Chapter III: Part 3

Minglapo subsided by imperceptible gradations, and lifting his eyelids at length, surveyed Romney as one newly awakened from sleep.

"This is a most wonderful order-book," he said slowly.

Minglapo was rippling again under his gown as he replaced the papers in the envelope. The inscrutability of the fat figure challenged Romney. It occurred to him that if he should start to go, something of finality might come from the impressive figure. He cleared his throat and arose.

"Dr. Ti Kung, as I have said, gave me no further orders before the door of his carriage closed upon him. I presume, having fulfilled my task, that it would be well for me to return to Shanghai--"

"Very naturally," said Minglapo.

"Then I will bid you good-day."

The Chinese was holding the yellow packet in his hand. A further sheet had been drawn forth, glanced at, and returned. Minglapo's hands were perfect. The face of the envelope toward Romney was but partly covered by the eight beautiful fingers that held the paper lightly, while the face bowed above. The eyelids narrowed and the corners of the mouth were sunken, the broad, bland forehead, just faintly ruffled. There came to the white man a sense of prodigious power, as if this man's thought could manipulate the destinies of other men; as if behind that brow a conception was now forming so clean-cut in all its processes that instant action must follow its maturity. A suspicion dawned upon him that this man was strong enough to be Ti Kung's master.

Minglapo rose almost imperceptibly.

"Mr. Romney." The voice halted him. "Your friend informed me you were coming some time ago. I have been expecting you. Please sit down."

Romney smiled.

"It would be natural, as I said before, for you to return to Shanghai, except that I have heard from Dr. Ti Kung, who, I perceive, picks well his associates. These are delicate matters; these are times to try men's souls. Our friend is now healing at sea. I am grievously concerned, however, over wounds that could delay such a man for six days. Much depends upon his coming. The character of Dr. Ti Kung's service cannot be duplicated. In saving his life, Friend Romney, you have done one of those significant things upon which the destiny of a great people hangs, and an action that can never be publicly known. It is with utmost pleasure that I ask you to remain under my roof. I hope that we may succeed in making you comfortable in the interval before your friend arrives. There is to be a particular servant for you in this house--one of my favourites--"

Minglapo clapped his hands, and a small but almost perfect creature of the _boy_-class appeared, alert in every sense and apparently without inertia.

"This is Bamban. He is yours, Friend Romney, and you who know so much of China realize that a bestowal of this kind between man and man means that Bamban is no longer my servant."

Fastidious in his ways, swift and delicate in all his doings, Bamban appeared to embrace his new master with the sudden look of eager intelligence which shot out from under his lifted brows. Romney knew enough about China to realise that Bamban held something in the deeps of his being that could not be transferred. At the same time he knew that only some significant treachery on his own part toward the interests of Minglapo could ever call this reservation into action.

In the several days following Romney became convinced that he was being studied in ways beyond Western ingenuity to fathom; and though he was schooled to be guileless in intent and at the same time wise as the serpent, the processes of surveillance which he imagined about him were either above or below his own levels. He had nothing to conceal, and no plan apart. He met all fancied subtleties by being himself, just that, which in the case of uncomplicated purpose is the invariable master-stroke. The fact is, Romney had learned much from the Great Drift. He could let himself go. His nerves had left the surface once more, covered themselves in the cushions of health. He did not know the particular passion that drove Ti Kung and Minglapo, but he felt it big and gripping. He even felt at last that he was identified with a movement potent and far-reaching enough to command those powers of his which all his former dealings with men made him repress.

Though Minglapo did not appear to be a man of great riches, there were objects of priceless beauty in his establishment, which was a shop only on the street floor. No one appeared to buy while Romney was there. Once while the American was standing in the rear of the shop, the floor raised a little before his feet, and he was aware of a deep oil-lit basement that had every look and indication of being a fully equipped chemical laboratory--vials, flames and crucibles, tables with spawn-trays and culture-boards. An oppressive, earthy breath as from fungoid growths touched Romney's nostrils from the opened trap. Minglapo called him to the dais at that instant and the trap itself was abruptly closed. The Chinese upon whose shoulder the door had been raised did not emerge. There was something aged and wasted about the figure, the eyes spent and hollow.

Romney enjoyed the challenging mystery of it all. The two upper floors, high-ceiled and extending far back from the street, formed little less than a palace. Ti Kung's house in Shanghai was austere as a monastery compared. Romney found himself surrounded with luxuries startling even with his considerable acquaintance in the East. Ensconced here in the midst of influences insistently languorous, he was amused to find a tendency of his own character to tighten rather than to let down. The first night in Ti Kung's house had seemed to straighten him out and render distasteful abandonment such as he had known. Abandonment here, he was well aware, would bring about the same results as the wastrel days on the water-fronts. He had entered into that with the fixed purpose of letting life go. It had refused to leave him, and now he was rather distantly glad to be alive.

