of champagne, at a little after six in the morning. As they walked slowly up the beach, Mercier spoke of the beauty of the place, the extraordinary beauty of the island. They seemed not to heed him. They smiled, and reminded him that he was a newcomer, and that such was the feeling of all newcomers and that it would soon pass. And in a body, ten of them, they conducted Mercier to the bureau of the Administrator, a tired, middle aged men, who shook hands without cordiality, and ordered a boy to bring a tray with a bottle and glasses and mouldy biscuits, and they all sat together and drank without merriment. It was dark in the Administrator's office, for the surrounding verandah was very wide and deep, and tall bamboos grew close against the edges of the railing, and a little way behind the bamboos grew banana trees and travellers' palms, all reaching high into the air and making a thick defence against the sunlight. The stone floor had been freshly sprinkled with water, and the ceiling was high, made of dark teak wood, and it was very dark inside, and damp and rather cool. There was a punkah hanging from the ceiling, but it stood at rest. Its movement had come to make the Administrator nervous. He was very nervous and restless, turning his head from side to side in quick, sharp jerks, first over one shoulder and then the other, and now and then suddenly bending down to glance under the table. Later on, some one explained to Mercier that the Administrator had a profound fear of insects, the fierce, crawling, stinging things that lived outside under the bamboos, and that crept in sometimes across the stone paved floor, and bit. Only last week, one of the paroled convicts, working in the settlement, had been bitten by some venomous evil thing, and had died a few hours later. Such accidents were common—one must always be on guard. Most people became used to being on guard, but with the Administrator, the thing had become a nightmare.He had been out too long—his nerves were tortured.It was the heat, of course—the stifling, enervating heat.Few could stand it for very long, and the authorities back home must have forgotten to relieve the old man—he was such a good executive, perhaps they had forgotten on purpose.The sub-officials were changed from time to time, but the old man seemed to have been forgotten.He could not stand it much longer—that was obvious.

Mercier went thoughtfully to the bungalow assigned to him, installed his few meagre possessions, and entered without zest upon his work. Somehow, the keenness had been taken out of him by that hour's conversation in the darkened bureau of the Chief. The weeks passed slowly, but Mercier never regained his enthusiasm. The physical atmosphere took all initiative away. His comrades were listless beings, always tired, dragging slowly to their daily rounds, and finishing their work early in the morning before the heat became intolerable. Then for hours they rested—retired to their bungalows or that of a comrade, and rested, to escape the intense heat which never varied, winter or summer, although it was a farce to speak of the seasons as winter or summer, except in memory of home.Mercier soon fell in with their ways.He drank a great deal, beginning very early in the morning, and measured time by cigarettes, postponing his duties, such that claimed him, till he had just finished another cigarette.They were cheap and bad, but there was a solace in them, and they whiled away the time.The only joviality about the place came in the evenings, after many cigarettes, which made him nervous, and after very many little glasses of brandy, which unfitted him for work but which were necessary to stimulate him for what work he had to do.

Near the group of bungalows belonging to the officials and to the prison guards, stood the prison building itself, a large, rambling, one storeyed structure, with many windows fitted with iron bars. Here the newcomers were kept, about eight hundred of them, and nearby, in an adjacent compound, were quarters for about seven hundred prisoners out on parole, by reason of good conduct. The confined prisoners did not work, being merely confined, but those out on parole, on good conduct, and whose terms would soon come to an end, were trusted to work about the island in various capacities. They made the roads—such few as there were. The island was so small that many roads were not required, and since there was no traffic, but little labour was required to keep the roads in repair. They also worked in the rice fields, but, again, there were not many rice fields. It was easier to bring rice from the mainland. There was a herd of water buffaloes, used for ploughing during the season, and the buffaloes needed some attention, but not much. So the paroled convicts were employed in other ways about the island, in cooking for the prisoners, in cleaning the various buildings, and as servants in the households of the officials. Only the most trusted, however, were given such posts as that. Yet it was necessary to trust many of them, and each official had a large retinue of servants, for there was little settlement work to be done, and something must be done with the men on parole, since the prison itself was too small to hold fifteen hundred men under lock and key at the same time. Moreover, these trusted ones were rather necessary.In the Tropics, work is always done in a small, half-hearted way, by reason of the heat which so soon exhausts the vitality, consequently many people are required to perform the smallest task.

Mercier, therefore, was obliged to accept the life as he found it, and he found it different from the romantic conception which he had formed at home.And he became very listless and demoralised, and the lack of interests of all sorts bored him intolerably.He was not one to find solace in an intellectual life.The bi-monthly call of the supply ship with its stocks of provisions, the unloading of which he must oversee, was the sole outside interest he had to look forward to.Old newspapers and magazines came with the supply ship, and these were eagerly read, and soon abandoned, and nothing was left but cigarettes and brandy to sustain him between whiles.

On a certain morning, when he had been at the settlement for over a year, he finished his daily report and strolled over to lay it upon the desk in the office of the Administrator. The supply ship was due in that day, and he wandered down to the beach to look for her. There she was, just dropping anchor.His heart beat a little faster, and he hastened his steps.It was cattle day.Bullocks from the mainland, several hundred miles away, which came once a month for food.He took his boat and rowed, out to the ship, and then directed the work of removing the bullocks.

It was nasty work. The coolies did it badly. The hatch was opened, and by means of a block and pulley, each bullock was dragged upward by a rope attached to its horns. Kicking and struggling, they were swung upwards over the side of the ship and lowered into the lighter below. Sometimes they were swung out too far and landed straddle on the side of the lighter, straddling the rail, kicking and roaring. And sometimes, when the loosely moored lighter drifted away a little from the ship's side, an animal would be lowered between the ship's side and the lighter, and squeezed between the two—so crushed that when it was finally hauled up and lowered safely into the boat, it collapsed in a heap, with blood flowing from its mouth. The coolies did it all very badly—they had no system, and as Mercier could not speak to them in their language, he could not direct them properly.Besides, he was no organiser himself, and probably could not have directed them properly had he been able to speak to them.All he could do, therefore, was to look on, and let them do it in their own way.Sometimes as an animal was being raised, its horns would break, and it would be lowered with a bleeding head, while the coolies stood by and grinned, and considered it a joke.Mercier was still sensitive on some points, and while long ago he had ceased to find any beauty in the island, he was nevertheless disgusted with needless suffering, with stupid, ugly acts.

There were only twenty cattle to be unloaded on this day, but it took two hours to transfer them to the lighter, and at the end of that time the tide had fallen so that they must wait for another six or eight hours, in the broiling sun, until the water was high enough for the lighter to approach the landing stage, where another block and pulley was rigged. Which meant that later in the day—possibly in the hottest part—Mercier would be obliged to come down again to oversee the work, and to see that it was finished. For the cattle must be ashore by evening—meat was needed for the settlement, and some must be killed for food that night.Mercier was thoroughly disgusted with his work, with his whole wasted life.Ah, it was a dog's life!Yet how eagerly he had tried to obtain this post—how eagerly he had begged for the chance, pleaded for it, besought the few influential people he knew to obtain it for him.

On the way back to his bungalow, he passed along the palm grown road, on each side of which were the red and white bungalows, residences of the dozen officials of the island. They were screened by hedges of high growing bushes, bearing brilliant, exotic flowers which gave out a heavy, sweet perfume, and the perfume hung in clouds, invisible yet tangible, pervading the soft, warm air. How he had dreamed of such perfumes—long ago. Yet how sickening in reality. And how dull they were, the interiors of these sheltered bungalows, how dull and stupid the monotonous life that went on inside them—dejected, weary, useless little rounds of household activity, that went along languorously each day, and led nowhere. It all led nowhere. Within each house was the wearied, stupid wife of some petty official, and sometimes there were stupid, pallid children as well, tended by convicts on parole. Nowhere could he turn to find intellectual refreshment. The community offered nothing—there was no society—just the dull daily greetings, the dull, commonplace comments on island doings or not doings, for all lay under the spell of isolation, under the pall of the great, oppressive, overwhelming heat. How deadly it all was, the monotonous life, the isolation, the lack of interests and occupation. As he passed along, a frowzy woman in a Mother Hubbard greeted him from a verandah and asked him to enter. Years ago she had come out fresh and blooming, and now she was prematurely aged, fat and stupid—more stupid, perhaps, than the rest. Yet somehow, because there was nothing else to do, Mercier pushed open the flimsy bamboo gate, walked up the gravelled path, and flung himself dejectedly upon a chaise longue which was at hand. And the woman talked to him, asked him how many cattle had come over that morning, whether they were yet unloaded, when they would be finally landed and led to the slaughter pens a little way inland.It was all so gross, so banal, yet it was all there was of incident in the day, and most clays were still more barren, with not even these paltry events to discuss.And he felt that he was sinking to the level of these people, he who had dreamed of high romance, of the mystery of the Far Eastern Tropics!And this was what it meant—what it had come to!A fat woman in a Mother Hubbard asking him how many bullocks had come in that day, and when they would be ready to kill and eat!

She clapped together her small, fat hands, and a servant entered, and she ordered grenadine and soda and liqueurs, and pushed towards him a box of cheap cigarettes. Where was her charm? Why had he married her, her husband—who was at the moment in the Administrator's bureau, compiling useless statistics concerning the petty revenues of the prison colony? But he was just like her, in his way. All the men were run to seed, and all their women too. And these were the only women on the island, these worn, pale, bloated wives who led an idle life in the blazing heat. Seven such women, all told. He relapsed into silence, and she likewise fell silent, there being nothing more to get nor give.They were all gone, intellectually.They had no ideas, nothing to exchange.So he smoked on, lazily, in silence, feeling the slight stir in his blood caused by the Quinquina.He filled his glass again, and looked forward to the next wave of relaxation.Overhead, the punkah swung slowly, stirring the scented air.These were the scents he had dreamed of, the rich, heavy perfumes of the Tropics.Only it was all so dull!

The door opened and a little girl entered the verandah, a child of perhaps fourteen. A doomed child. He looked at her languidly, and continued to look at her, thinking vague thoughts. She was beautiful. Her cotton frock, belted in by some strange arrangement of seashells woven into a girdle, pressed tightly over her young form, revealing clearly the outline of a childish figure soon ready to bloom into full maturity under these hot rays of vertical sunshine. She would develop soon, even as the native women developed into maturity very early. His tired glance rested upon her face. That, too, bore promise of great beauty. The features were fine and regular, singularly well formed, and the eyes those of a gentle cow, unspeculative, unintelligent. She was very white, with the deathlike whiteness of the Tropics, and under the childish eyes were deep, black rings, coming early. He noticed her hands—slender, long, with beautiful fingernails—such hands in Paris! And again his roving glance fell lower, and rested upon her bare legs, well formed, well developed, the legs of a young woman. He stirred lightly in his chair. The feet matched the hands—slender, long feet, with long, slender toes. She was wearing native sandals, clumsy wooden sandals, with knobs between the first two toes. Only the knobs were of silver, instead of the usual buttons of bone, or wood. Some one had brought them to her from the mainland, evidently. Well, here she was, a doomed creature, uneducated, growing older, growing into womanhood, with no outlook ahead. Her only companions her dull, stupid mother, and the worn-out wives of the officials—all years older than herself. Or perhaps she depended for companionship upon the children—there were a dozen such, about the place, between the ages of two and six.And she stood between these two groups, just blooming into womanhood, with her beautiful young body, and her atrophied young brain.Her eyes fell shyly under his penetrating, speculative glances, and a wave of colour rose into her white cheeks.She felt, then, hey?Felt what?

