BROWN OF MOUKDEN (continued 2)

It was two o'clock in the morning on the second day after Jack left Harbin. The train slowed down as it rounded a loop, and finally came to a stop. Jack was fast asleep in his corner of the horse-box. He was awakened by a touch on the shoulder.

"You get down here, sir."

"Ah! Where are we, sergeant?"

"Four versts from Vladivostok."

"That's well. And what sort of a night?"

"Fine, sir; but dark as pitch."

"Thanks! Let me see; is it twenty-five roubles I owe you?"

"Thirty, sir, no less; more if you like."

"Here you are. Have you got a match? Take care: a spark, you know! Count them; three ten-rouble notes. Now, how am I to get into the town?"

"The road's not far on the other side of the line.—Nobody is to know how you got here, sir."

"I understand that. Many thanks! It has been a pretty rapid journey for Manchuria, I think."

"Yes. Live stock comes next to the Viceroy. Horses are none the better for being jolted over three hundred miles of rail, so they've let us pass several goods trains on the way."

"Any passenger trains allowed to pass us?"

"Not one."

"Then I couldn't have got here sooner. Thanks again!"

Jack dropped from the foot-board, ran down the embankment, and in a few minutes struck the high-road. He had not thought it necessary to explain to the sergeant that he knew the district. It was, as the Russian had said, very dark, but Jack made his way to a plantation near the road, through which he knew that a little stream ran. There he had a thorough wash, changed his collar, brushed and shook his clothes, and felt a different creature. Then he sat down on the moss-grown roots of an oak, and ate the Chinese cakes and dried fruit that remained from the stock of food given him by Hi Feng, the compradore's brother, washing it down with water from the brook. Dawn was breaking by the time he had finished his frugal breakfast, but it was useless to go into the town until the business houses opened. He therefore determined to remain in the secluded nook he had chosen, and sat there thinking of what lay before him.

About eight o'clock he rose to continue his walk to the town. It was two years since he had last visited it, and he was struck by the progress it had made in the interval. Founded only forty years before, the city had grown very rapidly; but since the Russian occupation of Manchuria it had made giant strides. New hospitals and barracks had been erected; the surrounding hills, once decked with forest, but now treeless, were covered with immense forts and earthworks, at which vast gangs of coolies were still at work. The wooden shanties that formerly lined the shore had for the most part given place to more solid and imposing structures of brick and stone. Other signs of development caught Jack's eye as he walked towards the harbour; but he was too eager to complete his errand to dwell upon them, especially as he heard behind him in the distance the rumble of an approaching train. It overtook him just as he turned down one of the steep, narrow side streets leading to the office of his father's agent; and as he saw the long line of carriages, including several sleeping-cars, roll past, he could not but wonder whether Anton Sowinski was among the passengers, and hastened his steps.

The office had just been opened for the day when he arrived. Alexey Petrovitch Orloff was a big, jovial Russian of some forty years; honest, or Mr. Brown would have had no dealings with him; a little greedy; a good business man, and on excellent terms with his principal. But Jack knew little about him outside their business transactions, and had made up his mind not to trust him with his secret.

"Ah, Ivan Ivanovitch!" exclaimed Orloff as Jack entered. "I was expecting you or your father. You came by the night train?"

"Yes. You must have been asleep when it arrived."

"What sort of a journey had you?"

"It was very hot."

"Yes, we have been baked here. When did you leave?"

"On Thursday."

"A fairly quick journey, considering the state of the line. You left before my letter arrived?"

"Yes. Of course you guess the object of my visit?"

"The consignment of flour? You have had great luck, I must say; but Captain Fraser always is lucky. Of course his cargo was not contraband according to English ideas, but we Russians have been rather strict of late, and the Japanese will probably follow suit. However, Captain Fraser never saw a Japanese cruiser the whole voyage. It should be an excellent speculation for your father. Prices are naturally high just now."

"That is good news. We shouldn't like to wind up with a failure."

"Of course not. It is a pity your father is retiring; we are bound to win in the end; but I've no doubt he can well afford it. And I'm not the man to complain, if, as I hope, I can get hold of a part of his business. Perhaps he is wise after all. Manchuria is not the most comfortable country to live in—just now, at any rate; and I fancy an Englishman will have a poor time of it in Moukden, eh?" (He gave Jack a shrewd look.) "Your newspapers have so completely taken the side of the enemy."

"Yes, there is a strong feeling at home in favour of Japan, and your people resent it. That's natural enough."

"It's rather worse than that. People here are saying that Russia and England will be at war before a month's out."

"Nonsense!"

"They say so. Our cruisers have stopped a P. and O. liner, the Malacca, in the Mediterranean, and put a prize crew on board. She was carrying contraband, it appears; but your fire-eaters—jingoes, is that the name?—are thirsting for our blood."

"We don't all eat fire and drink blood, Alexey Petrovitch."

"True. And you English will find you have backed the wrong horse."

"You haven't been much troubled here, then?"

"No. The bombardment did us no harm. Our cruisers sank three Japanese transports the other day, and they captured another of your ships with contraband, the Allanton: you'll see her lying in the harbour now."

"Well, it appears to be lucky for us that the Waverley was, in a sense, on your side. About this consignment of flour: do you think you can find an immediate purchaser? We want to realize and get away at once."

The Russian's eyes gleamed, but his reply was cautious.

"Well, Ivan Ivanovitch, it is always more difficult to sell in a hurry than if you can wait. A good profit can be made, but we must take our time. It is a matter of bargaining. The man in a hurry always suffers."

"Yes, I know. We must be prepared to sacrifice something. At the market rate the flour ought to fetch about 27,000 roubles; but look here, if you can find an immediate purchaser at 25,000 I'll let it go."

Orloff still hesitated, but Jack could see that he was making an effort to restrain his eagerness.

"In business," he said, "it is best to be frank. If you will give me my usual commission of two and a half per cent—what do you say to my taking over the stuff myself?"

Jack smiled.

"I say that it pays very well to be principal and agent at the same time. But we won't quarrel about the commission. If you'll write me a cheque for 24,375 roubles, we'll call the matter settled. I've full authority to act."

The Russian, looking as if he was sorry he had not improved the opportunity still further, sat down at once and made out the cheque, adding:

"There will be one or two papers to sign. I will get them from the dockyard people."

"Very well. In the meantime I'll pay this into the bank and call back as soon as I can."

"What is the hurry? Business is slack, and I suppose I shan't see you again for a long time."

"Probably not. But there's a ring at your telephone. Evidently someone wants to do business. I'll see you again shortly."

Orloff was disposed to be talkative, but Jack was on thorns lest the train he had seen come in should have brought Sowinski. He had the cheque; while in the train he had taken the vouchers from the sole of his boot; he wondered whether he could complete his business at the bank before Sowinski, supposing him to be in Vladivostok, should come upon the scene. He hurried to the branch of the Russo-Chinese bank, where he was well known to the officials. Business there also was slack; the manager said indeed that trade in Vladivostok would be ruined if the war continued much longer. Within half an hour, Jack left the building with bills on Baring Brothers for the amount of the cheque and the sum represented by the vouchers, less 2000 roubles in notes which he kept for his immediate and contingent expenses.

He hurried back to Orloff's office, keeping a wary eye on the people thronging the streets, among them many soldiers in the pashalik, their characteristic peaked cap. When he entered the room, Orloff flung down his pen and gave a shout of merriment.

"I must tell you the joke, Ivan Ivanovitch. Not five minutes after you left, who should come in but Sowinski!" Jack repressed a start. "He had happened to hear, he told me, that the Waverley had arrived with a consignment of flour for your father. Was I empowered to sell? Ha! ha! It was not a matter of much consequence, he said. Ha! ha! I know Sowinski. But, having a small contract to fulfil in a month's time at Harbin, he could do with the flour, if it was to be had cheap. 'Mr. Brown is leaving the country, I understand,' says he. Ha! ha!"

Sowinski had evidently not told Orloff of the arrest. Jack wondered for a moment why. But the explanation at once suggested itself. If the fact were known, the consignment would no doubt be impounded by the Russian authorities in Vladivostok, and then the Pole would lose his chance of making a profitable deal.

"I assure you I was not eager," continued Orloff, still laughing. "Sowinski is no friend of mine. In the end he went down to the harbour, inspected the consignment, and bought it for 27,000 roubles, the market price, as you yourself mentioned."

"Quick returns and by no means small profits," said Jack.

