Chapter VIII: Part 8

Romney smiled. He could see it, but acting on it was out of his dimension. When it came to putting even a spy out of business, he had quailed.... Hours passed, sleep coming no nearer. Once he lost himself in the possibilities of waging war upon the country of an enemy by means of spies alone. Every power had great systems of espionage at work in all rival centres--enough to ravage the land of an enemy with plague. Nations would have to protect themselves from each other by the establishment of an unalterable peace. There was a lift to the vision, but carrying baneful cultures of epidemic was no job for one Romney. Sorting the pastils--not for him.

... The room was breathless. At intervals from the hall he heard the creak of a board, as of some one's slow weight pressed upon it; and twice he tiptoed to the window imagining at least that he heard the soft pad of a native foot on the iron balcony. After the second glance into the outer darkness, he shot the casement bolt, and the stuffy smell of the Chinese house thickened. Toward morning he really tried to sleep, but at the first departure he would meet a cloud of hideous rousing dreams. He was abroad early and in the street, a certain reality and grip of things returning with the movement and daylight.

Romney's heart was pumping rather fast for him. At the desk they declared that Ti Kung had not come in. His own message was uncalled for in the Doctor's box. The room-key was still gone. At breakfast he waited for word, watching the door of the dining-room. An hour later, Dr. Ti Kung not having joined him, he could no longer delay in carrying out the plans which had occurred in the night. No change at the desk, and he ventured to send a house-servant to Ti Kung's room. The _boy_ returned saying that repeated knocking at the door had brought no answer. Romney, now convinced that something of grave importance had happened, insisted for the _boy_ to try again. For many moments he was gone, before the _Nestor_ people reluctantly whispered that Dr. Ti Kung had been found dead in his room.

In the street, Romney's quick step halted, his perturbation strangely broken by the personal issue. It was like the beginning of life again. He saw the passage into the desert as nearer than the night before. The Post Road from Peking was a portal to life of higher scope--romance with Anna Erivan instead of the romance of an ambitious Empire--love of woman instead of the old loves of men, peril, intrigue and adventure.... Now he wondered that he could be so heartless.... A hand touched his sleeve. Romney recognised one of the house-servants of Minglapo. He was led by him hastily to a second rickshaw. The coolies were bade to run.

*2*

Nifton Bend met him at the door of the shop, which was not yet opened for the day. The slim cold hand turned in his, and Romney felt as if it clutched at some inner part of him.

"Have you seen Ti Kung?".

Romney reported in swift brief terms.

"You did not sleep?" the Hunchback asked in a queer way.

"No."

"Neither did I sleep," he added slowly, "but our good Minglapo slept."

Nifton Bend touched his hand, led the way to the second floor, and entered there an apartment that was like a throne-room. In the centre was a huge canopied couch. Romney's eye sought the heart of this even before the lifted finger of the Hunchback directed.... The knees of the occupant were drawn up against the abdomen--this fact obvious before the cover was pulled back. The great face had taken on its ultimate gray and yellow; the wide mouth that had laughed so wonderfully was twisted in torture. Romney did not look far enough to ascertain the means of death.

"Fat men sleep so soundly," repeated Nifton Bend.

"But Ti Kung could not have been caught sleeping. I reached the hotel between eleven and twelve last night, and sent up word of arrival. He must have been in the room then--the thing already done."

The objects in the great room were lost for the moment in a brown mist before Romney's eyes. Then he saw that the wolf-hound head of the Hunchback was close to his own breast--the face turned up to his own face. His arm went around the low shoulder.

"The spirit of the little spy will rest easier," he whispered.

"You mean--"

"I was expecting this word from the _Nestor_. I expected them to find him--like our master here. As for me, I did not sleep--"

"That was my trouble last night," Romney said.

"They may not have wanted you."

Romney recalled the creaking in the hall and the fancied step upon the iron balcony.

"You think they have not finished?"

"I am sure they want _me_," the Hunchback said, his burning eyes upturned to his countryman's face. "We will have a cup of tea together--not here. Come--"

For a moment Romney thought they had turned to the room of the yellow lamplight, but this was not the plan. They entered the apartment which Romney himself had used--the same silken hangings so absurdly peopled with pink embroidered storks and lavender fishes. The Hunchback rang for a servant.

"I see that you have not brought all that we hoped for from the Inner Temple."

"I think they saw something of this day from the distance of the Gobi," Romney answered. "They bade me hasten back, as if the time were most precious--as if they wanted their servants Minglapo and Ti Kung to get their blessing before last night--"

"Their servants--?"

"They spoke of you and the two who have passed with love and reverence," Romney said.

Quickly he told the story of his meeting with Rajananda, Chi Yuan and Tsing Hsia--how they were gathered together at the pool in Kuderfoi, and how they listened to his own story of the work and the dream.