Mercier leaned forward, with something curious pulsing in his breast. The sort of feeling that he had long since forgotten, for there was nothing for such feelings to feed upon, here in his prison. Yet the sensation, vague as it was, seemed to have been recognised, shared for an instant by the young creature beside him. It was rather uncanny. He had heard that idiots or half-witted people were like that. She rose uneasily, placing upon her long, sprawling curls an old sun hat, very dirty, the brim misshapen by frequent wettings of pipe-clay. A servant appeared from behind the far corner of the verandah, an old man, dark skinned, emaciated, clad in a faded red sarong. He was her personal servant, told off to attend her. Something must be done for the men on parole, some occupation given them to test their fitness before returning them again to society.As she passed from the verandah, followed by the old black man in his red sarong, Mercier felt a strange thrill.Where were they going, those two?

He turned to the inattentive, vacuous mother."Your daughter," he began, "is fast growing up.Soon she will be marrying."

The woman shrugged her shoulders.

"With whom?" she answered. "Who will take her? What dowry can we give her? We cannot even send her to Singapore to be educated. Who will take her—ignorant, uneducated—without a dot?Besides," she continued eagerly, warmed into a burst of confidence, "you have heard—you have seen—the trouble lies here," and she tapped her forehead significantly.

And with a sigh she concluded, "We are all prisoners here, every one of us—like the rest."

Mercier rose from the chaise longue, still thinking deeply, still stirred by the vague emotion that had called forth an answer from the immature, half-witted child. He had a report to make to the Bureau, and he must be getting on. Later, when the tide turned, and the lighter could come against the jetty, he must attend to the cattle.

He did not linger in the office of the Administrator, but sent in his report by a waiting boy, and then strolled inland by the road that led past the prison, into the interior of the island. On his way he passed the graveyard. It was a melancholy graveyard, containing a few slanting shafts erected to the memory of guards and of one or two officers who had been killed from time to time by prisoners who had run amok. Such uprisings occurred now and then, but seldom. He entered the cemetery, and looked about languidly, reading the names on the stones. Killed, killed, killed. Then he came upon a few who had died naturally. Or was it natural to have died, at the age of thirty, out here on the edge of the world? Yet it was most natural, after all. He himself was nearly ready for the grave, ready because of pure boredom, through pure inertia, quite ready to succumb to the devitalising effect of this life. This hideous life on a desert island. This hideous mockery of life, lived while he was still so young and so vital, and which was reducing him, not slowly but with great pacing strides, to an inertia to which he must soon succumb.Why didn't the prisoners revolt now, he wondered?He would gladly accept such a way out—gladly offer himself to their knives, or their clubs, or whatever it was they had.Anything that would put an end to him, and land him under a stone in this forsaken spot.Surely he was no more alive than the dead under those stones.No more dead than the dead.

He passed out of the gate, swinging on a loose hinge, and in deep meditation walked along the palm bordered road back of the settlement. Soon the last bungalow was left behind, even though he walked slowly. Then succeeded the paddy fields, poorly tilled and badly irrigated. There were enough men on the island to have done it properly—only what was the use? Who cared—whether they raised their own rice or brought it from the mainland twice a month? It was not a matter to bother about. Water buffaloes, grazing by the roadside, raised their heavy heads and stared at him with unspeakable insolence. They were for ploughing the rice fields, but who had the heart to oversee the work? Better leave the men squatting in content by the roadside, under the straggly banana trees, than urge them to work.It meant more effort on the part of the officials and effort was so useless.All so futile and so hopeless.He nodded in recognition of the salutes given him by groups of paroled prisoners, chewing betel nut under the trees.Let them be.

A bend in the road brought him to a halt. Just beyond, lying at full length upon the parched grass, was the little girl he had seen that morning. She lay on her back, with bare legs extended, asleep. Nearby, squatting on his heels and lost in a meditative pipe, sat the Kling, her body servant. The man rose to his feet respectfully as Mercier passed, watching his mistress and watching Mercier with a sombre eye. Mercier passed on slowly, with a long glance at the child. She was not a child, really. Her cotton dress clung round her closely, and he gazed fascinated, at the young figure, realising that it was mature. Mature enough. A thought suddenly rose to his mind, submerging everything else. He walked on hurriedly, and at a turn of the road, looked back.The Kling was sitting down again impassively, refilling his pipe.

From that time on, Mercier's days were days of torment, and the nights as well. He struggled violently against this new feeling, this hideous obsession, and plunged into his work violently, to escape it. But his work, meagre and insufficient at best, was merely finished the sooner because of his energy, which left him with more time on his hands. That was all. Time in which to think and to struggle. No, certainly, he did not wish to marry. That thought was put aside immediately. Marry a stupid little child like that, with a brain as fat as her body! But not as beautiful as her body. Besides, she was too young to marry, even in the Tropics, where all things mate young. But there she was, forever coming across his path at every turn. In his long walks back into the interior, behind the settlement, he came upon her daily, with her attendant Kling. The Kling always squatting on his heels, smoking, or else rolling himself a bit of areca nut into a sirrah-leaf, and dabbing on a bit of pink lime from his worn, silver box. Mercier tried to talk to the child, to disillusion himself by conversations which showed the paucity of ideas, her retarded mentality.But he always ended by looking at the beautiful, slim hands, at the beautiful, slim feet, at the cotton gown slightly pressed outward by the maturing form within.

He was angry with himself, furious at the obsession that possessed him. Once he entered the gravelled path of the child's home, and seriously discussed with her mother the danger of letting her roam at large over the island, accompanied only by the old Kling. He explained vigorously that it was not safe. There were hundreds of paroled prisoners at large, engaged in the ricefields, on the plantations, mending the roads—there was not a native woman on the place. He explained and expostulated volubly, surprised at his own eloquence. The mother took it calmly. The Kling, she replied, was trustworthy. He was an old man, very trustworthy and very strong. No harm could come to her daughter under his protection. And the long rambles abroad were good for the child. Was she not accustomed to convicts, as servants? She had a houseful of them, and many years' experience. What did he know of them, a comparative newcomer?For example, she had three pirates, Malays from the coast of Siam.They were quiet enough now.And one Cambodian, a murderer, true enough, but gentle enough now.Three house-boys and a cook.As for the old Kling, he was a marvel—he had been a thief in his day, but now—well now, he was body-servant for her daughter and a more faithful soul it would be hard to find.For seven years she had lived upon the island, surrounded by these men.She knew them well enough.True, there was the graveyard back of the prison compound, eloquent, mute testimony of certain lapses from trustworthiness, but she was not afraid.She had no imagination, and Mercier, failing to make her sense danger, gave it up.It had been a great effort.He had been pleading for protection against himself.

Mercier awoke one morning very early. It was early, but still dark, for never, in these baleful Tropics, did the dawn precede the sunrise, and there was no slow, gradual greying and rosying creeping of daylight, preceding the dawn. It was early and dark, with a damp coolness in the air, and he reached down from his cot for his slippers, and first clapped them together before placing them upon his slim feet. Then he arose, stepped out upon his verandah, and thought awhile. Darkness everywhere, and the noise of the surf beating within the enclosed crescent of the harbour. Over all, a great heat, tinged with a damp coolness, a coolness which was sinister. And standing upon his verandah, came rushing over him the agony of his wasted life. His prisoner life upon this lonely island in the Southern Seas. Exchanged, this wasted life, for his romantic dreams, and a salary of a few hundred francs a year. That day he would write and ask for his release—send in his resignation—although it would be weeks or months before he could be relieved. As he stood there in agony, the dawn broke before him suddenly, as Tropic dawns do break, all of a sudden, with a rush. Before him rose the high peaks of the binding mountains, high, impassable, black peaks, towering like a wall of rock. It was the wall of the world, and he could not scale it. Before him stretched the curve of the southern sea, in a crescent, but for all its fluidity, as impassable as the backing wall of rock.Between the two he was hemmed in, on a narrow strip of land, enclosed between the mountain wall and the curving reach of sea.He and all his futile interests lay within that narrow strip of land, between the mountain wall and the sea—and the strip was very narrow and small.

He went forth from his bungalow, pulling upon his feet clumsy native sandals of wood, with a button between the toes.For underfoot lay the things he dreaded, the heat things, the things bred by this warm climate enclosed between the high wall of the mountains and the infitting curve of the sea.He tramped awkwardly along in his loose fitting sandals, fast at the toe, clapping up and down at the heel.The one street of the town through which he passed was bordered by the houses of the officials, all sleeping.They were accustomed to sleeping.Only he, Mercier, could not sleep.He was not yet accustomed to being a prisoner.Perhaps—in time——

He clapped along gently, though to him it seemed very noisily, past the bungalows of the officials, past the big prison, also sleeping. Past the Administration buildings, past the weed-grown, unused tennis courts, out upon the red road leading to the mountains. Turn upon turn of the red road he passed, and then stopped, halted by a sight. A sight which for weeks past he had worn in his heart, but which he had never hoped to see fulfilled. She was there, that child! That child so young, so voluptuous in her development, so immature in her mentality, and beside her, a little way away, sat the Kling prisoner who guarded her. The Kling squatted upon his heels, chewing areca nut, and spitting long distances before him. The child also squatted upon the grass by the roadside, very listless. The Kling did not move as Mercier approached, clapping in his sandals. But the child moved and cast upon him a luminous, frightened gaze, and then regarded him fixedly. Therefore Mercier sat down by the child, and noted her. Noted her with a hungry feeling, taking in every beautiful detail. Her exquisite little hands, and her exquisite little feet, shod in wooden sandals, with a button between the toes, such sandals as he was wearing. He talked to her a little, and she answered in half-shy, frightened tones, but underneath he detected a note of passion—such as he felt for her.She was fourteen years old, you see, and fully developed, partly because she was half-witted, and partly because of these hot temperatures under the Equator.

Thus it befell that every morning Mercier arose early, clad his feet in noisy, clapping sandals, and went out for a walk along the red road underlying the mountain. And every morning, almost by accident, he met the half-witted child with her faithful Kling attendant. And the Kling, squatting down upon his heels, chewed areca nut, and spat widely and indifferently, while Mercier sat down beside the little girl and wondered how long he could stand it—before his control gave way. For she was a little animal, you see, and yearned for him in a sort of fourteen-year-old style, fostered by the intense heat of the Tropics. But Mercier, not yet very long from home, held back—because of certain inhibitions. Sometimes he thought he would ask for her in marriage—which was ridiculous, and showed that life in the Far East, especially in a prison colony, affects the brain. At other times, he thought how very awkward it would be, in such a little, circumscribed community as that, if he did not ask her in marriage.Suppose she babbled—as she might well do.There is no accounting for the feeble-minded.But as the days grew on, madder and wilder he became, earlier and earlier he arose to meet her, to go forth to find her on the red road beneath the mountains.There she was always waiting for him, while the Kling, her attendant, squatted chewing betel nut a little farther on.

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In time, he had enough. He had had quite enough. She was a stupid fool, half-witted. He grew quite satiated. Also she grew alarmed. Very much alarmed. But always, in the distance, with his back discreetly turned, sat her Kling guardian, the paroled prisoner, chewing betel nut. So his way out was easy. One day, about eleven o'clock in the morning, clad in very immaculate white clothes, he came to call upon the child's parents, with a painful duty to perform. He must report what he had seen. When out taking his constitutional, he had seen certain things in an isolated spot of the red road, leading up to the mountains.These paroled prisoners could not be trusted—he had intimated as much weeks ago.Therefore he made his report, his painful report, as compelled by duty.In his pocket was his release—the acceptance of his resignation.His recall from his post.When the boat came in next time—that day, in fact—he would go.But he could not go, with a clear conscience, till he had reported on what he had seen.The Kling—the old, stupid, trusted Kling—stupid to trust a child like that with a servant like that——

So the Kling was hanged next morning, and Mercier sailed away that afternoon, when the little steamer came in.The little colony on the island of prisoners went on with its life as usual.Ah, bah!There was no harm done!She was so very immature!Mercier need not have exacted the life of the Kling servant, after all.He was supersensitive and over-scrupulous.Life in a prison colony in the Far East certainly affects one's judgment.