In his own quarters, on the second day, he drew forth the frayed and soiled chiffon waist, washed it carefully and put it back in his breast. It was no more than a handkerchief. It had seen him through strange days and roads. He was the least maudlin of men, but the little fabric meant something striking and imperishable in his nature--something of him no longer, but around him. She was not _the woman_, but she had made the picture of what a woman could be. The farther from her, the more he appreciated. She had known in two weeks what it had taken him nearly a year to find out--that they were not for each other. The change had come to him from the months in the Drift--something to break his unparalleled infatuation. All her wonder and daring and splendour remained clear, and yet the terrible draw of her had somehow eased upon his heart. In a word, he saw as quite true another of her sayings--that love can never be on one side alone in a great romance.

Late the fifth afternoon of his stay in the house of Minglapo, Romney got the first inkling of the real business at hand. There had been talk at the dais for several moments, when the old master turned at the soft swinging of one of the shop's rear doors, and without finishing the sentence on his tongue, remarked:

"And now, Friend Romney, you are ready to meet a countryman of yours, General Nifton Bend--"

Very low in the doorway appeared that long, sad, strange face, and again the leap in Romney's breast and the impulse to hurry forward and help the Hunchback to the cushions. At the same time--a hot thrill for an unemotional man--the thought that his association with Ti Kung and Minglapo meant association with Nifton Bend, the genius of Young China.

At the moment of the General's entrance from the rear, the servants had sprung to the main door opening on Merchant's Square, closed and barred it as if for the night, though the afternoon was not entirely spent. The servants of the shop were banished and the three sat down together....

Romney's mind had rushed back not only to his first meeting in the native professor's house in the Congrou district of Peking, but to Longstruth's where his impressions of that brief former interview became vivid and animate again for the listening of Moira Kelvin. The Hunchback seemed to bring again something of her almost as intimate as her perfume....

Daylight did not reach them now. The dead expressionless look had come again to the General's eyes. Romney felt his own face turn bloodless under the second appraisal, as was the other's in the warm gathering dusk. The unhasting and uninflected voice spoke again--the voice of a man with a single purpose, a man so close to the end that he laughs at pain. The words came slow and steadily, like running water:

"... We are working for the future of China. We may be wrong. We are doing the thing as we see it. Our deepest convictions are that we are right. We do not mean to meet Japan in this extraordinary crisis in the old fashion of arms and battle-lines. We do not care to fight. We favour theoretically the expediency of toleration, and yet we observe to the east and south, India, and on the north and west, Japan. Old India is magnificent in philosophy and yet so far without the physical impulse to protect herself; Japan, empty-minded, imitative, is furious with the idea of her own raw power of men and guns. If mind is a finer and more potent force than matter, we believe that guns and explosives and battle-lines are to be mastered by a thought. It cannot be written that Chinese age and wisdom shall succumb to the upstart and hot-headed people that has not even a language of its own--"

Nifton Bend's face was lit. Romney did not comprehend. This man, an authority on arms and military matters, spoke now against their use in case of war with Japan. He may have been a mystic in so far as his vision of the future went, but he had been enough of the manipulator of matter to make the new Chinese army. Did he plan to use some force of extermination more powerful than gases and explosives?

Minglapo now spoke to Romney, though his hand affectionately touched Nifton Bend's shoulder.

"We have learned to accept a lift of the General's eyelid, Friend Romney. He had not been thirty seconds in this room before you were approved. Already Dr. Ti Kung had approved you--and I. Still you would not have touched this inner circle as now but for your action in saving our Doctor's life. It appears they burned his house that night in Shanghai. You were intrusted with papers that contain certain of our plans. You may be asked to carry them again--even to Japan. There is for you a possibility of being an instrument toward the ending of all war from the world. China need act but once to end all war. It is a superb adventure for you, and incidentally you will be a power in preventing the world-calamity of a Japanese Asia."

Nifton Bend now spoke again:

"The history of that package which you so safely brought to us would make the raciest of novels. Once I hoped to become a novelist myself. That was in the days before the big dream of being a foster-child to the ancient Yellow Mother. In order that you may not be troubled longer by working in the dark, I am going to tell you something of what the yellow packet contains--"

And now there was the snap of a bone--the unmistakable snap of a faulty knee-cap, from the far end of the room. Nifton Bend's utterance was cut short. Romney glanced quickly at the two faces. Minglapo's hands lifted slowly from the cushions. They seemed to waver a moment--then were clapped together. No servant appeared. It had undoubtedly been a servant of the household and had he been innocent he would have responded to the master's signal. Minglapo clapped his hands a second time, louder, and Romney saw in his eye what to him was unmistakably a command to make haste toward the part of the shop from which the snap had come. Rising, he heard a cry from Minglapo and was conscious of Nifton Bend making for the door to the right of the room. From overhead and from the hall-way outside was now heard the stirring and hurried approach of servants.

Romney skirted the shadowy edge of the long rear-hall, running silently on tip-toe. All that he saw at the far end was a slight movement, as of a door being softly shoved to. It had moved possibly no more than an inch. The American pushed it open. This rear-room was empty, and there was no sound whatsoever. He crossed quickly to a further door which opened to a dim hall. A crouched figure came to a stop at the far end under Romney's eye--the decrepit figure he had seen for an instant under the lifted trap to the basement. One of the servant's hands was concealed under his blouse.