"Yes. But—ha! ha!—what makes me laugh is something else. I was rung up at the telephone—just as you went, you remember; two vessels had been signalled from the mouth of the harbour carrying flour—not a moderate consignment like yours, but a whole cargo each. You see, Ivan Ivanovitch? The market price of Sowinski's lot will fall in an hour to 20,000 roubles, and it serves him right. How your father will laugh when he learns how his rival has overreached himself! By the way, the Waverley is sailing this morning, in ballast of course."

"Indeed!" No information could have pleased Jack more. "Captain Fraser is an old friend of ours. I should like to see him."

"Then you haven't much time to lose. But you may as well sign these papers to complete our little transaction—the last, I am sorry to say. You will be back again?"

"I am not sure. I am not staying in Vladivostok long, and I'll say good-bye in case I don't get time to run in again."

"And when do you leave for home?"

"As soon as possible."

"By the Trans-Siberian, I suppose?"

"Probably; unless we can get through the lines to Newchang."

"That will be easy enough soon. Reinforcements are pouring in for General Kuropatkin, and he'll soon be strong enough to drive those waspish little yellow men into the sea."

"Perhaps. Well, good-bye, Alexey Petrovitch!"

"Remember me to your father."

"I will, the moment I see him. Good-bye!"

Leaving the office Jack hailed a droshky, and ordered the man to drive down to the harbour. Knowing that Sowinski was actually in the town he felt insecure with such valuable property in his pocket. As he stepped into the vehicle he glanced round, and, forewarned though he was, he started when he saw, a few yards up the street, the man he was anxious to avoid hurrying in his direction. By the look on the Pole's face, and his quickened step, Jack knew that he had been recognized. It was touch and go now.

"Quick, my man!" he said quietly to the driver, "time presses."

The man, scenting a tip, whipped up his horse, and it sprang forward, throwing Jack back into his seat. At the same moment he heard the Pole shouting behind; but his voice was at once drowned by the clatter of the wheels, and the droshky man, standing in the car, and driving with the usual recklessness of the Russian coachman, was too much occupied in avoiding the traffic to turn his head. Jack, however, a minute later looked cautiously over the back of the vehicle. Sowinski, with urgent gestures, was beckoning a droshky some distance up the street. He was now nearly a quarter of a mile behind; and, turning a corner, Jack lost him from sight. But the street he had now reached was a long straight one, leading direct to the shore, and almost clear of traffic. In a few seconds the pursuing droshky swung round the corner at a pace that left Jack amazed it did not overturn. To throw the Pole off the scent was impossible now; it was an open race. In two minutes Jack's droshky rattled down the incline to the shore. He had the fare and a handsome tip in readiness. Springing from the car almost before it had stopped, he paid the man, leapt down the steps into a sampan, and called to the burly Chinaman smoking in it:

"The English ship Waverley! A rouble if you put me aboard quickly."

The Chinaman looked stolidly up.

"She is about to sail, master. See! And they will not allow you on board. There are difficulties. The port officers——"

Jack waited for no more. Taking a rouble note from his pocket, he cried:

"Here is six times your fare; this or nothing!"

At the same time he seized the yuloh,—the pole that does duty for a stern oar, and shoved off. There is nothing a Chinese coolie will not do for a rouble. The man sprang to the oar, worked its flat end backwards and forwards with all his strength, and sent the sampan over the water at a greater speed than its clumsy build seemed capable of. Jack kept his head low in order to be sheltered as long as possible by the shanties on shore and the sampans crowded at the water's edge; Sowinski, he felt, would not hesitate to take a shot at him. He could see the Pole spring from his droshky and rush at break-neck pace towards the waiting row of craft. He leapt into one, pointed Jack out to the coolie, and in a few moments started in pursuit.

The Waverley had left the inner harbour where merchant vessels drop anchor, and was steaming dead slow out to sea. The captain stood on the bridge, and the vessel hooted a farewell to the cruiser Rurik that lay in the middle of the channel. Suddenly Captain Fraser became aware that the voice sounding clear across the still water was hailing him. Glancing round, he saw a sampan making rapidly towards him from the shore, and in it a youth with one hand to his mouth, the other waving his hat. The captain first swore, then signalled half-speed ahead; it was some Russian formality, he supposed, and as a British sailor he'd be hanged if he delayed another moment for any foreign port officer. But next moment he heard his own name in an unmistakably English accent, and, looking more closely at the shouter, recognized him.

"Young Mr. Brown!" he muttered. "What's he wishing?"

At the same time he jerked the indicator back to "stop", a bell tinkled below, and the vessel came to a stand-still.

"Ay, ay!" he shouted. "And be hanged if there isn't another man bawling. What's in the wind, anyway?"

The first craft was soon alongside, a rope was heaved over, and in a few seconds Jack stood on deck.

"Pleased to see you, Mr. Brown," said the Captain. "Ay, and I wouldna have sto'ped for no ither man."

"Thanks, Captain! I want your help." Jack spoke hurriedly; the second sampan was but a biscuit-shot distant. "The Russians have collared my father on a charge of spying for the Japanese; I don't know where he is; that fellow in the boat is at the bottom of it. I've managed to steal a march on him and sell the flour you landed the other day, and I want you to take charge of these bills and deposit them at the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank for me."

"Eh, laddie, is that a fact? And what'll you do yersel' the now?"

"Oh, I'll stay and find my father. Here's Sowinski. I'm jolly glad I got here first."

The other sampan was by this time under the vessel's quarter. A seaman came up to the captain.

"A furriner, sir, talking double Dutch."

"Quay."

He left the bridge and went to the side.

"What might you be wishing the now?" he said.

Sowinski began to address him in very broken English, eked out with French and Russian.

"I'm no' what you might ca' a leenguist," said the Captain, after a patient hearing. "What'll he be meaning, Mr. Brown?"

"He says I'm a fugitive, and insists on your giving me up. If you don't, he'll have the boat stopped at the signal station, and you'll be heavily fined."

"He's a terrible man, yon; there's nae doot about it. Just tell him to bide a wee, Mr. Brown, until you an' me has had a wee bit crack. Now, sir," he added in a lower tone, when this had been interpreted to the Pole, "hadn't ye better come wi' me now ye're aboard? If you go ashore you may be caught. I'm no sure but we'll be overhauled by a Russian cutter as we gang out, but I've no contraband aboard; in fact, I've run a cargo in for the Russians, an' well they know it. Your father may be half-way to Europe by this time; I canna see there'd be ony guid biding to look for him."

"That's good of you, Captain, but I must stay. They say they've deported my father; but somehow I feel sure he is still in the country, and I shall try to hang on here by hook or crook till I find him."

"Aweel; then the best thing will be to get yon terrible Turk aboard. Just ask him to step up, sir."

As Sowinski was clambering up the side the captain signalled the engine-room to go ahead dead slow. He invited the Pole to join him on the bridge. Captain Fraser looked him critically up and down; then said blandly:

"And is it a port officer I'm to understand you are, Mister?"

"A port officer! Not so. I am man of affairs, business man. But in name of his majesty ze Imperator I—I arrest zis young man."

"Just exactly. But I beg your pardon, Mister—Mister—what?"

"Sowinski."

"Just exactly. Well, then, Mr. Sowinski, do ye happen to have about ye a warrant for the arrest o' this young man in the name o' the Imperator, by which, I preshume, you mean the Czar? Where's your authority, man?"

The Pole looked puzzled.

"Audority! I have no audority. But I tell you, zis young man is deported; he escape from arrestation; he——"

"Tuts! And you have the impidence to come aboard my ship: to haud me up, a British subject; to cause loss to my owners—to my owners, I say—without authority? I'll learn you, Mister, what it is to haud up a British ship without authority. Hi, Jim! lug this man below, and if he doesna behave himsel' just clap him under hatches."

Sowinski, wriggling desperately, and volubly protesting in half a dozen languages, was bundled from the bridge.

"He's got the wrong sow by the lug in Duncan Fraser," said the captain, with a grim tightening of the lips. "I'll just tak' him along to Shanghai if the coast is clear, Mr. Brown, though I may have to drop him a few miles lower down if I see signs of any Russians being inqueesitive. And if you must go ashore, laddie, tak' a word frae me—keep out o' the road o' the Russians."

"I'll be careful, Captain. When you get to Shanghai you'll tell our consul all about it, and ask him to wire to England? The newspapers will take it up, and I should think Lord Lansdowne will make official enquiries at St. Petersburg."

"Ay, I'll do what I can. You're quite determined to bide?"

