Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
men fought for their lives and their loves with clubs, and nails, and
teeth, burst into his brain and into his breast. The muscles under his
tunic-sleeve, which clung to his arm from the moisture of perspiration,
rippled and flexed and hardened.
His face--the clean, handsome face of well-lived youth--was quite
dreadful to look upon--flushed to a fiery red and distorted. His lips
were skinned back over his white teeth.
The thunder of his roar fairly shook the green quartz pillars, between
which the smug, green Buddha smiled complacently, impervious to the
rages of foolish mankind.
Peter sprang upon the heels of that roar like a mass of wonderfully
controlled steel at the crouching figure, a figure whose countenance
was suddenly wet and white.
He tore the carbine from the fingers of the nearest guard before that
one could collect his wits.
The Mongolian sprawled over backward, and in the second instant the
heavy butt of the carbine came down with a shuddering crash upon the
skull-cap of the man who would no longer rule Len Yang!
With such tremendous vigor was that blow delivered that the walnut
stock, as tough as iron, shivered into splinters, which swam in the
bursting brains of the victim.
Screaming, Peter swung the stock again, and again, as if he would beat
his wretched victim to a pulp. Nothing but the barrel and breech
mechanism remained.
His murderous intention seemed to be to remove, to obliterate for all
time, the hideous face, to wipe out by means of his brute strength the
gray countenance.
Suddenly he sprang away from him with the elastic stride of a panther.
Kahn Meng, the traitor, was next.
And as he leaped Kahn Meng slipped from his own pocket a revolver and
dodged Peter's blow.
Peter staggered backward, reaching the center of the room, dragging the
bloody and bent carbine barrel in a red trail. There he stopped,
swaying, toppling.
Darkness was assailing him. He was sinking into a pit. And the heart
was fluttering, laboring treacherously under the poison created in his
blood by fury.
The green lights spun.
He threw the carbine barrel at the complacent Buddha, where it clanked
to the marble flags. And he withered like the lotus, sprawling upon
his back with his eyes tightly shut, the color fast disappearing from
his complexion.
And his head was reclining upon the small, tan boots of Eileen.
CHAPTER XVI
Somewhere in the distance a sweet-voiced temple bell resounded
dreamily. Vague odors of sandalwood and wistaria swam in the soft,
cool air. A ray of warm sunlight fell upon Peter's inert hand, and he
opened his eyes.
Memory came slowly back to him. He remembered that he had killed. The
last thing he distinctly recalled from that moment of ungovernable fury
which had taken hold of him was that Kahn Meng, the traitor, had drawn
a pistol. As a natural consequence he should be dead. Perhaps he was.
Slowly his brain became clear, although queer vapors arose in it.
Soft footsteps crossed the stone flagging with a clicking of dainty
heels. Small fingers, exquisite to the touch, brushed the tousled hair
from his forehead. These were cool and pleasant.
"Old Sweetheart!" said a happy voice.
The cool fingers crept underneath his chin and lingered there. Others
crept under his neck. A warm, satiny cheek floated down to rest upon
his forehead.
Dozens of questions swarmed out of the wreckage of his waking
consciousness.
"You are safe? Where are we? What happened to that scoundrel, Kahn
Meng? Why did they bring you here? Did they harm you? Who hit----"
A silvery laugh interrupted him. "Yes, yes--yes!" said the voice that
was sweeter to him than all of the music in Christendom with heathendom
thrown in for good measure.
"I am safe. I was kidnapped and treated with all respect due a famous
doctor--because a dead monster was suffering from neuritis. We are
alone, in a tiny glass house on the roof of the ivory palace, and dawn
has this very moment come. Such a glorious dawn, Peter!
"Are you rested? I never saw any one so completely burned out. Such
fury! Gracious, what a man! But why, Peter, did you attack poor Kahn
Meng? He's the best friend you have in the world!"
"The Gray Dragon!" muttered Peter, clenching his fists.
"Peter, Kahn Meng would lay down his life for you. Of course, he is
the Gray Dragon; but that is only a name now. He is the Gray Dragon,
and he has you, and you only, to thank for it.
"The title is hereditary, and he is the last of his line. He knew what
that monstrous father of his was doing, and he has been helpless--until
you freed him. And the dreadful secret, Peter, is that that beast was
not Kahn Meng's father. A Singhalese trader, murdered years ago, was
his father, and his mother, a beautiful woman of the Punjab, was for a
time the wife of the beast!
"The entire organization has now come under Kahn Meng's control. He is
the Gray Dragon of Len Yang, and it is a title that from now on will be
a power for good, for construction!
"You can't imagine what wonderful plans he has. He's a genius--that
young man is, Peter! And you--you--are to be his chief executive, the
viceroy of Len Yang! The chief of mines, of transportation, of labor!
He told me that millions of dollars of capital are at your disposal.
"Last night we planned a great railroad line, running from the mines to
Chosen and Peking and Tientsin! Think of it, Peter! What opportunity!
"While I," Eileen went on blithely, "am to start a hospital. No more
blindness, no more sickness, in Len Yang. And shorter working hours.
And an age limit. And schools. And good food, and lots of it!
"From now on our work is to assume a world-wide importance. Word came
over the wireless late last night that Germany has finally started the
long-expected European war. Kahn Meng believes every nation will be
drawn into it. So there is another menace for you to help stamp
out--the Dragon of Europe. Kahn Meng says these mines, and the copper
and iron mines, nearer the coast, can help--wonderfully!"
Peter felt vastly happy, too enthralled to believe that the state could
endure. He stood up from the cot and looked down into the bright face
of the one woman in the world. It was radiant, very pink, now, and her
round eyes were tender and meek. Perhaps she was a little frightened
by the fierceness which had developed in his expression.
She opened her arms with a little laugh. He crushed her close. Their
lips met and clung.
He pushed her away, and his blue eyes were impassioned.
Eileen smiled. "Look!"
The white snow on the high peaks across the valley glowed with the
heavy gold of sunrise. Far below them, midway to the green wall, he
saw a great mass of people. There were hundreds packed about the mouth
of the shaft. He wondered why they were waiting; then the shrill voice
of a crier penetrated the cool morning air. The thousands waited in
silence.
Peter wondered at their dumbness in the face of the news that the man
who had ridden them into blindness, into starvation and death, was no
longer to tyrannize over them.
The crier continued to shout his singsong.
How would the spirit of that mob react to the announcement?
The singsong halted, and for a breathless moment the miners, too, were
silent.
Then a great volume of sound disturbed the morning hush. It swelled in
volume, rose in key--a great thunder, the thunder of laughing voices,
the hysterical joy of a people made free! It filled the valley and
overflowed into the hills, a prolonged wave of happy tumult.