*6*

Certain aspects of the affair which followed were ridiculous, and others profoundly Asiatic. Romney had felt himself far removed from the need of physical encounter with any human being, and yet as he came close to the tense bowed figure of the Chinese, the meaning of the concealed hand darted to his mind, also the sense that he must act quickly in an aggressive way or withdraw again out of the reach of the striking arm. It has been observed that, generally speaking, it was easier for Romney to advance than to withdraw. There was another point in that fraction of a second. He could not use a hand or foot upon an Oriental bowed with years--not even to disarm him. The fact is Romney dove forward, a sort of hip-tackle, the idea being to carry the servant's body to the floor with his arms pinned. After they had bumped the polished wood together as one, he was disagreeably shocked at the extreme emaciation of the figure beneath him. This turned in a moment to astonishment at the extraordinary strength and agility which the Oriental displayed. There was a crush in the thin hard limbs twined about his own, and the hands were not to be held captive, but darted again and again to the girdle where the knife lay. Romney flattened his weight upon the lithe body and struggled for possession of the tearing, cutting fingers which sometimes found his face and again burrowed into the pressure between them. It was Minglapo's voice and foot that stilled the struggle, the latter placed disdainfully upon the neck of his house-servant.

Romney strolled back to the dais ashamed of himself somehow. Minglapo and Nifton Bend joined him a moment later, and rather quietly, as if they appreciated the delicacy of the white man. The emaciated one was brought in by two house-servants. He stood now before the master of the shop, trying to repress the heavy breathing of his exhausted body, and to cover as well as he could the trembling of his muscles from the recent strain. Something of warmth and approval crept into Romney's heart for the old man, as the pregnant meanings of the moment cleared in his mind. Minglapo dismissed the servants and regarded the trapped one, as Romney imagined, with something of strange kindness. Shutting his eyes, the vast head of the master moved slowly from right to left, then bowed before the American.

"Again you are our good genius, Friend Romney.... There appears a need wherever you are--of fast action. I am beginning to believe in what our Doctor says of the thing called American luck."

Romney waved his hand deprecatingly, and the General remarked with a smile:

"Our young friend feels with very good cause that he has better gifts for us than the force and swiftness of his hands."

He turned to Romney, adding:

"Do you not see that it was imperative for Young China to find the owner of that badly-hinged knee? Our enemies would have required but little more than a report of our words before that accident. I trust there has been no mistake as to one of these being the lucky knees."

He pointed to the house-servant's thin legs, and presently Romney fell once more into the charm of Minglapo's voice, though a tension was increasing in his mind in regard to the fate of the captive, his eyes turning often to the hollow-eyed one, as the voice of Minglapo came to his ears as from the deeps of a bubbling well. From none but a fat man with a great chest could such softness and volume issue.

The trembling of the servant's body resulted from exertion, not from fear. His features were sombre and changeless as the east at evening--a face of deep intelligence, but just a wrapping of yellow-pale tissue on the bony block of it, except for the burning quiet of the eyes. The ears were decently cut, the mouth and brow were good. Deference, attention, apprehension--these three were expressed and held in order by a concentration that was no less than mastery.

Nifton-Bend had also satisfied himself in study of that face. Minglapo was now questioning his servant in Chinese.

... Fifty years old ... served in this house for two years ... came from the South, from Canton ... papers in his possession to prove this...

Nifton Bend leaned forward to straighten the fringe of the cushions at Romney's knee and whispered:

"They all have papers. He is Japanese--as we shall doubtless prove--"

The talk went on. It appeared that Minglapo was interested in the same point that the General had just expressed, for presently he made a gesture to bring the servant down to his level. The lifeless eyes rolled backward for the fraction of a second as the wasted figure obeyed. He bent but one knee in his kneeling, his right leg thrust back loosely, the left bearing the full weight. The three also watched intently. Again the warmth surged up into Romney's throat--a curious fondness for the Oriental's courage and guile.

Now Minglapo stretched forth his hand to his servant's head and drew it forward into his lap. Silently and resigned, the other submitted. Still the left knee did double service. Very carefully Minglapo examined the man's crown, tweaking the queue with tense fingers, peering into the braid close to the scalp, letting the tight black length of it pass before his eyes slowly, as if watching the gloss of it under the lamp-light. This braid alone of him seemed fully alive.

"The queue is right enough. He has probably been in the service for many years, ever since a little boy--probably helped to map Manchuria--like as not helped to whip us in '95. Worked here two years waiting for to-night, and then, just a little dryness of the knee--"

Minglapo bade his servant stand once more. Nifton Bend leaned forward, placing his hand upon the loose right knee.

The servant explained that it was a bit rheumatic; that the pain was unbearable when he bent it.

"I'm afraid he will have to bend it," Minglapo said.

A look of agony swept across the servant's face, as the master commanded him to bend both knees at the same time. The force of will now called into action was so intense as to be like a frictional heat in the room. He lowered himself slowly, the weight seemingly equally divided in both limbs. He was now sitting on his heels, Oriental fashion. Minglapo waved him up again, and commanded him to repeat the exercise with a quick movement.