"Oh yes! And another thing, Captain: I think, if you don't mind, you'd better let my mother know; she expects us home, and not hearing, would be alarmed. Tell her not to worry; it's sure to come all right in the end."

"Ay, I'll do that. I never heard the like o't. What the ballachulish will the Russians be doing next! I needna say I wish ye good luck, sir. Will you take a wee drappie?"

"Not to-day, Captain, many thanks all the same! A pleasant voyage to you!"

Both sampans had kept pace with the steamer; the coolies were beginning to be anxious about their fares. Jack bade his friend the captain a cordial farewell; the vessel stopped; and, dropping into his sampan, Jack ordered the man to put him ashore at the nearest point. Within a yard of the shore the Chinaman brought the punt to a stop and demanded two roubles.

"But the bargain was one."

"I did not know, Master. I do not risk offending the Russians for a rouble. Give two, or I will not let you land."

He looked at Jack with victorious malice in his beady black eyes. For a moment Jack hesitated; he did not wish to have an altercation with the man; at the same time he objected to be "done". He stood up in the sampan and drew a bundle of notes from his pocket. Selecting one, he folded it; then, flinging it to the coolie, he sprang suddenly overboard, giving the sampan a kick which sent it backwards. The man also had risen; the sudden movement made him lose his balance, and he fell over the yuloh into the water. Jack quietly walked away. As he did so he heard loud laughter on his left hand. Turning, he saw that the incident had been witnessed by two Russian officers who had been walking towards the mouth of the harbour. Knowing the ways of the Chinese coolie, they were much amused at the readiness with which Jack had disposed of the boatman. One of them shouted "Well done!" in Russian. Jack smiled, and replied with a couple of words in the same tongue; then hurried on, thanking his stars that the matter had ended so well.

CHAPTER VI

In Full Cry

In Chinatown—A Deal in Horseflesh—North and by East—A Korean Host—Across the Line—Buriats—Father Mayenube—Gabriele—A Shot—Hard Pressed—In Hiding—Suggestio Falsi

Jack's business in Vladivostok was now completed. He had secured the last of his father's property; bills representing several thousands of pounds were in the safe hands of Captain Fraser, soon to be confided to the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank. So far his task had been unexpectedly easy; his difficulties, he felt, were now to begin. During the long journey from Harbin he had spent hours endeavouring to think out a plan to adopt if his secret visit to Vladivostok proved successful. By hook or crook he must get back to Moukden and learn the result of the compradore's enquiries; the question was, how? The return journey would be attended by many difficulties; even if he should reach Moukden in safety it would only be to find himself encompassed by danger. Yet he saw no other chance of tracing his father, and whatever the risks and perils, he felt that his duty called him to face them.

The first thing, then, was to make his way back to Moukden. To return by the railway was out of the question. He dared not go openly, and he knew no one in Vladivostok whom he could trust to negotiate for a clandestine passage. His only course was to slip away, gain the Manchurian frontier, and cross the Shan-yan-alin range of mountains—a long and difficult journey at the best, and in the present circumstances hazardous in the extreme. If he evaded the Russians in and around Vladivostok he would still be exposed to capture by Chinese bandits, to say nothing of the tenfold risks as he neared his journey's end.

His difficulties were intensified by the desperately short notice at which he must now quit Vladivostok. Sowinski, furious at being outwitted in the matter of the bills, would be goaded to madness by his detention on board the Waverley, and as Captain Fraser would probably consider it prudent to put him ashore at no great distance, it might not be long before he telephoned to head-quarters and thus raised the hue and cry in Vladivostok itself. To the natives Jack might easily pass for a Russian; carefully made up, he might, with his smattering of Chinese, be taken by the Russians for a native. But there was no time for such preparations; and a Russian policeman on the hunt for an Englishman, with the Pole's description of him, must be an exceptionally incompetent member of his class if he failed to recognize the fugitive. Speed was thus the first essential.

Hurrying up from the shore he made up his mind what to do. Fortunately he was in the Chinese quarter of the town; it was the part of prudence to avoid the Russian settlement on the hill. He remembered a Chinese horse-dealer with whom Mr. Brown had done business when he lived in the town years before. The Chinese had altered less than the official city, and he thought he could find his way to the merchant's house. Taking his bearings, he walked rapidly through several streets, and found to his delight that his recollection had not failed him. The horse-dealer was at home; he did not recognize Jack, who was a boy of eleven when his transactions with Mr. Brown had taken place; but he well remembered the English merchant. And when he learnt that Jack wished to purchase a pony he rubbed his hands together and led him at once to the stables to view the stock. They were a weedy lot, like most of the native animals. Jack was careful to show no haste or eagerness; he looked them over critically, rejected one after another in spite of all the flowery things the Chinaman found to say in their favour, and finally refused to buy. As he expected, the merchant then managed to find a better beast—a beautiful little Transbaikal pony, sturdy, well-made, and evidently full of mettle. Jack could not have wished for a better animal; but, experienced in the ways of Chinese business men, he gave no sign of his approval. The merchant quoted a price; Jack hemmed, hesitated—he knew better than to close at once; and then offered half. Eager as he was to get away, he patiently chaffered for nearly an hour; then, when the Chinaman was beginning to think he had lost his customer, Jack suddenly closed with the last offer, and the pony became his at two-thirds of the price first asked. The purchase of a saddle did not take so long; and when he rode off, both dealer and customer were equally pleased.

In the street Jack stopped a young Chinese boy and sent him to a purveyor's shop for a small supply of portable food. The messenger returned with some dried fish and stale cakes of potato-rice, all he could procure. With this tied behind his saddle Jack set off. It was an anxious moment when he passed a brown-coated Cossack policeman, and a little farther on he gave a jump when a squadron of Cossacks swung round the corner of the street. But they rode on without giving him more than a casual glance. Not daring to hasten, he slowly made his way through the city and out into the country. It was still only eleven o'clock; he had nine or ten hours of daylight before him, and though the pony was somewhat soft for want of exercise, it was no doubt good for thirty miles at a pinch.

Vladivostok stands at the end of a narrow peninsula, with the Amur Bay running for several miles into the land on the west, and the Ussuri Bay on the east. To gain the Manchurian frontier Jack would have to ride northwards, cross the railway at the head of the Amur Bay or beyond, and then turn to the south-west. It was obviously unsafe for him to ride parallel with the railway line, for his escape, if discovered, would no doubt be telegraphed ahead, and the road would be watched, especially in the neighbourhood of the stations. His best course, therefore, would be to strike up eastwards towards the head of the Ussuri Bay, away from his ultimate destination, and trust to luck to find a hill-path leading back that would enable him to cross the line somewhere between the head of the Amur Bay and the garrison town of Nikolskoye. His way led through the plantation where he had made his toilet early that morning, then to the right towards the hills.

Though Vladivostok itself has sprung up with marvellous rapidity, the country is as yet sparsely peopled. At one time the town was closely surrounded by magnificent woods; but the axe of the lumberman has been busy, and the same work of deforesting that has robbed the town of picturesqueness is now being pursued inland. One of the few people Jack met along the unfrequented road he had chosen was a Russian colonist riding behind a cart laden with pine logs and driven by a coolie. Jack threw him a friendly "Good morning!" as he passed, and received a feeling "Very hot, barin" in return. It was indeed hot; the almost naked Korean labourers in the fields were streaming with sweat; and Jack was glad to halt at a little brook to refresh himself and his beast.

After riding for some three hours, and covering, as he guessed, about eighteen miles, almost entirely uphill, he saw the sea below him on the right, and the far coast-line running to all appearance due south. This must be Ussuri Bay. He had evidently come far enough east; it was time to change his course to the north-west. Swinging round, he had not ridden far before he came to a small farm, the house surrounded, like all Chinese isolated country buildings, with a mud wall. His pony required food, and though he felt some misgivings he thought this too good an opportunity to be neglected. He rode up. The owner, he found, was a Korean; Jack did not speak Korean; but by the help of Chinese and pidgin Russian he succeeded in making the man understand what he wanted. He then asked how far it was to Nikolskoye, and learning that it was thirty versts, roughly twenty miles, he decided to give his pony a good rest and start again about six o'clock, so that darkness would have fallen by the time he came to the neighbourhood of the railway. Having seen that the animal was rubbed down and provided with a good feed of hay, he joined the farmer in a game of wei-ch'i, a difficult variant of chess, and with this and a slow laborious conversation, in the course of which his host expounded his hazy ideas of the war, he managed to get through the hot afternoon.