"They were more inclined to take your view of methods than mine," Romney added. "They did not quibble about the death of individuals, nor the manner of defense planned by Young China in case of aggression by the Japanese. They said Japan is young-souled and, if allowed to master China, would bring into the world more of the horrors known as _civilised_, which are destroying themselves in Europe now. They saw that you were pure. It was not necessary for me to impress my own conviction of that. In fact, the three Holy Men united in the belief that nowhere in the world was there such a promise of national exemplarship for the new order of humanity as in this beginning under your hand. They saw very far and very deep. I wish you could go to the aged arms of Rajananda now. He seems pure power to me. He bathed his hands in the pool and spoke at last, saying that you have brought the dream into the world. I think at times he saw you alone--the others only helping. He saw ahead that the time would come when man would unite with his brother, race to race. But he said that it was not quite time--that nothing of your work would be lost, but that your work had to do with conception rather than with birth--"

"Then he saw that we are to be overpowered?"

"Do you believe that you are to be overpowered?" Romney asked slowly.

"It is practically accomplished. Old China has already mastered us, but the vision cannot be covered long. The vision is in the world."

"Rajananda said that. He saw your work lost in the folds of the night that still lingers on the face of earth. That was almost his expression.... He bade me hurry to carry his blessing with the others to you--a message of peace and goodwill from the Holy Fathers of the Gobi. He said they were watching and waiting for the dawn, that they could not give you their approval in script, since it might find no living hands to accept it, no party to profit by it."

A servant had come to the call. Nifton Bend sent this one to find his own personal servant.... The former returned, saying that the General's _boy_ had been sent on an errand into the street. Nifton Bend called for tea.

"... They saw a great deal from a distance--those three wise men," he added thoughtfully. "I should have been glad to go to them.... And you say they saw us as belonging only to the dream and not to the action?"

"Yes. That is what was said by Rajananda."

Nifton Bend's face was calm, something almost boyish in his smile.

"I should like to have my young men about me in this hour. I should like to tell them to watch for the working out of the great story which I shall not be allowed to see.... _Story_--I think of everything as a story--a man's relation to his work and to his woman.... Romney, she thinks much of you. She will be alone. I'd like to live. She makes every day a quivering ecstatic thing. I used to think that death was the best thing that could happen to a man, but death is different now. Let me talk a little English and laugh with you.... Yes, death is different. I would rather be in hell with her than in heaven without. But, of course, everything is ordered better than I could do it. I think I shall be _asleep_ when she comes. I was never a good sleeper here. I shall sleep well for a little--until she comes and wakes me. For she will come. I'm tired. I'm bending to the ground.... I talk to you of this sacred thing--"

His head came very close to Romney, but his eyes were mild and boyish.... "I liked you because you had an Occidental heart--a place for a woman. If my young men were here they would sit and talk with me about China. I love them. They are passionate countrymen--but I have finished with China. Only the woman is left in my heart. And you--you are a white man who can understand--"

"Yes, I can understand--" Romney whispered. "Where is Moira Kelvin?"

The Hunchback pointed forward toward the apartment where Romney had seen her in the yellow lamplight.

"You think there is danger, and you sit talking with me?"

"She sleeps. She knows nothing of these things. She sat and read to me all night.... She is young. She is so beautiful. I put her to sleep against her will.... You will see her to a ship. You will tell her that I had but one thought--that all dreams were merged into one--that I sat at the last contemplating her beauty and the tenderness--"

The tea was served before them. The Hunchback thanked the servant and bade him go. Romney absently reached for his teacup, but Nifton Bend's hand touched his:

"Don't drink that. My passage out is doubtless in it, if not yours. I don't think they want you particularly, though they would, if they understood.... Ah no, they have doubtless murdered my servant. No one but his master sends him on an errand into the street--"

Now the pinkish storks of the portieres had real moisture about their lower joints, a faint but veritable mist rising before them. Smoothly Nifton Bend had allowed the steaming contents of his cup to soak into the wall-hangings behind his chair. He did the same with Romney's cup. The fabric slowly sucked in the liquid.... The thrall of the great man deepened in Romney's heart. His own romance was near and vibrant in the room; yet he was touched by a dread which the other did not share, apparently had not thought of.... Was Moira Kelvin safely sleeping after her night of devotion to the sleepless one?

"Is it the Japanese secret agents that became active last night at the _Nestor_ and here?" Romney asked quickly.

"No. Our work never appeared to get to them--thanks to your part with the little old spy whom you liked so well. It is China punishing the younger generation."

"But did he not work in the laboratory--that same spy? I saw him coming up from there--a trap-door--"

"Only for a day or two, at the last. We were watching him before his knee-cap snapped. He could not have gotten in his report."

These were old matters. Romney was troubled about the woman, and burned with the peril of the man before him.

"Perhaps they do not want you," he said.

"Our enemy is in this house," the Hunchback answered. "I shall not be allowed to leave. At least, not to go far--"

"Do you think you would be molested if you walked out now--with Moira Kelvin and me?"

Nifton Bend seemed thinking aloud:

"They may have but one agent working here, but ten men, one after another, would die gladly for my life. They are not afraid. If it is not this tea, it will be another way and soon.

"They will watch.... But we have touched the vision. The young men will carry it through. What are three lives compared to starting the races of the world into a new wisdom, a new comeliness?"