The tell-tale snap filled the room.

There was something exquisite to Romney in the fact that not one of the three faces to whom this was like an ultimatum, changed. Not the trace of a smile, nor light of triumph appeared in the eyes of Minglapo or the General. A hundred times more, they respected this old man as a captive spy, than when he was merely one of the house-force. They respected him perhaps as only one gamester can respect another.... Minglapo went on speaking, but slowly, fragmentarily now. He clapped his hands. A servant came and returned immediately bringing a small lacquered box.

"Is he not superb?" Nifton Bend whispered.... "They train them from childhood. The Japanese system of espionage is far-reaching--ah, look there."

Minglapo had reached forward and lifted the blue loose-hanging blouse of the spy, rolling it well up above the shoulders. The bare brown chest and back showed scarred and blackened from some terrible maiming in the past. There were series of lumpy welts upon the back which Minglapo examined minutely. The disfigurations of the chest were of a different nature, long pale scars over which the skin stretched with a honey-like transparency.

"One of the most trusted of his kind beyond a doubt," said Nifton Bend. "This is not the first time he has been caught. Those three-barred welts on his back are from the Siberian knout, a devilish contrivance made of knotted whip-cord soaked in brine. The dark rashy appearance in spots is also from the North--frost-bite. We have a hero in our midst, Mr. Romney, one of the real ones whose names are never known."

The spy stood perfectly unemotional, looking upward, turning obediently whenever Minglapo took his arm.

"... He knows it is his last half-hour--"

The last was in a sense abrupt to Romney. He had been so absorbed in the whole game of these passionate nationalists, that the life and death end of it for the one caught had been put aside from his mind for the moment.

Minglapo arose and drew a goblet of water from the cooler, opened the lacquer box, took forth a small metal case which contained a long needle.

The pressure of it all was now a trifle heavy, even for the well-repressed American. The excellence of physical manhood manifested in the whole affair did not take away entirely the fact that the spy was about to be murdered. Romney felt he could not stay. His head turned to Minglapo and back to Nifton Bend. Their faces were expressionless and half averted. They would have accepted a reversal that meant death to them, with the same external calm that characterized the manner of the spy.... Yet the American could not lift. He was no stranger to the various fashions of brutality, but the temptation to pluck the stupor needle from the hand of Minglapo was well nigh overpowering. The unoccupied hand of the master was now held out toward the servant as if to take his arm. Very slowly the spy's hand lifted from his side, the palm toward Minglapo's, moving forward as one would grope in the dark. Over his face was that same eternal quietude like a faint reflection of day in the sky at evening.

That tableau seemed immortally fixed in Romney's mind. He leaned forward, his hands gripping his ankles as he sat.... Suddenly the principal was plucked from the centre of things. It was the queerest extraction--a sort of side-lurching as if the spy's body had been hurled past....

A quick shot from Nifton Bend at Romney's left--the voice of Minglapo in English--then a crash of glass and frame as the body of the spy hurled itself through the forward casement.

"Your work, Friend Romney. Get him, or all is ruined!" this from Minglapo.

As he darted across the room Romney realised that it did appear to be his work, that the house-servants were not to be trusted, that Minglapo was fat and the General maimed from birth. He dove through the pearl casement, somewhat enlarging the opening the other had made, and the street took him--a stunning impact. Then came a curious realisation of the freshness of evening.

The spy was up and away, the American following at a pace not adjusted to distance, a sprint which could not have lasted two hundred yards.

*7*

A boy runs, an animal runs, but a white man cannot preserve his esteem chasing a native through a Chinese street. Still the words of Minglapo rang in his ears--"Your work, Romney. Get him or all is ruined."

Other thoughts flashed as he ran--thoughts having to do with the changing and colouring of the Oriental maps, the end of a warring world, the strange patience and passion of practical visionaries like Minglapo and Nifton Bend and Dr. Ti Kung.

He ran with his elbows tucked in, his head forward. The spy, turning often, would have seen but for the duck a face that did not know how to quit. Yet Romney who knew what physical condition meant was surprised at his own lack of form. The Japanese ran with a limp--ran for his Emperor in whose service he had given youth and all the fine edge of his vitality. It was not until he was spent that he turned fox. Luck was not with him. The white man neared and the streets they passed furnished no hiding place, not even an open door. At his last turn Romney met a creature on the ground with fists upraised. Perhaps at no other time would he have found the spy without a weapon.

The fists of an Oriental are always pathetic, but these were piteously so. Romney did not join action with them, but sat down on a door-step, gasping, laughing a little. The ludicrous cringing attitude was a clue to a still greater pathos. The white man in his exhaustion was struck again suddenly with the darkness of the whole drama. Why should he return this heroic little figure to his death? It was true that he was somehow in the service of the Big Three, that he had touched the secrets of their devoted lives, but now, as in the shop of Minglapo, the great zeal and patience, the unswerving fealty of this spy's service to his most human and impossible God, had a merit to it that touched him where he was tenderest. Nifton Bend and the two Chinese leaders meant adventure; reinstatement into the world of real men; more than that they meant initiation into the deepest crafts of men.... Ti Kung had picked him up from the gutter of the world's darkest slum, placed him on his feet, trusted him with a matter of life and death, sent him on a journey to his masters. Minglapo was a figure to tie to; and as for the Hunchback, Romney had uncovered an emotion that startled himself. He knew now what it meant to love a leader--something of the old mystery of what it means to die for another.