Soon after six he set off again. The way was mainly downhill now, and easier riding. About nine o'clock he saw in the gloaming a little settlement ahead, and beyond it the hexagonal water-tower and timbered store-house of the typical Siberian railway-station, but on a small scale. The path he was following led direct to the hamlet, and the sight of several small knots of people at that hour of the evening showed that a train would shortly be passing; the peasants have not yet lost their curiosity about the iron horse. He thought it well to avoid observation by leaving the track—road it could not be called—and striking across a bean-field. Making a wide sweep he came to the railway some three versts north of the station. He rode very cautiously as he approached the line, tied his pony to a tree, and scouted ahead to make sure that the line rifle guard, whose hut might be expected a few versts beyond, was not in sight. Suddenly he heard the distant rumble of a train—the night train for Harbin. In a moment he saw that the passage of the train would give him an opportunity of crossing the line unobserved. He went back to his pony, led it as near as he dared to the embankment, and waited.

The engine came snorting along at a fair pace, the fire throwing a glow upon the darkling sky. The train clattered by. Immediately after the last carriage had passed, Jack mounted the embankment, dragging his pony, crossed the single line, and descended on the other side.

With a lighter heart he got into the saddle again, and rode his excellent little steed across the fields in the hope of ere long striking a road. Pursuit would be difficult in the darkness; the greatest danger was to be expected with daylight, and it was very necessary that he should put as many miles as possible between himself and the railway before dawn. His course must be mainly south-west; the nearest town of any size was Hun-chun, some sixty miles in that direction; but having a vague idea that the Russians had erected a fort there, he had already made up his mind to avoid that town itself. Four or five hundred miles and countless perils lay between him and Moukden; but with the hopefulness of youth he rode confidently on. Danger and difficulty were only incentives to caution; if he anticipated them, it was merely that, being prepared, he might be the more ready to grapple with and overcome them. Ever present in his mind was the belief that his father's fate hung upon the success of his enterprise.

Coming by and by to a rough track between the fields, he followed it until past midnight. Then, feeling that his pony could do no more, and being unable in the darkness to guide himself by the little compass he wore on his watch-chain, he left the track, rode into a plantation to the right, off-saddled, and, hitching the bridle to a tree, threw himself on the ground and fell asleep.

During the short hours of darkness his slumbers were disturbed by dreams. Sowinski, Orloff, Monsieur Brin, the Chinese horse-dealer—all figured in a strange phantasmagoria. Monsieur Brin had lost his pass, and was shedding tears because he could not tear the red brassard from his arm, when Jack awoke with a start. Looking at his watch he found it was five o'clock. He must be up and away. He ate the last of his food; the pony had already made a meal of the shoots of creeping plants; then, with the instinct born of his fugitive condition, Jack approached the edge of the plantation to spy out the country. Before him, not many yards away, was a narrow river; behind—he gave a great start, for little more than half a mile distant he saw a troop of Russian horsemen trotting smartly along the road towards him. They might be going, of course, to Possiet Bay, or Novo Kiewsk, or the Korean frontier. But he noticed at a second glance that the leading man was bending low in his saddle, as though following a trail. He distinguished their uniform now; they were Buriats, Mongols by race and Buddhists by religion, hard riders, excellent scouts, the most reckless and daring of the Russian cavalry. Without a moment's hesitation he went back to his pony, snatched from the ground the saddle that had formed his pillow, threw it over the animal's back, and, tightening the girths with hands that shook in spite of himself, he plunged with the pony into the thickest part of the plantation.

At seven o'clock that morning, in a neatly-thatched, white-washed brick cottage, surrounded by a luxuriant and well-kept garden, in the hill-country above the Chuan, a little group sat at breakfast. The room was plain but spotlessly clean. The wooden floors shone; the white plastered walls were covered with coloured lithographs representing the seven stations of the Cross; the little windows were hung with curtains of Chinese muslin. A narrow shelf of books occupied one corner, a stove another; and the table in the centre was spread with a snow-white cloth, dishes of fruit, and home-made bread.

At the table three persons were seated. One was a tall man of fine presence, with clear-cut features, soft brown eyes, long white hair and beard. He wore the loose white tunic and pantaloons of a Chinaman, but the cross that hung by a cord round his neck was not Chinese. Jean Mayenobe was a Frenchman, a priest, one of those devoted missionaries who cut themselves off from home and kindred to live a life of self-denial, peril, and humble Christian service in remote unfriendly corners of the globe.

His companions were a woman and a girl. The former was plain-featured and plainly dressed, with placid expression and humble mien. The latter seemed strangely out of place in her surroundings. She was young, apparently of some seventeen years. Her features were beautiful, with a dignity and a look of self-command rare in one of her age. Her complexion was ruddy brown; her bright hair, gathered in a knot behind, rebelled against the black riband that bound it, and fell behind her ears in crispy waves. Before her on the table was a samovar, and she had just handed a cup of tea to the missionary.

"Father," she said in French, "I am so tired of waiting. I am beginning to think that permission will never come. But why should it be refused? It is not as if I were seeking some benefit. In appearance I lose, not gain."

"True, my child, you have nothing personally to gain. I have said before, it is not every daughter who would come thousands of miles and suffer hardship in order to bear her father company in exile and imprisonment. And such exile! The little I know of Sakhalin is frightful. It gives me pain to think of your knowing even so much."

"I am not afraid. And if the treatment of prisoners in Sakhalin is so bad, that is all the more reason why I should be at my father's side, to help and comfort him a little. Why do they refuse to let me go?"

"Probably they have forgotten all about you. The war occupies them completely. And I repeat, if you have patience your father may come to you. I have no belief that the Russians will win in this terrible war. I heard but a little while ago from a brother priest near the scene of operations at Hai-cheng, who has studied the combatants, that he is convinced of the ultimate success of the Japanese. If they are victorious they will probably demand that Sakhalin shall be restored to them, and it will no longer be a place for Russian prisoners. Rest in the Lord, my child; wait patiently for Him, and He will give thee thy heart's desire."

Gabriele Walewska was silent. Father Mayenobe sank into a reverie. The elderly woman looked sympathetically at her mistress, laid her hand on hers, and murmured a few words in Polish, to which the girl responded with a grateful smile. The sound of a distant shot coming through the open window shook the missionary from his musing.

"Russian officers out snipe-shooting again, I suppose," he said. "It reminds me I must go, my child. That poor Korean convert of mine is at the point of death, I fear. I must go to him. I may be absent all day."

"We shall be quite happy, father. I shall pick the last of your strawberries to-day, and make some of your favourite tartlets for supper."

"You will spoil me," said the priest with a smile. "Dominus vobiscum."

When the missionary had gone, Gabriele left the Korean servants to clear the table, and, accompanied by her old nurse, went out into the garden with a light wicker basket. As she did so she scanned the surrounding country for signs of the shooting party. The mission station was at the summit of a low hill, and below it, towards the east, stretched a tract of sparse woodland, alternating with cultivated fields. A stream bathed the foot of the hill, and wound away to join the Hun-Chuan, its course traceable by the thickness of the wooded belt and the more vivid green of the fields.

While the girl was still picking the ripe red berries she heard another shot, this time closer at hand. She rose, and out of pure curiosity searching the landscape she saw, about two miles away, a band of horsemen galloping through a field of kowliang, already so well grown that the stalks rose almost to the horses' heads. There were some thirty or forty of the riders, at present little more than specks in the distance. It struck her as rather a large hunting party, and she wondered what they were chasing, big game being unknown in the neighbourhood, and the time of year unusual for such sport. As she stood looking, the horsemen left the field and disappeared into the wooded belt bordering the stream.

Expecting them to come again into sight a little higher up, Gabriele remained at the same spot. It occurred to her that one of them might be bringing the written permission she desired, and had taken advantage of his errand to organize a hunt. Suddenly she was startled to see a figure on horseback emerge from the copse but a few yards below her. It was a young man, a European; he was swaying in his saddle; and she noticed with feminine quickness that one arm was supported in a sling—a handkerchief looped round his neck. The next moment the rider caught sight of her; his eyes seemed to her to speak the language of despair. He swayed still more heavily, and was on the point of falling from his horse when Gabriele sprang down the slope and caught him. Calling to her nurse and a Korean man-servant near at hand, with their help she lifted him from the saddle and loosened his shirt-collar, then sent the Korean for water.

Jack was dazed at first, all but swooning.

"Thank you!" he said in Russian. "I was almost done, I think. But please help me to mount again. I must ride on."

"Impossible, gospodin!" she said. "You are hurt, I see; the injury must be seen to."

"It is good of you, but my arm must wait. Please help me to mount my pony."

