In Red and Gold

CHAPTER VI – CONFLAGRATION

A BEWILDERED, crushed Rocky Kane stood tightly holding the rail; staring down at the softly black water that ran so smoothly along the hull beneath; muttering in whispers that at intervals broke out into heated speech. This strange princess had humiliated him perfectly, completely; there had been nothing he could say, nothing to do but go; and she had let him go without a look or a further thought. He told himself it was unfair. He had swallowed his pride and apologized. Could a man do more?

But pressing upward through this chaotic mental surface of hurt pride and insistent self-justification came an equally insistent memory of his outrageous conduct toward her. As the moments passed, the memory intensified into a painfully vivid picture. His native intelligence, together with the undeveloped decency that was somewhere within him, kept at him with dart-like, stinging thoughts. He had insulted not only herself but her race as well, in assuming a ruthless right to make free with her.

Then self-justification again; how could he know that she spoke English and dressed like the girls back home? Was it fair of her to masquerade like that?

He was miserably wrong, of course. And his nerves were terribly upset. That was at least part of the trouble, his nerves; he lighted a cigarette to steady them. The match shook in his hand. This nervous trembling had been increasing lately; he found it an alarming symptom. Perhaps the trouble was inherent weakness. Ability like his father’s often skipped a generation; and character. Yes, he was weak, he had failed at everything. His college career was a wreck; a monstrous wreck, he believed, echoes from which would follow him through life. To his incoherent mind it seemed that he had about all the vices – drinking, gambling, pursuing helpless girls, even smoking opium. His one faith had been money; but now he suddenly, wretchedly, knew that even the money might fail him. It was as easy to toss away a million as a hundred on the red or the black. And then young men who wasted themselves acquired diseases from the terrors of which no fortune could promise release; a thought that had long dwelt uncomfortably in a sensitive, deep-shadowed corner of his brain… a brain that was racing now, beyond control.

Her unfairness lay in so publicly snubbing him. Her father knew the facts, as did Miss Carmichael, and the big mate, that old preacher with a mysterious past. Who was he, anyhow – setting up to regulate other people’s lives?

Then rose among these turbulent thoughts a picture of the princess as she was now, there in the social hall. Tears welled into his eyes; he brushed them away, lighted a fresh cigarette and deeply inhaled the smoke. He had rushed out; suddenly, wildly, he desired to rush back. She was beautiful. She had quaintly moving charm. A rare little lady! It seemed almost that he might compel her to listen while he explained. But what was it that he was to explain? That he was some other than the dirty sort they all knew him to be, that he had proved himself to be?

The wild thoughts were like a beating in his brain. It was his father’s fault, this crazy nervousness, and his mother’s… He hated that big mate. Self-pity rose like a tidal wave, and engulfed him. He stared and stared at the softly dark water. Beginning with about his sixteenth year he had wrestled often with the thought of suicide, as so many sensitive young men do. Now the water fascinated him; it was so still, it moved so resistlessly on to the sea. “A pretty easy way to slip out. Just a little splash – I could climb down. Nobody’d know. Nobody’d care much of a damn. Oh, the old man would think he cared, but he wouldn’t. He’ll never make a bank president out of me. And that’s all he wants.”

A voice, guardedly friendly, said, “Better not let yourself talk that way.”

He turned with a start. Miss Carmichael was standing there by the rail. So he had talked aloud – another unpleasant symptom.

“You – you saw what – ”

She inclined her head. “What’s the good of letting it upset you? Lie down for a while. A pipe or two wouldn’t hurt you. You’re nervous as a witch. It would soothe you.” He stared at her.

“Better lie down anyway,” she said, taking his arm and moving him toward his cabin. “You don’t want them to see you like this.”

He yielded. His will was powerless. He dropped on the seat, while she lingered, almost sympathetically, in the doorway, an unbelievably girlish figure in the half light. Something of the influence she had been exerting on him – which had seemed to die when Miss Hui Fei entered the social hall – fluttered to life now. He found relief, abruptly, in recklessness.

“Come on in,” he said huskily. “Have a pipe with me!”

Quietly, wholly matter-of-fact, she closed and locked the door. “We’ll shut the window, too, this time,” she said.

“You needn’t turn on the light.” He was reaching for his trunk. “Excuse me – a minute! I can see all right. I know just where everything is.”

“Leave the trunk out,” said she. “And lay your suit-case on it. Then we can put the lamp on that.”

Miss Hui Fei led Doane to a seat under the curving front windows.

“We mus’ talk as if ever’thing were ver’ pleasan’.” The question rose again, but without bitterness now, how she could smile so brightly. “I have learn’ some more. It is ver’ difficul’ to tell you, but… it is difficul’ to think, even… so strange that at firs’ I laugh’.”… Yes, there were tears in her eyes. But how bravely she fought them back and smiled again. He felt his own eyes filling, and turned quickly to the window; but not so quickly that she failed to see. She was sensitively observant, despite her own trouble. For a moment, then, they were silent, lost in a deep common sympathy that was bread to his starving heart.

