Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
across the river from Ching-Fu. Then Miss Vost was met by her father,
an incurable missionary from Wenchow, and by devious routes, well known
to _them_, you joined a caravan, owned by a garrulous old thief who
calls himself a mandarin, the Mandarin Chang, who told you many lies,
to amuse himself--
"Of course they were lies, Mr. Moore. Chang is one of _his_ most
trusted henchmen. He even permitted you to kill one of his coolies.
The coolie would have died anyway; he was beginning to learn too much.
But it tickled Chang, and _him_, to let you have this chance, to see
how far you would go. And Chang had orders to help you reach Len Yang.
It gave you confidence in yourself, did it not?"
"I don't believe a word," declared Peter in a daze. He refused to
believe that Chang, kindly old Chang, was in league with that man, too.
"Then you entered Len Yang, the City of Stolen Lives, and _he_ watched
you, and when you heard a difficult wireless message on the instruments
at the mine, _he_ gave you a present of money--five hundred taels,
wasn't it?--hoping, perhaps, that you would 'give up your foolishness,'
as he expressed it, and settle down to take the place of the
opium-befuddled wireless man you fooled so cleverly. _He_ valued you,
Mr. Moore, you see, and he was not in the least afraid of you!
"A dozen times, yes, a hundred times, he could have killed you. But he
preferred to sit back and stroke those long, yellow, mandarin mustaches
of his, and watch you, as a cat watches a foolish mouse. I can see him
laughing now. Yes! I have seen him, and I have heard him laugh. It
is a hideous, cackling laugh. Quite unearthly! How he did laugh at
you when you rescued Miss Vost, dear little clinging Miss Vost, from
the jaws of his white palace!
"But he let you go; and he and his thousand sharpshooters who lined the
great, green walls, when you and Captain MacLaurin and Miss Vost
galloped bravely out, with one poor little mule! A thousand rifles, I
say, were leveled upon you in that bright moonlight, Mr. Moore. But
_he_ said--_no_!"
Peter looked up at the stolid rigging of the _Persian Gulf_, at the
sunlight dancing brightly on the blue waves, which foamed at their
crests like fresh, boiling milk; at the passengers sleeping or reading
in their deck chairs; and he refused to believe that this was not a
dream. But the level voice of Romola Borria purred on:
"Then you joined a caravan for India, and, for a little while, they
thought your trail was lost. But you reappeared in Mandalay, attired
as a street fakir; and you limped all the way to Rangoon. Why did you
limp, Mr. Moore?"
"A mule stamped on my foot, coming through the Merchants' Pass into
Bengal."
"It healed rapidly, no doubt, for you were very active from that time
on. You took passage to Penang, to Singapore, doubling back to Penang,
and again to Singapore, and caught a blue-funnel steamer for Batavia."
"But, Miss Borria," writhed Peter, "why, with all this knowledge,
hasn't he done away with me? You know. _He_ knows. You've had your
chance. You could have killed me in your stateroom last night.
Please----" And Peter cast the golden robe of the adventurer
temporarily from him, becoming for the moment nothing more than a
terribly earnest, terribly concerned young man.
"I gave you an inkling last night," replied Romola Borria composedly.
"Until you left Batavia _he_ believed that you had given up your
nonsense. The coolie you threw overboard in Batavia was there, not to
stab you, but to warn you away from China. Those warnings, of which
you have had many, are now things of the past. You have thrown down
the glove to him once too often. He is through toying.
"It was great fun for him, and he enjoyed it. He treats his enemies
that way--for a while. You have now entered upon the second stage of
enmity with him. Last night was a sample of what you may expect from
now on. Only the sheerest luck saved you from the coolie's bullet--and
my almost-too-tardy intervention."
Peter gave her a hard, thoughtful and a thoroughly respectful stare.
"I take it," he said, "that you are a special emissary, a sort of
minister plenipotentiary, from the Gray Dragon. As a matter of fact,
you are here simply to persuade me to correct my erring ways; to
persuade me to give you my promise for _him_ that I will put China and
Len Yang forever out of my plans."
"Express it any way you please, Mr. Moore. I have told you about all
that I am able. I know this game, if you will permit me, a little,
just a little better than you do, Mr. Moore. I know when fun stops and
downright danger begins. The moment you put your foot in China, you
are putting your foot in a trap from which you can never, never so long
as you are permitted to live, extricate yourself. And, believe me,
seriously, that will not be for long. A day? Perhaps. An hour? Very
likely not any longer than that.
"Call me a special emissary if you choose. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am
only a friend, who desires above everything else to help you avoid a
most certain and a most unpleasant death. I have given you your
opportunity. From my heart I gave you, and I still do give you, the
chance to leave--with me. Yes; I mean that. Your promise, backed by
your word of honor, is a passport to safety for both of us. Your
refusal, I might as well confess, means to me--death! Won't you stop
and consider? Won't you say--yes?"
Peter's head had snapped back during this epilogue; his white-clad
shoulders were squared, and his blue eyes were lighted by a fire that
might have made a Crusader envious.
"You may report to him," said he, "that I have listened to his
proposal; that I have considered it calmly; and that, as long as the
gauntlet is down--it is--_down_! I want but one thing: a man's chance
at that beast. You can tell him just that from me, Miss Borria. I am
sorry."