"While you live, _you are Young China_--and what of the woman?"

"Ah, don't, Romney--"

"Is she safe?"

"What?"

"Are you sure that she will not be wanted?"

"China would not touch her--yet how strange I did not think, even of the thousandth chance! Still, don't you see, I carry to her the menace of myself. Romney, you must help me--"

Romney was hushed by the spectacle of Nifton Bend's sudden dread--and this from a man scarcely capable of fear for himself. He saw the great constructive worker for mankind turning helplessly to cope with a personal issue. He pressed the General's hand.

"You can count on me," he said quietly. "I don't think the game's up--"

"Romney, you bring me back the old romance of America--"

"Let us think.... Have the police been notified in regard to Minglapo?"

"No."

"If the police were called here, the work of any secret agent in our case might be complicated--"

"Vulgar detentions--a day of questions--a day lost--our enemy to organise. Remember, these killers are ready to die themselves--"

"Then let us go forth now--"

"Go forth into China?" The question came mildly. "Any rickshaw coolie--"

"To the American Consulate--" Romney interrupted.

The answer remained in Romney's mind as one of the high moments of life.

"I would not accept sanctuary from a country from which I have withdrawn my allegiance."

"Then I'll stay with you here, but I think we had better join the woman--"

"Yes--"

"Just a minute--wait," Romney whispered, touching the other's sleeve. "Let them think that the tea did it. Walk heavily, on my arm, through the halls. Let your legs reel a bit. It will give us time--"

"Yes, it might give us time--"

The utter hopelessness of Nifton Bend's repetition of his words brought to Romney something like an expression of Fate itself. The Hunchback, in accepting China, had accepted the code of her servants. The condemned never resist death.

But Romney did not share the attitude.

"Listen," he added. "They will be watching. They will think you dying from the poison--if they really fixed this tea. They will leave you alone in your rooms--possibly for hours. I'll go out and get your young men together. Don't you see? I am one of them. You are the Cause while you live. We'll come again and take you out--"

The expression upon the Hunchback's face deepened with pain.

"I love the thought. It is brave and strong--as young men are. But it would mean the deaths of all who came--yours and the others. My young men cannot be spared. It would not save me. We are in China.... There is this that you can do--I was almost forgetting. Here are two packets of papers. It is the whole affair that you hated so--the plan and all, in case of aggression by Japan. There is only one safe place for these, in case our cause is lost--the bottom of the sea. Certain of these parchments are fire and acid-proof. It's the work of years of Ti Kung and others. Japan would use them quickly enough against China. You must take care to prevent all that. Don't dare to die with these papers on your person, Romney.... And now may we go to her?"

*3*

There was a smile back of the tortured eyes of the Hunchback as he reeled through the hallway, holding heavily to Romney's arm. The latter caught a trace of the humour of the thing. He could not have reached this smile had it not been for the days in the Gobi. A man who had had his own loved one torn away, who has been forced to take his faith from the substance and place it upon the spirit of things, does not easily find himself denied a laugh afterward, when the world is at its worst.

There was another urge to realisation that came in that brief and laboured walk to the room where he had seen the woman and her own in the yellow lamplight. It seemed the nexus to an ampler power and a broader wisdom. Nifton Bend's part in Young China was already done. To a material mind, it was the darkest hour, but Romney lived and moved that moment in a larger world where brave unselfish thoughts have immortal potency. He saw that no task is finished with the conceiver--that Nifton Bend was merely the drawer of plans, that the builders must come, that matter must obey since the plan was in the world. He saw also a new power in the quick refusal of the Hunchback to bring his young men into this house of secret death. The dreamer would spare the builders.

The door was opened instantly. Romney stepped behind the Hunchback to keep the eyes of the hall from observing the change, for Nifton Bend was himself at the turn of the knob. Such men cannot be relied upon as actors....

"I have brought you back an old friend, Moira," he said.

Romney pushed the door shut behind him and stepped forward to the woman.... They did not speak. Nifton Bend asked with concern:

"You did not sleep?"

"I was asleep when you sent the tea."

The Hunchback's face was turned from her. Romney saw the broad bent shoulders sag a little. The woman did not see that, but sensed the recoil of the tragic shaft that had entered her lover's heart.... Her eyes instantly left Romney's face. She turned, almost running--her hands to the low shoulders. She was never more beautiful.... Nifton Bend lifted the little teapot from its wrapping in padded silk.

"How long since this came?" he asked.

The voice was calm again, but the tone was hollow.

"Don't drink that. I'll get some fresh for you both," she said. "It must be a half-hour since that came--"

"Moira ... don't call for more now. We will sit down together--we three. Romney has brought us the voice of God from the desert.... I hoped you would rest a little more. I was thoughtless to let them waken you--"

Romney could scarcely credit his listening.