It was in that moment that their little conspiracy nearly broke down. Had any of the others in the big room looked just then, gossip would have spread swiftly; certainly sharp-eyed mandarins would have found matter for consideration; for Hui Fei impulsively found his hand as it rested between them on the seat, and was met with a quick warm pressure.

And then, in another moment, she was speaking, quite herself. “My maid has foun’ out tha’ they are sending the head eunuch from the Forbidden C’ty to our home. An’ that is agains’ the law.”

“Of course,” said he. “Even the Old Buddha never tried but once to send out a eunuch on government business. That was the notorious An Te-hai. And he never returned; he was caught in Shantung – in a barge of state on the Grand Canal – and beheaded. Even the Old Buddha couldn’t do that. This woman is amazing. But of course there is really no government at Peking now – only this strange anachronism.”

“He has orders to seize all father’s beautifu’ things the paintings an’ stones an’ carvings.”

“The rebels may catch him. They’d make short work of him.”

“I ask’ about that The rebels have cross’ the river from Wu Chang to Han Yang, but they have not yet reach’ the railway. That comes into Hankow from this side.”

“Even so,” he mused, “the train service from Peking must have broken down. Though they’re running troop trains south, of course.”

“I haven’t tol’ you all of it.” Her voice was low and unsteady. “This eunuch, Chang Yuan-fu, is ordered, by the empress, to take me to Peking too. They are all whispering about it. The empress is angry at my foreign ways, and will marry me to a Manchu duke. She di’n’ like it when my father tol’ her I mus’ marry no man I di’n’ choose myself… I think you ough’ to smile.”

Mechanically he obeyed.

“It seems almos’ funny.” murmured Miss Hui. “Sometimes I can no’ believe tha’ such a thing could happen. When I think of America an’ England and all the worl’ we know to-day, I can no’ believe that such wicked things can happen.”

It was anything but unreal to Doane. He knew too well that America and England, even all the white peoples, make up but a fraction of the inhabitants of this strange earth. His eyes filled again as he considered the possible – yes, the probable fate of the lovely girl at his side. In such a time of disorganization the reckless Manchu woman at Peking could do much. Chang might lose his head at the sound of gunfire in Han Yang and fly back to the capital, or he might not. A capable and corrupt eunuch would run heavy risks to gain such a prize. For a huge prize the viceroy’s collection would indeed be; many of the priceless stones and paintings would never reach the throne.

The thought came of trying to persuade her to save herself; a thought that was as promptly discarded. She would not leave her father while he lived. He, of course, would not take his own life elsewhere than in his ancestral home. And to that home, with his inevitable escort of underlings and soldiers, was hurrying – if not already there – this Chang Yuan-fu, one of those powerfully venomous creatures that have figured darkly at intervals in the history of China.

Doane spoke low and quickly: “Can you find out when Chang’s train left Peking, Miss Hui?”

“No, I have try ver’ har’ to learn. I think they don’ know that. It is so importan’ to know that, too, because my father” – Her voice faltered. Doane once again, with a swift glance to left and right, took her hand and, for a brief moment, gripped it firmly. “You haven’ yet spoken to my father?”

“Not yet, dear Miss Hui… you must smile!.. I have found it very difficult to think out a way of approaching him. Your father is a great viceroy. He might take it ill that I should venture to interfere in what he would feel to be the supreme sacred act of his life. He might” – Doane hesitated – “even for you he might feel that he couldn’t turn back.”

“I know,” she said, very low. “I have thought of tha’, too. But they shall never take me to Peking.”

He understood. The suicide of girls as a protest against unwelcome marriage was a commonplace in China. It was, indeed, for thousands the only way out. She knew that, of course. And she spoke there out of her blood.

“I will speak to-morrow,” he murmured. “Before we reach Huang Chau. We have nothing to lose. He can only rebuff me.”

He felt now that in this tragic drama was bound up all that might be left to him of happiness. The guiding motive of his life was – there was a divine recklessness in the thought – to save Hui Fei, to make her smile again, with a happy heart. She whispered now:

“Thank you.”

He asked her, abruptly changing his manner, almost distantly courteous, about her life in an American college. Little by little, as she made the effort to follow him into this impersonal atmosphere, her brightness returned.

The record was scraping its last. Applause came from the dancers, in which she joined. The Manila Kid wound the machine again, and the dancers swung again into motion.

“I am asking too much of you,” she murmured. “But I have been frighten’. I coul’n’ think wha’ to do.”

He had to set his teeth on the burning phrases that rushed from his long unpractised heart, eager for utterance. “I will take you back to your father,” he said.

In his mind it was settled. Whatever strange events might lie before them, they should not take her to Peking. His own life, as well as hers, stood in the way. It had come to that with him.

It was near to midnight when the Yen Hsin, on advices from Hankow, headed again upstream. At the first throb of the engine the white passengers stopped dancing and came out on deck. There was gaiety, even a little cheering.

