THE CALL OF THE EAST (continued 3)

"Oh, mother!" The finely-curved lips trembled A big tear stole out of each eye.

"Mother, do you think that he might get killed?"

"No, Connie. I do not think that he is in any danger."

The big tears rolled down the cheeks and dropped.

"Mother, will he come back?"

"Yes, I think that he may come back in a little while."

"I'm so glad!"

"By Jove! I'll have to watch that Sinclair. He makes conquests of both old and young."

XIII

MORE CONFIDENCES

In the building at the foot of the hill, near the shore, occupied by MacAllister, Munro Co. partly as a warehouse and partly as a residence for the company's European employees, another matrimonial tête-à-tête was taking place. De Vaux and his two or three assistants, the representatives of the big London firm in North Formosa, had found temporary quarters in the buildings of the customs' compound or with the staffs of other firms. Mr. and Mrs. MacAllister and their daughter, with the native servants, had the living-rooms of the big hong to themselves.

It was little more than seven o'clock, an extraordinary hour for rising the morning after a late dinner. But, with characteristic regularity of habits, Mr. MacAllister was already up and shaving. As was fitting at such an hour, he was clothed only in pyjamas and slippers. But even those shapeless garments were worn with an attention to neatness quite lacking in most men whom a score and a half of years of married life have made entirely indifferent to personal appearance in the intimacy of the bed-chamber. He had even taken the trouble to brush his hair, at least what was left of it—another extraordinary proceeding on the part of a man who was likely to be seen by no person but his wife.

The shaving process was nearly done. He was carefully feeling the hard spots on each side of his chin to see if any offending hairs had escaped the relentless sweep of the razor and still projected within its range.

"Hector, you are a most extraordinary man."

The voice came from within the canopy of the mosquito curtains draped around the high-posted iron bed which occupied the centre of the room.

"Good-morning, my dear! Is it only now that you have found that out?"

"You are a most extraordinary man."

"What new marvel have you found in me, my dear?"

"To think that there is only about one hour of the twenty-four in this disgusting climate in which one can sleep comfortably and you would not allow me to have that, but must get up and disturb me by shaving."

"I am exceedingly sorry if I have disturbed you, my dear. But every time I wakened during the night you were sleeping very peacefully, and——"

"Not a bit of it! I have not slept at all."

"And when I got up you were not only sleeping, but snoring gently, and——"

"That's all nonsense! I've been wide-awake all night."

"And, although I have been about for nearly an hour, you continued to snore very gently until a moment before you spoke, and——"

"Hector, I'm astonished at you! You know perfectly well that I never sleep in hot weather. I do not understand why you ever chose to come to such a country as this in the summer."

"And now you are looking thoroughly refreshed and fit for anything, and——"

"I'm more tired than when I went to bed."

"And when you have your bath, and comb your hair, and are dressed, you will be as fresh and beautiful as you were when I brought you to London from the Highlands thirty years ago."

"Hector, it iss flattering me you would be."

She was sitting up now under the canopy of mosquito curtains. If an outsider could have looked in, he would probably have agreed that her husband was flattering shamefully. Unlike him, neatness in private was not one of her virtues. Her hair, black and luxuriant as in her girlhood, was tossed and tousled. The flesh, which had grown upon her with years, ungirt and unrestrained, flowed shapelessly with every movement.

But her face was still fresh in colour and comely in form. A little care about her appearance in the privacies of life would have made her perennially attractive to him, as attractive as when he had taken her as a bride. Perhaps at the moment she felt this. At any rate, the words of compliment and admiration were as sweet to the ears of the middle-aged woman as they had been to the young girl of thirty years before. Her little irritation about the disturbed slumbers and his chaffing manner passed like a summer cloud. Unconsciously she fell back into the accent of her girlhood when she said:

"Hector, it iss flattering me you would be."

He dressed with as much care of his personal appearance as if he were in London. Then he went out for a walk along the shore, pausing under the shade of some great banian trees to enjoy the magnificent scenery. Presently he returned to the room where his wife was now almost ready for breakfast.

"Our friends on board the Hailoong and the Locust are all up and active. But there is no stir anywhere else except among the Chinese. Neither De Vaux nor any of his staff have put in an appearance."

"They have fallen into the ways of this climate," replied his wife, "and sleep when it is possible to enjoy sleep."

"I am afraid De Vaux will not be in condition to do much to-day. He drank heavily last evening. He has been in our employ a long time, and as a rule has done very well. But I wish that he drank less."

"You must remember, Hector, the class to which Mr. De Vaux belongs. He is of noble family."

"All the more reason why he should keep control of himself. I was ashamed of him last night."

"But, Hector, people of rank all drink. You must not forget that Mr. De Vaux is a man of birth."

"Probably he was born some time, my dear. But from all accounts there does not seem to be much reason to be proud of the manner of it."

"Now, Hector, you ought to make allowance for the nobility. They have privileges which common people have not."

"They certainly seem to take them."

"That's not fair to people of rank, Hector. They have always been accustomed to do these things. Now with Dr. Sinclair, for example, it is quite different. He belongs to the common people and never had the chance to be anything else but respectable. But Mr. De Vaux and Mr. Carteret are men of quality. You couldn't expect them to be teetotallers and—and——"

"Decent," supplied her husband.

"Oh, I didn't mean just that."

"But that's about the fact," persisted Mr. MacAllister.

"No; I never heard anything against them. Mr. De Vaux has lived out here a long time. He may have fallen into the ways of the East. But I think that Mr. Carteret is a perfect gentleman."

Her husband looked at her keenly.

"He seemed to be willing to pay a good deal of attention to Jessie last evening."

"Yes," she replied, without returning his gaze. "He appears to be very much attracted by her."

"Was she attracted to him in return?"

"Why shouldn't she be? He is a handsome and most accomplished young man, and has the best prospects of succeeding to the title and estates."

"He is a younger son."

"Yes; but the heir has only one lung."

Her husband gave a short laugh.

"I have known one-lungers to live a long time," he said. "You mentioned Dr. Sinclair a moment ago. Whatever offence did Jessie take at him which led her to treat him so disagreeably?"

Mrs. MacAllister had just finished dressing and arranging her hair, and was taking a last look at herself in the mirror. She closed her lips tightly, threw back her head, and gave a little sniff:

"So you think she was offended at him," she said.