His wounded arm, his urgent manner, recalled to Gabriele the shots she had heard, the band of horsemen she had seen galloping in the distance.

"You are in danger?" she said quickly. "Is it not so?"

"Yes. There are Buriats behind me; they are close on my heels. Indeed"—he smiled wanly—"it is your duty, as a Russian, I suppose, to give me up."

"I am not a Russian," she exclaimed. "And if I were, I should not lightly give up a fugitive to the Russian police. You can go no farther; what can I do? There is so little time."

For a few seconds she appeared to be considering. Her brow was knit; she looked at him anxiously. Fully trusting her, he made no further effort to continue his flight, for which, indeed, he was manifestly unfit. Half-reclining on his pony's neck, he waited, panting.

Then she spoke rapidly to the Korean.

"Take the pony, unsaddle him, and turn him loose in the kowliang yonder. Saddle the Father's pony, ride a few yards in the stream, then gallop past the edge of the copse, through the hemp field, up to Boulder Hill. If you are followed by horsemen, throw them off the scent. Don't let them see you closely. Return after dark, but make sure the Buriats are not here before you come in."

An unregenerate Korean would probably have hesitated, but this man had been for some time under Father Mayenobe's training, and in a few minutes he had brought out the pony and cantered away. Meanwhile Gabriele, asking Jack to lean upon her arm, had led him into the copse to a large beech, the lowest branch of which sprang from the trunk about twelve feet from the ground. Asking him to remain there, she ran off with the fleetness of a doe, and soon returned with a light ladder. Setting this against the tree, she assisted Jack to mount; when he reached the fork he saw that the interior of the trunk was hollow. Then she pulled up the ladder, lowered it into the hollow space, and helped Jack to descend. Drawing up the ladder again, she let it down outside, ran down, and carried it swiftly back to the house, leaving Jack inside the trunk, where he stood upright, supporting himself with his uninjured arm.

Scarcely five minutes had passed since his first appearance. The Buriats had not yet come in sight; they had clearly been checked by the fugitive's sudden divergence from his previous line of flight, and nonplussed by his precaution in riding for some distance through the stream. But in another five minutes half a dozen horsemen, with a handsome young Russian lieutenant at their head, drew rein in front of the house. Gabriele was unconcernedly shelling peas at the window of the little dining-room.

The officer was evidently surprised to see a young European lady. With heightened colour he bent over his saddle and addressed her in Russian.

"Have you seen a man on horseback in (he neighbourhood, Mademoiselle?"

Gabriele looked up, with a puzzled expression.

"Monsieur parle-t-il français?" she said.

"Oui, Mademoiselle," returned the officer, then repeating his question in French.

"Yes," she replied. "A few minutes ago a man galloped from the stream, past the copse, and rode auay along the side of the hill."

"Merci bien, Mademoiselle," said the lieutenant, translating the information for his men.

They at once began to hunt for the tracks, and in a few moments spied the hoof-marks of a galloping horse. One of them discharged his rifle to bring up the rest of the troop, who had scattered over the face of the country, endeavouring to pick up the trail of the fugitive. Some were already galloping off in the direction indicated by Gabriele. Soon the rest of the Buriats came riding by in twos and threes, until the whole band was in full cry up the hillside.

Gabriele remained at the window shelling peas until she was sure that the last horseman had passed. Then she took a bottle of home-grown wine from the missionary's store, filled a cup and gave it to her old nurse to carry, and returned with the ladder to the tree.

"It is I," she said as she approached. "I am bringing you wine."

Mounting into the tree, she handed down the cup. Jack drained it at a draught.

"You are suffering?" said the girl.

"Not much. It is a flesh wound; I have lost some blood, and was faint. I am better now."

"You must remain in the tree. The danger is not yet past; but have patience. I dare not stay longer; they will come back soon. Hope on."

CHAPTER VII

A Daughter of Poland

Suppressio Veri—The Keys—At Fault—A Polish Patriot—A Daughter's Love—A Common Sorrow—A French Mission—A Council of War—From Canton—A Surprise Visit—Hide and Seek—Ladislas Streleszki

All was silent for nearly an hour. Slowly the minutes passed. Jack felt he had never been so wretchedly uncomfortable. His legs ached; his arm throbbed with pain; there was not room in his hiding-place to sit; the stuffiness of his prison and the attentions of innumerable insects so tortured him that he could hardly refrain from crying out to be released. Eagerly he listened for the return of the tall strong girl whose quick wit had thrown the Buriats off his track. When would she come again? At last, after a period of waiting that seemed ten times as long as it really was, he fancied he heard her footsteps. He listened; yes, it was certainly someone approaching; his long imprisonment was ended. But just as the footsteps, now distinctly audible, neared the tree, his ears caught the heavy thud of horses galloping, and a few moments afterwards an angry voice saying in French:

"The man you saw, Mademoiselle, is not the man we are searching for. My sergeant, who is following him up, sends me word that he got a clear view of him as he breasted the hill. The dress is different, the horse is different——"

He broke off as if expecting an explanation.

"How unfortunate, Monsieur!" exclaimed Gabriele in a tone of concern. "I fear you must have come a long distance out of your way."

"That is as it may be, Mademoiselle," replied the lieutenant, somewhat nettled. "Perhaps not so far either, for we tracked our man to within a few hundred yards of your house." He paused a moment, then added suspiciously: "What was he like, the man you saw galloping?"

"What was he like?" she repeated reflectively. "I think he was about your height; but then you are mounted, and so was he, and it is so difficult to judge when a man is mounted, is it not, Monsieur? And then he was going so fast; in a flash he was by; there was his back disappearing into the copse. It was a broad back; yes, certainly a broad back; and he was hitting his pony; yes, I remember that clearly, poor thing! and it was going so fast, too."

All this was said with the most artless simplicity, and Jack was amused, though his heart was beating hard with apprehension.

"But, Mademoiselle, what was he like?" repeated the officer, finding some difficulty in repressing his anger.

"The man I saw, Monsieur, or the man you saw, or the man your sergeant saw? There are so many—they confuse me."

"The man you saw. Come, Mademoiselle, we are wasting time. Was he a white man, or a Chinaman, or what?"

"Oh, his colour! Really, I cannot say. You see, Monsieur, the sun was in my eyes. I saw his back plainly, a broad back; but he was riding fast, and hitting his pony; yes, poor thing! he was hitting it very hard."

The lieutenant hesitated; Jack held his breath.

"You will pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I ask you to let me search your house."

"Not my house, Monsieur. It belongs to Father Mayenobe."

"Peste!" he exclaimed as he dismounted. "This house, whosesoever it is. The man gave us the slip in this neighbourhood, and my orders are to capture him."

"Certainly search, Monsieur. Father Mayenobe is away from home, or I am sure he would receive you as the occasion demands. The house is open to you. Perhaps a few of you would enter at a time?"

The frowning officer glanced at her, unable to decide whether she was mocking him. But her face was perfectly grave.

"Certainly, Mademoiselle," he replied a little uneasily. "Two will be sufficient; and with your permission I will accompany them. Doubtless," he added, as by an afterthought, "it will prove a mere form."

"I suppose it is quite right, Monsieur. I know nothing about these things. Perhaps I ought to say no until Father Mayenobe returns. But then I couldn't prevent you, could I? So you had better go in and do your duty. Let me see, you will want the keys." She took a bunch from her pocket. "There are very few. This is the key of the larder."

She innocently handed him the bunch, indicating the one she had mentioned.

"Only the larder is locked," she added. "The natives, you are aware, Monsieur, will overeat if one is not careful."

The young officer, looking very much ashamed of himself, took the bunch, and having no answer ready, moved towards the house.

"Will you show us the house, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh no, Monsieur! that would be to countenance your intrusion. I cannot be expected to do that."

The conversation had been carried on throughout within a few feet of Jack. In spite of his wound, his uncomfortable position, and the danger of discovery, he found himself shaking with silent laughter, imagining the play of expression on the faces of Gabriele and her victim.

The lieutenant with two of his men went into the house. There was silence for a while, broken only by the champing of the Buriats' ponies and the rattle of accoutrements, the men sitting their steeds mute and motionless. Then the voice of the officer could be heard interrogating the old nurse, who merely shook her head to every question. She knew nothing but Polish, and the officer's Russian was as incomprehensible to her as his French. After a few minutes he returned.

"Accept my apologies and my thanks, Mademoiselle," he said, as he handed her the keys. "We must pursue our chase elsewhere. Bonjour!"

"Bonjour, Monsieur!"