The woman spoke:

"Indeed, I never felt more animate. I was fathoms deep when the knock came--deep, deep and dreaming. The knock must have repeated several times, for it became a part of my dream, before I awoke and answered.... The _boy_ said that you were having tea and had sent some to me. I thought you would soon be coming, so I drank as I dressed--to be ready for you. I began to feel more joyous and light--like a little girl combing her hair for a great day. It was like a day of something-to-happen. It must have been your coming, Sir Romney. We hoped to see you last night--"

There was a blithe richness of vitality, a sparkle that made him remember the wine at Longstruth's, the Chinese girls twanging the _vina_ in the bamboo clumps by the river.... Wine and song at Longstruth's, and a score of other thoughts, light and indistinct as the trailing movements of a vagary--with this concrete enormity in the room.

Romney suddenly whipped in closer to reality. His mind had been trying to hold off the truth from itself. Moira Kelvin turned to her mirror. The Hunchback, glancing to see that his face was out of range of the glass, directed one slow terrible look into the eyes of his friend. Romney took it all. For an instant there was an indescribable tightness across his chest and a sense of inadequacy to bear the drama. Nifton Bend had already accepted the death of his beloved. He would spare her from all knowledge of it. There seemed a dull gray shine about his face. The long hands were lifted a little, but steady. The face did not implore; it commanded Romney to be calm, to help in bringing happiness to the departure.

Romney was continually swept by surges of incredulity--that this thing was working out under his eyes. In another way it was like the last moment of a tragedy which one knows is coming. He wanted to leave before the end. He felt himself an inadequate third in this great hour.... He heard his own voice, telling of the three sages at the little pool of the lilies in Kuderfoi.... He was describing Rajananda.... She laughed and came close for an instant to listen. She caught the same magic that had been so dear to Anna Erivan.... He remembered a similar look from Moira Kelvin, though more imperious and passionate, when he told her of Nifton Bend and Young China.... He caught a glance of calmness and commendation from the eye of the Hunchback now.... He pictured the tranquil and compassionate Chi Yuan, the firmer and more balanced Tsing Hsia to whom the sureness of the retributive forces of life were as inevitable as gravitation. He spoke again of the little withered master lying between them--so vast, so calm and inclusive.... Always Romney's own story came in with its wonders and pictures, but he did not let them reach the point of words. His romance was something he might have brought to Moira Kelvin alone, if there had been hours. He longed for her sanction and to show her how wise and deep in life she had been, since all that she had said came true; he wanted her word on the chance of finding Anna Erivan again--to help his faith. There was none to whom the story belonged as to her; but it was not for Nifton Bend in this hour....

He repeated instead what the three sages had said of the dream which was Nifton Bend's--what they thought of him ... and how the picture of Nifton Bend and herself, together in the lamp-lit room, had stayed with him through the days and nights of the desert riding.

Her movements were swift, her laugh sweet and low, her love and joy on the wing.... For a moment they forgot the Hunchback.... Something had come to them from their fortnight--something that had to do with the moths and the rice fields and the tea among the pyramids.

"You are wonderful, Sir Romney. You change so rapidly now.... You are sun-darkened. All waste seems burned away. You bring the breath of the desert nights--and something else. Your heart has known some great replenishment, and some great terror. I see the man who was a boy when I first looked.... All happens where Nifton Bend is. I think it must be the ignition of his mission and his service. The world will never know the wonder of him. Every one changes who touches him--the young men--"

He had followed her eyes to the Hunchback, who had poured a cup of tea and was drinking leisurely.

"You said you did not want tea," she ventured. "I could have had it fresh. That must be cold and bitter from standing."

"I like it strong," said Nifton Bend.

Moira Kelvin was speaking on, but Romney only heard the murmur of her voice. The picture of the next hour came to him--that all was done. There was something like a cry in his heart for the end of the mystic. And poignantly the sweetness of the woman before him returned--the last moment by the river when her fervent impulse to give him a token expanded his nature to its broadest reaches of emotion. Her splendour was lifted now, her whole being crowned with the spirit that can only come to one whose quest has ended.... The Hunchback came toward them. The calm that Romney saw upon that face was marmoreal, the calm of one whose circle is almost finished. He led her to a chair which the yellow rug covered, and sat before her upon a cushion, his arm across her knees.

"You are young, but very old," he said. "You are a child, a girl, a woman all lavish in her love, but more than all a mother. This--this Romney--is like a son to us--and those brave young men--our sons. We are ancient, Moira. We shall end our work to-day and depart. We have known the cities of men, and the fruitful valleys have been our meeting-places. To-day we shall go to the hills. We have talked much of the world. To-day we shall talk of God. Our work is finished. This is one of our sons who will carry on the work here. It is good that he is with us.... Moira--Moira--what a love it is."

She bent forward, listening, her face in a kind of noon glory.

"What has come to us?" she whispered. "Has Sir Romney brought us magic from the desert? Does he carry with him some power from the Holy Men? ... I think I was never so happy. All things that I have thought undone seem accomplished. Are all the rest of the days just for you and me? Shall we walk together--our tasks all finished? ... Ah, you have always had so much to do. I have been wasteful in the waiting hours. I have seemed always waiting for you to come to me--"

"I shall not leave you again," he whispered.

"But your work--"

"My work is finished."

