Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War Page 9

  *CHAPTER VIII*

  *A Custom of Cathay*

  The Forbidden Mountain--Two from Canton--Clutching at Straws--IpsosCustodes--A Question of Dollars--The Yamen--The Majesty of theLaw--Judge and Jury--The Cage--Torture--Mr. Wang--Benevolence and Aid

  "Hai-yah!"

  "Ph'ho!"

  "Fan-yun!"

  "Fan-kwei!"

  "Look at his eyes! How big! Round as the moon. See how they goggle andglare!"

  "Yah! Ugly beast! His nose! Look at it! Like the beak of a hawk."

  "And his hair! Ch'hoy! Like the fleece of a sheep."

  "And his clothes! Ragged as a quail's tail."

  "No doubt of it, he is a foreign devil, ugly pig."

  "Why still alive? Kill him at once, say I. Foreign devils aredangerous to keep. One come, thousands follow. Kill at once; if we haddone that with the Russians, no more trouble. He will bring ill-luck onthe village. What luck have we had since the Russians came digging intothe Hill of a Thousand Perfumes? Who can say how many demons they letloose?"

  "Yah! Who has found ginseng since then, who? Nothing but ill-luck now.An Pow dead, strong as he was; Sun Soo drowned in the river; all ouroxen carried off by Ah Lum and his Chunchuses. Hai! hai! And thisforeign devil will make things worse. Why did they not chop off hishead at once?"

  To this conversation, carried on within a few feet of him, Jack listenedin a somewhat apathetic spirit. He was utterly dejected, worn out,humiliated. He lay in a large wooden cage near the headman's house inthe village of Tang-ho-kou in the Long White Mountains. It was asecluded spot, in a district supposed to be sacred to the emperor'sancestors, where it was sacrilege even for a Chinaman to tread. Theinhabitants were an exclusive community, ruled by a guild, owning onlynominal allegiance to the emperor, and essentially a self-governedrepublic. They were unmolested, for government is lax in Manchuria, andthe Long White Mountains are far from the capital and difficult groundto police; theoretically the guildsmen went in danger of their heads,practically they were monarch of all they surveyed.

  A group of the villagers was collected on this July evening about thecage, discussing the foreign prisoner, interrupting their conversationto snarl at him.

  "It is true; his head ought to be chopped off, but they were afraid."

  "Afraid of what?"

  "Of what might be done to them. The illustrious viceroy at Moukden isvery strict. Even a foreign devil may not be killed without leave.Why? Because if one is killed, there is trouble. The kings of theforeign devils are angry, and many good Chinese heads have to fall. Theyhave sent to ask leave to behead the barbarian: better still, to slicehim. He fought like a hill tiger when they caught him, and two men evennow lie wounded."

  "How did they catch him?"

  "A Canton man, mafoo to his excellency General Ping at Moukden, overtookhim riding in the hills. He was making a bird's noise with his lips;that was suspicious. But the Canton man was wary. He spoke to him as afriend, and rode alongside. Where did he come from? Thus asked theCanton man. The barbarian shook his head and answered in pidgin, thetongue of the foreign devil in the south. Yah! That was his ruin. OurCanton friend also speaks pidgin. 'You come from Canton?' says he.'Yes.' 'What part? Where did you live? Do you know this place orthat? What is your business?' Those were his questions; a shrewdfellow, the Canton man. He left him at the next village; then followedwith six strong men. They got ahead of him, hid in a copse by theroadside, and when the foreign devil came up, rushed out upon him. Theywere seven; but it was a hard fight. Ch'hoy! These barbarians are inleague with a thousand demons; that is why they are so fierce andstrong. But they got him at last, and brought him here; worse luck! heshall suffer for it yet."

  The crowd drew nearer to their helpless prisoner, stared at him, jeered,cast stones and offal, and, worked up by the teller of the story, wereonly kept from tearing him to pieces by the guard and the bars of thecage. Exposed without shelter to the broiling sun, Jack was dizzy andfaint. His clothes had been torn to tatters in the struggle, hispigtail wrenched from his head. He had had no food for many hours, and,what was worse, no water.