The troop rode away, taking a different course. Gabriele's lips curved in a smile as she watched them. The officer glanced back just before riding out of sight. She was walking slowly towards the house.

Half an hour afterwards the missionary returned.

"Father," said Gabriele, "I have played the good Samaritan since you have been away."

She explained to him rapidly what had occurred.

"My daughter," he said gently, "I cannot blame you, but you acted rashly, very rashly indeed."

"What would you have done, Father?" she asked archly.

"Just what you did, my dear," he replied with twinkling eyes. "But we must be careful. The Russians look askance at our missions as it is; they only want a pretext to expel us."

"And the poor young man is all the time in the tree! He must be nearly dead with fatigue."

"But we cannot release him yet. Some of the Russians may return this way from their chase of Min-chin. I hope they will not shoot the poor fellow by mistake."

Jack waited, feeling more and more exhausted, and wondering how long his irksome durance was to last. By and by he again heard horses galloping. The Buriat sergeant and one of his men had returned from their fruitless chase. Min-chin, the Korean servant, had outridden them, and they had lost trace of him. They pulled up at the missionary's house to ask the whereabouts of the remainder of the troop, then they rode on. Watching them out of sight, and waiting for some time to assure himself that danger was past, Father Mayenobe carried the ladder to the tree, and soon Jack, pale, worn, and hungry, lay in the priest's own bed. The father, like most of the French missionaries in China, knew something of medicine and surgery; he examined Jack's wound, dressed and bound up his arm, and said that he was not to think of getting up for several days. It was in fact nearly a week before he was allowed to leave the bed, and the missionary saw that watch was kept night and day to guard against a surprise visit from the Russians.

During this period of enforced seclusion Father Mayenobe learnt Jack's story. Though it made him feel more than ever the gravity of his position if his guest should be discovered, it did not abate by a jot his determination to do what he could for him. Indeed, his sympathy for Jack was enhanced by a certain similarity between his circumstances and Gabriele's. He told Jack her story. Her father was a large land-owner, the descendant of a great Polish family, a man of noble character, greatly beloved of his tenants and respected by his peers. Like every true Pole he was a strong patriot, and had been a member of one of the secret associations that have for their object the restoration of Polish liberties. Some six years before, the society had been betrayed by one of its members; Count Walewski, with several of his compatriots, was arrested and sent without trial into exile; and as a deterrent to other Poles who might contemplate revolt, the place selected for his punishment was the bleak barren island of Sakhalin, the farthest eastern limit of the Russian empire. There was special cruelty and indignity involved in this choice, for the island was reserved as a rule for murderers and the lowest class of criminals; and his friends in Poland were aghast when they heard to what a living death he had been condemned.

At the time of the count's arrest and banishment, his daughter Gabriele was only eleven years of age. Her father's estates being confiscated, and she a motherless child, she was adopted by her paternal aunt, an unmarried lady of ample means, who took her to her home in Paris, educated her, and treated her with a mother's care. But as the girl grew older and learned to understand more fully the hopelessness of her father's fate, she resolved at all costs to share his exile, and to do what lay in her power to alleviate and sweeten his terrible lot. Her aunt, fearful of allowing a young girl to undertake a mission so terrible, and being too infirm to accompany her, did all that she could to turn her from her purpose. But with increasing years the girl's determination became ever stronger. She grew up quickly into a thoughtful strong-willed maiden, full of patriotic ardour, of passionate resentment against the Russian government, and of an overflowing love for the father whose affection she remembered so well, and whose noble qualities she had not been too young to appreciate. While grateful for all the kindness her aunt had showered upon her, she was possessed by an overmastering sense of duty to her father. At last, when she was nearly seventeen, but in looks and mind older than her years, she threatened to set forth without assistance if her aunt refused her assent and help. Having no alternative the poor lady yielded, only stipulating that Gabriele's old nurse should accompany her. For some months they vainly tried to get permission from St. Petersburg for the girl to join her father. In the case of ordinary criminals no difficulty was usually made; it was clear that, as happens so often in Russia, the political offence was to be visited more heavily than the worst of crimes. Then she started without permission, hoping to obtain the necessary authorization at Vladivostok. She was provided with letters of introduction to a Polish family in Siberia, and one to Father Mayenobe, whose sister had been a teacher at the pension Gabriele had attended in Paris. But the outbreak of the war had so much disorganized things that the Polish friends were not to be found. She arrived in Vladivostok; there her request for permission to go to Sakhalin had been referred by one official to another, shelved, and finally ignored. Then, friendless and despairing, she had written to the missionary asking his advice. He had already heard of her from his sister. Riding at once into Vladivostok he endeavoured to get the required permission; but the governor and officials had something more important to consider than the romantic impulses of a Polish school-girl, and they politely shunted all his representations. At his suggestion Gabriele and her nurse had returned with him to his little mission station in the hills, where they had since remained, hoping that in course of time they would gain their object.

When Jack was well enough to leave his bedroom and share the simple life of the missionary and his household, it was apparent that the two young people were drawn together by the common circumstances of their fate. From the first moment Jack had felt a strong admiration for the girl whose resourcefulness had saved him from capture; while Gabriele regarded his position as even worse than her own, for she knew at any rate where her father was. They had many long conversations together; the girl put her own sorrows into the background, and entered heartily into Jack's perplexities and plans. Father Mayenobe often joined them in talking things over, and soon won Jack's admiration for his character, and respect for his wise counsel.

Jack had opportunities of seeing something and learning more of his new friend's mission work. Jean Mayenobe had been a favourite pupil of Monsieur Venault, the young nobleman who gave up his career as a courtier of Louis XVIII, and devoted his whole fortune and forty-two years of his life to his labour of love in Manchuria. A great part of a French missionary's work consists in relieving the poor and sick and caring for orphans. He does little actual preaching of the Gospel; he conducts service in a small church or oratory attached to his house, but converts are made chiefly through the agency of native Christians, and through the training of orphan children from tender years. The priest dresses and fares little better than the poorest of his flock, and is never absent from his charge, fulfilling with absolute literalness the Divine command.

One day a Korean youth in training for the priesthood came in with a message from the Sister in charge of the orphanage at Almazovsk. He remained for several days in the house. Observing his manly open countenance and his air of energy and enthusiasm, so much in contrast to the average Korean's flabby effeminacy, Jack understood what an influence for good the Christian missionary can wield.

The talk in the little mission-house turned again and again upon the mystery of Mr. Brown's fate.

Father Mayenobe confessed that he was unable to make a likely guess as to the merchant's whereabouts.

"There are so many places in Siberia to which he may have been sent. Sakhalin, you suggest? Sakhalin is little used now for political prisoners, although, as in Count Walewski's case, some few are still sent there."

"How am I to find out? It is the uncertainty that is so terrible."

"I can think of no safe means. If the Russians are determined to keep his whereabouts secret——"

"That is itself an admission that they are in the wrong," interrupted Gabriele.

"It may be. I was going to say that if that is their determination it will be very difficult to trace him, and the only likely course would be to follow up enquiries along the railway."

"That is almost hopeless in present circumstances. The war has disorganized everything. Besides, how am I to get into Moukden again?"

"Why attempt it? Why not try to gain the coast and make for home, and trust to diplomatic representations at St. Petersburg?"

"No, no, father, I certainly disagree with you," cried Gabriele. "You know how slowly diplomacy works. Think of it; Monsieur Brown may pass months, perhaps years, in the most terrible uncertainty and suspense. No; if I were in his place I would do as he means to do. Oh, I wish I were a man!"

"But think of the danger! If he were to go as a European, he would be set upon by Chinese in the out-of-the-way parts through which he must pass. In the towns the English and the French are respected when other Europeans are not, but in the country parts all alike are foreign devils, of less account than pigs. If he got safely within the Russian lines he would probably be arrested as a spy and shot. His only chance is to go as a Chinaman."

"As a Chinaman?"

"Yes, disguised to the best of our ability."

Gabriele looked dubiously at Jack, as though questioning whether any disguise would serve.

"What do you say yourself, Monsieur Brown?" asked the missionary.

"I must risk it, father. I have been long enough in China to know the difficulties and dangers in my way; I don't underrate them, I assure you. But anything is better than this harrowing uncertainty. I could not remain idle; I feel I must do something to clear up the mystery, even though I should be venturing on a forlorn hope."

"Well, my son, I will not dissuade you. Fortune favours the brave, they say. You are determined to go; God go with you! But we must think of how it is to be done."