"I thought when I found my own, that it would be like this--everything pushed away for our being together--and now it has come.... Listen, I have hated her, when you found her so very beautiful--"

The Hunchback turned with a smile to Romney.

"Her rival," he whispered. "She means the old Mother China--"

"She has taken you away from me--days and nights. I am terrible in waiting. You will go to her no more?"

"No more," he answered.

"Did she cast you out?" she asked softly. "Is it because she will not have you that you come back to me?"

"Yes," he said.

She thought he was carrying out her own whimsicality.

"Fancy my rival turning you out! You would not have been called to one so bereft of reason and vision.... I know _you_! No one knows you as I do.... I knew something of you when Sir Romney first spoke your name. It was a call to me. Did I not answer it? Did I not come at once? ... And you--when I came--what a moment!--that look that flashed between us like light across the world.... And your hand as you said, 'Come in!' ... your hand. It is the same now.... You are so powerful! Your touch brings me to the earth--"

"It is for you," he said.

"Is it not strange?" she was whispering. "All is changed in a day.... You know, in a way, it was Sir Romney who brought me you, and now he has come again bringing us our true life together.... I thought when I found the one, I should rise and compel all things. Instead I bowed and listened. You never knew how terrible it was to have you so lost in affairs--even of an Empire. But you have come home to me.... My thoughts are going away. Why is it? Closer to me--"

Romney was nearer to them. The Hunchback's left hand was thrust back. It closed upon his in an iron clasp, commanding silence and peace. There was an intensity of power in the long gray face--an expression of invincible conquest that to Romney was like the mastery which the men of the future are to know. He was holding pain from her by his force of will. The instant Romney realised this, it became actual. Her cheek was upon his shoulder now, her eyes like a drowsy child's. Often she touched the face so close to hers, once with her lips. Once her eyes fixed for a moment on Romney's.

"Forgive me, my friend," she said with a smile, and added as if confident he would understand all: "The day is strange. I must be very happy.... You are a good omen, Sir Romney--"

There seemed a certain wickedness, apart from time and motive, in the destruction of such beauty.

"Oh, I know! I know now! ... You are putting me to sleep again--"

"For our journey!"

And then Romney heard:

"... We are one. We will go on. There is no end.... I thought I was a terrible woman out in the world. But I was only a little girl looking for her true companion.... I came to him and he knew. We are mated and he is putting me to sleep.... It is deep, deep sleep, and he will be with me. Yet I almost hate to go. Beloved--your head a moment on my breast. I know only love.... Ah, closer to me.... He will not mind.... He, too, is searching for his own--"

It was her theme.

Nifton Bend did not arise from his cushion at her knees. With his free hand, he drew a purse and a pistol and a packet of bank-notes from his coat, and then he spoke:

"You will go now. You will rush forth into the hall as one maddened by pain. You see, I use your plan. They have seen me. I think you will be able to reach the street. Inasmuch as you are stricken, they will call their work done. But do not let a servant approach you. Be wary in the street, should they care to follow. The papers must be dropped into the sea--and then you have finished.... Use the pistol in the hall if necessary--all the chambers. But I think if they see the end upon you, they will let you die outside."

The free hand was raised to Romney, who bowed to his knee before the man and woman.

"You mean beauty and manhood to me--you precious two," he whispered. "The packets shall be sunk as you say. I have been proud to serve you both. Always I shall feel you above and beyond."

"Ah, America--so often you bring her home to my heart. Godspeed to you, Romney. All is well with us. All is better than the best we could know or ask for.... We will be alone together. We shall have silence here.... Yes, that is well. Toss the yellow rug about us. Now we shall know the deeper dreaming."

*PART FIVE: CONCLUSION*

*THE HILL-COUNTRY*

*1*

With his hand on the knob of the door, Romney looked back. The whole hour he reviewed in a rush. He had not been heroic, nor even uncommon. His story had been stammered. There had been nothing to tell such a pair, lost in each other. Even the cause of China seemed little and unsubstantial compared to the splendour of their relation. The courage of Nifton Bend should always mean the arrival of man to manhood in Romney's thoughts. The far roving spirit of the quest-woman come at last to the home-nest of a great man's heart was a sort of pattern for the world's romance.... She who had been the ruling imperious mistress of a few flashing days of his own life, was a child, utterly feminine and receptive in the presence of the greater force.

The big secrets of life had come to him in this hour, to be unwoven and unfolded during the years that remained. Just now Romney felt himself small in that he had risen to no part to help or spare them. He forgot that the revelations were for him alone; that he had furnished complete understanding; that his own soul carried forth the message of their end. In this sense he was chosen. No man could have done better. He would have been crude, indeed, to resist their way. He had entered upon the heroism of abnegation.

The hush of their great story was in his heart as he stood by the door.... The face of the Hunchback was upturned to the bowed head of the woman. There was no sound, no movement. The leaves of an ancient mulberry tree lay tranced against the leaded window. The yellow rug was folded close. The lords of life and death were in that shadowed room.

