Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China

Peter Moore, our most shining example. Allah, by Allah! The old philanderer is assuredly of the faith!" "I am quite serious, Mr. Moore." "As I was afraid, Miss Borria. Seriously, if you must know it, then here goes: As soon as I saw you I was mad about you! Call it infatuation, call it a rush of blood to my foolish young head, call it anything you like----" "Why don't you stop all this?" she broke him off. "All what?" he inquired innocently. "This--this life you are leading. This indolence. This constant toying with danger. This empty life. This sham of adventure-love that you affect. It will get you nothing. I know! I, too, thought it was a great lark at first, and I played with fire; and you know just what happens to the children who play with fire. "At first you skirt the surface, and then you go a little deeper, and finally you can do nothing but struggle. It is a terrible feeling, to find that your wonderful toy is killing you. Certain people in China, Mr. Moore, are conducting practises that you of the western world frown upon. And blundering upon these practices, as perhaps you have, you believe you are very bold and daring, and you are thrilled as you rub elbows with death, in tracing the dragons to their dens." "Dragons!" The syllables cracked from Peter's lips, and his wits, which were wandering in channels of their own while this lecture progressed, suddenly were bundled together, and he was alert and keenly attentive. "Or call them what you will," went on the girl in a low-pitched monotone. "I call them dragons, because the dragon is a filthy, wretched symbol." "You have some knowledge of my encounters with--dragons?" put in Peter as casually as he was able. "I profess to know nothing of your encounters with anybody," replied the girl quietly and patiently. "I base my conclusions only on what I have seen. This morning I saw you throw a Chinese coolie into the harbor at Batavia. It happens that I have seen that coolie before, and it also happens that I know a little--do not ask me what I know, for I will never tell you--a little about the company that coolie keeps." "I guess you are getting a little beyond my depth," stated Peter uncomfortably. "Would you mind sort of summing up what you've just said?" "I mean, I want to try to persuade you that the life you have been living is wrong. At the same time, I want you to help me, as only you can help me, in putting a life of wretchedness behind me. It is asking a great deal, a very great deal, but in return I will give you more than you will ever realize, more than you can realize, for you cannot realize the danger that surrounds your every movement, and will continue to surround you until they--_they_--are assured that you have decided to forget them." Peter shook his head, forgetting to wonder what an officer might think upon finding the door locked. Would the jovial little captain be quite so jovial viewing these incriminating circumstances? Not likely. But Peter had dismissed the fat captain from his mind, together with all other alien thoughts, as he concentrated upon the amazing words of this exceedingly amazing and beautiful girl. She was looking down at the chevron of gold sparks on his sleeve. "I can tell you but one more thing of consequence," she continued. "It is this: Together we can stand; divided we will fall, just as surely as the sun follows its track in the heavens. I have a plan that will offend you--perhaps offend you terribly--but there is no other way. When _they_ know that we have decided to forget them, we can breathe easily. Our secrets, grown stale, are not harmful to them." "I am always open to any reasonable inducement," Peter said dryly. The eyes meeting his were quite wild. "How would you like to go to some lovely little place to have money, to live comfortably, even luxuriously, with a woman of whom you could be justly proud, and who would bend every power with the sole view of making you happy?"--she was blushing hotly--"and all this woman would demand in return would be your loyalty, your respect--and later your love, if that were possible." "But this--this is--astounding!" Peter exclaimed. "I expected you to say that. But let me assure you, I have thought this over. I have given it every possible consideration, and now I know there is no other way. I want to leave China. I want to go away forever and ever. I must leave." Her shoulders jerked nervously. "My life has been miserable--so miserable. And I am not brave enough to go through with it alone. I am afraid, terribly afraid. And afraid of myself, and of my weakness. I must be encouraged, must have some one to make me strong and brave, and afterward to take the good in me and bring it out, and kill the bad." She relinquished Peter's hand and thumped her chest with small fists. "There is good in me; but it has never been given a chance! I want a man who will bring that good out, a man who will make me fine and true and honorable. For such a man I would give everything--my life!" She lowered her voice. "I would give my best--my love. When I saw you lift the coolie, after he showed you his knife, I thought you were such a man; and when I looked into your face I believed I had found such a man. The rest--remains--for you to say." "Where do you want me to t-take you?" demanded Peter. "Ah! That is of so little importance! To Nara--Nagoya--to Australia--America." She shrugged, as if to say, "and little I care." "Now I am offering you only two rewards for that sacrifice--your safety against _them_--and money. You can name your price. I feel that you will come to love me; but that can come, if it cares, any time. When you want me--I will be waiting. I want you to consider this now. Now! Will