"I must go as a Chinaman, that is certain. It had better be as a southern Chinaman. Mademoiselle perhaps does not know that the spoken language of the north and south are so unlike that natives of the one can only communicate with the other by written characters or by pidgin English. I can't write Chinese, and if I pretend to be quite illiterate (as indeed I am from the Chinese point of view) I may hope to pass muster. I can speak pidgin English. We had a Canton servant in Shanghai with whom I spoke nothing else, and we use it still with the servants in Moukden."

"But there is a greater difficulty—the difficulty of feature. You would pass better in Canton as a Manchu, than as a Cantonese in Manchuria."

"I can only risk it. A little saffron and henna——"

"And a pigtail, Monsieur Brown?—will you have to wear a pigtail?" said Gabriele.

"Yes, unluckily," said Jack with a rueful smile. "My own hair won't suffice. But false pigtails are common enough in China. I shall ask your help with that, Mademoiselle."

"It would amuse me—if it were not so terribly serious."

"You will go as a Chinaman, then," said the priest. "But you must have a story to tell on the way if you are questioned: have you thought of that?"

"Yes. Suppose I give out that I am the servant of a Moukden mandarin, returning from a special mission to Hun-chun, hinting perhaps at anti-Russian intrigue?"

Father Mayenobe stroked his beard.

"It is inevitable," he said. "For you this is a state of war, and in war the first principle is to deceive the enemy. Still, I do not like your venture. The more I think of it, the more heavy do the odds appear against success."

"Father, do not let us go into that again," pleaded Gabriele. "Can you suggest any better plan for Monsieur Brown?"

"I confess I cannot. Well, let it be so, then. I will do all in my power to help you, my son."

A fortnight passed away. The wet season had begun, and though the rainfall was not so continuous as is commonly the case, the streams were swelled to overflowing and the rough tracks rendered impassable. The mission station, being on a hillside, suffered less than huts on the lower ground. During the unfavourable weather much anxious care was given to Jack's preparations. The costume was got ready in every detail; Gabriele with her own hands plaited the pigtail and wadded the loose tunic and pantaloons. At last all was in readiness, and Jack only awaited a fine day to set off.

One afternoon, when the sun was hot, raising a thick vapour from the sodden fields, Min-chin came running into the house with the news that a party of Buriats were riding up the hill. It happened that Father Mayenobe had taken advantage of the change of weather to visit some of his little flock a few miles off. Without a moment's delay Jack hastened to the hollow tree, and was safe inside by the time the horsemen rode up. They surrounded the house, and the officer, an older man than the lieutenant whom Gabriele had discomfited, alighted at the door and called for the priest. Gabriele appeared. It was evident from the officer's manner that he had heard of her.

"Mademoiselle," he said in French, "you will please give me a plain answer. A stranger has been seen in and about this house. Who is he?"

"Oh! you mean the catechumen from Almazovsk?"

The captain looked hard at her.

"Come, Mademoiselle, where is the man?"

"The catechumen? He is gone. He went three days ago, all through the rain. He would not remain, though Father Mayenobe pressed him to wait in hope of finer weather. You seem to doubt me," added the girl. "The house has been already searched once, in Father Mayenobe's absence; I assure you there is nobody in it but our servants; if you will not accept my assurance you had better search again."

She moved away, and began to occupy herself with simple household matters, completely ignoring the Russians. The captain did not go shamefacedly about his work as the lieutenant had done; he searched the little house thoroughly, ransacking every hole and corner. The task did not take him long; he found nothing. Coming out again, he beckoned to a man in civilian costume whom Gabriele had not previously noticed. As he rode forward, she started; but in an instant recovered herself. He spoke a few words to the captain; then the latter, with a curt word of farewell to the girl, gave his men the order to ride away. Gabriele did not like his look; he had seemed too easily satisfied, and consulted with the civilian; and she sent two of the servants to keep watch at the only convenient approaches to the settlement. Her precaution was justified. Two or three hours later the party rode back at a gallop. The alarm was given by one of the sentinels, and Jack had time to get back into the serviceable beech before they arrived. A second search was made, this also fruitless; then the horsemen finally departed, convinced against their will that they had come once more on a false scent.

When Jack left his hiding-place he saw by the expression of Gabriele's face that she had something to tell him. A red spot burned on each cheek, and her eyes were blazing.

"How dare he! How dare he!" she exclaimed. "Oh, if I could have killed him! It was Ladislas Streleszki, the traitor, the villain, the man who betrayed my father. He was our steward; we did not know for a long time who had done that foul deed; but when my father was arrested Streleszki disappeared, and it was many months before we understood."

"Do you mean, Mademoiselle, that he is now a Russian officer?"

"No, no; but when they came the second time he was with them."

"Did he not recognize you?"

"No; it is six years since he saw me, and I have changed very much. I was afraid he might; I thought perhaps a chance word from one of the officers in Vladivostok through whom my applications have passed, had brought him here to persecute me. But it cannot be so; he hardly looked at me. I knew him at once; he has altered little; his hair is turning grey; but I could never mistake him; one eyelid droops and——"

"Indeed!" cried Jack with a start. "Is it his left eyelid?"

"Yes. Oh, why do you ask?"

"Sowinski, my father's enemy, has the same defect. Did you hear him speak, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes; his voice is gruff and coarse."

"Then Streleszki and Sowinski are the same man. Good heavens, we have indeed had a narrow escape! It would have been all up with me if I had been found, and I fear your fate would have been sealed too. I am to blame for staying here so long. I must not bring you into danger again. I will go to-day."

CHAPTER VIII

A Custom of Cathay

The Forbidden Mountain—Two from Canton—Clutching at Straws—Ipsos Custodes—A Question of Dollars—The Yamen—The Majesty of the Law—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 and glare!"

"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 are dangerous to keep. One come, thousands follow. Kill at once; if we had done that with the Russians, no more trouble. He will bring ill-luck on the village. What luck have we had since the Russians came digging into the Hill of a Thousand Perfumes? Who can say how many demons they let loose?"

"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 our oxen carried off by Ah Lum and his Chunchuses. Hai! hai! And this foreign devil will make things worse. Why did they not chop off his head at once?"

To this conversation, carried on within a few feet of him, Jack listened in a somewhat apathetic spirit. He was utterly dejected, worn out, humiliated. He lay in a large wooden cage near the headman's house in the village of Tang-ho-kou in the Long White Mountains. It was a secluded spot, in a district supposed to be sacred to the emperor's ancestors, where it was sacrilege even for a Chinaman to tread. The inhabitants were an exclusive community, ruled by a guild, owning only nominal allegiance to the emperor, and essentially a self-governed republic. They were unmolested, for government is lax in Manchuria, and the Long White Mountains are far from the capital and difficult ground to 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 the cage, discussing the foreign prisoner, interrupting their conversation to 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 is very strict. Even a foreign devil may not be killed without leave. Why? Because if one is killed, there is trouble. The kings of the foreign devils are angry, and many good Chinese heads have to fall. They have sent to ask leave to behead the barbarian: better still, to slice him. He fought like a hill tiger when they caught him, and two men even now lie wounded."

"How did they catch him?"

"A Canton man, mafoo to his excellency General Ping at Moukden, overtook him 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 a friend, and rode alongside. Where did he come from? Thus asked the Canton man. The barbarian shook his head and answered in pidgin, the tongue of the foreign devil in the south. Yah! That was his ruin. Our Canton friend also speaks pidgin. 'You come from Canton?' says he. 'Yes.' 'What part? Where did you live? Do you know this place or that? What is your business?' Those were his questions; a shrewd fellow, the Canton man. He left him at the next village; then followed with six strong men. They got ahead of him, hid in a copse by the roadside, and when the foreign devil came up, rushed out upon him. They were seven; but it was a hard fight. Ch'hoy! These barbarians are in league with a thousand demons; that is why they are so fierce and strong. But they got him at last, and brought him here; worse luck! he shall 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, were only kept from tearing him to pieces by the guard and the bars of the cage. Exposed without shelter to the broiling sun, Jack was dizzy and faint. His clothes had been torn to tatters in the struggle, his pigtail 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 the crowd had said. How stupid of him to whistle—a thing a Chinaman never does! How unlucky that he had met a man from Canton! The dialects of the north and south differ so much that by professing to be a Southerner he had come so far on his journey undetected; but in conversation with a Cantonese his accent had inevitably betrayed him. And now he knew that he could expect no mercy. A European carries his life in his hands in China whenever he ventures alone out of the beaten track. In Manchuria just then, with the natives embittered by the wanton destruction of their towns and villages, the chances of a captive being spared were infinitesimal. Only fear of the mandarins had apparently caused them to hold their hands in his case; but Jack had little reason to suppose that the mandarins would interfere to protect him. No order would be issued; but the villagers would receive a hint to do as they pleased; and Jack well knew what their pleasure would be. In the unlikely event of diplomatic pressure being afterwards brought to bear, the mandarins could still repudiate responsibility, and the villagers would suffer; several, probably the most innocent, would lose their heads. But Jack knew that he had placed himself outside the protection of the British flag. Neither the mandarins nor the villagers had anything to fear.