  He had been able to catch the gist of what the chief speaker in thecrowd had said. How stupid of him to whistle--a thing a Chinaman neverdoes! How unlucky that he had met a man from Canton! The dialects ofthe north and south differ so much that by professing to be a Southernerhe had come so far on his journey undetected; but in conversation with aCantonese his accent had inevitably betrayed him. And now he knew thathe could expect no mercy. A European carries his life in his hands inChina whenever he ventures alone out of the beaten track. In Manchuriajust then, with the natives embittered by the wanton destruction oftheir towns and villages, the chances of a captive being spared wereinfinitesimal. Only fear of the mandarins had apparently caused them tohold their hands in his case; but Jack had little reason to suppose thatthe mandarins would interfere to protect him. No order would be issued;but the villagers would receive a hint to do as they pleased; and Jackwell knew what their pleasure would be. In the unlikely event ofdiplomatic pressure being afterwards brought to bear, the mandarinscould still repudiate responsibility, and the villagers would suffer;several, probably the most innocent, would lose their heads. But Jackknew that he had placed himself outside the protection of the Britishflag. Neither the mandarins nor the villagers had anything to fear.

  The sun went down; the village watchman beat his wooden gong; and thegroup gradually dispersed. Only the guard was left. Parched withthirst, Jack ventured to address him, asking for a cup of water. Theman, with more humanity than the most, after some hesitation acceded.He was generous, and brought also a mess of rice. Greatly refreshed bythe meal, scanty though it was, Jack felt his spirits rising; with moreof hope he began to canvass the possibilities in his favour. But he hadto admit that they were slight. There was just one ray of light, dimindeed; but a pin-point glimmer is precious in the dark. He had heardthe villagers mention the brigand Ah Lum, the chief of the Chunchuses,who had levied upon their oxen. This was the chief whom Wang Shih hadleft Moukden to join. If Jack could only communicate with Wang Shihthere might still be a chance for him.

  He began a whispered conversation with his guard, and learnt that, a fewdays before, Ah Lum's band was known to be encamped in the hills sometwenty miles to the south-west. It was resting and recruiting itsstrength after a severe brush with a force of Cossacks, who had almostsucceeded in cutting it to pieces during a raid on the railway.

  "Do you know Wang Shih?"

  "No; Ah Lum has several lieutenants. His band numbers nearly eighthundred; there were more than a thousand before the fight with theRussians."

  "You know what a dollar is?"

  "It is worth many strings of cash."

  "Well, if you will take word to Mr. Wang about me, I will give you fiftydollars."

  "Where will you get them from?" asked the man suspiciously. "Were younot searched, and everything taken from you?"

  "True, I was searched; but the foreign devil has ways of getting moneythat the Chinaman does not understand. It is a small thing I ask you todo. The reward is great; fifty dollars, hundreds of strings of cash.You will never get such a chance again."

  True to the oriental instinct for haggling, the man argued and discussedfor some time before he at last agreed to Jack's proposition.

  "You must make haste," said Jack. "If the messenger to the mandarinreturns before you, I shall be killed and you will get no money."

  The man at once explained that it was impossible for him to leave thevillage; he must find a messenger.

  "Very well. He is to find Wang Shih and say that Jack Brown fromMoukden is in peril of death. You can say the name?"

  "Chack Blown," said the man.

  "That will do. Now, when can you send your man?"

  The guard said that he would be shortly relieved; then he would lose notime. In a few minutes a man
came to take his place, and Jack, withmingled hopes and fears, settled himself in a corner of the cage, tosleep if possible. Half an hour later the guard returned with thewelcome news that a messenger had started, after bargaining for twentyof the fifty dollars, and would travel all night on foot, for he had nohorse, and to hire one would awaken suspicion.