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CANTERBURY CHIMES

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VII

CANTERBURY CHIMESToC

I

The Colonial Bishop lay spread out on his long, rattan chair, idly contemplating the view of the harbour, as seen from his deep, cool verandah. As he lay there, pleasant thoughts crossed his mind, swam across his consciousness in a continuous stream, although, properly speaking, he was not thinking at all. The thoughts condensed in patches, were mere agglomerations of feelings and impressions, and they strung themselves across his mind as beads are strung along a string. His mental fingers, however, slipped the beads along, and he derived an impression of each bead as it passed before his half closed eyes. The first that appeared was a sense of physical well-being. He liked the climate. This climate of the Far Eastern Tropics, which so few people could stand, much less enjoy. But he liked it; he liked its enclosing sense of warmth and dampness and heavy scented atmosphere.Never before had he brought such an appetite to his meals, or so enjoyed his exercise, or revelled in perspiration after a hard bicycle ride, and so enjoyed the cool wash and splash in the Java jar afterwards.The climate suited him admirably.It made one very fit, physically, and was altogether delightful.From this you will see that the Bishop was a young man, not over forty-five.

Then the servants.Good boys he had, well trained, obedient, anticipative, amusing, picturesque in their Oriental dress.Rather trying because of their laziness, but not too exasperating to be a real irritant.So many people found native servants a downright source of annoyance—even worse than the climate—but for himself, he had never found them so.They gave him no trouble at all, and he had been out ten years, so ought to know.

The native life was charming too, so rich in colour, in all its gay costumes. Surely the first Futurists must have been the Orientals. No modern of the most ultra-modern school had ever revelled in such gorgeous colour combinations, in such daring contrasts and lurid extremes, as did these dark hued people, in their primitive simplicity.He liked them all, decent and docile.He liked their earrings—only that day he had counted a row of nine in the ear of some wandering juggler.Nose rings too—how pretty they were, nose rings.Rubies too, and most of them real, doubtless.How well they looked in the nostril of a thin, aquiline brown nose.It all went with the country.Barbaric, perhaps, contrasted with other standards, but beautiful—in its way.He would not change it for the world.

And the perfumes! A faint scent of gardenias was at that moment being wafted in from his well-kept, rich gardens, where somehow his boys managed to make flowers grow in the brown, devitalised earth. For the soil was devitalised, surely. It got no rest, year in, year out. For centuries it had nourished, in one long, eternal season, the great rich mass of tropical vegetation. European flowers would not grow in the red earth, or the black earth, whichever it was—he had been accustomed to think of red or black earth as being rich, but out here in the Tropics, it was unable to produce, for more than a brief season, the flowers and shrubs that were native to his home land.But gardenias and frangipanni——

The next bead that slipped along was the memory of an Arab street at dusk—the merchants sitting at their shop fronts, the gloom of the little, narrow shops, the glow of rich stuffs and rich colours that lay in neat piles on the shelves, and the scent of incense burning in little earthenware braziers at the door of each shop—how sweet was the warm air, laden with this deeply sweet smell of burning, glowing incense——

A step sounded on the verandah, and the Bishop concluded his revery abruptly. It was not the nearly noiseless step of a bare foot, such as his servants. It was the step of someone in European shoes, yet without the firm, decided tramp of a European. Yet the tread of a European shoe, muffled to the slithering, soft effect of a native foot. A naked foot, booted. This was the Bishop's hour of rest, and his servants had instructions to admit no one. Well, no one in a general sense, yet there were always two or three recognised exceptions. But it was not one of these exceptions, coming in noiselessly like that. The Bishop sprang up, standing straddle of his long chair, and looking fixedly in the direction of the approaching sound.He hated interruptions, and was indignant to think that any one should have slipped in, past the eyes of his watchful servants.Just then a figure appeared at the far end of the verandah, a white clad figure rapidly advancing.A dark skinned, slim figure, clad in white linen European clothes, even down to a pair of new, ill fitting, white canvas shoes with rubber soles.That accounted for the sound resembling bare feet.Really, they could never wear shoes properly, these natives, however much they might try.

Still standing straddle across his chair, the Bishop called out angrily to the intruder.Since he was not a European, and obviously not a native Prince—native princes never slithered in like that, all the pomp of the East heralded their coming—the Bishop could afford to let his annoyance manifest itself in his voice.Therefore he called out sharply, asking the stranger's business.

A slim youth stepped forward, bare headed, hollow chested, very dark in the gathering twilight, and his hands clasped together as if in supplication, stood out blackly against the whiteness of his tunic.The Bishop noticed that they were trembling.Well they might, for he had taken a great liberty, by this presumptuous, unannounced visit.It had a sort of sneaking character about it.Coming to steal, perhaps, and being surprised in the act, had determined to brazen it out under the pretext of a visit.The young man, however, walked boldly up to the Bishop's chair, and the Bishop, rather taken aback, sat himself down again and extended his legs on the rest, in their usual comfortable position.

"I've come to see you, Sir," began the stranger, using very good English though with a marked native accent, "on a question of great importance.On a matter of principle—of high principle.I've never seen you before, but you are known to me by reputation."

The Bishop snorted at this piece of impudence, but the youth went on unabashed.

"A very noble reputation, if I may presume to say so. But you know that, of course. What you are, what you stand for. Therefore I have dared to come to you for help. It is not a matter of advice—that does not enter in at all.But I want your great help—on our side.To right a great, an immense, an immensely growing wrong."

The youth hesitated and stopped, wringing his dark, thin hands together in evident agitation. The Bishop surveyed him coldly, with curiosity, without sympathy, enjoying his embarrassment. So that was it—some grievance, real or fancied. Fancied, most likely. He felt a distinct sense of resentment that his hour of repose should have been broken in upon so rudely by this native—bringing him wrongs to redress in this uncalled for manner. There were plenty of people in the Bishop's service expressly appointed for the purpose of looking into complaints and attending to them. To bring them up to headquarters, to the Bishop himself, was an act of downright impertinence. Very much as if a native should bring his petty quarrels up to the Governor-General. These thoughts passed through the Bishop's mind as he regarded the intruder with a fixed and most unfriendly eye. A few moments of hesitating silence followed, while the Bishop watched the darting movements of a lizard on the wall, and waited for the stranger to continue.

"I want your help," went on the youth in a low voice."You are so powerful—you can do so much.Not as a man, but because of your office.Perhaps as a man, too, for they say you are a good and just man.But the combination of a strong man in a high office——"

Still no help from the Bishop.That he did not clap his hands together and call for his servants to have this intruder thrown out, marked him, in his estimation, as the kind of man that the youth had suggested.A just and liberal man.Very well, he was ready to listen.Now that he was caught, so to speak, and obliged to listen against his will.

"It's about the opium traffic," explained the young man, breathing hard with excitement, and wringing his thin hands together in distress.

"Oh, that's it, is it?"exclaimed the Bishop, breaking silence."I thought it must be some such thing.I mean, something that is no concern of mine—nor yours either," he concluded sharply.

"It is both my concern and your concern," replied the young man solemnly, "both yours and mine.Your race, your country, is sinning against my race and my country——"

"Your country!"interrupted the Bishop disdainfully.

"Yes, my country!"exclaimed the young man proudly."Mine still, for all that you have conquered it, and civilized it and degraded it!"

The Bishop sprang up from his chair angrily, and then sank back again, determined to listen.He would let this fellow say all he had to say, and then have him arrested afterwards.He would let him condemn himself out of his own mouth.How well they spoke English too, these educated natives.

"What is this Colony, Sir," continued the young man gaining control of himself, "but a market for the opium your Government sells? For you know, Sir, as well as I, that the sale of opium is a monopoly of your Government. And we are helpless, defenceless, powerless to protect ourselves. And do you know what your Government makes out of this trade, Sir—the revenue it collects from selling opium to my people? Three quarters of the revenue of this Colony are derived from opium.Your Government runs this colony on our degradation.You build your roads, your forts, your schools, your public buildings, on this vice that you have forced upon us.Before you came, with your civilization, we were decent.Very decent, on the whole.Now look at us—what do you see?How many shops in this town are licensed by your Government for the sale of opium—and the license money pocketed as revenue?How many opium divans, where we may smoke, are licensed by your Government, and the license money pocketed as part of the revenue?"

"You needn't smoke unless you wish to," remarked the Bishop drily. "We don't force you to do it. We don't put the pipe between your teeth and insist upon your drugging yourselves. How many shops do you say there are—how many smoking places? Several hundred? We don't force you into them, I take it. You go of your own choice, don't you? We Europeans don't do it. It's as free for us as it is for you. We have the same opportunities to kill ourselves—I suppose that's how you look at it—as you do.Yet somehow we abstain.If you can't resist——"

The Bishop shrugged his shoulders.Yet he rather despised himself for the argument.It sounded cheap and unworthy, somehow.The youth, however, did not seem to resent it, and went on sadly.

"It's true," he said, "we need not, I suppose.Yet you know," he continued humbly, "we are a very simple people.We are very primitive, very—lowly.We didn't understand at first, and now it's too late.We've most of us got the habit, and the rest are getting it.We're weak and ignorant.We want you to protect us from ourselves.Just as you protect your own people—at home.You don't import it into your own country—you don't want to corrupt your own people.But what about the races you colonise and subject—who can't protect themselves?It's not fair!"he concluded passionately, "and besides, this year you have sold us two millions more than last year——"

"Where did you get your figures?" broke in the Bishop with rising indignation. This cowering, trembling boy seemed to have all the arguments on his side.

"From your own reports, Sir.Government reports.Compiled by your own officials."

"And how did you obtain a Government report?" asked the Bishop angrily. "Spying, eh?"

The young man ignored the insult, and went on patiently."Some are distributed free, others may be bought at the book shops.There is one lying on your table this moment, Sir."

"Well enough for me," remarked the Bishop, "but how did you come by it?"The sharp eyes had recognised the fat, blue volume buried under a miscellaneous litter of books and pamphlets on a wicker table.A lean finger pointed towards it, and the accusing voice went on.

"There is more than opium in that Report, Sir. Look at the schools. How little schooling do you give us, how little money do you spend for them. We are almost illiterate—yet you have ruled us for many years. How little do you spend on schools, so that you may keep us submissive and ignorant? You know how freely you provide us with opium, so that we may be docile and easy to manage—easy to manage and exploit."

The Bishop sprang up from his chair, making a grasp for the white coat of his tormentor, but the fellow nimbly avoided him, and darted to the other side of the table.It was almost completely dark by this time, and the Bishop could not pursue his guest in the gloom, nor could he reach the bell.

"Are you a Seditionist, Sir?How dare you criticise the Government?"The answer was immediate and unexpected.

"Yes, I criticise the Government—just as I have been criticising it to you.But more in sorrow than in anger.Although in time the anger may come.Therefore that is why I have come to you—for help, before our anger comes.You are a strong man, a just, a liberal man—so I'm told.You hold a high position in the Church maintained by your Government, just as the opium traffic is maintained by your Government.Both are Government monopolies."

In the distance the cathedral chimes rang over the still air—the old, sweet Canterbury chimes, pealing the full round, for it was the hour.Then the hour struck, and both men counted it, mechanically.

"Your salary, Sir—as well as the salaries of the other priests of your established church, out here in this Colony—comes from the established opium trade.Your Canterbury chimes ring out, every fifteen minutes, over the opium dens of the Crown!"

At this supreme insult the Bishop leaped at his tormentor, striking a blow into space.The youth bounded over the low rail of the verandah and disappeared amongst the shrubbery in the darkness.

