"From here it is exactly 120 _li_--forty miles--to the nearest Gate of the capital," declared the young man in his fluent vernacular. "It would be possible in a single day to walk thither. But allow five days, then one extra day to make your way through the city to the foreign quarter."

He unslung a big bag of blue cloth. "Here is sufficient to eat--here is food for six days so that you need ask no one for a.s.sistance."

The boy took the package. There was a set expression on his face.

"I am ready," he said abruptly. "For two hours I shall travel. Then I must rest. At dawn I start again. If I have good fortune tomorrow I shall reach the city."

He scrambled on to the side-path running along the edge of the fields of millet, and was soon lost to view.

CHAPTER XXVII

This time his emotions were different from what they had been on his first lonely journey. Then the whole world had been spread before him like some feast, and his flight through danger had possessed a sacrificial quality. The freedom after the days of confinement with the sound of dropping rifle-fire ever in his ears, had given life a new zest. The experience had been wonderful. The fascination of coming upon the overwhelming army had been like a dream from a theatre. Now, however, the feast was over. He had exhausted everything. He knew what was before him, just as he knew what was behind him.

Yet even in such circ.u.mstances his sense of duty held him to his pledge.

The Chinese are like that, doing exactly what they undertake to do, in spite of some misconceptions which have lately grown up. He travelled until it was night--slept in the fields--rose at the first streak of dawn and pushed on with stubborn energy until he was exhausted. Rubbing his tired legs, he wondered whether he dared enter a village to find out exactly where he was.

The country had become strange to him for he had travelled northwards along the curve of a vast semi-circle. Very close towards the west the mountains and foot-hills of the Mongolian Pa.s.ses now frowned down on him, the barren land looking purple in the sunlight which poured over the mountain brim. Twice he had seen trains of camels pa.s.s slowly along as if all the world were at peace. But warned by their clanking bells, each time he had hid himself until they were far away. Several times, too, during that day he had also seen low clouds of dust hanging in the air above roadways; but even his expert eyes could not tell at such distances whether the dust signified flocks of sheep or cavalcades of bellicose hors.e.m.e.n.

He had had too many narrow escapes to wish to risk anything more. He was wandering between the fringes of two rival armies and the prospect was uninviting. He feared potential enemies; there were potential enemies everywhere; and as he sat and rested he shook his head. It was the thought that he was doing what the other messengers had failed to do which was the most disconcerting thing to him.

Why had the others not done what they had undertaken to do? All the time that he rested this thought recurred to him with ever greater force.

Perhaps there was some secret reason; they knew something he did not know. Suspicion began to gain him; for suspicion is the twin-brother of fear and the twain can never be long separated.

He had been weak to accept--he ought to have refused. There were plenty of his fellow-countrymen with the advancing army who could have been ordered to do the same work. To go one way was all right--it had been right for him to obey his master and go for succour. But to come back: to do the thing twice--no....

He looked to the right--he looked to the left; and angrily he rose and hitched his trousers higher and tightened his belt. The sun had gone down behind the mountains now, and the perspiration which had covered his body had fully dried. Two hours more and it would be pitch-dark again--long shadows were even now creeping into the mountain hollows and making them seem blue-black.

He began to feel lonely at the prospect of another night in the fields.

Yet he started off, wondering how he would dare to go through the gates of the capital on the morrow. For the capital was not more than a dozen miles away; it could not be more than that. Soon he would be able to see the outline of the city walls.

Onward he went now pa.s.sing patches growing Indian corn; for the soil had become too arid for anything else to grow. There was no one about in the fields since the harvest was still far off; and this loneliness preyed on him more and more.

Onward and onward he went in the oncoming dusk. Then, just below the shoulder of the hill which he was rounding, he saw something which did not belong to the landscape. Presently he made out quite clearly a little knot of people. They seemed to him to be standing motionless, as if something chained them to the spot--as if something had caused them to become inanimate. That at once attracted his attention.

Cautiously he approached, keeping near a large patch of Indian corn into which he could run if there were any indications of hostility. But n.o.body turned, n.o.body paid the slightest attention to him. Fifteen or twenty people were standing there in a circle gazing at something fixedly.

He approached so noiselessly that only when he was a short distance away was his presence noticed. Then his small, slight person caused a commotion and several commenced to run away. Only when they saw that it was only a boy did their strange panic subside.

It was necessary for him to push his way past the people to see. With his eyes wide open from emotion he suddenly understood what it was.

"_Ai-ai-ai!_" he exclaimed several times loudly and involuntarily.