It was perhaps two hours later when Doane, asleep in his cabin, heard the shots, confused with the incidents of a dream. But at the first screams of the women below decks he sprang from his berth. Some one was banging on his door; he opened; the second engineer stood there, coatless and hatless, a revolver in his hand, and a little blood on his cheek.

“All hell’s broken loose below,” said the young Scotchman. “Chief’s down there. I tried to get to him, but – God, they’re all over the place – fighting one another.”

“Who are, MacKail?” Doane hurriedly drew on trousers and coat, and thrust his feet into his slippers.

“The viceroy’s soldiers. Revolutionary stuff.”

Doane got his automatic pistol from a drawer in the desk; quickly filled an extra clip with cartridges; went forward. The Scotchman had already gone aft.

The engine was still running, the steamer moving steadily up the moonlit river. The uproar below decks sounded muffled, far-away. It might have been nothing more than a little night excitement in a village along the shore. The shooting continued. Men were shouting. There were more shrill screams; and then splashes overside. As he hurried forward, staring over the rail, Doane caught a passing glimpse of a face down there in the foam and a white arm. The white men were stumbling drowsily out of their cabins; he saw one of the customs men, in pajamas, and Tex Connor. They hurled questions at him but he brushed them aside.

Captain Benjamin stood over the cringing pilot with a revolver.

“Engine room don’t answer!” he shouted coolly enough. “And we can’t get to it. Take MacKail and try to get through. I’ll make this rat keep her in the channel.”

Doane ran back. More of the men were out, talking excitedly together. He paused to say: “Get any weapons you have, every man of you, and see that none but women get up to this deck! Keep the men down!”

MacKail stood at the head of the port after stairway, outside the rear cabins, a big Australian beside him.

“They’re just naturally carving one another up,” observed the Australian.

“Come,” said Doane, and went down the steps.

The noise and confusion were great down here. Women were crowding out of the lower cabins, sobbing hysterically, tearing their hair and beating their breasts, crowding forward and aft along the deckway or climbing awkwardly over the rail and slipping off into the river.

Doane shouted a reassuring word in their own tongue; pointed to the steps; finally drew one girl forcibly back from the rail and started her up. Others followed, screaming all the way. Still others clung to the white men.

Doane broke away and plunged into the dim interior of the boat. Most of the lights were out. Dark figures were wrestling. There were grunts, groans, savage cries of rage and triumph. A huge pole-knife caught the light as it swung. Doane was aware of men breathing hard as they struggled.

He stumbled over an inert body; would have fallen had not the Australian caught him. A tall soldier who lunged toward them with a dripping bayonet was shot by MacKail… There were no means here of distinguishing the parties to this savage struggle, but in the inner corridor it was lighter. Near at hand two of the republicans – queues cut off, dressed in an indistinguishable but odd-appearing uniform of some light gray stuff with a white cloth tied about the left arm, had heaped bodies across the corridor and were shooting over them at a darker mass just forward of the engine room.

Doane shouted at the republicans, ordering them to withdraw. They shook their heads angrily. One, even as he tried to reply, sank into a limp heap with a dark stream trickling from a hole in his forehead. His comrade bent low to reload his rifle. With the shouting of many hoarse voices the dark mass up forward came charging down the corridor. Doane was firing into them when MacKail and the Australian caught his arm and drew him back through the doorway. From that position, however, all three could shoot the blue-clad attackers as they plunged by the opening. Then, however, they had to defend themselves. The soldiers came on by dozens. Doane had his second clip of cartridges in his pistol.

“Get back!” he shouted to the others. “Guard the steps – they’ll be coming up for loot!”

They retreated. Two bodies lay huddled on the steps they had left but a few moments earlier. A few dead women were on the deck and one or two men.

Even as they stepped over the bodies and mounted to the deck above, all three men, their faculties sharpened to a supernatural degree by the ugly thrill of combat, took in the details of what was evidently accepted among these republican rebels as their uniform – a suit of unmistakably American woolen underwear, the drawers supported by bright-colored American suspenders; socks worn outside (like the suspenders) with garters that bore the trademark name of an American city, and finally, American shoes. So the enthusiasm of these young revolutionists for the greatest of republics found expression! And across the breast of each, lettered on a strip of white cloth, was the inscription that Sun Shi-pi had so glibly translated as “Dare to Die.” Sun must have brought along these supposedly Western uniforms in his pedler’s trunks.

It was never to be known what surprising incidents had preceded this sudden slaughter. The chief engineer might have told, but his mutilated body Doane found, on his second attempt to get through, lying just across the sill of the engine room, as if he had been stepping out to reason with them.

The entire battle lasted barely half an hour. It was, for the white folk, a period of confusion and terror. Toward the end, the blue men, utter outlaws now, made rush after rush up the various stairways and ladders, only to be fought back at every point by the white men and the few surviving officers of his excellency’s force. They were like the most primitive savages, knowing neither fear nor reason. The blood-lust that at times captures the spirit of this normally phlegmatic and reasonable people drove them for the time to the point of madness.