To say that the Bishop was shaken by this interview is to put it mildly. For he was a good man in his way, and moreover, in a certain restricted sense, a religious one. But he was lazy and not inclined to meddle in affairs that did not concern him. And colonial politics and the management of colonial affairs were certainly not his concern. Nevertheless, the horrible grouping together of facts, as the young Seditionist had grouped them for him, their adroit placing together, with the hideous, unavoidable connection between them, upset him tremendously. He sat on in the darkness trying to think, trying to see his way clear, trying to excuse or to justify.He had never thought of these things before, yet he well knew of their existence.All sorts of injustices abounded in civilized states—it was perhaps worse in the colonies.Yet even in the colonies, little by little they were being weeded out, or adjusted.Yet this particular evil, somehow, seemed to flourish untouched.Not an effort was made to uproot it.The only effort made, apparently, was to increase and encourage it.And with the acquiescence of men like himself.All for what—for money?For Crown revenues!Pretty poor business, come to think of it.Surely, if the Colony could not exist by honest and legitimate trade, it might better not exist at all.To thrive upon the vices of a subject people, to derive nearly the whole revenue from those vices, really, somehow, it seemed incompatible with—with—that nasty fling about the Church!

He rang for his boy, and a lamp was brought in and placed upon the table beside him, and the Bishop reached over for the unheeded Report, which had been lying on the table so long. The columns of figures seemed rather formidable—he hated statistics, but he applied himself to the Report conscientiously.Yes, there it was in all its simplicity of crude, bald statements, just as the young man had said.Glaring, horrible facts, disgraceful facts.For an hour he sat absorbed in them, noting the yearly increase in consumption as indicated by the yearly increase in revenue.Three quarters of the revenue from opium—one quarter from other things.He wondered vaguely about his salary; that painful allusion to it troubled him.It was just possible that it came from the one quarter derived from legitimate trade.Certainly, it was quite possible.But on the other hand, there was an unquiet suspicion that perhaps it didn't.

The Bishop moved into the dining room, carrying the fat Blue Book under his arm, and read it carefully during his solitary meal. Those carefully compiled tables, somehow, did not do credit to what he had heretofore been pleased to consider the greatest colonising nation in the world. Were all colonies like that—run on these principles? Yet the Government, apparently, had felt no hesitation in setting forth these facts explicitly. Presumably the Government felt justified.Yet it certainly was not—the word honourable rose to his mind, but he suppressed it at once—however, nothing else suggested itself.Years ago, so many years ago that he had lost count, the Bishop had worked for a time in the East End.He had had clubs and classes, and worked with the young men.He used to know a good deal about certain things, and to feel strongly—— But since then he had become prosperous, and a high dignitary in the Church.Something stirred uneasily in the back of his mind, as he dawdled over his dinner and turned the pages of the Blue Book——

Then he went back to the verandah again, and subsided into his long chair.He sat in darkness, for he disliked the night-flying insects of the Tropics, and had a nervous horror of them.Lamps made them worse—brought them in thicker shoals.He gazed out at the twinkling lights of the vessels at anchor in the harbour.There were many ships in the roadway to-night, a sight which would ordinarily have pleased him, but his thoughts were in sharp contrast now to his comfortable, contented thoughts of a few hours ago.

II

The Bishop spent rather a wakeful night, that is, until about two in the morning, at which hour he settled his problem and fell asleep. It finally resolved itself in his mind as a matter for him to let alone. He could not better it, and had not the smallest intention of making a martyr of himself, of resigning his office, or of incurring any of the other disagreeable experiences which beset the path of the moral crusader. No, he could do nothing, for at two o'clock, as we have said, he had arrived at the conclusion that the evil—if such it could be called, since there was considerable doubt on the subject—had reached a magnitude which no single individual could deal with. Whereupon he wisely dismissed the matter from his mind. Not having gone to sleep till late he was considerably annoyed when his China-boy arrived at six with his early tea. This sense of irritation still clung to him when an hour later he sat down on the verandah facing the harbour and began his breakfast. Even after ten years in the Tropics, the Bishop still continued to enjoy bacon and eggs with unabated relish, and these did something, this morning, to mitigate his ill humour.A fresh papaya, with a dozen seeds left in as flavouring, also helped.Finally the boy came in and laid letters by his plate.Home letters, bearing the familiar postmarks, so dear to dwellers in outlying parts of the world.A small Malay kriss, with a handle of ivory and silver and a blade of five waves served as letter opener.The Bishop slit each envelope carefully, and laid the pile back on the table, to be read slowly, with full enjoyment.One by one he went through them, smiling a little, or frowning, as it happened.The mail from Home was early this week—evidently it had come in last evening, although he had not seen the steamer in the roads.All the better—all the more of a surprise.

He stopped suddenly, anxiously, and an open letter in his hand trembled violently.He finished it hurriedly, went through it a second time, and again once more before he could acknowledge its meaning.

The Bishop sat thunderstruck in his chair, aghast at his predicament. Here was a pretty situation! A scapegrace nephew, who had done heavens knew what dishonourable thing—the Bishop thought of a dozen things all at once, all equally disgraceful and equally probable,—was about to be quartered upon him, in his peaceful, ordered, carefree life, for an indefinite period! Really, it was intolerable. What did he, the Bishop, know of young men and their difficulties? Who was he to guide the footsteps of an erring one? What practical experience had he in such matters—it was one thing to expound certain niceties of theological doctrine, which, after all, had little bearing on daily life—and quite another to become guardian and preceptor to a young scamp. For he was a scamp, obviously. And of all places in the world, to send a weak, undisciplined person out to the Colony—this rather notorious Colony where even those of the highest principles had some difficulty in holding to the path. It was obvious that the place for this young man was in his home—in the home of his father and mother, who while they had doubtless spoiled him, must nevertheless retain a certain influence. He needed all the kindness and loving care that a home could give. The Bishop sought refuge in platitudes, for of such consisted his daily thoughts, running through his brain in certain well defined, well worn brain paths. Then a wave of indignation passed over him concerning his brother—the selfishness of turning his son out, at this time of all times! Of shirking responsibility towards him, of turning that responsibility over to another! To another whom he had not even consulted! All his life his brother had had what he wanted—riches, a beautiful home, an easy life.Yet at the first breath of trouble he evaded his responsibilities and dumped them upon another!

The Bishop worked himself up into a fine fury, seeing his future plans upset, his easy-going life diverted from its normal, flowing course by the advent of this scapegrace nephew. His eyes rested once more upon the letter: "He is going out to you on the boat that carries this letter." If so, then he must have already landed and would appear at any moment. For the mailboat must have come in last night, and the passengers had either been put ashore last evening, or had been put ashore at sunrise, supposing the boat remained discharging cargo all night. It was now eight o'clock. The youth should have been here. Apparently, then, he had failed to catch this boat, and was coming the following week. But the Bishop was troubled; he must go into town and make sure. Since he was to be burdened with the rascal for a week (but only for a week, he would send him packing home by the next boat, he promised himself) his sense of duty prompted him to act at once. He raised his fine, thin hands and clapped them together smartly.

"Rickshaw!Quickly!"he ordered the China-boy who appeared in answer to his summons.A few minutes later he descended the broad steps of the verandah and entered his neat, black rickshaw, with highly polished brasses, drawn by two boys in immaculate white livery.The Bishop kept no carriage—that would have seemed ostentatious—but his smart, black rickshaw was to be seen all over town, stopping before houses of high and low degree, but mostly high.

He reached the quais after a sharp run, passing the godowns filled with rubber, which gave forth its peculiar, permeating odour upon the heavy, stagnant air of the harbourside. No, the mailboat had gone on, had weighed anchor early in the morning, at sunrise, they told him, and had continued on her way up the coast. No such passenger as he described had been landed—no one by that name. The Bishop, leaning upon the worn counter in the dingy shipping office, scrutinised the passenger list carefully. There was a name there, certainly, that suggested his nephew's, but with two or three wrong letters. Not enough for a positive identification, but perhaps done purposely, as a disguise. Could the youth have deliberately done this? It was possible. When pressed for a description, the Bishop was most hazy. He could only say that he was searching for a young man, about twenty. The agent told him that twenty young men, about twenty, had come ashore. The Bishop was not quite satisfied, was vaguely uneasy, but there was nothing to be done. However, when the day passed and no nephew appeared, he drew a long breath of relief. He was safe for another week. Had a week before him in which to formulate his plans. And he would formulate them too, he promised himself, and would put the responsibility of this irresponsible young creature back upon the shoulders where it belonged. It was a great temptation not to return to the shipping office again and engage a berth on the next homeward bound liner, but on second thought, he determined not to do so. Above all things he prided himself on being just and liberal. He would give his nephew a week's trial in the Colony, after which the letter returning him to his father would bear the air of resigned but seasoned judgment, rather than the unreasoning impulse of a moment's irritation.A week's guardianship, and—well, so it should be.Nothing longer, no greater incursion into his smooth, harmonious existence.

The week of anticipation passed slowly. After the first shock was over, after the first sense of imposition had passed away, and he found himself with a week for consideration, he became more decided than ever on his course of action. Mentally, he began many letters to his brother, usually beginning, "I regret exceedingly," from which beginning he launched out into well balanced, well phrased excuses, of admirable logic, by means of which he proved the imperative necessity of finding other anchorage for this stray and apparently very frail bark. Of necessity these letters were vague, since he did not know what particular form of frailty he had to contend with. Of one thing, however, he was sure—the Colony offered opportunities for the indulgence of every form known to man, with none of those nice restrictions which are thrown round such opportunities in more civilized parts of the globe.He would explain all this at length, as soon as he knew upon which points to concentrate his argument.But, take it by and large, there were no safeguards of any sort, and only the strongest and most upright could walk uprightly amidst such perils.

The coming of the next liner was awaited with much anxiety.The Bishop had gone so far as to confide to a few friends that a young nephew would arrive with her, for a week's stay—on his way elsewhere.He remembered the boy, his namesake.Rather a handsome little chap as he recalled him—perhaps under more auspicious circumstances it might have been a pleasure to have had a visit from him.But this suddenly becoming endowed with him for weeks or months—it might be years, perhaps—quite another matter.

When the mailboat arrived one afternoon, the Bishop's rickshaw stood at the jetty, while the Bishop himself, in his immaculate gaiters, with his sash blowing in the soft wind, stood at the end of the jetty anxiously regarding the tender making its way inshore. She was crowded with a miscellaneous throng of passengers, among whom were many young men, all strange, new, expectant young men coming out for the first time, but among them he saw no face that resembled the one he was searching for.Which might possibly be, he reflected, since the face, as he recalled it at the time of their last meeting many years ago, was very childish and immature.The tender made fast to the steps, and amidst much luggage, much scrambling of coolies and general disorder, the passengers came off.The Bishop standing on the steps scrutinised each one carefully.Not there.Nor was there a second trip to the liner, since the tender had fetched ashore all who were to disembark at that port.The Bishop turned away with mingled feelings, part relief, part indignation.Another week of suspense to be gone through with, and after that, another week before he could release himself of his burden.It was all exceedingly trying and unreasonable—the feeling of irritation against his brother mounted higher—it was outrageous, keeping him upset this way.

Then a thought suddenly came into his mind. That name on the passenger list a week ago, the name slightly different yet curiously alike—could it have been altered slightly on purpose?Ashamed to face him, ashamed to come to him?Bundled off in disgrace from home, willy-nilly, and now here,—hiding?

A wave of sick apprehension came over the Bishop.Agonising fear.He must see Walker at once.Walker, his old friend, who would know what to do, what to advise.If only he were in town.