  "But," added the guard, "he is a trusty man, much respected, and a greathater of foreign devils, like all good Chinamen. If he had had his waythe honourable foreign devil would have been executed this afternoon."

  "Then how comes it," asked Jack, "that he is willing to go asmessenger?"

  The guide looked puzzled.

  "Surely the honourable barbarian understands? Did I not explain that Ipromised Mr. Fu twenty dollars?"

  Even in his misery Jack could not forbear a smile. His messenger wasdoubtless the man who had led the chorus of threats and insults a fewhours before. The man's convictions were no doubt still the same; butthe prospect of a few dollars had completely divorced precept frompractice.

  Then Jack reflected that the enterprise was a poor chance at the best.There was little likelihood of the man finding Wang Shih in time, and ifhe found him, it was uncertain whether his sense of gratitude wassufficiently keen to bring him to the rescue. Yet, in spite of all,Jack's impatient eager thought followed the messenger, as though hopecould give him winged feet.

  He spent a miserable night. In that hill country even the summer nightsare cold; and his clothes having been well-nigh torn from his back, hehad scant protection. He slept but little, lying awake for hourslistening to the mice and rats scampering around the cage, and to thelong-drawn melancholy howls of the village dogs.

  Soon after dawn he heard a great commotion in the village. His pulsebeat high; he hoped that Wang Shih had arrived. But when his friendlyguardian came to resume duty, his heart sank, for he learnt that theheadman's messenger to the local mandarin had returned, bringing wordthat the barbarian should be suitably dealt with by the guild. Themandarin had evidently washed his hands of the matter; the guard had nodoubt that when the headman was ready Jack would be taken before him,and he must expect no mercy. The people had never ceased to grumble atthe delay in executing him; and nothing could be hoped of the headman,for he was a native of Harbin, and bore a bitter grudge against theRussians, who in constructing their railway had cut through his familygraveyard, and in defiling the bones of his ancestors had done him theworst injury a Chinaman can suffer. Jack was to have no breakfast; hiscaptors were so sure of his fate that they thought it would be a merewaste to feed him.

  An hour passed--a terrible hour of suspense. The villagers began togather round the cage, and their looks of gleeful and malicioussatisfaction struck Jack cold. All at once they broke into loud shoutingas a posse of armed yamen-runners forced their way through. Jack wastaken out of the cage, and, surrounded by the runners and followed bythe jabbering crowd, was marched to the headman's house. He there foundhimself in the presence of a dignified Chinaman, a glossy blackmoustache encircling his mouth and chin, his long finger-nails denotingthat he did not condescend to menial work. He was in fact a prosperousfarmer, who, besides possessing large estates (to which he had no title)in the Forbidden Country, carried on an extensive trade in ginseng, aplant to which extraordinary medicinal virtues are attributed by theChinese, and so valuable that a single root will sometimes fetch as muchas L15 in the Peking market. The headman, feeling the importance of theoccasion, had got himself up in imitation of a magistrate, wearing around silk buttoned cap and a blue tunic.

  He had evidently made a study of the procedure in a mandarin's yamen.He was the only man seated at a long table; at each end stood a scribewith a dirty book, which might or might not have been a book of law,outspread before him; at his right hand stood a man with a lighted pipe,from which during the proceedings the headman took occasional whiffs; infront stood a group of runners in weird costumes, wearing black clothcaps with red tassels. From the sour expression on the Chinaman's faceJack knew that he was already judged and condemned; but he held his headhigh, and gazed unflinchingly on the stern-visaged Chinaman.

  It is proper for a prisoner to take his trial on his knees, and one ofthe runners approached Jack and sharply bade him kneel. He refused.Two other men came up with threatening gestures, and laid hands on himto force him down. He resisted; he had the rooted European objection tokowtow to an Asiatic. With too much good sense to indulge himself inheroics, he yet recalled at this moment by a freak of memory the lineswritten on the heroic Private Moyse of the Buffs. His back stiffened;there was the making of a pretty wrestling match; but the headman,mindful of the stout fight when the prisoner was arrested, and desiringthat the proceedings should be conducted with decorum, ordered his mento desist. Then he began his interrogatory.