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

He began a whispered conversation with his guard, and learnt that, a few days before, Ah Lum's band was known to be encamped in the hills some twenty miles to the south-west. It was resting and recruiting its strength after a severe brush with a force of Cossacks, who had almost succeeded 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 eight hundred; there were more than a thousand before the fight with the Russians."

"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 fifty dollars."

"Where will you get them from?" asked the man suspiciously. "Were you not searched, and everything taken from you?"

"True, I was searched; but the foreign devil has ways of getting money that the Chinaman does not understand. It is a small thing I ask you to do. 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 discussed for some time before he at last agreed to Jack's proposition.

"You must make haste," said Jack. "If the messenger to the mandarin returns 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 the village; he must find a messenger.

"Very well. He is to find Wang Shih and say that Jack Brown from Moukden 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 no time. In a few minutes a man came to take his place, and Jack, with mingled hopes and fears, settled himself in a corner of the cage, to sleep if possible. Half an hour later the guard returned with the welcome news that a messenger had started, after bargaining for twenty of the fifty dollars, and would travel all night on foot, for he had no horse, and to hire one would awaken suspicion.

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

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

The guide looked puzzled.

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

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

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 if he found him, it was uncertain whether his sense of gratitude was sufficiently keen to bring him to the rescue. Yet, in spite of all, Jack's impatient eager thought followed the messenger, as though hope could give him winged feet.

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

Soon after dawn he heard a great commotion in the village. His pulse beat high; he hoped that Wang Shih had arrived. But when his friendly guardian came to resume duty, his heart sank, for he learnt that the headman's messenger to the local mandarin had returned, bringing word that the barbarian should be suitably dealt with by the guild. The mandarin had evidently washed his hands of the matter; the guard had no doubt 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 at the 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 the Russians, who in constructing their railway had cut through his family graveyard, and in defiling the bones of his ancestors had done him the worst injury a Chinaman can suffer. Jack was to have no breakfast; his captors were so sure of his fate that they thought it would be a mere waste to feed him.

An hour passed—a terrible hour of suspense. The villagers began to gather round the cage, and their looks of gleeful and malicious satisfaction struck Jack cold. All at once they broke into loud shouting as a posse of armed yamen-runners forced their way through. Jack was taken out of the cage, and, surrounded by the runners and followed by the jabbering crowd, was marched to the headman's house. He there found himself in the presence of a dignified Chinaman, a glossy black moustache encircling his mouth and chin, his long finger-nails denoting that he did not condescend to menial work. He was in fact a prosperous farmer, who, besides possessing large estates (to which he had no title) in the Forbidden Country, carried on an extensive trade in ginseng, a plant to which extraordinary medicinal virtues are attributed by the Chinese, and so valuable that a single root will sometimes fetch as much as £15 in the Peking market. The headman, feeling the importance of the occasion, had got himself up in imitation of a magistrate, wearing a round 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 scribe with 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; in front stood a group of runners in weird costumes, wearing black cloth caps with red tassels. From the sour expression on the Chinaman's face Jack knew that he was already judged and condemned; but he held his head high, and gazed unflinchingly on the stern-visaged Chinaman.

It is proper for a prisoner to take his trial on his knees, and one of the runners approached Jack and sharply bade him kneel. He refused. Two other men came up with threatening gestures, and laid hands on him to force him down. He resisted; he had the rooted European objection to kowtow to an Asiatic. With too much good sense to indulge himself in heroics, he yet recalled at this moment by a freak of memory the lines written 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 desiring that the proceedings should be conducted with decorum, ordered his men to 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, you foreign 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, is worthy 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? Nobody is 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 been in league with the Russians, assisting them in their impious work, disturbing the feng-shui in the most sacred city of the virtuous Son of Heaven. You are found in insolent disguise within the limits of the Forbidden Mountains; you resisted lawful arrest, to the severe injury of two of my officers. It is clear that you are a vile example of the outer barbarians who are scheming to drive the Manchu from his immemorial lands, defiling the graves of our fathers, and bringing our sons to shame. You are not fit to live; every one of your offences is punishable with death; in their sum you are lightly touched by my sentence 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 listened with unmoved countenance to his speech. The decision was only what he had expected. The worst was to come. He knew that by the laws and customs of China he could not be executed until he had acknowledged the justice of the sentence and made open confession of his crime; he knew also that, failing to confess voluntarily, he would be tortured by all the most fiendish methods devised by Chinese ingenuity until confession was extorted from his lacerated, half-inanimate frame. The end would be the same; for a moment, in his helplessness and despair, he thought it would perhaps be better to acquiesce at once and get it over. But then pride 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 know how 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 but a moment.

"I have nothing to confess," he said.

The headman gave a grunt of satisfaction.

"Put him in the cage," he said.

Jack's blood ran cold in spite of himself. The word used by his judge was not the name of the cage in which he had already been confined, but meant an instrument of torture. Amid the exultant hoots of the crowd of natives, who spat on the ground as he passed, he was hauled from the presence and taken to a yard near by. In the centre of it stood a bamboo cage somewhat more than five feet high. Its top consisted of two movable slabs of wood which, when brought together, left a hole large enough to encircle a man's neck, but too small for his head to pass through. The height of the cage was so adjusted, that when the prisoner was inside with his head protruding from the top he could only avoid being hung by the neck so long as his feet rested on a brick. By and by that would be removed; he might defer strangulation for a short time by standing on tiptoe, but that would soon become too painful. Jack had never seen the instrument in use, but he had heard of it, and he quailed at the imagination of the torture he was to endure.

His arms were bound together; he was locked into the cage; his head was enclosed; and the mob jeered and yelled as, the brick being knocked away after a few minutes, he instinctively raised himself on his toes to ease the pressure on his neck. How long could he endure it? he wondered. Had the messenger failed to find Wang Shih? Had some perverse fate removed the Chunchuse band at this moment of dire peril? Humanly speaking, his salvation depended on Wang Shih, and on him alone: was his last hope to prove vain? Should he now yield, confess, and spare himself further torture? Already he was suffering intense pain; he gained momentary relief for his feet by drawing up his legs, a movement which brought his whole weight upon his neck; but that was endurable only for a few seconds. He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of the yelling mob; pressed his lips together lest a moan should escape him: "I will never give in, never give in." he said to himself; "pray God it may not be long."

The pain became excruciating; he no longer saw or heard the yelling fiends gloating over every spasm of his tortured body; he was fast sinking into unconsciousness, and the headman, fearful of losing his victim, was about to give the order for his temporary release, when suddenly his ears caught the sound of galloping horses. The noise around him lulled; he heard loud shouts in the distance, and drawing ever nearer. Then the crowd scattered like chaff, and through their midst rode a brawny figure brandishing a riding-whip of bamboo. Dashing through the amazed throng at the head of thirty shouting bandits he leapt from his horse, sprang to the cage, tore away the catch holding the two panels together, and Jack fell, an unconscious heap, to the bottom of the cage.

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

"Hai-yah! What are you doing, men of Tang-ho-kou? Is this foreigner a Russian that you treat him thus? A fine thing truly! You skulk in your fangtzes, afraid to come out with the honourable Ah Lum and me and fight the Russians, and yet you are bold enough to catch a solitary man, a friend 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 imprisoned his father; it is reverence for his father that brings him here. Is filial piety so little esteemed in Tang-ho-kou to-day? Ch'hoy! I see your headman aping a lordly mandarin; let him listen. I say you are lucky I do not burn your village and execute a dozen of you as you were about to execute the stranger. But I will be merciful. I will take from you a contribution of five thousand taels for my chief; and your headman—ch'hoy! he shall stand for half an hour in the cage. That shall suffice. But beware how you offend again. Learn to distinguish your friends from your enemies—an Englishman from the Russians whom the dwarfs of Japan are helping us to drive back to the frozen north. Take heed of what I say—I, Wang Shih, the worthless servant of his excellency Ah Lum, the virtuous commander of many honourable brigands."

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