And yet they had thrust their responsibilities upon him. To take back this old man, all broken with exhaustion, meant to deliver him to his death. The personal side of the subject was big and near. He had run down the spy but didn't know what to do with him.... The little Jap had his life to live, his work to do. He had already done great silent unanswering tasks. He lay face downward on the turf now, panting hard--too old a man, his vitality too far spent, to be used so roughly.

The fact that Romney had been too long in Asia to care much for Japan and her ambitions and that he was deeply called to the mysterious activities of such men as the Big Three, didn't change a whit his incapacity just now.

He sat down on a doorstep, just at the feet of the spy, and mopped his brow laughingly, though his mental movements were heavy and severe. The way he personally panted and perspired, disgusted a mind in which the old ideal of an athlete still remained.... He saw for the first time the expediency of Pilate's memorable washing of hands.... The sound of hurried footsteps came up the narrow way.

Romney gambled with himself. If these were Minglapo's servants--the affair of course was out of his hands. If not--well, he couldn't exactly let the Jap escape with information that would betray the lives and work of his friends.... The hurrying feet had not to do with the house of Minglapo. They were Tientsin policemen--three of them--summoned to duty doubtless by the chase. Perceiving the American now, and his game on the ground before him, they brought lanterns to bear upon the two faces, talked long and with much gravity. Romney blinked into the lantern light again, an extra-long exposure. Then his life-story in full was hypothecated by one of the officers. The two others afterward relieved themselves of prolonged intonations in many high keys, having little to do with the facts of the case. Their manner became sumptuously courteous, even deferential, so that the American felt in justice to them he should rise from the doorstep. They touched his elbows on either side--slight, lifting pressures, bowing repeatedly to him and pointing over their shoulders in a direction contrary to the shop in Merchant's Square. Romney did not care to return just then to Minglapo. In fact, he doubted whether he ever would again. Two of the officers had lifted the spy between them.

As they walked, a little ray came down upon the American from the future. Policemen meant calaboose, even in China. Calaboose meant on some occasions an inconvenient chance to think. Minglapo of course would exert himself in behalf of them, but delivery meant a return to the dais and resumption of the murder process. Meanwhile in the little old head walking behind, between the two Chinese policemen, were facts and suspicions enough to break entirely what Romney was willing to grant as the biggest game in Asia at the present moment.... Just now it occurred that a properly trained Japanese spy would be able to talk in English, which would prove utterly unintelligible to the Chinese police.

"Oh, I say, we'd better fix matters somehow--so we'll pull together--"

"Good," came the answer.

"You--why didn't you say something before?"

"There was nothing to say. I expected death when I fell in the street--"

"I suppose that was my business."

"I do not understand--"

Romney was charged with queer elation. He would have known the spy was Japanese by his English--probably a University of Tokyo training. He was familiar with Japanese students. Always they bent forward with the effort of thinking in a foreign language. The Chinese were inclined to sit back and let the other do the heavy work of listening.

"You mean you don't understand why I didn't kill you?"

"Yes, that is what I mean."

"I'm not a murderer. I haven't got anything against you."

"Then you are not with them?"

"Yes--"

"I do not understand--"

It was the East and West again, a chasm that could not be bridged. Romney dropped the subject.

"We'd better fix matters--as to what front is best to put up--"

"Front?"

"What we'd better tell them, so that our stories will fit--"

"Stories?"

"Listen," said Romney, straining for the non-idiomatic. "They will ask questions at the station. We must answer. If we answer differently, it would be better if we had not spoken--"

"Yes. I am your servant. We had a disagreement. You started to beat me and I ran--"

"Just a little domestic difference," Romney remarked.

"Yes."

"Where do we live?"

"I came with you from Shanghai four days ago. We have been in the country since arrival--"

Romney was further amused. Minglapo had been studiously avoided in the arrangement. The spy had a fertile mind. These things were a part of his work. He was aware even of Romney's coming from Shanghai.

"You are not to remember the place we have been since Shanghai and Tongu," the Japanese added. "I have been showing you our country. You are rich. You just play and pay.... You must speak sharp to me now, as if you did not like my talk--"

Romney noisily rebuked his servant. The hands of the little policeman tightened on his arm. "Good," said the Japanese in frightened, cringing tones. "Now I will explain to them that I am your servant and that you were displeased with me."

There were suspended explanations to the policeman; long, voluble breaths and fresh beginnings, as if the spy were releasing a memorized address; after that a moment of silence, and a low wailing sentence in English:

"It does not please them altogether."