A man had been buried alive in the earth up to his neck and the ground stamped in round his head. He was quite dead now. His head, which lolled to one side, and his gla.s.sy eyes showed that; the anguish had long pa.s.sed. A little piece of paper, with one big character written in black on it, was stuck on a millet-stalk beside him.

For a full minute the boy gazed silently as the others were doing, awe-struck and yet utterly fascinated. For death is like that in the East; it seems to fascinate the people because of its unutterable finality.

"What is it--what does the writing say?" he inquired at last in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, nudging the man next to him.

The man turned:

"The soldiers caught this one carrying a written message from the foreign devils and they buried him thus so that he might die."

Very pale, the boy waited before he spoke again.

"Has he been here long?" he inquired at last.

"Five days. Only this morning did the soldiers leave, being sure that he was dead."

Then silence fell on the group again. Several generations had pa.s.sed since this old Tartar torture had been seen, although the tradition of it still lived and was known to all.

The boy remained there after all had gone without a movement or a remark, pretending that he was absorbed by the spectacle. Then, when he was quite sure that he was alone, with a furious gesture he pulled up the little stick decorated with the cruel character, and broke it to pieces. Now falling on his knees, he began heaping the earth over the dead man's head. He worked quickly with his naked hands which were hurt and bruised by the stony soil, but soon he had made a little mound which obliterated the hideous sight. If he had been asked why he had done this he could not have said. But it soothed him and somehow seemed a loyal and profitable action. Then, with fear in his heart he hastened off, running swiftly in spite of the darkness.

As he ran he thought. It was the written message, of course, which had betrayed the man. He had not been cunning enough. w.a.n.g the Ninth, with a sudden movement, pulled out the piece of paper he was carrying in his belt. It was too big to do anything else with it. Rolling it up tightly he suddenly thrust it into his mouth, and swallowed it down with a gulp.

He sat down after that with his legs wide apart, wondering whether it would kill him. In a country where suicide by the method of swallowing is common, his fear was not strange. He was not afraid of death--what he feared was the pain, the long delay. Mechanically he rubbed his chest, and presently all discomfort pa.s.sed.

"It has gone done," he exclaimed, rising and taking a few steps. Then he thought of something else, and sat down once more. Taking off one of his shoes he opened the lining and hid the gold coin which had been given him. Now comforted he made his way to some trees and curled himself up under them until there should be daylight once more.

Daylight soon came, for he was dog-tired and slept a dreamless sleep. He rose yawningly and listened for a long time to the early morning twittering of the young sparrows. Then, he felt the lining of his shoe to a.s.sure himself of the safety of his precious piece of gold.

Presently, in a very leisurely manner he started off, for he did not wish to approach the city until the busy midday hours. As he pa.s.sed over a piece of high ground, in the distance the familiar grey walls made a rim of black on the horizon, clearly marked by the great gate-towers.

The sun coming up over from behind intensified the outline. It was like a city rising out of the desert, and the sight so fascinated him that for a long time he stood motionless gazing at it.

He was back again....

At length he sat down and ate heartily of his supply of food which was not yet exhausted. Then, going into a vegetable-garden, he begged a drink of water from an old man who was working over some cabbages and raising water by winding up buckets from a shallow well. From him he learnt that it had been quite quiet in this district for many days.

There had been no soldiers or marauders.

"It is said, however, that the foreign devils are coming," concluded the old man. "Although victories are reported against them it is said that they continue to advance. It is even said that they are determined to enter the capital. Where do you go?"

"I must enter the city," remarked the boy. "It is family affairs which force me to travel. Otherwise I would run far and hide."

The old man shook his head and bent down again over his cabbages.

"Some run in one direction and some in another," he declared in a rambling way. "But I being old stay to meet my fate. As for the city who can tell. The Sword Society has been wholly suppressed, it is said; yet our soldiery are every whit as bad."

They talked in this strain for many minutes only mentioning the outward and visible things in the manner of people who labour; and presently the boy tramped away down the dusty road.

He wondered whether there was any firing now; he wondered whether he would find things in the foreign quarter as he had left them. He had been gone only fourteen days--it would be fourteen days exactly when night fell.

It seemed to be quite peaceful. Not a sound from big guns. Once, as he thought of it, a great chill struck into his heart. Supposing the resistance had been overcome.... It seemed impossible. For the rumours of that would have reached everywhere with lightning speed; the old man with the cabbages would have known everything about it.

He was not very far off from the walls now--not more than three or four miles. He could see the end of one of the suburbs beyond the walls: he picked out the landmarks unerringly.

He headed for that direction.