An ironical smile came to Romney's lips as he turned the knob.... He was meeting the little world of men again. He must act. He must go on with his little part, after dwelling in the presence of those who were great enough to show the world their own immortal selves.... He must fight for his own life--what a travesty. How little were the herds of mere men moving to and fro on the broad back of ample mother earth. For a little time longer he, Romney, must play his part--or die.

A last devoted look back, even as the substantial wonder of his own life recurred. To Anna Erivan now. Nothing but distance lay between--the task accomplished.... It seemed an unreckonable length of time since last night when he threaded the litany of a lover in the lobby of the _Nestor_ waiting for Dr. Ti Kung....

He plunged into the hall--left hand to his brow, knees tumbling, his right hand in the loose pocket of the corded blouse he wore, the pistol in his palm. A pistol always made him laugh, gave him the sense of being less than a man.... No, the task was not quite done--the yellow packets to put away.... And a woman waiting in the hill-country. In that instant of outward bewilderment the reality of Anna Erivan was very close.... A servant with a tray met him in the hall near the stairs. Romney veered by, and turned quickly. The yellow _boy_ had placed his tray on the floor and followed as if to assist a guest in the house. His face was troubled but innocent. Romney staggered on.

The broad curving stairs were empty; the lower hall. The white man saw a shadow move on the polished floor beyond the half-drawn portieres that led into the shop of Minglapo. Romney's way told once more. No hesitation, a leap through the curtains. The servant there stepped back in surprise, his hands quite empty. The other joined him behind. Their heads bowed together as if to consult as to the best way to do their duty by a totally incomprehensible guest. It was with difficulty that Romney held to suspicion and the part assigned.... The great front-door had not been opened to the Square. Romney reached it but stood aside:

"Quick," he called in Chinese. "Open. I go to a doctor. I have made a mistake and fear death."

He leaned his back to the sash, while they unfastened. There appeared to be no thought of detention. One of the servants was sent to call a 'rickshaw-coolie, another to explain his hurried departure to Minglapo. Romney merely wanted them away from the door as he passed.... He was in the street, and did not wait for the 'rickshaw. He had no panic, in fact, marvelled a little at his coldness, under the play of dissolution conducted exteriorly. The street brought a sudden bewilderment. He could not hold it all at once--Minglapo, Ti Kung, Nifton Bend, Moira Kelvin--and he who had served them, unscathed, unmolested, so far.

Yet foreigners in his case saw a drunken stranger or thought they did, and the Chinese watched in their queer way expecting anything.... Now he was in China, as the Hunchback had said. Any one of the hundreds of natives near him and in sight--merchants, students, coolies, boys or scavengers--might be the one deputised to get him. He crossed streets in the midst of Chinese. They searched his face, keen looks, glances of scorn and covert amusement. He had never felt a native throng so powerfully before....

Doubtless he was followed. Doubtless they let him alone, believing that the assassination principle was satisfactorily at work.... The brush of a wadded coat against his own stung him strangely. He remembered the absolute acceptance of death on the part of Nifton Bend. There had not been the slightest expectancy of escape in that strange far-seeing intelligence.

The same calmness was Romney's now, and the realisation that he had passed through an episode that would ever increase in importance so long as he lived. He had been with the heart of new China when it ceased to beat; more than that, he had lost a man of his own heart and a woman who had shown him the way to power and glory.... From the first moment he had been drawn to the Hunchback--a kind of passion that seemed to awaken potentialities of his being, starting within strange premonitive urgings, that left him more and more dissatisfied with the smug and the small things of life. As for courage, he had seen much of the courage of the open with its laugh and flaunted arms, but this at the last of the Hunchback broke all the former models.... Romney halted wondering. He had passed days with Ti Kung and Minglapo. The former had lifted him from the wash of the gutter literally; yet all of the night's close-running horrors centred about the death of this white man and woman--and they were one. A grandeur, an isolation about them.

... For a moment he had forgotten himself.

His body straightened, his face upturned to the morning sun. Suppose he had brought Anna Erivan to Tientsin--to the house of Minglapo. He might have left her with Moira Kelvin when the tea came. Yes, it might have happened just like that.... The old sage Rajananda must have felt the flood of love that poured forth from the American's breast that instant. Where did he stand that he saw all this? ... Only the papers now, and the journey to the desert. He must watch. He must be sleepless. He would not be safe until he reached Nadiram, at least.

A deep sense of weariness gradually oppressed. He felt his own weight and the misery of life. The world seemed mad to him--his heart thirsting for the beauty and peace of a woman--and his master. Somehow he wanted Rajananda once more before the ancient one passed. Distance and time only increased the richness of this relation. He felt the hated packet against his breast. If it were found upon him, it would prove enough forever to rob him of peace, even if the assassin failed to strike. Romney smiled again at his own weakness in the midst of recent great affairs. He knew best of all his own inconsequence....

His hand touched the purse in his pocket, and he drew it forth. It was heavy with gold. The note-case contained English and native money to a large amount.... Now it came for the first time--the possibility of his arrest in connection with the deaths of Minglapo and Nifton Bend. The servants would report his presence in the house. His steps quickened. Everywhere was the native crowd. His slightest movement toward making away with the packets would be noted.... He was hastening to the water-front.