She seemed on the point of uttering a final word, a word that might
have been of the greatest importance to Peter the Brazen; but the word
never got beyond her lips.
Into her eyes crept a look of despair, of mute horror. She half raised
her hand; withdrew it. Her shoulders sagged. She staggered to a deck
chair, and sank into it, with her head back, her eyes closed, her long,
dark lashes lying upon cheeks that had become marble.
Standing there with his eyes glued to the blue of the sea, Peter the
Brazen felt the confidence oozing from him as water oozes out of a
leaky pail. He felt himself in the presence of a relentless power
which was slowly settling down upon him, crushing him, and overpowering
him.
It occurred to him as his thoughts raced willy-nilly, to flash a call
of help to the gunboat which prowled south of Luzon, a call which would
have met with a response swift and energetic.
Yet that impulse smacked of the blunderer. It would put an end forever
to his high plan, now boiling more strongly than ever before, in the
back of his racked brain: to meet and some day put down the beast in
Len Yang.
A bright, waving hand distracted his attention from the sea. The maid
from Macassar was endeavoring to attract him. He looked down with a
pale, haggard smile.
"You have not forgotten--Kowloon, _busar satu_?" said her tinkling
little voice.
"Not I, small one!" Peter called back in accents that entirely lacked
their accustomed gaiety.
CHAPTER X
During the remainder of the voyage Romola Borria did not once, so far
as Peter was aware, leave her stateroom. Her meals were sent there,
and there she remained, sending out word in response to his inquiries
that she was ill, could see no one--not that Peter, after that latest
astounding interview, cared particularly to renew the friendship. He
was simply thoughtful.
Yet he felt a little angry at his demonstration of frank selfishness,
and not a little uneasy at the uncanny precision of her recital of his
recent history, an uneasiness which grew, until he found himself
waiting with growing concern for the rock-bound shore-line of Hong Kong
to thrust its black-and-green shoulders above the horizon.
The _Persian Gulf_ anchored outside at night, and in the morning
steamed slowly in amidst the maze of masts, of sampans and junks, which
latter lay with their sterns pointing grotesquely upward, resembling
nothing so closely as great brown hawks which had flown down from a
Brobdingnagian heaven, to select with greater convenience and
fastidiousness what prey might fall within reach of their talons.
Peter was aware that many of these junks were pirate ships, audacious
enough to pole into Victoria Harbor under the very guns of the forts,
under the noses of battleships of every nation.
When the launch from quarantine swung alongside, Peter went below and
changed from the uniform to a light, fresh suit of Shantung silk, a
soft collar, a soft Bangkok hat, and comfortable, low walking shoes,
not neglecting to knot about his waist the blue sarong.
The steerage passengers were lined up when he came above a little
later, sticking out their tongues for the eagle-eyed doctors, and
giggling at a proceeding serious enough, had they known it, to send
every mother's son and daughter of them back to the land whence they
came, if they displayed so much as a slight blemish, for Hong Kong was
then in the throes of her latest cholera scare.
Satisfied at length that the eyes and tongues of the steerage and deck
passengers gave satisfactorily robust testimony, the doctors came up to
the first-class passengers, who stood in line on the promenade deck;
and Peter saw the change that had come over Romola Borria.
Her face bore the pallor of the grave. Her large, lustrous eyes were
sunken, and lines seemed to have been engraved in a face that had
previously been as smooth and fair as a rose in bloom.
He felt panic-stricken as she recognized him with an almost
imperceptible nod, and he stared at her a trifle longer than was
necessary, with his lips slightly ajar, his nails biting into his
palms, and he sensed rather than saw, that her beauty had been
transformed into one of gray melancholy.
At that juncture, a tinkling voice shrilled up at him from the after
cargo-well, and Peter turned to see his small charge, the maid from
Macassar, smiling as she waited for him beside a small pile of silken
bundles of the rainbow's own colors. He had not forgotten the Eurasian
girl, but he desired to have a parting word with Romola Borria.
He called over the rail, and instructed her of the black pigtail to
wait for him in a sampan, and he yelled down to one of the dozens of
struggling and babbling coolies, whose sampans swarmed like a horde of
cockroaches at the ladder's lower extremity.
Romola Borria, alone, was awaiting him, adjusting her gloves, at the
doorway of the wireless cabin when he made his way back to that quarter
of the ship. She greeted him with a slow, grave smile; and by that
smile Peter was given to know how she had suffered.
Her face again became a mask, a mask of death, indeed, as her lids
fluttered down and then raised; and her eyes were tired.
He extended his hand, trying to inject some of his accustomed
cheerfulness into the gesture and into the smile which somehow would
not form naturally on his lips.
"This--is _adieu_--or _au revoir_?" he said solemnly.
"I hope--_au revoir_," she replied dully. "So, after all, you refuse
to take my counsel, my advice, seriously?"
Peter shrugged. "I'm rather afraid I can't," he said. "You see, I'm
young. And you can say to yourself, or out loud without fear of
hurting my feelings, that I am--foolish. I guess it is one of the
hardships of being young--this having to be foolish. Wasn't it to-day
that I was to become immortal, with a knife through my floating ribs,