Walker was in town as it happened, and the Bishop found him at his hotel, and poured out to him all his wretched anxieties, the whole miserable business, not sparing himself in describing his attitude of unwelcome and unwillingness to receive the boy, and concluding with his sick fears concerning his safety. Walker listened gravely and attentively, and was troubled. It was very possible indeed—more than possible. A search must be begun at once. Fortunately, in that small community, it was not easy for a foreigner to disappear, and a stranger could not go inland, into the interior, undetected. Therefore, if he was here at all, he would soon be found—somewhere. He would set in motion the machinery immediately. First the hotels; that was easy. Then the other places.It would doubtless be necessary to call in the police.

The Bishop begged for secrecy—no publicity.Walker promised.That, too, would be easy.Leave it to him.The Bishop might rest easy on that score—no publicity.Walker would do everything himself, as far as possible.Only, he might have to send for the Bishop, if it became necessary, to identify——

Two nights later, the Bishop was reclining on the long chair on his verandah, while overhead the heavy punkah fans swayed to and fro, stirring the moist, warm air. Out in the harbour the lights gleamed fitfully, the lanterns on the bobbing sampans contrasting with the steadier beams of the big ships anchored in the roadway. The ships of the Orient, congregated from the Seven Seas, full of the mystery and romance of the East. He had left it to Walker—as he had been told. In the darkness, with one hand clasped behind his head and the other holding a glowing cigar, he contemplated the scene, his favourite hour of the day. Each moment another and another light flitted across the heavy blackness, showing red or green, while the lights on the moving sampans darted back and forth in the darkness, restless and alert.He had left it to Walker.He had stopped thinking of his impending nephew for a few moments, and his mind had relaxed, as the mind relaxes when an evil has been postponed from time to time, and normal feeling reasserts itself after the reprieve.There was a quiet footfall on the verandah, and the Bishop was aroused from his meditations.His Chinese servant approached deferentially."Man want see Master," he explained laconically, with the imperturbability of the East.

"What like man?"enquired the Bishop, in pidgin English."China man," came the response."Must see Master.All belong velly important."

A quick foreboding possessed the Bishop, even in this hour of his tranquillity.

"Show him here," he replied, after a second's consideration.A tall figure appeared before him, bowing.A lean, very dirty Chinese, who bowed repeatedly.In spite of the Oriental repression of feeling, it was plain that he was troubled.He extended a lean, claw-like hand, with a long and very dirty nail on the little finger, and offered a soiled letter to the Bishop.

"Velly important.All belong much tlouble," he explained, and tucked his hands well inside his long blue sleeves, and stood by impassively, while the Bishop received the letter, crumpled and soiled, as if carried for a long time in a pocket.He turned it over and found it addressed to himself.There was no stamp.The handwriting was Walker's.The Bishop started erect in his long chair, and then sprang up, straddling it as usual.

"Where get this?"he asked excitedly.The impassive Chinese bowed once more.

"Say come quick.Letter velly important.Letter belong you.No police.My savee you want letter now."He backed away, still bowing.With a sweep of his arm he indicated the dark night outside.

"You come quick," he repeated, "or call police."By the light of a lamp which his obsequious but curious Chinese servant carried in, the Bishop tore open Walker's letter, read it, then crushed it hurriedly into his pocket.

"Come quick," reiterated the unknown Chinese, "I got lickshaw." The Bishop strode forward across the verandah, snatching at his hat as he went, and then hastened across the lawn with hurried steps, followed by the Chinese pacing rapidly behind him.Two rickshaws were waiting under the street lamp, two shabby rickshaws.Yet somehow, the Bishop did not care for his own private conveyance at this moment, did not wish the sharp, inquisitive eyes of his runners to follow him just then.He mounted hastily, and the coolies started off with a will, the Chinese leading the way.Even in that moment of anxiety, the Bishop was aware that the Chinese was leading the way, was conscious that the place of honour was not his—for the first time in his life, his vehicle followed, second place, a rickshaw that carried a Chinese.

The distance seemed interminable. Fortunately, at that hour few of his acquaintances were abroad, but in the anxiety which possessed him, he scarcely realised it. He was conscious of passing through crowded streets, the quarter of the Mohammedans, where incense pots were alight, scenting the warm air. Then the vile-smelling bazaar, crowded with buyers, bargaining and shouting under the swaying torches. Then they passed the European section of the town, where the streets were wide, clean and deserted. They must be going back of the quais now, for the air was heavy with the acrid scent of rubber. Then they turned into a narrow, wildly tumultuous street full of Chinese, scattered all over the road and sidewalk, shouting, calling, beating drums, yelling wares for sale, the babel of the Chinese quarter, only such as the Bishop had never seen it. The rickshaws turned many times, up narrow lanes and alleys, across wider thoroughfares, and finally halted before a dingy house of many storeys, a foreign-style house, converted to native uses. They stopped before a red painted door, a double door, in two halves, like a saloon door. Over the entrance hung a sign, black and white, in large, sprawling Chinese characters. Subconsciously, he was aware that he had passed such signs, in such characters, many times before. A curious and large crowd gathered before the house parted at their approach, and the filthy Chinese led the way, followed by the Bishop in his immaculate garb. As they passed in and the swing doors closed behind them, a throng of yellow faces peered down and looked under the door, which was hung high. And all the while, the low, insistent shuffling noises of the crowd outside penetrated into the dark, dimly lit room in which the Bishop and his companion found themselves.

Around three sides of this room, which was narrow, ran a wide bench covered with dirty matting. Lying at intervals in pairs all along the bench, were two coolies in a little pen, with a lamp between them, separated by a narrow ridge from the pen adjoining, which held two more ragged smokers. The Bishop beheld rows of them, haggard, pallid rows. A horn lantern was suspended from the ceiling, and the air was unstirred by punkah, the heavy, foul air reeking with the sickening, pungent fumes of opium. As he passed, the smokers raised themselves on their elbows and gazed at him with glazed, dull eyes. The sight of a Bishop in a low class opium den was unusual, and the dimmed brains of the smokers dimly recognised the distraction. Then, as he moved on, they sank down again upon their wooden pillows, and with slow, infinite pains, set themselves to roll their bits of opium, to cook it over the dim lamps that dotted the murky atmosphere with glints of light, and to resume their occupations.

At the back of the room, the proprietor paused before a part of the bench where the pen was occupied by one smoker only, a foreigner.The foreigner lay stretched out in an awkward attitude, knees drawn up, his head sliding off the wooden block, most uncomfortable.A candle was thrust into the Bishop's unsteady hand.

"Looksee," whispered a voice.The Bishop looked."All lite?"questioned the anxious voice of the proprietor, "Die lil' while ago.No can smoke like China boys.No can do."

The Bishop continued to look at the beautiful, disdainful head of the young foreigner, sliding limply off its wooden pillow.

"All lite?" continued the whining voice insistently. "My got money. Have got watch. No steal." A skinny hand with filthy fingernails crept forth and thrust itself into the pockets of the limp waistcoat, crumpled so pitifully upon the thin, young figure, and presently a gold watch was drawn forth. The watch was slowly waved before the Bishop's eyes, and the case snapped open, so that he could read the name engraved within.After which the Bishop continued to gaze fixedly upon the dead youth, lying disgraced upon a bench in one of the lowest opium dives in the Colony.

"Smoke here week," went on the insistent voice of the proprietor, "all time smoke.No go out.No eat.Smoke all same China-boy.No same China-boy.No can do."

There was a slight movement at the back of the room, and an object was passed from hand to hand and finally held for inspection under the Bishop's nose.In a grimy frame, protected by a square of fly-brown glass, was a square, official-looking bit of paper.Of value evidently, since much care had been taken to preserve it.

"License," went on the explanatory voice."Gov'ment license.All samee Gov'ment license.Pay heap money.No can help if man die.Plenty China-boy die too.This velly lespectable place."

The Bishop recalled himself as from a dream. During the few moments he had spent looking down upon the huddled figure, he seemed to have grown older, to have shrunken down, to have lost something of his fine, arrogant hearing and conscious superiority.

"All lite?"whined the voice insistently."All lite?""Yes," said the Bishop shortly, "it's all right."He strode rapidly through the foul room, through the heavy, tainted, pungent air.Outside, the dense crowd pressed closely about the swinging doors scattered widely as he approached.Two policemen were coming down the street, attracted by the excitement of the crowd.The Bishop got into a rickshaw and drove homewards.A heavy weight seemed to have been lifted from his mind.Through the oppressive, hot night air the Canterbury chimes pealed their mellow notes.

"Thank God," said the Bishop fervently, "it was not my nephew."

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UNDER A WINEGLASS

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VIII

UNDER A WINEGLASSToC

A little coasting steamer dropped anchor at dawn at the mouth of Chanta-Boun creek, and through the long, hot hours she lay there, gently stirring with the sluggish tide, waiting for the passage-junk to come down from Chanta-Boun town, twelve miles further up the river. It was stifling hot on the steamer, and from side to side, whichever side one walked to, came no breeze at all. Only the warm, enveloping, moist heat closed down, stifling. Very quiet it was, with no noises or voices from the after deck, where under the awning lay the languid deck passengers, sleeping on their bedding rolls. Very quiet it was ashore, so still and quiet that one could hear the bubbling, sucking noises of the large land-crabs, pattering over the black, oozy mud, or the sound of a lean pig scratching himself against the piles of a native hut, the clustered huts, mounted on stilts, of the village at the mouth of the creek.

The Captain came down from the narrow bridge into the narrow saloon.He was clad in yellow pajamas, his bare feet in native sandals, and held a well pipeclayed topee in one hand.Impatient he was at the delay of the passage-junk coming down from up-river, with her possible trifling cargo, and possible trifling deck-passengers, of which the little steamer already carried enough.

"This long wait—it is very annoying," he commented, sitting upon the worn leather cushions of the saloon bench."And I had wished for time enough to stop to see the lonely man.I have made good time on this trip—all things considered.With time to spare, to make that call, out of our way.And now the good hours go by, while we wait here, uselessly."

"The lonely man?"asked the passenger, who was not a deck-passenger.He was the only saloon passenger, and because of that, he slept first in one, then in the other of the two small cabins, alternating according to which side the wind blew from.

"You would not mind, perhaps," continued the Captain, "if, after all—in spite of this long delay—we still found time for the lonely man?An unscheduled call, much out of our way—oh, a day's sail from here, and we, as you know, go slowly——"

"Three days from now—four days from now—it matters little to me when we reach Bangkok," said the passenger largely, "but tell me of this man."

Upon the sideboard, under an inverted wineglass, sat a small gilt Buddha, placed there by the China-boys.The Captain fixed his eyes upon the Buddha.

"Like that.Immovable and covered in close, sitting still in a small space.Covered in.Some one turned a wineglass over on him, long ago, and now he sits, still and immovable like that.It makes my heart ache."

"Tell me.While we are waiting."

"Three years ago," began the Captain dreamily, still looking at the tiny gilt Buddha in its inverted wineglass, "he came aboard. Bound for nowhere in particular—to Bangkok, perhaps, since we were going that way. Or to any other port he fancied along the coast, since we were stopping all along the coast.He wanted to lose himself, he said.And, as you have seen, we stop at many remote, lonely villages, such as this one.And we have seen many lonely men, foreigners, isolated in villages such as this one, unknown, removed, forgotten.But none of them suited him.He had been looking for the proper spot for many years.Wandering up and down the coast, in cargo-boats, in little coasting vessels, in sailing vessels, sometimes in native junks, stopping here and there, looking for a place where he could go off and live by himself.He wanted to be quite, absolutely, to himself.He said he should know the place immediately, if he saw it—recognise it at once.He said he could find himself if he could get quite absolutely away.Find himself, that is, recover himself—something, a part of him which he had lost.Just temporarily lost.He was very wistful and very eager, and said I must not think him a fool, or demented.He said he only wanted to be by himself, in the right spot, to accomplish his purpose.He would accomplish his purpose and then return.