He hailed a native rivercraft, pointing to one of the farthest of the ships lying at anchor.

In the middle of the stream, his back turned to the boatman, he drew the packets from his pocket, and loosening the long string that tied them, he fastened the small, blunt-nosed automatic pistol Nifton Bend had given him, to the papers. This was the only heavy object within reach. Then, as he directed the eye of the native to a ship at right angles to the present passage, he dropped the packets and the weight overside. The sense of ceremonial did not come to him until the papers had sunk from sight in the yellow Peiho. After that for a moment the American lost all interest in the finding of a certain ship, but as the boatman turned back toward the city-front, Romney encountered a peculiar dread of entering that crowd again, and at the same time remembered that the ship he had ordered the native to punt for was flying Blue Peter at the fore, and also that her lines had a strange familiarity.

He was thinking rapidly now. The packets were safely out of the way. He had tied them tightly to the weight, making a satisfactory use of the bit of a mankiller, its chambers all unused. Perhaps they had followed him to the water-front watching even now for his return, or some word from this boatman regarding him. Romney turned and scanned the river harbour again.

There was Blue Peter surely enough, and the rusty tramp that queerly filled his eyes a second time. Now Romney laughed aloud. As certainly as he lived, it was the _John Dividend_ at this instant drawing up her huge barnacled hook. His voice whipped the boatman about and with mutterings anent the proverbial insanity of foreigners, which the white man was by no means supposed to understand, the native began poling once again toward the smoking craft.... It meant down the river anyway and giving Tientsin the slip. If the tramp were headed south he could make the shore at Tongu at any rate and catch the Chinese Eastern across Shantung Province in the general direction of Tushi-kow.

There was no ladder overside. Romney had to shout, and this was hard for him. He did not know his own voice, and could not remember letting it out in this way since a boy. It was like calling up to an uninterested some one in a third floor window. The "old man" showed himself, spat overside, narrowly missing the lesser craft, and appeared to reflect whether he cared to be bothered or not. Perhaps he needed a hand. In any event the ladder came down, and Romney, grateful for the thickness of the _John Dividend_ between him and the keenest possible eye on the waterfront, ran up the tarred threads calling the boatman to follow. The latter obeyed, though his expostulation was high-keyed.

The "old man" went on with his clearing. Romney had never had any truck with this person and did not care to begin now. He was aboard and the _John Dividend_ was getting into the down-channel under her own steam. Straight to the engine-room where he had once trafficked with coal against his will, Romney made his way now and presently was measured head to toe by a single and most calculating gray eye.

"Where are you heading, Mack?" he asked.

"Tongu. Chifu."

"Take this river-coolie in charge. I'm healed. I go to Chifu with you. I want him to go too. Cut his boat loose from the ladder. I'll pay him for it. I'll pay him for his time and passage back. I'll pay you for managing the job.... How much?"

He felt light and fine toward McLean. If it had not been for that loan, he would have gone to Japan instead of the Gobi.

It was not a matter in which McLean was accustomed to make haste. He did not appear disturbed by the outcries of the Chinese, who thought the American was interceding with the engine-man to pay for his passage out from the water-front.... Presently the fence spoke. Romney would have paid many times the amount for the service. He found the steward and a berth.... They were three miles below the city when he went on deck. The ladder had been drawn up. No native craft was trailing.... The river boatman was easily placated later from the purse. Tongu was passed without misadventure. Presently the _John Dividend_ was tumbling around the capes in the Yellow Sea, and Romney with quickened pulse, five days later, started inland from Chifu to Tushi-kow.

*2*

Romney was changed. The thing called civilisation settled back. Only the spirit of that which he had passed through remained with him from past days. All seemed closed, integrated. He travelled light. There was no menace, no apparent pursuit. He could not hold the continual wariness. Fear slipped from him before he rejoined Bamban at Tushi-kow. They were on the road to Turgim with two camels and one driver with provisions. Romney leaned forward.

Sometimes it was like a terrible thirst. The pictures of the past no longer fed his heart. They too were completely integrated. He wanted the living woman again--her voice and hands, her sweet and sacred mysteries. He was burned with waiting. The actual resistance of the miles of sand and rock against the tread of swift camels was a peculiar and persistent deviltry. His sleep was brief and fragmentary. Only lovers and great workmen can endure such sleeplessness. Many times each night he awakened to see the greater stars moved but a short step westward.... Turgim, that had meant so much in approach, was nothing but a night-camp upon arrival. Ahead was another long barren stretch to Nadiram; every hour had to be wrestled back. His images all had to do with a certain coming hour.

From a white man's standpoint he had little to count on. His woman had been torn away by a desert-band--only the promise of a withered ancient creature whose next breath was less than a good gambling chance, yet Rajananda had bulked mightily in his heart. In his best moments he had faith--a priceless winning. From a white man's standpoint, he was on the longest possible chance, but only in the darker and more terrible passages could Romney accept this.... There was one moment of starlight, the last night of riding between Turgim and Nadiram, when he really had a great moment.