"What else could make her act the way she did last evening?"

"I wish that I could believe that you are right. But I am afraid that you are not."

"What do you mean?"

"I do not believe that she was a bit offended."

"Well, if she wasn't, I cannot see what possessed her to act so badly. She did everything she could to make him uncomfortable. I feel as if I ought to make some explanation of her conduct or offer some apology."

There was another sniff as she answered tartly:

"It would be wiser not to."

"But her behaviour was inexcusable and must have seemed so to Dr. Sinclair."

"All the better if it should remain so."

"Why?"

She made no answer.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that both you and she are inexplicable sometimes."

"That is because you have the usual stupidity of a man about everything in which women are concerned."

XIV

THE APPEAL OF THE HEROIC

"Is Jessie ready for breakfast?"

"Yes, she was ready before we were. She is on the verandah."

"I think we had better sit down. There is no use waiting any longer for De Vaux. I am afraid that he is not in a condition to appear. You had better call Jessie."

At that moment the tall, graceful figure of their daughter appeared in the bright light of the verandah, was framed for an instant in the doorway, and then came in, seeming to bring a wealth of light and brightness into the somewhat gloomy apartment where they were to breakfast. What a picture she made! The rich rose of her cheeks, the masses of her brown hair, the deep violet eyes were brought into sharp contrast with the white of her tropic attire.

Her father's eyes rested on her proudly, but fondly. Her mother too was proud of her rare young beauty, as it seemed to irradiate the room and drive away the shadows. But her pride in her daughter was different from the father's. Mr. MacAllister thought of her only as their daughter—beautiful, winsome, teasing sometimes, but so true in her love and dutifulness that she had never really caused an anxious thought. He loved her for her own sake, and hers alone. He felt a twinge of pain every time the thought entered his mind that the day would come when she would be separated from them. Mrs. MacAllister thought of her as possessed not only of grace and beauty, but of that culture and social training which she herself so sadly lacked. She thought of her as qualified to be a queen in the world of society; dreamed of the day when she should bear a great, old family name, perhaps that of a noble house, and should shed a reflected glory on the MacAllisters, who had acquired wealth and luxury, but could not contrive a history. Hers was a love of ambition.

Was the attitude of the daughter towards her father and mother an instinctive though perhaps unconscious response to the differing attitudes of her parents to her?

"Good-morning, father! Good-morning, mother!"

The conventional phrases were identical in form. But there was a world of difference in the accent. She kissed her mother somewhat perfunctorily. But she threw her arms around her father's neck, kissed him tenderly, and laid her proud head with its wealth of hair for a moment on his shoulder. Then she lifted it and asked very demurely:

"Is not Mr. De Vaux to breakfast with us this morning?"

"He promised to do so. But it is already nearly half an hour past the time we appointed."

"Perhaps he is still being 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.'"

"Whist, Jessie, lass! You mustn't make fun of people's weakness."

"Father, why do men, when they find themselves getting drunk, take another glass of whiskey and soda, 'just to straighten up'? It seems to me that every glass of it they take makes them sillier and more stupid than they were before."

"Why do you ask me, Jessie? You know that I am almost a teetotaller. You should answer that question yourself. You were championing the cause of drinking last evening against Dr. Sinclair."

"Now, father, that's not fair." A slight flush appeared on her neck and flowed upwards, deepening the rich colour of her face. "You know that I didn't mean that, especially when there were men around me drinking themselves into imbecility."

"Then, why did you say it?"

Her father's eyes, kindly but keen, were searching her face. She felt a fresh wave of hot blood mounting upwards:

"Oh, I don't know! You ought to have learned by this time that a woman cannot always give reasons even to herself why she does things."

"Well, whatever you did it for, you succeeded in making Dr. Sinclair very uncomfortable for a while."

"He deserves to be made uncomfortable," she flashed back. "He makes other people feel very uncomfortable sometimes."

She glanced at her mother. Mrs. MacAllister's lips were tightly closed. Her nose was elevated a bit. She was about to sniff at something. She had not time. A high-pitched voice was heard outside:

"Get out of my way, boy. Bless my soul! Chop-chop! You are most exasperating."

A heavy footstep sounded on the stairway leading to the second story, where the living-rooms were. There were short gasps of laboured breathing, and De Vaux burst into the room, peering blindly in the semi-darkness after the brilliant sunshine without.

"Good-morning, Mr. De Vaux. You are just in time to join us at breakfast. We thought something had occurred to detain you. But we have just this moment sat down. Pardon us for not waiting on you. We are delighted that you are able to be with us."

Mrs. MacAllister was kind, almost effusive, in her welcome. But De Vaux could find no words to excuse his delinquency:

"Mrs. MacAllister! ... I have disgraced myself.... 'Pon my soul! ... Mr. MacAllister! ... This never happened to me before.... 'Pon my honour, as a gentleman! ... I'm ashamed of myself.... Miss MacAllister! ... To think that I was to have the honour of having breakfast with you—and—I was late! ... Bless my soul! ... I do not know what to think of myself."

The head of the firm was gravely considerate and courteous towards the firm's agent, whose weakness he had noted the evening before.

"Accidents will happen sometimes, Mr. De Vaux. Allow me to assure you that you have caused us no inconvenience this morning. Will you not be seated and have breakfast with us?"

With some difficulty the stream of De Vaux's apologies and the succession of his bows were interrupted, and he was induced to be seated. But his face was purple and his eyes were bulging and bloodshot. Miss MacAllister could not resist the temptation.

"Mr. De Vaux," she said, "I am afraid that you have hurried too much in the heat. The blood has rushed to your head. I am really concerned lest you should have an attack of apoplexy. I have always been so afraid of apoplexy since our old butler died of an attack after celebrating patriotically but unwisely the bombardment of Alexandria. Will you not allow me to order a cold soda for you? Boy, one piecee soda, ice cold!"

"All lite! All lite! One piecee ise col' soda!"

What more she might have said remains unknown, for a warning look and a shake of the head from her farther prevented her pursuing her victim any farther. As it was, De Vaux was in a state of gurgling, stuttering impotence:

"Bless my soul! ... Miss MacAllister! ... Who else would have thought of it? ... Lord! ... Miss MacAllister! ... You have the kindness of an angel.... 'Pon my soul, you have! ... I assure you that I am quite well.... Nothing the matter with me.... Except that I sat up a little late with Carteret.... Talked over the delightful evening we had.... Nothing else, I assure you.... 'Pon my honour!"

"And how is Mr. Carteret this morning?" inquired Mrs. MacAllister solicitously. "I hope that he is very well."

"My dear Mrs. MacAllister, make your mind easy about that. He is sleeping quite naturally and soundly.... 'Pon my word of honour, he is! ... The commissioner tried to waken him to go to the office.... But he couldn't.... Not even with a bucket of water.... 'Pon my soul, that's the truth! I never saw a man sleep so soundly.... But he will be all right by this afternoon. He will waken up for tennis.... He's our best tennis player.... Bless my soul! There's no danger of his missing the tennis."

Miss MacAllister had tried to control herself through this exposé. But by the time De Vaux had finished the merry peal of laughter rang out without restraint. Her mother looked annoyed and mortified. Her father, scarcely able to conceal a smile, was diplomatically trying to lead De Vaux to some other subject.

"Did you chance to hear any more news of how the day went at Keelung, Mr. De Vaux?" he asked. "Have any reports come in from the Chinese side?"

"Bless my soul! ... How did I forget to tell you? ... I met Captain Whiteley as I came down.... Mrs. MacAllister, that is one of the reasons why I was late.... 'Pon my word! I was so upset and ashamed of myself that I could not present my apologies.... I beg your pardon, Mr. MacAllister.... Captain Whiteley told me that Dr. Sinclair was off to the front this morning before daybreak.... By——! ... 'Pon my soul, I mean, I was never so surprised in my life."

"Dr. Sinclair! Off to the front!" Mr. and Mrs. MacAllister spoke together.

"Yes," replied De Vaux. "He has gone to serve as a doctor with the Chinese army.... Never heard of a man taking such risk.... It's sheer suicide.... By——! ... 'Pon my soul, it is!"

Mrs. MacAllister glanced at her daughter, and her husband's eyes followed. Miss MacAllister was sitting up very erect and looking straight at De Vaux. Her lips were parted. Her face had paled a little. But her eyes were dark and glowing.

"Did any one go with him?" she asked abruptly.

"I believe that Sergeant Gorman, the constable at the consulate——"

"I mean did any of the gentlemen go? Any of the gentlemen we met at the consulate last evening?"

"Why! Bless my soul! No! ... Not that I know of!" stuttered De Vaux.

"I wish that I were a man," she flashed back. "I would not see one man go out to a dangerous duty alone."

"But—but, my dear Miss MacAllister," blurted out De Vaux. "We did not know that he was going.... 'Pon my honour as a gentleman, we did not! ... He left before we were awake."

"That's one advantage of being a teetotaller," was the quick reply.

Mrs. MacAllister elevated her nose and gave her characteristic sniff:

"I think that Dr. Sinclair is simply foolhardy. It is perfectly absurd for a man to risk his life for the sake of those dirty Chinese. I do not know how any one can bear to live among them, let alone having to touch them." (De Vaux got very red.) "And as for going into a whole army of them to heal their wounds, it's simply Quixotic" (she pronounced it Kwy-so-tic), "that's all it is; Quixotic."

De Vaux winced at the pronunciation—perhaps also at the sentiment. He began to gurgle unintelligibly. As usual, Mr. MacAllister came to the rescue.

"It was with the hope of getting an opportunity to do medical work among these people that Dr. Sinclair came to this country. I should think that the present situation offers him an admirable opening. A physician or surgeon who is really in love with his work does not stop to consider whether his patients are attractive or not. His one thought is to heal them."

"It is all very good to talk about sacrificing oneself to do good," replied his wife tartly. "And when I am at home I just love to hear missionary sermons, and sometimes to attend women's missionary meetings. But to come out here and live among those natives and think you can make them any better and get them to know anything about the religion which educated, intelligent white people believe in, is sheer foolishness. I am very much disappointed in Dr. Sinclair. It is nothing but foolishness."

"I think that it is just splendid to do something like that," said her daughter. "Just think of it, to be over there where hundreds of men are being brought in wounded and to be the only one who can do anything for them! And to have those poor creatures wonder at the cures! Why wasn't I a man?"

"Yes, and have one of the dear, grateful creatures stick a knife into you when your back is turned," said her mother sarcastically.

But her daughter paid no attention to the interruption:

"Mr. De Vaux, do you know the country over there, around Keelung, where the fighting is going on? Of course you do. Won't you tell us all about it?"

So through the remainder of the breakfast she plied De Vaux with questions, and brought out the fact that he had really a remarkable store of knowledge about the island and its inhabitants. And all the while the father looked on, and occasionally thought of her conduct the evening before, and wondered. But her mother looked unutterable things, ever and anon interjected an acid remark, which served as pickles to the bill of fare, and frequently sniffed.

XV

THE LURE OF THE EAST

Mountain and river, land and sea slept that afternoon in the wealth of sunshine which flooded the earth. A scarcely perceptible sea-breeze ever and anon caused the lighter foliage to tremble. The great fronds of the palm trees hung absolutely motionless, the air quivered in the heat. Millions of cicadas shrilled in the trees and shrubbery. In some way or another their ceaseless quavering, shrilling notes seemed to fit in with the quivering wavelets of atmosphere, until one came to look upon them as cause and effect and inseparably associated. That tremulous atmosphere would not be complete without those quavering notes. The notes would not be complete without the atmosphere.

The native birds were all silent. Only the English sparrows seemed utterly indifferent to the heat. They fluttered and chirped and fought just as cheerfully as they would have done in the soft climate of their native England or amid the Arctic frosts of a Western Canadian January.

Human life was almost as quiescent as that of the birds. Down by the water-front of the town a number of junks were hastily loading in order to put to sea with the late afternoon tide. Around the Hailoong a little fleet of cargo boats clustered, busily discharging their lading into her hold. McLeod had evidently been successful in his trip up-river. On the downs back of the consulate and the mission buildings Chinese soldiers were mounting cannon of many ages and designs on their earthworks.

These were the only signs of activity. The soldiers and cannon were the only indications of war. A great quiet rested over the beautiful landscape, a peace as cloudless as that summer sky.

Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Eight bells! Four o'clock! The brazen notes rang out from the Hailoong. Like an echo they were answered, only in silver tones as soft and sweet as those of a cathedral chime. Involuntarily one looked around for the church-spire and waited to hear the hymn tune come floating on the air. But there was no church, and there was no holy hymn. It was the bell of the trim little gunboat, Locust, resting out there on the bosom of the river striking the hour of four.

A group of white-clad figures appeared on the bright green of the consulate lawn. Other figures clad in white, men and women, were moving in ones and twos along the narrow road on the top of the hill or through the shrubbery of the consul's garden to join them. It might be a tropic land and a day of tropic sunshine. The natives of that land, all save those who were compelled to work, might be seeking shelter from the sun and waiting for the cool of the evening before again exposing themselves to its rays. But, like the sparrows from his home land, the Englishman could not rest. The sun had no terrors for him. If he had no work to do, he would have sport. The whole English-speaking population who could get away from their duties, whether residents or transients, were assembling for the afternoon game of tennis.

Yet they were not foolhardy in their exposure to the sun. They took precautions. Indeed, the striking thing about their sport was the trouble they had taken to make it comfortable and enjoyable.

The lawn, if it could not boast the carpet of green velvet which characterizes an English lawn, was well covered with close-set grass. In spite of the efforts of the great slugs to burrow it into holes and throw up pyramids of earth, daily rolling had kept it firm and smooth. A green wall of hedge, reënforced by wire netting, surrounded it. The big bulk of the old Dutch fort sheltered half of it from the rays of the declining sun. An oblong of sail-cloth, stretched between two tall masts, shaded the other half. The players had rarely ever occasion to be exposed to the sun. Chinese coolies, in the dark blue and red uniforms of the consul's service, two behind the players and two at the net, picked up the balls and handed them to the players. Long, comfortable settees and chairs, and a table laden with cool drinks, nestled against the hedge in the shadiest corner.

"Really, Mr. Beauchamp, this is the luxury of tennis. A canopy to shelter us! Coolies in livery to pick up the balls! I'm surprised that you do not have proxies to run for us, as they do in cricket when the veterans play. You really ought to have native boys to do the running."

"We're working on it, Miss MacAllister; we're working on it. Soon we'll be able to give it to the world. Brand new game! Tropical tennis! Latest thing in sport! Four players to a side! Two in the inner courts and two in the outer! Only two rackets to a side! Native boys in liveries of smiles and sunshine to carry rackets from back to forward players and vice versa, as occasion to meet the ball requires. Great discovery! Carteret and I are working on it."

"Magnificent, Mr. Beauchamp! Magnificent!" exclaimed Miss MacAllister amidst a burst of laughter. "You and Mr. Carteret will be catalogued with Columbus and Sir Isaac Newton among the great benefactors of the race. When will you be able to bestow it upon mankind? I do hope that it may be while I am here."

"It would have been before this, were it not that Carteret and I differ on a small point, a mere detail."

"And what is that?"

"I think it sufficient to provide the players with easy-chairs in which to rest between strokes. But Carteret wants them to be permanently suspended in hammocks, and that the balls must be so served as to enable the players to return them without arising from a reclining position."

There was a peal of laughter at the consul's little absurdity. Carteret joined in with the rest. But his pallid face flushed at the palpable thrust at his well-known indolence.

Commander Gardenier was unable to come. But his second in command, Lieutenant Lanyon, a young Irishman, was delighted to escape the routine of duty on board ship for a day ashore and the company of some attractive ladies. With the headlong courage of his race, whether in love or in war, he immediately asked Miss MacAllister to be his partner in the first set, without waiting to see if that were agreeable to his host, who was arranging the players. His frank, boyish, open-eyed admiration of his choice was so good to see that the consul, usually a bit of an autocrat in all such matters, laughingly accepted the situation.

"Carteret, will you take my wife as partner and defend the honour of the island? These two reckless young visitors have evidently taken it upon themselves to challenge the residents."

"Certainly, Mr. Beauchamp. I shall be delighted to have so skilful a partner as Mrs. Beauchamp. We shall endeavour to give a good account of ourselves. From their manner I should judge that our opponents are perfectly confident of winning."

He looked to where the young naval officer and Miss MacAllister were standing. They were already deep in conversation and apparently entirely oblivious to the rest of the company. He heard Lanyon say:

"By Jove! luck has come my way to-day. Little did I think when we were ordered to Tamsui that there would be such fortune before me as to meet any one like you. It does my heart good just to look at you."

Miss MacAllister laughed merrily.

"Do you always express yourself so frankly on so short acquaintance, Mr. Lanyon?" she asked. "I'm afraid that I cannot believe much of that. I think that you are Irish. You probably said the same thing to the last partner you had."

"By my soul, I did not. How could I? She was forty if she was a day, and ugly as sin."

His partner's laugh pealed out again. There was no resisting such an implication.

"Very nicely put, Mr. Lanyon. Now I know that you are Irish."

Just then Mrs. Beauchamp called to them:

"Come, come, Mr. Lanyon. I cannot allow this. You are monopolizing Miss MacAllister and delaying the play."

"By my faith," was the quick reply, "it's myself that would be mortial glad to monopolize her."

"Oh, Mr. Lanyon, this is shocking. On less than half an hour's acquaintance, too! If you say anything more like that I'll not be your partner."

"Then, if there's any danger of your leaving me, I'll take it all back with my mouth; but I'll think it in my heart just the same."

Carteret's pale face, a little paler to-day than usual, had the same expression of studied contempt as when he met Sinclair the evening before. His lips parted to utter some sarcastic remark when Mrs. Beauchamp interposed:

"It's your service, Miss MacAllister. Will you not begin?"

In a moment the lawn was animate with the quick-moving white figures of the players, and the blue and red of the attendant coolies. The contestants were all experts at the sport, and the set might have been prolonged indefinitely had it not been that Lanyon would not serve a fast ball to Mrs. Beauchamp. Again and again she assured him that she was quite capable of receiving a fast service and that he must not throw the game away. But the young lieutenant's Irish gallantry would not allow him to volley such balls at her as he drove at Carteret. On the other hand, the latter had no such scruples, but played to win. Consequently he and his partner did win rather handily.

When the set was over and others had taken their places, Carteret found an opportunity to engage Miss MacAllister in conversation as they were seated in the shade of the old fort.

"I was disappointed not to have the pleasure of being your partner," he said. "I had been looking forward to it all day."