"Can you see him, the lonely man, obsessed, going up and down the China Coast, shipping at distant ports, one after another, on fruitless quests, looking for a place to disembark.The proper place to disembark, the place which he should recognise, should know for his own place, which would answer the longing in him which had sent him searching round the world, over the Seven Seas of the world.The spot in which he could find himself again and regain what he had lost.

"There are many islands hereabouts," went on the Captain. "Hundreds. Desert. He thought one would suit him. So I put him down on one, going out of my way to find it for him. He leaned over the rail of the bridge, and said to me 'We are getting nearer.' Then he said that he saw it. So I stopped the ship and put him down. He was very grateful. He said he liked to be in the Gulf of Siam. That the name had a picturesque sound, the Pirate Islands. He would live all by himself on one of the Pirate Islands, in the Gulf of Siam. Isolated and remote, but over one way was the coast of Indo-China, and over the other way was the coast of Malay. Neighbourly, but not too near. He should always feel that he could get away when he was ready, what with so much traffic through the Gulf, and the native boats now and then.He was mistaken about the traffic, but I did not tell him so.I knew where he was and could watch him.I placed a cross on the chart, on his island, so that I might know where I had left him.And I promised myself to call upon him, from time to time—to see when he should be ready to face the world again."

The Captain spread a chart upon the table.

"Six degrees north latitude," he remarked, "Ten thousand miles from——"

"Greenwich," supplied the passenger, anxious to show that he knew.

"From Her," corrected the Captain.

"He told me about her a little. I added the rest, from what he omitted. It all happened quite a long time ago, which was the bother of it. And because it had taken place so long ago, and had endured for so long a time, it made it more difficult for him to recover himself again. Do you think people ever recover themselves again? When the precious thing in them, the spirit of them has been overlaid and overlaid, covered deep with artificial layers——?

"The marvel was that he wanted to regain it—wanted to break through. Most don't. The other thing is so easy. Money—of course. She had it, and he loved her. He had none, and she loved him. She had had money always, had lived with it, lived on it, it got into her very bones. And he had not two shillings to rub together, but he possessed the gift—genius. But they met somewhere, and fell in love with each other, and that ended him. She took him, you see, and gave him all she had. It was marvellous to do it, for she loved him so. Took him from his four shilling attic into luxury. Out of his shabby, poor, worn clothes into the best there were. From a penny 'bus into superb motors. With all the rest of it to match. And he accepted it all because he loved her, and it was the easiest way. Besides, just before she had come into his life, he had written—well, whatever it was—however, they all praised him, the critics and reviewers, and called him the coming man, and he was very happy about it, and she seemed to come into his life right at the top of his happiness over his work.And sapped it.Didn't mean to, but did.Cut his genius down at the root.Said his beginning fame was quite enough—quite enough for her, for her friends, for the society into which she took him.They all praised him without understanding how great he was, or considering his future.They took him at her valuation, which was great enough.But she thought he had achieved the summit.Did not know, you see, that there was anything more.

"He was so sure of himself, too, during those first few years.Young and confident, conscious of his power.Drifting would not matter for a while.He could afford to drift.His genius would ripen, he told himself, and time was on his side.So he drifted, very happy and content, ripening.And being overlaid all the time, deeper and thicker, with this intangible, transparent, strong wall, hemming him in, shutting in the gold, just like that little joss there under the wineglass.

"She lavished on him everything, without measure. But she had no knowledge of him, really. Just another toy he was, the best of all, in her luxurious equipment. So he travelled the world with her, and dined at the Embassies of the world, East and West, in all the capitals of Europe and of Asia.Getting restive finally, however, as the years wore on.Feeling the wineglass, as it were, although he could not see it.Looking through its clear transparency, but feeling pressed, somehow, conscious of the closeness.But he continued to sit still, not much wishing to move, to stretch himself.

"Then sounds from the other side began to filter in, echoing largely in his restricted space, making within it reverberations that carried vague uneasiness, producing restlessness. He shifted himself within his space, and grew conscious of limitations. From without came the voices, insistent, asking what he was doing now? Meaning, what thing was he writing now, for a long time had passed since he had written that which called forth the praise of men. There came to him, within his wineglass, these demands from the outside. Therefore he grew very uneasy, and tried to rise, and just then it was that he began to feel how close the crystal walls surrounded him. He even wanted to break them, but a pang at heart told him that was ingratitude.For he loved her, you see.Never forget that.

"Now you see how it all came about.He was conscious of himself, of his power.And while for the first years he had drifted, he was always conscious of his power.Knew that he had but to rise, to assume gigantic stature.And then, just because he was very stiff, and the pain of stiffness and stretching made him uncouth, he grew angry.He resented his captivity, chafed at his being limited like that, did not understand how it had come about.It had come about through love.Through sheer, sheltering love.The equivalent of his for her.She had placed a crystal cup above him, to keep him safe.And he had sat safe beneath it all these years, fearing to stir, because she liked him so.

"It came to a choice at last.His life of happiness with her—or his work.Poor fool, to have made the choice at that late day.So he broke his wineglass, and his heart and her heart too, and came away.And then he found that he could not work, after all.Years of sitting still had done it.

"At first he tried to recover himself by going over again the paths of his youth.A garret in London, a studio off Montparnasse, shabby, hungry—all no use.He was done for.Futile.Done himself in for no purpose, for he had lost her too.For you see he planned, when he left her, to come back shortly, crowned anew.To come back in triumph, for she was all his life.Nothing else mattered.He just wanted to lay something at her feet, in exchange for all she had given him.Said he would.So they parted, heart-broken, crushed, neither one understanding.But he promised to come back, with his laurels.

"That parting was long ago.He could not regain himself.After his failure along the paths of his youth, his garrets and studios, he tried to recover his genius by visiting again all the parts of the world he had visited with her.Only this time, humbly.Standing on the outside of palaces and Embassies, recollecting the times when he had been a guest within.Rubbing shoulders with the crowd outside, shabby, poor, a derelict.Seeking always to recover that lost thing.

"And getting so impatient to rejoin her. Longing for her always. Coming to see that she meant more to him than all the world beside.Eating his heart out, craving her.Longing to return, to reseat himself under his bell.Only now he was no longer gilded.He must gild himself anew, bright, just as she had found him.Then he could go back.

"But it could not be done.He could not work.Somewhere in the world, he told me, was a spot where he could work.Where there were no memories.Somewhere in the Seven Seas lay the place.He should know it when he saw it.After so many years' exclusion, he was certain he should feel the atmosphere of the place where he could work.And there he would stay till he finished, till he produced the big thing that was in him.Thus, regilded, he would return to her again.One more effort, once more to feel his power, once more to hear the stimulating rush of praise,—then he would give it up again, quite content to sit beneath his wine-glass till the end.But this first.

"So I put him down where I have told you, on a lonely island. Somewhat north of the Equator, ten thousand miles away from Her. Wistfully, he said it was quite the right spot. He could feel it. So we helped him, the China-boys and I, to build a little hut, up on stilts, thatched with palm leaves.Very desolate it is.On all sides the burnished ocean, hot and breathless.And the warm, moist heat, close around, still and stifling.Like a blanket, dense, enveloping.But he said it was the spot.I don't know.He has been there now three years.He said he could do it there—if ever.From time to time I stop there, if the passengers are willing for a day or two's delay.He looks very old now, and very thin, but he always says it's all right.Soon, very soon now, the manuscript will be ready.Next time I stop, perhaps.Once I came upon him sobbing.Landing early in the morning, slipped ashore and found him sobbing.Head in arms and shoulders shaking.It was early in the morning and I think he'd sobbed all night.Somehow, I think it was not for the gift he'd lost—but for Her.

"But he says over and over again that it is the right spot—the very right place in the world for such as he. Told me that I must not mind, seeing him so lonely, so apparently depressed. That it was nothing. Just the Tropics, and being so far away, and perhaps thinking a little too much of things that did not concern his work.But the work would surely come on.Moods came on him from time to time, which he recognised were quite the right moods in which to work, in which to produce great things.His genius was surely ripe now—he must just concentrate.Some day, very shortly, there would be a great rush, he should feel himself charged again with the old, fine fire.He would produce the great work of his life.He felt it coming on—it would be finished next time I called.

"This is the next time.Shall we go?"asked the Captain.

Accordingly, within a day or two, the small coastwise steamer dropped her anchor in a shallow bay, off a desert island marked with a cross on the Captain's chart, and unmarked upon all other charts of the same waters.All around lay the tranquil spaces of a desolate ocean, and on the island the thatched roof of a solitary hut showed among the palms. The Captain went ashore by himself, and presently, after a little lapse of time, he returned.

"It is finished," he announced briefly, "the great work is finished. I think it must have been completed several weeks ago.He must have died several weeks ago.Possibly soon after my last call."

He held out a sheet of paper on which was written one word, "Beloved."

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CHOLERA

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IX

CHOLERAToC

There is cholera in the land, and there is fear of cholera in the land. Both are bad, though they are different. Those who get cholera have no fear of it. They are simple people and uneducated, fishermen and farmers, and little tradesmen, and workers of many kinds. Those who have fear of cholera have more intelligence, and know what it means. They have education, and their lives are bigger lives—more imposing, as it were, and they would safeguard them. Those who are afraid are the foreigners and the officials, yes, even the Emperor himself. Is he afraid, the Emperor? One can but guess. He has spent many weeks of this hot summer, when cholera was ravaging his country, in his summer palace at Nikko. There he was safe. And cholera spread itself throughout the land, in the seaports, in the capital, across the rice-fields to the inland villages, taking its toll here and there, of little petty lives.But dangerous to the Emperor, these lives, afflicted or cut short, whichever happens.So he is staying safe at Nikko, in seclusion, waiting for the cool of Autumn to come and purge his land.

Once he was to come back to Tokyo, to his capital. For September waned and he was due there, the Son of Heaven, due in his capital. Many of his subjects came to the station at Nikko on the day appointed for his departure, stepping with short steps in their high clogs, tinkling on the roadside in their clogs, scratching in their sandals. They came in crowds to the station, at the hour when he was due to enter the royal train. But when the time came for his departure, he did not go. He would tarry awhile longer at Nikko. So the crowds were disappointed and did not understand. Rumour had it that cholera had developed in the royal household itself—the Purveyor to the Palace, so it was stated, had contracted the disease. A fish dealer, bringing fish to the palace, had brought cholera with him. So the Emperor tarries at Nikko, and the highroad, behind the Imperial Palace in Tokyo is closed to the public, lest any poor coolie, strolling by, should become ill and bring this dread thing near to the precincts of the Son of Heaven.

The foreigners are very careful as to what they eat. They avoid the fruits, the ripe, rich Autumn figs, and the purple grapes, and the hard, round, woody pears, and the sweet butter and many other things. Oh, these days the rich foreigners are very careful of themselves, and meal times are not as pleasant as they used to be. They discuss their food, and wonder about it. And because there is cholera, rife in the ports, and among the fishermen and sailors, the authorities have closed the fish market of Tokyo. The great Nihom-Bashi market, down by the bridge, the vile, evil smelling fish market, lying along the sluggish canal, is closed. The canal is full of straw thatched boats. It all smells very nasty in that quarter, it smells like cholera. No wonder there is cholera, with that smell. No wonder the great market is closed. So the baskets of bamboo are empty, turned upside down, for there is no fish in them. The people, bare-legged, nearly naked, stand idly about the empty fish market, and talk together of this fear which is abroad, which has ruined their trade.What is this fear?They cannot understand.They do not know it.Only the Emperor cannot eat fish now, for some reason, and their business is ruined because of his caprice.