  "You are an Russian?"

  "No, an Englishman."

  "Where have you been living?"

  "In Moukden."

  "What have you been doing there?"

  "I lived with my father."

  "Who is he?"

  "He is a merchant."

  "What is his name?"

  "He is known as Mr. Brown of Moukden."

  "What did he trade in?"

  "In many things. He supplied stores of all kinds."

  "To the Russians?"

  "Yes."

  "Assisting them to build the iron road that is the ruin of Manchuria?"

  "I believe your august emperor gave the Russians permission."

  "Do not dare to mention the Son of Heaven. Do not dare, I say, youforeign devil! Where is your father now?"

  "I do not know. He was arrested by the Russians."

  "Why?"

  "They accused him of giving information to the Japanese."

  "Did he give information?"

  "No."

  "Ch'hoy! Then clearly he was in league with the Russians. He, too, isworthy of death. What brought you into the Shan-yan-alin mountains?"

  "I am trying to find my father. I was on my way to Moukden."

  "Do you know that the Ch'ang-pai-shan is sacred to the emperor? Nobodyis allowed to tread these hills, on pain of death."

  "I am in your honour's august company."

  The headman winced and blinked. That was a home-thrust. He grew angry.

  "Enough! You are a foreign devil. By your own confession you have beenin league with the Russians, assisting them in their impious work,disturbing the feng-shui in the most sacred city of the virtuous Son ofHeaven. You are found in insolent disguise within the limits of theForbidden Mountains; you resisted lawful arrest, to the severe injury oftwo of my officers. It is clear that you are a vile example of theouter barbarians who are scheming to drive the Manchu from hisimmemorial lands, defiling the graves of our fathers, and bringing oursons to shame. You are not fit to live; every one of your offences ispunishable with death; in their sum you are lightly touched by mysentence upon you, that you suffer the ling-ch'ih, and then be beheaded.Confess your crimes."

  Jack had answered the man's questions briefly and calmly, and listenedwith unmoved countenance to his speech. The decision was only what hehad expected. The worst was to come. He knew that by the laws andcustoms of China he could not be executed until he had acknowledged thejustice of the sentence and made open confession of his crime; he knewalso that, failing to confess voluntarily, he would be tortured by allthe most fiendish methods devised by Chinese ingenuity until confessionwas extorted from his lacerated, half-inanimate frame. The end would bethe same; for a moment, in his helplessness and despair, he thought itwould perhaps be better to acquiesce at once and get it over. But thenpride of race stepped in. Could he, innocent as he felt himself to be,act a lie by even formally acquiescing in the sentence? He did not knowhow far his fortitude would enable him to bear the tortures in store;but he would not allow the mere prospect to cow him. He had paused buta moment.

  "I have nothing to confess," he said.

  The headman gave a grunt of sat
isfaction.

  "Put him in the cage," he said.

  Jack's blood ran cold in spite of himself. The word used by his judgewas not the name of the cage in which he had already been confined, butmeant an instrument of torture. Amid the exultant hoots of the crowd ofnatives, who spat on the ground as he passed, he was hauled from thepresence and taken to a yard near by. In the centre of it stood abamboo cage somewhat more than five feet high. Its top consisted of twomovable slabs of wood which, when brought together, left a hole largeenough to encircle a man's neck, but too small for his head to passthrough. The height of the cage was so adjusted, that when the prisonerwas inside with his head protruding from the top he could only avoidbeing hung by the neck so long as his feet rested on a brick. By and bythat would be removed; he might defer strangulation for a short time bystanding on tiptoe, but that would soon become too painful. Jack hadnever seen the instrument in use, but he had heard of it, and he quailedat the imagination of the torture he was to endure.