It was in solitude, as all such visitations arrive. Bamban was on the other camel with the driver, since provisions were down to small compass. He had fallen into a deep reverie and came-to with his hands out, palms stretched upward, eyes turned to the stars, his lips moving with a sentence like this:

"It's the love of the Long Road. I have found her. No man can spoil that. I will find her again--if not now, when the time comes--if not here, there--"

Romney laughed at the stars. He had been listening to his own soul, perhaps. It was stronger than he. He wanted her here and now; but the fact that the sentences had come through to his brain, had a significance that he was deeply-grounded enough in life to understand. And his palms had been stretched out. That meant submission, the world over.

He laughed again. He was very far from the world just now. Cities--even China--had distressed him. He must reach calm on that. He must go back and master that terror of men. The desert had given him a tithe of her mysticism and power. He would have to go back and make it tell among men. Would he have to go back alone?

Nifton Bend had mastered himself in the midst of men. Romney gripped a fuller understanding. The Hunchback had passed this barrier--after that his mate came to him. They were a completed circle--one even in their dying.... He would love to tell Anna Erivan that story.... In the very strength of his submission, his faith grew. The word of Rajananda returned. There had been no doubt in what the old master said. Anna Erivan was to wait for him in the hill-country. All that Rajananda had said about other things had been fulfilled.... And Nifton Bend had followed his own into the deeper dreaming. What did he mean by that? He seemed so glad to go, even though their lives were most beautiful together.

The next day Romney squinted up at the sun. Something of the same power came to him again. There was a cross in the blinding light, and after that a full sheaf of golden wheat. Of course it might have been only the glare in his eyes, but he felt very strong and that he would bring something of different manhood to the woman who waited for him.

Romney leaned forward.

Bamban accepted him. There were no two ways now. He had bowed in silence long after the story of the end of Minglapo, even lamenting a little that he had not been there. But Rajananda had somehow put a seal on his service to the white man. Romney regarded the _boy_ as he had never been quite able to do before, and respected the nature capable of such awe and reverence for the holy man. More especially admirable had Bamban proved on this last swift lonely journey.... They sat together during a long evening in the stone court of the Consulate at Nadiram (the door shut, the pole empty where the Russian flag had hung, and the hyenas whimpering afar off).

"I'd like to go on to-night," Romney muttered.

"It would kill the camels. They have been pressed as never before."

"Did you ask if there were two new camels here--exchange or rent?"

"Nothing of the kind."

"I shall wait."

"My master is parched," said Bamban.

When his servant went to the Rest House, Romney remained to contemplate his world a little from the west wall where he had sat so many nights. At last he arose and went to the door where she had stood--the place of their first meeting--and knelt a moment on the stone.

Even the next day the camels travelled but slowly. The same pair had come from Tushi-kow and they needed the rest of many days. From Nadiram to the place of the thonged stakes required two full days' travel; indeed, the night had fallen before they reached this point on the road to Wampli, and no desert-band was encountered on the journey.... The night was very still and hot. For two days a south wind had blown, and they breathed now the burning of the lower borders of the desert.

A deserted world. Romney could not eat. With deep strange kindness, the _boy_ pressed him to drink his tea. The white man had come and there was no sign. His head was heavy on his breast. When his thoughts became too swift and torturing for stillness, he arose from the fire and walked to the place of the stakes. From there he followed the way to the point where he had fallen in his revolt against the natives.... They had taken her on from this point--just here he was carried to the camel.... The sentences of the old master on that last day recurred persistently now.

"... He said that man goes alone on his mission and that woman waits. He said that the woman I had found was to wait in sanctuary.... He seemed to love her, too, Bamban--"

"Yes, he called her his daughter, and spoke twice of her filling his bowl in the stone square at Nadiram--"

"He said that he was going to her," Romney went on, his words heavy and slow, "--that she was waiting for me in the hills of his country--not far from this place."

"He will come soon," said Bamban, who was stretching out the blankets.

"He said there must be a new and different love between man and woman in the world. But, my God! they die! They seem to die when they love like that--"

"I do not understand," said Bamban.

"Why, I saw such a love--but there was no child. They died--in a room at Minglapo's house.... They did not have time--"

"You mean the General--"

"Yes--"

"His work was finished."

"But his woman wanted a baby. She told me long ago--"

"Perhaps she saw at the last that it was better to go--"

"I am afraid--afraid to-night--tired and done. I won't fail. I won't lie down--but I thought he would be here to take me--"

"He will come," said Bamban.

Romney was looking up at the lustrous film of night. His lips moved again:

"He said the builders were coming to lift the earth--that the saints were coming, for he could hear their songs--that the heroes were coming with light about their heads, their voices beautiful with the story of God--that they must come from the love of man and woman here--but they reach that love only to die--"

"My master must sleep," said Bamban.

"I am very far from sleep," said Romney; but the other pressed him down, and the small hard hand was in his, and there was no yellow and white between them. And almost instantly, Romney slept.

He awakened in a smoky red light, started up to see the heads of camels and horses against the east; then a voice: