Chapter XV

Ping Wang recovered fairly quickly, and it was early one morning, nearly a fortnight after he had been taken ill, when, having bidden farewell to their kind hosts, the three friends passed out of the town, and began their six-mile journey along the muddy track which led to Kwang-ngan.

Before they had gone far they found a cart stuck in the mud. The owner and his wife—the latter looking very comical with her tiny crippled feet and black trousers—stood helplessly beside it.

'Noble brothers,' the man called out to the approaching travellers, 'your dog of a servant implores you to assist him to move his cart.'

'He wants us to help him get his cart out of that hole,' Ping Wang said to the Pages, in an undertone. 'Shall we?'

'Certainly,' Charlie answered.

Charlie, Fred, and Ping Wang walked up to the cart, and putting forth all their strength moved it, at the first attempt, out of the rut in which it had stuck. The Chinaman thanked them profusely for their help. His wife said nothing, but stared at Charlie in a way that made him feel quite uncomfortable. He was much relieved when, in obedience to her husband's call to come and take her seat, she toddled off towards the vehicle.

'It's a wonder,' Charlie whispered to Fred, 'that she doesn't fall on her nose. If she did it would not spoil it, for it's flat already. Hallo, what's Ping Wang saying to the old man?'

In a few moments they knew. Ping Wang came over to them, and said, quietly, 'These people are on their way to Kwang-ngan, and they will drive us there for one hundred cash.'

A cash is a copper coin with a square hole in the middle. Its value is about a fifth of an English farthing. These coins are carried strung together, and their value being so small a man can have a heavy load of coppers without being even moderately rich.

'It's cheap,' Fred answered. 'Let us accept.'

Ping Wang therefore informed his noble brother that the sons of dogs would have the pleasure of riding in his magnificent carriage. Before they had travelled far the Pages came to the conclusion that the ride was by no means a cheap one, and that instead of paying to ride they ought to have been paid, so frequently were they called upon to pull or push the cart out of some rut in which it stuck fast. They felt that the wily old Chinaman had made a very good bargain, and if they had been able to speak Chinese they would have told him so. Charlie, however, disliked the woman much more than he did her husband. She stared at him almost continuously while they were on the cart, and when he was in the road helping to get the vehicle out of a rut, he could see her still peeping out at him. When the cart had stuck in the mud for the tenth time in half an hour, Charlie whispered to Fred, as they were extricating it, 'I have had enough of this. Let's walk.'

Fred nodded his head, and then told Ping Wang their decision. Ping Wang was as ready as they to get away from the cart, and when it had been pushed and pulled out of the rut he informed the cart-owner that they were about to leave him.

'Noble brother,' he said, 'if your dogs of servants walk, your magnificent carriage will be lighter, and not stick in the mud so frequently.'

'Noble brother,' the cart-owner answered, with a savage expression on his face, which proved that he considered Ping Wang far from being noble, 'you will not forget that you promised to pay your humble slave one hundred cash.'

Ping Wang paid the cart-owner. But when the woman saw that the money was safe in her husband's wallet, she stretched forth her hand, seized Charlie's pigtail, and tugged at it with all her strength.

'Foreigner!' she screamed as she fell backwards in the cart with the pigtail, and skull-cap attached, in her hand.

'Foreigners!' the man shouted, on seeing Charlie's unmistakably European head—for his beehive had fallen off—and, seizing Ping Wang's pigtail with both hands, pulled it with tremendous force.

Ping Wang shouted with pain, but the cart-owner being convinced that if he pulled hard enough the pigtail would come off, tugged still more vigorously.

In great pain Ping Wang suddenly turned right about, and, before the cart-owner had time to move, seized his own pigtail with his mouth, about an inch from his tormentor's hands, and held it tight between his teeth. The cart-owner continued to tug viciously, but Ping Wang struck him several blows on the face with his fist, and finally compelled him to release his hold.

In the meanwhile Charlie had climbed into the cart, and was struggling with the Chinese woman to regain his pigtail. At first he thought that she was sitting on it, but when he pulled her up, he found he had been mistaken.

'Foreigner! Foreigner!' she screamed as he searched about the cart, and frequently she struck him with her open hands.

'If you won't keep quiet, madam,' Charlie said, 'I shall have to put you out.'

He caught hold of her with the intention of lifting her out, so that he might search the cart undisturbed. But the moment that he touched her she screamed frantically. Her husband was too busy holding his bruised face to heed her, but Ping Wang went at once to see what was happening, and finding that Charlie was lifting her bodily, shouted, 'Put her down, Charlie. Don't touch her!'

'But she has hidden my pigtail,' Charlie protested.

'Never mind. Don't touch her again, for it's a terrible insult to a Chinese woman to lay hands on her. Put her down and jump out.'

Charlie put the woman down, jumped out of the cart, and picked up his 'beehive,' but he was very indignant at having been robbed of his pigtail. To stop the cartman from following them, he caught hold of the horse, and led it into the thickest mud, where the wheels sank in almost to the axle.

They started off at a trot immediately, the Chinaman and his wife yelling after them insulting remarks. Fortunately there was no one about just then, and the three travellers were out of sight before the cartman and his wife had an opportunity of telling any one about the foreigners whom they had seen disguised as Chinamen.

When they had run for about a quarter of a mile, they began to walk, and discussed what should be done to hide the loss of Charlie's pigtail.

'To start with,' Fred said, 'we had better take off our goggles now.'

'If you can hide the loss until we get to Kwang-ngan,' said Ping Wang, 'I will buy you a new one. Put your "beehive" on the back of your head.'

Charlie did so, but as he was without a skull-cap, his European forehead was most noticeable.

'That will never do,' Ping Wang declared. 'Put your beehive as it was before. We will walk in single file; I in front of you, and Fred behind you.'

In that order they had walked for nearly two miles, when a man, passing in the opposite direction, mistook Fred for an acquaintance. He stopped short, and shook his own hands. Fred knew that the Chinese, when they meet a friend, instead of shaking his hand, shake their own. Wishing to be polite, he shook his own hands in reply.

Then the Chinaman made some remark. Fortunately Ping Wang, having been nudged by Charlie, turned round, and seeing Fred being addressed by a Chinaman, explained that Fred was a man of weak intellect. The Chinaman was astonished, but having satisfied himself that Fred was not the man he had fancied, went on his way, turning round, however, after walking a few yards, to have a look at the three friends. Then he noticed that Charlie had no pigtail, and immediately shouted jeering remarks at him.

Ping Wang told the Pages what the man had said, and they agreed that it would be unwise for Charlie to enter Kwang-ngan as he was.

'I will leave you outside the city,' Ping Wang said, 'and come back to you as soon as I have bought a new queue.'

'But suppose somebody speaks to us?'

They were wondering what would be best, when Fred seized Ping Wang by the arm, and pointed to a spot some two hundred yards away from them.

'Are they human heads?' he gasped.

'They are,' Ping Wang answered gravely, and when they had gone a little nearer, all three could see clearly the heads of six Chinamen hanging by their pigtails from six tall canes.

'I have an idea,' Fred said. 'I do not like the notion, but we are in a difficulty, and as we must have another pigtail, I think we need not have any scruples about cutting off one of these.'

'I don't like it,' said Charlie.

'But it will be a great pity, and it may be dangerous too, if we miss this opportunity,' Ping Wang declared. 'By taking one of these pigtails we shall lessen the risk of being found out.'

'Very well, then,' Charlie said, 'I will wear the pigtail. Let us get it and be off as soon as possible.'

'We must not try to get it until after dark,' Ping Wang replied. 'We must hide until then.'

(Continued on page 342.)

"Ping Wang seized his own pigtail with his mouth."

"'I will add this too, lady,' said the pedlar."