  His arms were bound together; he was locked into the cage; his head wasenclosed; and the mob jeered and yelled as, the brick being knocked awayafter a few minutes, he instinctively raised himself on his toes to easethe pressure on his neck. How long could he endure it? he wondered.Had the messenger failed to find Wang Shih? Had some perverse fateremoved the Chunchuse band at this moment of dire peril? Humanlyspeaking, his salvation depended on Wang Shih, and on him alone: was hislast hope to prove vain? Should he now yield, confess, and sparehimself further torture? Already he was suffering intense pain; hegained momentary relief for his feet by drawing up his legs, a movementwhich brought his whole weight upon his neck; but that was endurableonly for a few seconds. He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of theyelling mob; pressed his lips together lest a moan should escape him: "Iwill never give in, never give in." he said to himself; "pray God itmay not be long."

  The pain became excruciating; he no longer saw or heard the yellingfiends gloating over every spasm of his tortured body; he was fastsinking into unconsciousness, and the headman, fearful of losing hisvictim, was about to give the order for his temporary release, whensuddenly his ears caught the sound of galloping horses. The noisearound him lulled; he heard loud shouts in the distance, and drawingever nearer. Then the crowd scattered like chaff, and through theirmidst rode a brawny figure brandishing a riding-whip of bamboo. Dashingthrough the amazed throng at the head of thirty shouting bandits heleapt from his horse, sprang to the cage, tore away the catch holdingthe two panels together, and Jack fell, an unconscious heap, to thebottom of the cage.

  The first alarm being now passed, the villagers raised a hubbub. Theyclustered about the new-comers, protesting with all their might that theprisoner was merely a foreign devil, an impious pig. But Wang Shihcleared a space with his whip; then, springing to the saddle again, heraised his voice in a shout that dominated and silenced the clamour ofthe mob.

  "Hai-yah! What are you doing, men of Tang-ho-kou? Is this foreigner aRussian that you treat him thus? A fine thing truly! You skulk in yourfangtzes, afraid to come out with the honourable Ah Lum and me and fightthe Russians, and yet you are bold enough to catch a solitary man, afriend of the Chinaman, and to misuse him thus because he is alone!Know you not that he is an enemy of the Russians? They have imprisonedhis father; it is reverence for his father that brings him here. Isfilial piety so little esteemed in Tang-ho-kou to-day? Ch'hoy! I seeyour headman aping a lordly mandarin; let him listen. I say you arelucky I do not burn your village and execute a dozen of you as you wereabout to execute the stranger. But I will be merciful. I will takefrom you a contribution of five thousand taels for my chief; and yourheadman--ch'hoy! he shall stand for half an hour in the cage. Thatshall suffice. But beware how you offend again. Learn to distinguishyour friends from your enemies--an Englishman from the Russians whom thedwarfs of Japan are helping us to drive back to the frozen north. Takeheed of what I say--I, Wang Shih, the worthless servant of hisexcellency Ah Lum, the virtuous commander of many honourable brigands."

  This speech made an impression upon the crowd. The headman wasbeginning to slink away, but Wang Shih noticed the movement and sent oneof his men after him. In spite of his protests he was dragged to thecage, from which Jack, now fully conscious, had been removed; he wasfastened in it, and compelled to tiptoe as his erstwhile prisoner haddone. But after some minutes Jack, with a vivid remembrance of his ownsufferings, interceded for the wretched man, and Wang Shih released him,bidding him collect from the villagers the tribute he had demanded. Thepresence of the thirty well-armed Chunchuses was a powerful spur tohaste, and within half an hour the amount was raised. Meanwhile Jack'sneck had been bathed, and his muscles were beginning to recover from thestrain to which they had been put. He declared that he was well enoughto ride away with his deliverers. He had first to pay the guard thefifty dollars agreed upon. Not wishing to disclose the hiding-place inthe soles of his boots where he kept his notes, he borrowed from WangShih the necessary sum in bar silver. Then, mounted upon a horseborrowed from the headman's own stables, he rode with the brigands fromthe village.