you? Tell me that you will!" "I--I don't know what to say!" stammered Peter in a husky voice. "Are--you are not joking, are you, Miss Borria? You can't be! But this is so serious! Shocking! Why, you never saw me before! Why should you pick me for such a thing when you never saw me? You don't know me. You don't know what a brute I might be. Why, I might be married for all you know----" "I am reasonably sure," said the girl with some of her former serenity. "But this--this is unbelievable!" cried Peter. "You never saw me before to-day. Why, you're a nice girl. You're not the kind of girl who runs away with a man at first sight. You're not in love with me at all. Not at all. Miss Borria----" A flame of hot suspicion shot athwart Peter's mind. He seized her hands, glared into her eyes, dragged her to her feet. "See here!" he clamored. "Tell me what you really want. What's your game, eh? You're a wise little bird, you are. I may look stupid, I may not see all the way through this talk you've been giving me. You're holding back. What is it? Come on! Out with it!" She was not disturbed in the least at his harshness, nor did she seemingly disapprove of the rough way he handled her. "I am married," she said simply. CHAPTER IV To Peter this revelation was like the addition of a single grain to a bucket brimming with sand. "Well, what of it?" he barked. "To a man who is fat and untidy, a man old enough to be my father, who treats me as if I were a thief, or a dog. I loathe him. And he detests me. You see"--she smiled ironically--"we are not very happy. I ran away from him a month ago, from Hong Kong. I ran as far as Singaraja, and now I have to go back because I have not the courage to stay away. A stronger will would make me give him up. Would make me go away, and stay. And I grabbed at you." "As a drowning man would grab at a straw." "Not at all! Perhaps, let us say, I had pictured such a man as you. And then you came. He will beat me when I return." "No!" "Yes!" She pressed down the gauzy stuff which came up almost to her throat in the form of a high "V." And across the rounded white curve of her chest were four angry red stripes, the marks of a whip. He shuddered. "This is terrible." "Will you help me--now?" "What can I do? What can I do?" He was striving to adjust himself to this exceedingly difficult situation. "But I don't understand how you can place all this confidence in me." "Because when I saw you I knew you were a man who stopped at nothing." "But why--why does he beat you? It--it's incomprehensible!" He stared at the beautiful face, the long, white appealing face, and the deep, dark eyes with their fringe of long lashes. If ever a girl was meant to be loved and protected it was this one. "I know I am asking a great deal, far more than I have any right, and not taking you into consideration at all. But you will help me. You must. Have I talked to you in vain? Do--do you think I would make you unhappy?" "That's not the question, not the question at all. But you don't know me. We are perfect strangers!" That is what Peter had been trying to get out of his system all of this time. Had he been thinking connectedly at this trying moment, not for the life of him would he have uttered those words. He had convinced himself that he was above and beyond all shallow conventions. And in an unguarded moment this thought, which had been in and out of his mind, popped out like a ghost from a closet. We are perfect strangers! "So is every man a stranger to his wife. What difference does time make? Very little, I think. A day--a week--a month--a year--twenty!--you and I would still be strangers, for that matter. Who can see into any man's heart?" She stopped talking, and kneaded her hands as if in anguish. "And think! Do think of me!" "I am thinking of you," said Peter constrainedly. "We can go to Nara, if you like, to the little inn near the deer-park, and be so happy--you and I. Think of Nara--in cherry-blossom time!" "I can't see the picture at all," said Peter dryly. "But since you've elected me to be your--your Sir Galahad, I'll tell you what I will do." Nervously the girl was fumbling at her throat, where, suspended by a fine gold chain, hung a cameo, a delicately carved rose, as red as her lips, and as life-like. She nodded, quite as though her life hung by that gold thread and depended at the high end upon his decision. "Your husband's nationality?" he asked abruptly. "He is a Portuguese gentleman, my father's cousin." "It would be possible for me, perhaps, to aid a lady in distress by punishing the cause of it." "You mean----" "I will gladly undertake to thrash the gentleman, if it would do any good." "No, no! That would not do." "Then there's no choice for me. Either I must accept or decline your invitation." "I pray you will! I have told you frankly and quickly, because time is valuable. We have none to lose. A steamer leaves for Formosa and Moji the morning after we arrive--at daybreak. We would scarcely have time to complete our plans, and embark." Peter raised his eyebrows. "Complete our plans?" he intoned. "Yes. We must raise money. You see, there is money, thousands of dollars, always in that house. It would be necessary to--to take whatever of it we needed. That is why I will need you, too." "I think," declared Peter with decision, "that we had better call this a misdeal, and play another game for a while. In the first place, I will not run away with you, because it is against my principles to run away with a strange young woman. In the second place, stealing for pleasure is one of the seven deadly sins that I conscientiously avoid. "Now that I have aired my views, now that I have proved to you I'm not as fine and brave as you hoped me to be, let's shake hands and part the