They were locked presently in the same cell. Voices of the drugged and drunken beat through the corridors, and screams of madness from lower passages. And still Romney had his chance to think. The Big Three wouldn't be pleased to learn that he had permitted the spy to fall into the hands of the law. Even the Japanese didn't understand a white man's mercy. These nationalists were an interesting sort. They didn't ask from others what they were unwilling to give themselves. Failure meant forfeiture of life in their work. But the West didn't breed this sort of thing in a man. Romney found himself not as intrinsically of the East as he imagined. He could conceive a big system doing away with a host of lives, but still he didn't care to be the direct instrument of taking the life of one man.

Presently he found himself in the midst of conjecture as to how the Big Three meant to strangle Japan. For many moments this matter wavered back and forth through his mind, and did not take real form until he happened to recall the laboratory in Minglapo's cellar. There might be a connection here. He had heard of a ghastly, almost incommunicable horror having to do with the slaying of multitudes without any formal arrangement of platoon, brigade or corps....

He dozed in his chair at last, dreaming of a nation stricken with pestilence--its soldiers all away in the clean and ancient barbarities of war.... He would wait for Ti Kung and then possibly it would be well to clear himself from the Big Three. Perhaps they wouldn't trust him--even to keep his mouth shut.... The little old spy slept at his feet.... In the heart of the night, a prison-guard entered with a lantern, drawing the cell-door shut behind him.

Romney opened his eyes, and saw a queer intelligence in the glance of the other--a face he had not seen before. The prison guard was intent for an instant upon the figure at Romney's feet, the lantern-ray pouring over the spy's length from feet to queue--then back to Romney's face.

"Sit quiet and say nothing," he whispered, "Your friends are working for you. To-morrow you will be free. This--remember--is a madman. He is not responsible.... Say only that he attacked you and me--now--"

The voice of the prison-guard came from the dark, behind the lantern-ray. Romney caught up sleepily with the full significance of the words. Suddenly the lantern fell and the stranger raised a terrible outcry, springing upon the spy, who had half-risen. Now they were on the floor together, and a shot was fired.

The prison-guard was the one to arise. The lantern was spraying the stone floor with light, above was darkness. Romney's face was caught in the hands of the policeman, and these words were driven in his mind, even as he struggled to be free:

"Listen. He leaped upon me and tried to take my pistol. I had to shoot. He is done and cannot deny. They are coming--"

The officer now raised his voice for help, and the corridors drummed with hurrying feet.

*8*

Romney did not sleep during the rest of the night. They were slow about taking the body of the little spy forth from the cell. The murder passage recurred repeatedly. It had been very swift and matter of fact, the prison-guard explaining what Romney should say as he watchfully prepared to assassinate the Japanese, who in his turn arose slowly and empty-handed to meet the end--all this in a treacherous lantern-ray. Romney did not fancy such patriotism. Of course he realised that the cause of the Big Three would have been ruined had the Japanese spy managed to live to make his report. He granted that the Big Three dreamed of a greater and purer China; even granted that if their dream were applied to the machinery of nationalism, the result would be finer for the Orient and the world, than if Japan became the dominant power of Asia. At the same time he was not so modern in holding a curious repugnance for the present episode.

In mid-afternoon the murderous prison-guard found an opportunity to whisper that Romney's liberty would have been obtained hours before, had there not been found another charge against him, the nature of which was not yet clear. The prisoner was asked to be patient, however, that great forces were at work to set him free. Romney took another long breath. At times like this, the period of his life, since the parting at Longstruth's seemed altogether irrational.

They had not yet cleansed the floor of his cell.

It was not until toward evening that he was led forth to meet this mysterious new charge. A bearded Chinese in lavender robes sat in a high box and appeared four-eyed behind his spectacles. Before him stood the avid McLean of the _John Dividend_, now turning at the step of his prey and feasting his single eye on the length and thinness of the American.

Romney's laugh was doubtless charged to him.

"Hello, Mac," he said, "I heard you had gone way down--"

"It has cost me a great deal to bring you face to face--"

"If I had seen you ten minutes after our meeting over the wall in Shanghai, I could have fixed that little matter--"

"It is to be fixed now. The cost of collection and the payment for personal damage received--brings the amount to twenty-five pounds. The items are all here--"

McLean presented a long paper of charges.

"I may not have that much--what in that case?"

"Back to _John Dividend_ or rot here--"

Romney recalled that he had slightly less than a hundred dollars, which, with his other belongings, was now in the hands of the police. He offered seventy-five dollars to close McLean's claim.

To his surprise this amount--three times the original loan--was refused.

"Come around to-morrow--maybe I can raise the wind," Romney suggested. "I've made you a lot of trouble and you've got a right to be sore."

Romney was still further surprised that the money-lender did not wabble. He had not expected to be led back to the cell. An hour later, however, he was called to the office again and after an evening's performance of formality, extending through trial, initiatory and several deeper degrees, he found himself in the street, his own money not used in obtaining this freedom, and a secret verbal order, imparted by the prison-guard, for him to report at once to the shop of Minglapo.

Dr. Ti Kung had returned.

The three were gathered at the dais when Romney was admitted. Dr. Ti Kung raised his hand and apologised for not rising.

"From what they tell me," he said with a tired smile, "your former proficiency in athletics has stood you in good stead."