It is very hot. All summer has this great heat continued, and it makes one nervous. Day after day it lasts, unbroken, always the same, unavoidable. There is no escape from the stifling dampness of it—one cannot breathe. Over all the land it is like this, this heavy, sultry heat. It is no cooler when it rains, no dryer when the hot sun shines. It is enveloping, engulfing. In the big hotel, the leather shoes of the foreigners become mouldy overnight, and the sweat runs in streams from the brown bodies of the rickshaw boys. The rickshaw boys of the big hotel wear clothes, long legged, tight cotton trousers, and flapping white coats. This is to save the feelings of the foreigners and the missionaries, who believe that clothing should always be worn, even in hot weather. So as the rickshaw boy runs along, one can see his white coat grow damp between the shoulder blades, then wet all across the back, till it is all wet and sticks to him tight.Yet it is more modest to wear clothes, when doing the work of a horse.One does not object to a man doing the work of a horse, provided he dress like a man.But the coolies toiling at the log carts, and the little tradesmen in their shops, wear few clothes, because they are independent of the foreigners.Therefore they seem to suffer less with the heat, or to suffer less obviously.Ah, but the heat is intense, overwhelming!Day after day, one cannot breathe.And in it, cholera goes on.

They say a typhoon is coming.Word has come from Formosa that a typhoon is rushing up from the southern seas, from Hong Kong, the Equator, wherever it is they come from.It will reach us to-night.That will be better.The heat will go then, blown from the land by the gigantic blast of the typhoon, zig-zagging up the coast from Formosa.Well, it is late September—this unnatural heat,—why will it not leave?Why must it linger till torn like a blanket from the sweating earth, by this hurricane from the Southern seas?

Only it did not come—the typhoon.They said it would, but it failed.Has it gone shooting off into the Pacific, futile?So the damp, stifling heat lingers, and the toll of cholera rolls slowly upward day by day.

It is a long way from Nikko to Tokyo by motor. A hundred miles, when one can cross the bridge, but the bridge is washed away now, so a detour of many more miles is necessary, to ferry the motor across the Tonegawa on a flat bottomed, frail boat. The motor sinks nearly to the hubs in the blazing, glaring sands of the dry river bed, and many naked coolies are needed to push and pull it through the hot sands, and work it into the boat. In the glaring sun of noon, the broad river lies motionless, like a sheet of glowing steel. Children bathe in the river, and the sweating coolies dip their brown bodies in it, and the sun beats down pitiless. A junk gets loose from its moorings, and drifts down stream, stern first, on the slow current. Who cares? No one. It will beach itself presently, on a mud flat, and can be recovered towards evening. The great heat lies over all the land, and cholera is in the slowly flowing water, and the fishermen and the coolies and the children live and work and play by the river bank, and they have no fear of it, because they are ignorant.

From Nikko to the capital, the road runs through village after village, endlessly, mile after mile.On each side of the village street are straw thatched houses, and along the roads coolies bend under great loads, carried on poles across their shoulders.Black bulls drag giant loads on two wheeled carts, their masters straining beside them.The bulls' mouths are open, their tongues hang out, and saliva drools out in streams. It leaves a wet, irregular wake, in the dust of the roadside, behind the carts.By and by, the men will stop for food and drink.They cannot choose what it shall be.They cannot afford to choose.But the food of the Emperor is carefully selected.Physicians examine those who handle it, who bring it to the Palace, to see that they are in good health.They examine the food, disinfect it, see to its cooking.News of this is in the papers each day, not to show that the Emperor is afraid, but to set an example to his subjects.

In the houses along the roadside, little tradesmen are at work, all naked in the heat.Or else they are bathing.For all along the high road from Nikko to the capital, following its every bend and turning, runs a ditch or channel filled with water.Sometimes the water is clean and rushing, sometimes foul and stagnant and evil smelling.And all the way along the high road people are bathing in this ditch or channel, in the foul or running water, as it happens.They stand naked, knee deep, men and children, while the women wash and bathe also, but more modestly.Also, besides their bodies, they wash much else in this long ditch,—clothes, pots, what-not.Very dirty seems this channel, sewer, bath tub, as you please.And cholera is abroad in the land.

At the entrance to the temples sits the image of Binzuru. Long ago, when history was new and the gods were young, Binzuru, one of the sixteen great disciples, broke his vow of chastity by remarking on the beauty of a woman. So he was put outside the temples. His image no longer rests upon the altars, with those of the calm, serene ones. He's disgraced, expelled, no longer fit to sit upon the altars, with the cold, serene ones, in their colossal calm. He's so human now, outside the temples.Sitting on a chair for human beings to touch him, now he's off the altar, he's in contact with humanity.The devout ones rub his wooden image—there is no bronze or gold in poor Binzuru's makeup.So the people rub his wooden image, rub his ears, his head, his forehead, rub his arms, his legs, his shoulders.How they suffer, human beings!How their bodies ache and suffer, judged by poor Binzuru's body!For if you rub Binzuru on the part which hurts you in your body, and then rub your body with a hand fresh from Binzuru, you will be cured.Your pain will go.That's true.Binzuru is polished smooth and shining, quite deformed with rubbing—his poor head's a nubbin!And in gratitude for what he's done for people, he sits now on a pile of cushions, one for each new cure.Bibs and caps adorn him too, votive offerings from the faithful whom he's cured.

But he is no good for cholera, poor Binzuru.You can't reach him quick enough to rub his stomach, then your own.Cholera's too quick for that.You can't reach him soon enough.He can't help in this.

Down the road a stretcher comes, swinging from a bamboo pole, carried on the shoulders of two men.Over it a mat is thrown, and through the little open triangle at one end, you see a pair of brown legs lying.Only legs, no more.Drawn up stiffly, toes clinched.

Here in the hospital they lie in rows, very quiet.Not an outcry, not a murmur.Everything is swimming in carbolic.The nurses wear masks across their mouths and noses.They come and go in clogs, barefooted, and splash through the carbolic on the floors.This is cholera.These people, lying so quietly upon their hard pillows, have cholera.It is not spectacular.All are poor folk, fishermen, sailors, farmers, shopkeepers, all the ignorant, the stupid, who were not afraid.One is dying.Nose pinched, gasping, bathed in sweat.The hot air can't warm him.He is dying, cold.

So there is cholera in the land, and fear of cholera.Those who were not afraid have cholera.With them it is a matter of a few days only, one way or the other.But those who have fear of cholera have something which lasts much longer, weeks and weeks.Till the heat breaks.Till the typhoon comes.

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COSMIC JUSTICE

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X

COSMIC JUSTICEToC

Young Withers bought out his uncle's firm of Withers, Ltd. , importers. He had been associated with his uncle for some years, as a minor partner, and how he could manage to take over the prosperous Withers, Ltd. without capital, is one of the mysteries of finance that do not concern us. Suffice it that he did, everything included, the big godowns on the quais, shipping rights, the goodwill, stock and fixtures, and the old compradore, Li Yuan Chang. Most particular was old Mr. Withers that Li Yuan Chang should be included. "You will never find a better compradore," he had explained over and over, "in fact, the business will go to pieces without him." Presumably old Mr. Withers knew what he was talking about, for Li had been his interpreter, his accountant, his man of affairs for years. So of course young Withers made no objection, and considered that he was very fortunate in having Li stay with him, after the turnover.For old Li was rich enough to retire by this time, no doubt, as compradores always find means to put away something year by year over and above their salaries.But he was scrupulously honest—old Mr. Withers had full and complete trust in him, and explained to his nephew that he could leave Tientsin from time to time, for as long a time as he liked, in fact, and could be sure meanwhile that old Li would look out for his interests.

"Just be careful of him," he explained."He's really invaluable.But be a little careful of him—considerate, I mean—he's not very strong——"

"Chandoo?"asked young Withers suspiciously, by which he meant, was Li addicted to smoking that cheapest form of opium, the refuse and scrapings, which was the only grade that all but the richest could afford.

"Oh never," replied old Mr. Withers, "never. In all the years I've had him. Never touches a pipe. Temperate and austere in all things, to a degree. But he is getting old now and needs humouring—likes to feel his importance, does not care to be overlooked in the way young men may be inclined to overlook him,—his work, I mean.Besides, he's not very strong, rather delicate in fact, so you must be easy with him.But you'll never get a better compradore, and he's good for many years yet—or until you learn the ropes."

After which old Mr. Withers concerned himself very earnestly in the preparations for his departure, for he was leaving China for a better land,—England, I mean.

Young Withers set about learning the business under the direction of old Li.Which greatly complimented old Li, who liked being deferred to by a European.And young Withers being very easy-going, and having fallen into a business which required no up-building, being already in its stride, most successful, he left a good many of the details to his compradore, and bragged about him a good deal, saying that indeed he had inherited from his uncle a most wonderful and competent man of affairs.Therefore he was greatly astonished one day, about two years after his accession, when Li asked for a vacation—a long one.

"Want go America," explained the Chinese succinctly.Young Withers was dumbfounded.

"But you can't go America!"he explained, "no can go.What become of business here in Tientsin if you go America?No can do."

Li had had his own way about many things during a great number of years, and opposition, no matter from what motives, meant nothing to him.He settled his big horn spectacles more firmly on his nose, and flecked invisible dust from his rich black brocade coat.

"Want go America," he repeated without emphasis.

"Whatever for?" asked young Withers, to whom a desire to go to America was incomprehensible. He himself had never felt a desire to go to America, and that his old compradore should be so obsessed was past his understanding. Besides, he could imagine somewhat what would befall the old gentleman, who after many years was only able to speak pidgin-English, who never wore European clothes, and who had managed to retain his magnificent queu in spite of all the troubles following the Boxer business. Old Withers had managed to preserve Li's queu for him.Took him into his compound and sheltered him, and finally got a permit from the Legation to allow him to wear it.Li was enormously proud of this queu, which was long and thick and glossy, and its length enhanced by a black silk cord, neatly plaited in towards the end—altogether, it came nearly down to his heels, the envy and admiration of many a Chinese gentleman who had been abruptly shorn before help arrived.Young Withers visualised his dignified compradore the figure of fun to irreverent American crowds.He sincerely wished to preserve him from what he felt must be an unpleasant experience.He was even more anxious to protect his old friend from what would probably be in store for him, than through any selfish desire to retain his services.

"Come back again four month," observed Li. "Not long time. Want to go." Young Withers sighed. It was impossible to explain to the old man. There were pitfalls and pitfalls, he well knew. Yet he had never been to America himself, so could not speak from experience. Only the evening before he had been dining in company with a wise woman of sorts, a French lady who had lived in a cave in Tibet for some years, pursuing reluctant hermits into their mountain fastnesses in order to obtain elucidation on certain Buddhist books.She had told him frankly that she was bound back again for her cave, or for the wilds of Mongolia, but never, under any circumstances, could she trust herself to the risks of American civilization.Young Withers tried to explain something of this to the old man, who was very patient and did not interrupt him, but the seed was falling on barren ground.If he could just understand English better, thought Withers, I might be able to make him see.So Withers' oratory was lost, to a large degree, and when he came to a pause Li repeated, without emphasis,

"Want go America."

"But you're too old!"exclaimed the young man, exasperated by such obstinacy."Too—you're too—you're not strong enough.You're too—delicate——"

"Want go America. Four month. Come back then," said Li, and Withers gave it up. Two weeks later Li was standing on the deck of a small Japanese liner bound from Tientsin to Kobe, from which port he would transship to a larger Japanese liner bound for San Francisco.He took with him many bundles of odd sizes, wrapped in coarse blue cotton, seemingly of no value.He waved a dignified farewell from the rail, and young Withers, on the dock, watched the departure of his old compradore with infinite misgivings.

Four months, including the passage both ways, proved much too long a time in which to see America. Li returned unexpectedly one day, within half that time, a silent and broken man. His blue bundles, whatever their mystery, were gone, his rich brocade coat was gone, and gone also was his confidence and trust in human kind. Only his thick, glossy, long queu remained to him,—that, and a singular taciturnity. Whatever his experiences, no word would he speak concerning them—he preserved a rigid silence. Something had been broken in the old man, there beyond the seas, and whatever had befallen him was abhorrent and unspeakable. He seemed very much older, very much more frail, and his thin, fine hands were always trembling in a manner unaccustomed. Young Withers was in distress, for Li's distress was so obvious, his singular reticence making him suffer still more.