Instantly there flashed into her mind the picture of him De Vaux had painted that morning at breakfast, and she could scarcely repress a laugh. She wondered to herself how much of the day he had been in a condition to think of her. But she answered readily:

"I should be very pleased to be your partner for a set, Mr. Carteret. There will probably be an opportunity later. You are an expert at tennis."

"We all ought to be experts in this place," he replied. "We get plenty of practice. Outside of office hours there are only two pastimes open to us—cards on wet days and tennis when the weather is fine."

"Why," she exclaimed, "I should not have thought that! From what I have seen of Tamsui, I think that it is quite lively. With dinners and tennis, with warships coming and going, with always the possibility of seeing a row among the Chinese or between them and somebody else, I think it must be really exciting living here. I should think that it would be great sport."

"You may think so, Miss MacAllister, from what you have seen of it. But the condition you have seen is quite abnormal. We do not have London merchants nor ladies from London drawing-rooms visiting us every week. Neither do we have the company of naval officers on ordinary occasions. Perhaps, if we had more ladies, we might have the attention and protection of our gallant seamen more frequently."

His voice had the sneering tone of the evening before. Miss MacAllister's eyes flashed ominously. He saw the danger signal and quickly changed the tone and the topic:

"Really, Miss MacAllister, as a general rule this place is beastly dull. There are so few to associate with. No matter how enjoyable their company may be at first, it simply becomes unbearable when you have no one else, don't you know?"

"Do you think that is a universal rule, Mr. Carteret?"

He saw that he had made a tactical blunder, beat a hasty retreat, and executed a flank attack:

"I assure you, Miss MacAllister, that I had reference only to those with whom one is forced to associate in the casual relations of life. We are not associated by choice, but by the caprice of fortune or by compulsion. And the realization of the compulsion makes the association the more unbearable. We get to hate the very sight of one another."

"I can quite understand that," she replied. "I learned that when I had to spend a year in a very select boarding-school, with a principal and teachers whom I hated, and not one girl of whom I could make a real friend. I was more alone than if I had been like Robinson Crusoe on his island."

He was quick to pursue the advantage:

"That is it exactly. I should be far less lonely if I were entirely alone or if I had only one companion, so long as that companion were congenial."

She looked sympathetically at him, but did not speak.

"That is the tragedy of life in the Far East," he continued. "That is why so many men take to drink."

She thought of the evening before and of what De Vaux had let out at breakfast. She said nothing; so he went on:

"That is why so many men become inveterate gamblers; why so many who came out with high hopes of accomplishing something end by committing suicide."

As he talked on in this strain, quietly, yet evidently with deep feeling, Miss MacAllister began to ask herself if she had not, in her own mind, judged this young aristocrat too harshly. Perhaps he was not so bad as she had thought him the evening before, when she had refused any longer to play his accompaniments. Perhaps there was some excuse for his being in the condition which De Vaux had blundered out to them that morning.

At any rate, he seemed to be revealing to her another side of his character. She had met him first as the graceful, polished man of the world, a little cynical perhaps, and yet so courteous in his manners towards her as to hide the unpleasant characteristics. She had noted his contemptuous attitude towards Sinclair, his look and tone of studied insult. She had caught a glimpse of the greedy, lustful expression in his eyes as he bent over her at the piano, and, before the evening was done, the leer of intoxication.

But here was another aspect which she had not looked for. Without appearing to seek sympathy, he was appealing to her feelings, and in spite of herself she responded:

"I had not thought of the life out here in that way," she said. "It had appeared quite fascinating to me."

"So it appears to nearly everybody at first. But after a while it palls upon them. At last it becomes unbearable."

"Then why do they not go home, or to Australia or America or somewhere else where they would be among their own people?"

"We are forgotten at home. We should be strangers there. And as for Australia or America, life out here unfits a man to succeed in lands where everybody must be his own servant and where there is no road to success but by hard work."

A little ray of comprehension shot into Miss MacAllister's mind. It was with a touch of impatience that she answered:

"But, Mr. Carteret, you do not mean to say that you have been long enough here to unfit you for work anywhere else. If you do not like the life, why do you stay here?"

"Pro bono familiæ," he replied with a bitter laugh. "Because of the affection of my beloved elder brother."

"The consul tells me that he enjoys himself here," she said, avoiding any discussion of his family affairs. "He says that there is very good shooting and some of the best sea-bathing he has ever experienced."

"He is welcome to the shooting, tramping over the hills and through the rice fields in a climate like this. As for the bathing, any pleasure in it is spoiled by the walk home in the heat afterwards."

At that instant the consul, who was playing, returned a ball with such a screw on it that after falling in his opponent's court it bounded back over the net. His opponent, in a mad effort to return it, plunged headlong into the net and fell. In celebration of which achievement the consul threw his racket high in the air, turned a handspring, and ended up by reversing himself and walking across the court on his hands, with his feet in the air.

"Splendid, Mr. Beauchamp!" cried Miss MacAllister. "Brilliantly done! Especially the gymnastic performance!"

"Right-oh, Miss MacAllister!" exclaimed a deep voice behind her. "The consul is acrobat enough to make a shining success as a sailor man."

It was Captain Whiteley, come up to drink a cup of tea and say good-bye before casting off for Hong-Kong.

"Oh, Captain Whiteley, I'm so glad to see you before you go! But what is this I hear? You have let your doctor go off to Keelung to carve Chinese, and perhaps be carved himself. I am surprised at you."

"Not my fault, I assure you, Miss MacAllister. He was bound to go. He is of age. I could not restrain him."

"I think it is just splendid of him to go. That is the sort of thing I admire in a man. If I were a man, that is what I should like to do."

"I am awfully glad, Miss MacAllister, that Sinclair has at last done something which pleases you. I was beginning to be afraid that you were offended with him past the possibility of reconciliation."

She looked at him sharply. His face was lamblike in its innocence, but his eyes were twinkling.

"That will do, Captain Whiteley. You have said quite enough."

The telltale colour deepened in her face, and her mother, who was talking to Carteret nearby, heard and saw, closed her lips tightly, and sniffed.