Minglapo glanced whimsically at the forward casement, repaired since Romney had crashed through. The deep bubble of a laugh started, but dripped back.

The Hunchback bowed toward his countryman, studying him with a strange mixed expression of anxiety and compassion. The long, narrow, wolf-hound head held something that invariably lifted Romney--something very deep that had to do with the love of man for man.

"I'm afraid," he remarked, "that I don't take the joy in a foot-race that I once did. And it's mainly knowing how now. I'm really far from fit."

"We trust that there will be no more of that for your portion. We have reserved a task for you, Friend Romney--not more important, perhaps, but of a much higher form of activity."

It was in Romney's mind at that moment to state certain objections, but the face of Nifton Bend held him silent.

"I have been honoured," Dr. Ti Kung added, "in that my friends have found you all that I promised--and more. It is strange that Mother China should uncover among her most valuable workers, two men of your country--"

"I have been wondering if I have the training for such ardent nationalism," Romney said quietly.

Dr. Ti Kung turned to Nifton Bend who replied:

"We have thought of that. I can answer you best in my own experience. I was without a country--and dared to be a citizen of the world. It was this old Yellow Mother who took me in. China is not a nation. She is the bed-rock of Asia. All elements are in her breast--the most ancient, and conceptions so modern that they cannot be spoken aloud. For one must _whisper_ the absolutely new. There is no place as yet for a visionary in America--but there is a place here. One who works for China works for all the East--and for the world, since out of the East all great things come to light."

The Hunchback smiled. "I do not speak much in this way. There is something in you that draws forth the dream.... But I see you are troubled."

"Perhaps it was because he was locked up for a night and a day," said Dr. Ti Kung.

"No, it is not that," said Nifton Bend. "I saw it here before the little house-servant escaped. He won your heart, Mr. Romney?"

"Yes," the word came eagerly.

"You lost your sense of the greatness of a cause--that could sacrifice him so ruthlessly?"

"Yes. He was all tempered with suffering--so absolute in fortitude.... They murdered him at my feet in the cell."

"He has done well. Perhaps you can see that we too love a servant like that--"

"Yes--but to put him out of the way--"

"The cause is greater than the man."

"I do not mean to argue. I can either take it or leave it." Romney could not say more. There was an encompassing understanding in the Hunchback's eye.

"We are glad to discuss this with you. The East regards these things differently. Tell us how you overtook him and what happened before the arrest--"

"He fell from fatigue. His hands were held up to me from the ground. I knew that you wanted him dead, knew what you expected of me, but I sat down on a doorstep to think it out. He expected death. He was trained your way. He asked me afterward why I had not killed him then. I knew you could not rest while his thoughts held together in that gritty head. Presently the police came along. It occurred to me if he were a trained spy, he would know English, and it was so. We arranged our story on the way to the lock-up--arranged it so as to keep out the name of Minglapo.... When I saw him trying to take care of that dry kneecap right here in this room--why, the stuff of me went out to him."

"Europe has gone mad," the Hunchback said wearily. "France, England, Italy, Austria, Russia, Germany, all goring each other--America threatened--Japan standing ready to take up the murderous confession of her material-mindedness. Mother China can stop all that forever."

Except for the presence of the Hunchback, Romney would have assumed a Western point of view fully at this time and explained that life had taught him to do most of his dreaming at night. Instead, he said:

"Of course, I should be very glad to hear about China's power of mastering Japan without arms and ending war forever from the hard-pressed earth--"

It was one of the strangest moments. Romney had come very close to the truth several times in his own thoughts, but never so close as now. His question had put the answer into three minds. It was not that any one of the three intended to speak, but what he had asked had brought the picture of the truth as each saw it into a kind of form of words. If there is anything to the transference of thought, the mental pictures of the three may have helped Romney to the solution at that moment. He had turned from Nifton Bend to Dr. Ti Kung. Queerly enough, just now he recalled the extraordinary interest and capacity of the Chinese in chemical and biological matters during his work in Palo Alto. Instantly upon this was added the sharp recollection of the trap entrance to the basement laboratory in this very house. Then came the large seeming importance of the packet he had delivered to Minglapo from Dr. Ti Kung. Might not the documents contained in that represent the fruits of Ti Kung's studies in the laboratories of the States? All this was in a flash, and over it all--it was like a panorama--a Japan with desolated streets and highways, an Island of Pestilence.... Nifton Bend next spoke:

"You see, Mr. Romney, as you now stand troubled by this dramatic little matter having to do with our spy--it would not be well for us to complete our plans for you. You are honest. You are of the West--called to us and called from us, by your ideals. Our measure is heroic. A measure to accomplish such a result as we deem to be required now must be heroic.

"Without knowing exactly the form our activity will take, you can continue to serve us. If we told you the exact truth--your very possession of it would endanger your life in the event of its making you waver in your allegiance to us--"

"You mean like the spy. You had to kill him because he had learned too much. But I know as much as he now--"

"Perhaps not. He has been in this house for two years, and during the last day or two, he has been used in a particular service."