"Those thugs in San Francisco must have cleaned out the old fellow first day on shore," he concluded, and then thought no more about it.It was pitiful to see the old man, however, pitiful to watch him going about his duties with the recollection of his terrible days in the New World undermining his spirits and vitality.The secret, whatever it was that had befallen him, was sapping his frail strength.Only on one occasion, several months later, did he bring up the subject.He appeared suddenly before Withers' desk one day, and there was an angry gleam in his spectacled eyes.

"Your uncle never let me go America.Twenty years with your uncle.Very good man.Never can go."He turned away abruptly.

"By Jove," thought young Withers to himself, "the old chap's holding me responsible.Blaming it all on me.I like that!"and he laughed a little, uneasily.These Chinese were queer ones.You never knew how they stood.

The firm of Withers, Ltd. was very busy. Every week or so ships came into the harbour with boxes and bales of European merchandise of a rather shoddy kind, intended for the markets of North China. And there was much business in transferring these boxes and bales to the big godowns, with their heavy iron doors and windows, in checking them up, sorting them out—in short, all the sort of activity that goes with a firm of importers, such as this one. Also there was much business in distributing these boxes and bales, or rather the contents thereof, to the railway station, for shipment to Peking and to remote provinces in the north and west. In Peking, these shoddy goods were made into smaller bales, and laden on camels, for some far off, remote destination in the interior. This took Withers frequently to Peking, leaving old Li in charge of the godowns in Tientsin. Withers always took charge of this end of the business, because of the opportunity it offered to get away from daily contact with his old compradore. Somehow, he felt rather uneasy in the old man's presence. There was a change in his manner, most marked. Again and again that remark occurred to him, and again and again, in the compradore's presence, Withers was conscious of a feeling of undefinable hostility.He holds me responsible, he thought, absurd, but that's what it is.Because I did not prevent him from going to America.Therefore Withers was very glad to go to Peking from time to time, for he liked the excitement of the barbaric capital, and besides, he thought it would be good for Li to be quite on his own in charge of the godowns, and might distract his thoughts from that obsession which was preying upon him.

One day, after an absence of two weeks, young Withers returned to his Tientsin office, which wore a somewhat deserted air.The shroff was clicking on his abacus, and left off snicking the beads up and down to remark casually that the compradore had gone.The shroff was a young Chinese who spoke excellent, mission-school English, and wore good European clothes, and he shared Withers' astonishment that such a thing had happened.

"Wanted to go home, he said.Had had enough business.Gone home ten days ago, with his family.Said say good-bye to you."

Withers' first feeling was of relief. That's that, he thought to himself, and just as well. He stood eyeing the young Chinese accountant, and the shroff looked him back fairly in the eye, and the same thought passed through both minds.A younger man would do just as well as compradore, and here was the younger man at hand, waiting."Let's go down to the godowns," said Withers, and the two walked out of the office together, in the direction of the quais.The shroff should learn things from the beginning, and taking charge of the bales and boxes in the warehouses, counting them, distributing their contents, was part of the business.

On unlocking the great, heavy doors, the godowns presented a singular aspect. Never, in all the years that young Withers had been associated as junior partner in Withers, Ltd. , and never in the few years since he had become Withers, Ltd. himself, had the godowns presented such an aspect. They were empty. Quite, stark, utterly empty. Not a bale, not a box, not a yard of calico was to be found anywhere about. The sunshine slanted in through the open door, and not a moat of dust danced in the rays, for nothing had been disturbed for some time, and the dust was settled. They went top-side, into the lofts.The same thoroughness presented itself.Everything had been cleared out, absolutely.

"Stolen!"exclaimed Withers.

"Clean-sweep!"said the shroff, in his mission-school English.

"Ruined!"added Withers to himself.

Together they hurried back to the office and examined things.It was evident in a moment how it had been done.Withers had signed an order for the removal of five boxes.The compradore had deftly added a cipher and raised it to fifty.And so on.Done repeatedly, with neatness and precision, over Withers' own signature.No wonder the streets about the godowns had presented an air of activity at times.

"We must find him," said Withers, "catch him quickly, before he has time to dispose of the money."

The old compradore had made no effort to hide his whereabouts. There were a dozen people to whom he had said farewell, telling them that he had now given up work and was retiring with his family to his home in the Western Hills. Over Jehol way. Three weeks by cart.Aye, his cart had come down from Peking to fetch him, a two days' journey.He was not taking the train.He had started early one morning in his big, blue-hooded cart, drawn by a gorgeous yellow mule, its harness inlaid with jade stones.Not number-one jade, of course, but still jade, and of value.Ten days ago he had gone.

Withers and the shroff caught the first train out for Peking, and arriving in two hours, made hasty preparations for their journey.They obtained a cart and a mule, bedding rolls and tinned food, and by afternoon had set out through the West Gate of the Tartar City, over the dusty plains towards the Western Hills.Over Jehol way, towards a village beyond Jehol, up in the hills, where Li Yuan Chang had his dwelling.

Travelling is slow in a Peking cart, and uncomfortable. The heavy, springless vehicle lumbered along, bouncing over the deep, dried ruts, at times sinking hub deep into the dry holes. There were times when the road was below the level of the adjacent fields, so deep below that even the hood of the cart was below them, worn as they were by centuries of travel.At these times, the dust swept through the narrow channel, blinding.Once or twice they ran into a dust storm whirling down from the north, from the great Gobi Desert, beyond.Then they drew down the curtains of the cart, suffocating inside, tossed from side to side, up and down, by the hard jolting of the vehicle.By night they rested at wayside inns, sometimes finding the compounds filled with camels, great shaggy brutes that lay about at all angles, over the courtyard, and snorted and nipped at the intruders.They slept at night in their cart, wrapping up well in their bedding rolls, shivering at times in the keen October wind.Their coolies shared the k'ang within, with the camel drivers and other travellers, but Withers and the shroff preferred the cart, for there were worse if smaller animals than camels to be found in native hostelries.Toilsome, weary days succeeded one another, broken by restless nights, yet ever they pushed westward, slowly, laboriously.

The coolies brought them news of the wayside, gathering it each night from the inns. A great mandarin had passed that way some days ago—a great man surely, to judge by the length of the axles of his cart, which stuck out a good foot beyond the hubs, marking him as a man of importance.And a great yellow mule, with harness set with jade stones, and the brasses polished,—oh, a very rich man, evidently!So each night they heard accounts of the rich man who had gone ahead, with his retinue, his family and servants and packmules.It was well noised abroad, evidently, through the countryside.Travellers coming from beyond Jehol had met him with his train, and the inns at which they stopped always had news of his progress, outward bound.In a hurry, too.And very fearful of the roadside dangers.Always in the compounds before dusk, fearful of highwaymen.

To Withers, the suspense of the slow journey was well nigh unbearable. He, too, was in a hurry, worn with fatigue and anxiety. At first, he had been merely anxious to overtake the old man, to obtain restitution. But with the wayside gossip prevailing, other fears entered his mind. One day at noon time, they entered a village apparently deserted. The heavy gates of the compounds were closed, not a person visible in the long, straggling street. Every one had withdrawn himself into his house, behind locked and bolted doors.At the inn, they pounded repeatedly on the gates, asking admission.Slowly, after a very long time, the gates were opened an inch, and it could be seen that there was the pressure of many men on the inside, ready to slam and bar them in an instant.Then, seeing they were but travellers, they were hastily admitted into the courtyard, and the gates closed and barred again.Bandits.A band of them was scouring the country, thirty or more, down from Mongolia.Abject terror was on every face.The whole village was under its spell.

"We must push on," said Withers, "we must hasten." The shroff was very fearful, but as he was to be compradore now, to do the work of a European, he could not show fear. But the mafu and the coolies were too frightened to continue the journey, so they were left behind, and Withers and the shroff went off by themselves. It was very foolhardy, he told himself, it was sheer madness. But he was ruined anyhow, so it did not much matter. Only, he must somehow reach the village three days' journey beyond Jehol—if only he could arrive in time.

Very laborious was the travelling, and they walked in the wake of fear.They now passed through many deserted villages, one after another, locked and barred, that the murderous band from Mongolia had ridden through.Only, they had gone ahead, the bandits—perhaps they would not he riding back that way again.Perhaps they would be going on, into the north again, after they had finished——

Finished?Yes, it was a very rich man they were after,—they had asked for him all along the road.They were trailing him to his home, following with great ease the description of the great mandarin, with the great yellow mule with jade-set harness, who had gone by with his retinue just before.

So Withers and the shroff continued their desolate journey, day by day, across the plains, over such roads as are not, save in North China. Passing through villages shut and empty, through fields in which there were no workers, following in the train of terror that had been spread over the land by the bandits from the north. And the terror reached into Withers' heart, making it cold. They do not want us, he said to himself, over and over.We are quite safe.But the old man—— The little shroff, however, who was also filled with terror, did not think they were safe at all.Only he must appear as brave as a European, so he could only tremble inwardly.Besides all that, the big mule was very difficult to manage, and they had to drag the cart from the deep ruts many times a day, and each evening when they were most tired, they had to calm the suspicions of those within, and make long explanations before the inn gates, before they could be admitted into the compounds.

They arrived at their destination at dusk one evening, after three weeks' weary travel. Trembling fingers pointed out the house—trembling, but in a manner, reassured. At the end of the long street they would find the house, a very fine house indeed—formerly a mandarin's palace, they explained, but purchased a few months ago by a rich man who had come there with his family to live. The tired men and tired mule pushed on through the long street, gazed upon curiously by clustering Chinese, huddled in doorways. They came to a high wall topped with broken glass, a high, strong wall, surrounding a large compound.Beyond, at the entrance, stood two stone lions, such as mark the homes of the rich and great.But the great stone guardian lions were guarding a broken door.The high, red lacquered door was split into many pieces, the hinges holding, but the doors themselves split, so that a man's body could crawl through.

Withers led the way, the shroff following.Within, the compound was deserted.They made their way to the doors of the main house, which had been smashed in.The rooms inside were empty, stripped, their treasures gone, cleaned out.Very much in appearance like the godowns in Tientsin.They made their way through the silent compound into the women's compound in the rear.It was the same—ransacked, despoiled.But there were many compounds and many houses, so together they passed through moon gates, over elaborate terraces, beside peony mountains, and summer houses, across delicate rock bridges with marble balustrades.Silent, deserted, bearing the evidence of thorough looting.

Then, quite at the rear, a woman appeared, the number-one wife of Li Yuan Chang.She peered round the edges of a moon gate, hiding her body behind it.She recognised Withers and the shroff and came forward.She was very apologetic, very embarrassed, for she was wearing coolie clothes.Her own, she explained, had been taken from her by the bandits.Timidly she approached them, but the timidity was embarrassment.She was very embarrassed to be found in coolie clothes, felt resentment at the humiliation, and apologised repeatedly for her appearance.She could think of nothing else.Then she led the way still further to the rear, to a compound quite behind all the other compounds and other houses of the gorgeous mandarin's palace.The last stand of the defenders.They were scattered about the courtyard in all attitudes, in grotesque and uncouth positions, all dead.She pointed to a figure lying face downward, a thin, elderly figure, in blood-soaked black brocade, with a magnificent queu lying at right angles to the dead body.

Once more she apologised for appearing before the gentlemen in coolie clothes.She felt the disgrace keenly.

"My husband," she explained contemptuously, pointing to the old compradore, "was unable to protect us.He was always such a delicate old thing."