The little party of white-clad players were still on the lawn when the Hailoong moved down the river, zigzagged her way through the field of mines, and once well beyond the bar steamed straight out over the motionless sea in the path of red-gold light from the setting sun. It seemed the breaking of the one link between them and the outside world. In the soft stillness of that evening in the Orient, London with its mud and smoke, its roar of traffic, its drab colours and familiar, unromantic life, seemed so far away that it might have belonged to another world.

Strange to say, it was not of London that Miss MacAllister was thinking. Again and again she surprised herself thinking of the big, fair-haired Canadian doctor. She tried to picture to herself his surroundings amid the sick and suffering, the men torn with shot and shell. She could not help contrasting them with the peaceful environment of the consul's tennis party, where men had been enjoying themselves in the company of the ladies, and incidentally emptying long glasses of whiskey and soda or sipping tea.

She recalled the looks of the man himself, his clean-cut features, straightforward gaze, his good-humour even when she was badgering him, and the hearty, boyish laugh when he and McLeod were plotting some mischief together. Involuntarily she contrasted him with the cynical discontent, the weary air and self-pity of the man with whom she had talked that afternoon. If Sinclair could have known her conclusions, he would have been well content.

XVI

SERGEANT WHATISNAME

But Sinclair did not know. Perhaps at that moment he was not thinking much about her. He was just entering on his long night's work among the wounded. Every power of mind was concentrated on the problem of those pain-racked human beings and how to relieve their sufferings.

And yet ever and anon, when he had finished an operation and his mind relaxed as his hands almost mechanically followed the familiar process of bandaging, a picture floated before his eyes. It was only a transparency, through which he could see every line of the brown limb or body he was binding up with care But it was as clear to him as though it had been done on canvas by the brush of a painter. It was the picture of a proudly-carried head, with a crown of brown hair, a beautiful oval face with rich colour, dark violet eyes dancing with fun, and full red lips parted in a teasing laugh, which made the hot blood tingle in his face at the very memory of it.

As the days passed by he had more time to think of that face. The first strenuous days over, the pressure on his time and strength relaxed somewhat. A number of the greatest sufferers died. But in the majority of cases the singular toughness and marvellous recuperative power of the Chinese seconded his skilful surgery. Many a man who, if he had belonged to any Western nation, would have been invalided home, never to be able to rejoin the colours, in ten days or two weeks' time left the hospital and returned to his regiment. There were but few wounded being brought in. The French were unable to advance beyond the shore line. The Chinese were unable to dislodge the French from the foothold they had obtained. Consequently, for nearly a month after the bombardment there was little fighting.

The weather, though exceedingly hot, was not unhealthy. In any case, those who might be sick preferred to go to their own doctors for medical treatment. While they acknowledged the superiority of the foreigner in surgery, they unhesitatingly maintained that their own physicians were unequalled in their knowledge of medicine.

The most common disease was the ever-present malarial fever. It was caused by two devils—the negative devil who industriously fanned the victim to give him chills and the positive devil who worked a furnace overtime to give him his spells of fever. As the foreign surgeon was a stranger to the country and supposed to have little acquaintance with those diligent devils, the preference was given to the incantations of native priests or the indescribable decoctions of native doctors.

As a result, Sinclair's duties had grown lighter every day. The service, which at first had taxed to the utmost even his splendid strength and vigour, had become less and less arduous, until, except for the necessity of living on native food, he had come to look upon it as a sort of picnic. Most of the dressings and all the preliminary examinations of new cases he was able to leave to his assistants. Dr. MacKay had gone to visit his converts at various places where bands of freebooters, taking advantage of the disturbed state of the country, had thrown themselves upon the defenceless Christians, robbing, maltreating, torturing, and sometimes putting to death. But he left behind his student companions, whose knowledge of dressing wounds and giving simple treatments and acting the part of nurses, relieved the surgeon of much of his burden.

But it was principally on Sergeant Gorman that he had learned to rely. Every day revealed some new capability in that versatile Irishman. It was, however, in drilling and instructing an ambulance brigade that his capability was most evident. He was a master of the art of teaching men any form of military drill. But he was more than that. He was a born leader of men. Sinclair marvelled at the rapidity with which these uncouth, chattering Chinese peasants, who never by any accident had kept step for a dozen paces, and who never ceased their jabbering at any command given by their own officers, were reduced to silence and mastered squad and stretcher drill. They were raw material to begin with. Some of them were worse. The Chinese officers had drafted into this service some of the roughest characters in their regiments, to be rid of them. Yet these, who were accustomed to threaten to shoot their own officers when an unwelcome command was given, gave absolute and prompt obedience to this red-headed foreign devil, whom they had never seen till a few days before, who spoke their language imperfectly, and carried no weapon save a bit of a withe he had cut for a swagger-stick.

As Sinclair looked on he could not help but wonder at the shortsightedness and snobbery in the British army, which made officers of callow youths who knew nothing of war or leadership, and many of whom never would, and refused a commission to a man like this, whose mastery of men amounted to genius.

The middle of the month had passed. It was drawing towards sunset of a hot August day. The two men who had already grown into a fast friendship were out where the courtyard of their improvised hospital opened on the bank of the river. One of the wings and a clump of bamboos sheltered them from the still ardent rays of the sun. The evening breeze was just beginning to breathe along the river.

Dr. Sinclair was stretched on a long, bamboo reclining chair, which had been sent him from the headquarters of General Liu Ming-chuan. His hands were clasped behind his head. He was looking up at the sky, where an occasional fleck of cloud was changing from white to gold and crimson in the light of the sunset. In his white trousers, white canvas shoes, white negligée shirt, open at the neck, and with the shadow of a smile playing about his eyes and mouth, he looked the very personification of whole-hearted content. Sergeant Gorman was sitting opposite to him on a camp-chair of his own construction, smoking a short dudeen.

That afternoon General Liu Ming-chuan, accompanied by his staff, had paid a visit of inspection to their hospital. With a frankness and candour which could not be misunderstood, he had commended the work they had done, and on his own behalf and that of China had thanked them for their services. While his visit and appreciation were pleasant to them personally, it meant more than that. Henceforth there was to be no more of the open opposition they had experienced from the native doctors and priests, and even from some of the officers. It was no wonder that Sinclair was feeling well content.

"Do you know, Gorman, this job suits me fine. If I could get a permanent sit at something like this, with enough salary to live decently, I think I could be happy."

"An' if you do," replied Gorman, dropping back into the brogue as he always did when he was in good-humour, whether fighting or chatting with a friend—"an' if you do, wud you jist kape me in moind as your furst assistant?"