"Then you think what he heard here was not all, but merely an added inkling to the full understanding."

"He became dangerous to us."

"You do not think that I am dangerous to you now?"

"Your case is different. We have seen your trustworthiness. We know that any difference now is moral and that our cause is safe in your hands. At the same time any explicit methods which we might use must not become the property of any mind which is not imbued with the great passion which we feel."

"You say you could use me without divulging further?"

"Yes. We wish--"

"You are not treating me then, as you would treat an Oriental--"

"That is because I am an American. My friends have learned to trust me--and I have chosen to trust you--"

Romney thanked him.

"What plan have you for me?"

The two Chinese turned to Nifton Bend who arose.

"This morning we planned to send you to Japan. The delay in securing your release from custody has changed that. You are to start for the Gobi Desert. The plan is written, the progress of your journey set down, the policy and full meaning of your mission. These papers are in my chamber on the floor above. There may be a detail or two to finish in regard to them. Your servant will bring you to me in a few minutes. If you can be ready within an hour, it would be well for you to reach Peking in the morning. Let me add that this is a mission of great mercy, not a mission of death--"

Romney made himself ready in his own quarters. A lift had come to his heart which he did not pretend to understand. It had seemed that his acceptance of the mission had been ordained deep in his own volition--the decision arising finished in his consciousness while the Hunchback spoke.... Many of the preparations for travel had already been made by Bamban, who left him to bring the word from Nifton Bend.

... Romney was in one of the halls, his servant walking ahead. A door opened a little distance forward and low in it, the place a half-grown child's head would occupy, appeared the long face of the Hunchback--beyond that, golden lamplight, the sound of a softly-playing fountain, and an instant later, the movement of another figure in the mellow light.

Romney halted. The figure had come forward. The head and breast were above Nifton Bend and two bare white arms rested upon the low shoulders. One was held out.

Her head turned slightly, the light touching that perfect profile. She was smiling. Romney could not feel his limbs, yet they carried him forward to the outstretched hand.

"It's good to see you again, Sir Romney."

Something had broken within him. The strange elation had changed to a tangible power. There was sorrow in her loveliness. But such a sense of the beauty in the presence of the two together--a kind of entering into the heart of a sacred place. And queerly enough he felt himself at the end of commonness--mere man movements and matters put away, an end to the drift of the waterfronts, all helplessness and the stress of hand to hand. She was close, looking into his face.

"You have put on something that I could not find a year ago, Sir Romney," she whispered.

"For awhile I thought I had lost rather than gained. I hope you are right," he answered.

His eyes were held to the yellow rug. It lay over a low chair by the fountain. She led Nifton Bend to it, the bare arm ever close to his shoulder.

"I am glad that he is chosen for the mission to the desert," she was saying to the Hunchback. "I am glad you two know each other, for I found Sir Romney very much a man."

*PART TWO: THE GOBI*

*ANNA ERIVAN*

*1*

Romney was not delayed long in Peking, and the few days were interesting, for his credentials opened a different shelf of native life from that which the foreign traveller ever encounters. Here he was surrounded by the young men to whom the names of Ti Kung and Minglapo and Nifton Bend were demigods, no less. He saw the cause of Young China in force, felt the strong fresh beat of it, and became more than ever glad that it was in the world, and that he had the honour to be a servant of it. To him, there were no longer three but four leaders. He told Moira Kelvin this before he left the lamp-lit room in Tientsin. She was vital warmth and depth of background to a picture such as his. Men called forth his friendship and loyalty and service, but there was something in the spirit of romance which she stood for, that made a slave of him, and there was something of creative significance in her love-relation with the General that was so intimate and sacred that he did not bring it even to the foreground of his mind for close analysis. Her personal pull upon him was easily borne now. He kept it as a kind of secret sweetness of life. It honoured her, and the yearning that came with it was one of the finest ingredients for moral health. No man spends energy in yearning whose real forces are asleep. So they were good girding days and his health came back. He felt himself relaxing again in the slow rhythmic breath of the interior.

Romney only knew that he was going to the Gobi Desert. There was a Peking letter among his numbered documents; another letter to be opened in Tushi-kow and for all points of his journey ahead up to a town in the desert called Wampli. But these letters were not to be read until he reached the towns noted, and the documents attending each letter were promised to give him further details as to friends, impedimentum, his task and safe conduct.

Three days were spent in Tushi-kow where the Chinese Post Road forks from the Russian caravan route to Siberia. Here he was quartered in the house of Fai Ming, whose name was in daily use by the members of the cause in Peking. This old aristocrat who felt honoured in giving his wealth and strength to the people, had many tales to tell of the Chinese awakening, of the young social order in America and Europe which he had visited since Romney had been home. It was his view that a certain brotherhood passion was trimmed for ignition around the world and would shortly become a circle of cleansing flame.

"The camels are ready," Fai Ming said on the last day, "but I would not have you hasten, my friend. There is a long caravan-route from here--let us say to Turgim, where a real activity may begin for you. Another party will start three days hence if you wish to wait--"

Romney shook his head. "Yet I have felt that I have been in my own home with you," he added.