"That I would," replied Sinclair. "I do not know how I should get along without you."

"Begorra, an' it's glad I am to hear you say so; for it's more p'ace of moind I have here than iver I've had since the furst toime me mother-in-law came to bliss me home wid her prisince—since she furst beamed upon us like the sun thr'u' a gatherin' storm."

"The only thing which catches me here is the grub. I do not like this Chinese chow."

"Faith thin, it seems to like you."

"How's that?"

"You're gettin' fat on it."

"Do you really think so?"

"Bedad and I don't think so. I'm sure of it."

Sinclair solicited tested the tightness of his belt; lazily raised himself and examined it to find out at what hole it was buckled.

"Afraid you're wrong this time, Gorman. Not getting it round the waist anyway. Buckled in the same hole and not a bit tighter than before.

"Thin you're gettin' it round the jaws of you. Checks and double chin loike a howly father starvin' in Lent."

"Surely it's not so bad as that! I'll have to get more exercise. Nothing like training to keep down flesh. Run four or five miles of a morning. That's what will do it."

"Bedad thin, if that's thrue, that American gineral the Chinese have must have run all the way from Ameriky. Did iver you clap your two eyes on such a split-the-wind?"

"He sure is thin," replied Sinclair in the idiom of his native land. "As we used to say in Canada, he'd be handy to send on an errand down a pump."

"Faith," replied the Irishman, determined not to be beaten in exaggeration, "the pump would need to have a good valve or he'd leak out."

"You have it," laughed Sinclair. "I'll quit."

"Now, what do you make of him, anyway?"

"New England Yankee by his twang. Vermont by his build. Been in the South by his pronunciation of some words. But when he swears Montana is written all over him."

Now, if that isn't divilish cliver of you to spot him loike that! Now, isn't it? But did ever you hear such a name? Silas Z. Leatherbottom! Be the powers, if I had a name loike that, I'd change it or die in the attempt. Silas Z. Leatherbottom!"

"It would have been a mighty handy name to have had when you were under the Wallopin' Master," retorted Sinclair.

"Whisht now, docther dear. It's unfeelin' of you to call up painful memories. May the saints forgive me, but I cannot sit comfortable an' think of him."

Sinclair's boyish, care-free laugh rang out as Gorman left his camp-stool and began to pace restlessly up and down, making grimaces and gestures, half vengeful, half humorous.

"Be the powers of Knocktopher, but it wud be a pleasure jist to be twishtin' this bit of a shtick about the big body of him. The yells of him wud be the sw'atest music in me ears, barrin' always the lament at me mother-in-law's wake."

"Egskews me, gentlemen" (with a marked emphasis on the "me"). "Egskews me for intrewding on yewr private deliberations. But I had a leetle proposition to make to one of yew gentlemen, an' I reckoned thet yew wouldn't object to me droppin' in on yew t' talk it over."

"Certainly not, General Leatherbottom," replied Sinclair, rising to receive him. "We are delighted to have you call. Have a seat."

Sergeant Gorman had clapped his swagger-stick under his left arm, clicked his heels together, stood at attention, and saluted as if by instinct.

"Naow, by the Jumpin' Jemina, thet's what I call neatly done. Thet's whar yew Britishers get away on us. When it comes to fightin' we kin fight. Don't take no second place to ennybody I ever met, an' I've met some few in my time. But when it comes to takin' Indians or niggers or Chinks in hand lickin' them into shape, an' teachin' them haow to fight civilized thet's whar you've got us beat to a stand-still."

He was a tall man, a very tall man, two or three inches over six feet. But he was narrow-shouldered slab-sided, and marvellously thin. His small head seemed lost in a great cavern of a sun-helmet. A long, faded, yellow moustache drooped over the hollow cheeks and angular jaws. He sat down on the proffered camp-chair, hitching a holster containing a huge .44 Colt round a little more to one side, to allow him to sit back with comfort. His legs were so long that his knees stuck up at an acute angle. When he threw one over the other, they were so thin that they seemed to twine around each other in serpentine fashion.

He accepted a pipe, lighted it, leaned forward with one sharp elbow on a sharp knee, the hand helping to hold the pipe in his mouth as he talked. The other arm was across his knee and the long, bony hand hanging down.

"Ef yew gentlemen will egskews me, I'll make my proposition, an' we'll perceed to bizness. But fust I'd like t' give yew a leetle of my auttybiography, so's yew'll understand the sityewation."

With many quaint oaths and ingenious expletives, he told how he had served as a private in a Vermont infantry regiment in the Civil War, had been wounded and taken prisoner. After the war he had drifted into the cavalry and been engaged in Indian wars in the Dakotas and Montana. He was with Benteen's companies when Custer and his three hundred were massacred by the Sioux under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Then he had turned miner, and after much experience in the Black Hills, as well as in Montana and Idaho, had drifted to Formosa and had been engaged in developing gold workings but a little distance from where they sat when the war broke out.

"An' naow, gentlemen, I'm a general of brigade in the service of His Imperial Majesty of China, gettin' 's much dust in a month 's I could in a year of minin'. An' thet's why I am fur the time bein' a dewtiful subject of His Imperial Bigness.

"Mebbe yew'll b'lieve me, I hev seen sum fightin'. An' I ain't partiklar ef I see sum more. An' I hev idears whar t' plant an army, an' haow t' plan a defence or lay a trap. But this bizness of drillin' Chinks so's they'll walk t'gether, an' shoot t'gether, and dew what they're told without all talkin' at once like the sisters at a meetin'-house sewin'-bee, an' all gettin' tied up into a gol-durned tarnation tangle, thet's what knocks the spots off yewrs trewly.

"Naow, gentlemen, my proposition is thet the sergeant here jest step over with me to General Liew, an' take service with him till the end of the war. The general was mighty pleased with thet ar ambulance corpse of yourn. He'd make you a kurnel, second in command of a brigade. An' the spondoolix! Lots of it! Got it to burn! More'n a candidate for congress at election time! Money don't count with him no haow. Ef yew lick these ar Chinks into fightin' shape, I'll plan the campaign an' we'll whale those parley-voos into the sea in no time. Then we'll get a concession an' the gold mine. Naow, what dew yew think of thet?"

"That sounds pretty good, sergeant," said Sinclair. "It looks like a chance for you.

"Thet's what I call a putty payin' proposition. Will yew take it?"

"Thank you, sir; I think not."

Leatherbottom opened his small, light-blue eyes as wide as the cavernous depths of their sockets would allow, removed the pipe from his mouth, and spat far out into the river:

"Naow will yew tell me haow it is thet yew will not take on a payin' proposition like thet? Dew yew forget the spondoolix?"

"I do not, sir."

"Then, will yew tell me why?"

"I have fought for twenty-four years under one flag. There is only one other that I would fight under."

"I presyewme thet is the stars and stripes, the flag of the Yew.S.A.?"

"It is not, sir."

"Then, will yew tell me what flag it is?" asked the general in evident surprise.

"The green flag with the golden harp, the flag of a self-governing Ireland!"

"But there ain't no army 'lowed to carry sech a flag."

"Then, till there is, I'll still fight under the old flag and the old queen I have served more than half my life."

"An' yew air an' Irishman?"

"Yes, sir."

"An' a Roman Catholic?"

"I am, sir."

"Wall—I'll—be—gol—durned!"

Sergeant Gorman's moustache and eyebrows fairly bristled. The little, shrewd blue eyes of the Indian fighter were quick to notice it:

"Egskews me, sergeant; I ain't meant no offence. 'Twas only thet I had been informed thet the Irish will hev a Fourth-of-July celebration the day the Yewnion Jack gits out of thet ar island fur good."

"Then you were misinformed, sir."

"Wall, I reckon it's a case of live an' l'arn. When I was t' hum I thought the Yew.S.A. were putty near the hull thing. When I came out here I putty soon found out they warn't. When I was in our country, a-listenin' to the politicians, I thought every Irishman was jest thirstin' fur the blood of the English. I came out here an' naow yew tell me they ain't. Will you egskews me? I hev sum things t' l'arn yet."

"Certainly, sir. We all make mistakes."

"Thank yew. But why yew'd refewse t' change yewr flag when yew knew thet the spondoolix was sure, thet beats me. Oh, wall, I reckon every man has his own way of lookin' at things. Say, doctor, whar's the elder?"

"Do you mean Dr. MacKay?';

"Sartin."

"Oh, he left several days ago to visit some of his converts. I guess the heathen have been roughing things a bit and making it hot for the Christians. He went to see if he could help them out."

"Do he carry weepons?"

"I believe not."

"Wall, thet beats all. I've seen some putty nervy things. I've seen whar Custer an' his three hundred rode slap-bang into Sittin' Bull an' his red devils on the Little Big Horn, an' got skulped, every man of them. But they hed guns an' hed a chance. But t' go out among these ar yellow heathen, when they're rampagin' fur the blood of furriners, without so much 's even a .32 t' put the fear of God into them thet's what I call temptin' Providence. It's givin' Providence a chance t' let them dew their durndest and save itself the trubble of interferin'."

The sun had gone down and the moon had taken its place riding in silver radiance across the cloudless sky. General Leatherbottom rose to go. Sinclair and Gorman accompanied him through the hospital to the street door. A squad of the sergeant's ambulance corps, who were on guard, presented arms with the precision and unity of European veterans.

With democratic freedom the general thrust his long, bony hand first into Sinclair's, then into Gorman's:

"Never seen the beat of thet ambulance corpse of yourn, fur the time yew've had 'em. But, by the Jumpin' Jemina, I'd like to hev seen yew lickin' the regiments of my brigade into shape."

XVII

WOLVES AND THEIR PREY

The end of August found the French and Chinese in the same state of impasse. As a consequence there was little bloodshed, and few wounded were being brought into the hospital. If it had not been for the shocking carelessness of the Chinese in handling firearms and explosives, there would have been almost none. Time began to hang somewhat heavy on the hands of Dr. Sinclair and his assistant.

"Getting mighty slow here," he remarked to Gorman one day.

"Slower than promotion for merit in the service," was the reply.

"You haven't it so bad. You can always amuse yourself drilling 'that ambulance corpse of yourn,' as General Leatherbottom calls it."

"Divil a bit: There's nothin' more for me to t'ache thim. Tuk till it loike ducks to wather. Can imitate me till if they were wanst in service outfit I'd swear it was the multiplication table of meself a'marchin' down the road."

Sinclair laughed.

"That's just what I've been noticing," he said. "When you took hold of them every man jack toed in. Now they all turn their toes out at a little more than an angle of forty-five degrees, just as you do. And right down to that little spindly chap, twenty-five inches around the hips, they all strut as if they were as broad in the beam as yourself."

"Bedad thin, I'm not the only wan! It's the same wid your bhoys inside. They're jist reduced copies of yourself. They bate Banagher for imitation."

"Suppose we leave those fellows to look after things for a couple of days and run over to Tamsui while business is slack. If things were to brighten up a bit here, we might not get another chance."

"Faith, an' I'm wid you. But, begorra, we had better see to it that each of us has a bit of a shtick an' a gun handy. I hear that there are disturbances iverywhere, an' it's little manners the haythen are showin' to Europeans since the Frinch shtarted to mix it up wid thim."

"The last time he passed, Dr. MacKay told me that there was a good deal of rioting and some murdering. But he seemed to go about his work as if it were perfectly safe. And, so far as I could find out, he never carries any weapons."

"May the saints preserve him, that is a man! I was born a Roman Catholic, an' I intind to die a Roman Catholic. But, if it was advice about me sowl's salvation I was wantin'—and betune you an' me I'm needin' it badly enough—it's to him I'd go rather than to a church full of the priests that are feedin' fat on me paternal estate."

Their arrangements were soon made, and they were off. Even on the much-travelled way between the camp before Keelung and the capital there were evidences of disorder and lawlessness. Bands of marauders were out. Many of them were well armed, as they included numbers of irregular levies who had deserted with the arms and ammunition with which they had been supplied when they enlisted. Wayfarers had been robbed, and some who resisted had been murdered. Lonely farmhouses were looted and burned. In some cases the men were killed and the women foully abused. Some considerable towns had been attacked and terrorized into paying tribute.

But it was on the native Christians that the heaviest blow fell. Nearly everywhere they were hounded down, their little churches were destroyed, their houses were ransacked, their goods pillaged, and themselves cruelly beaten and tortured. Even when they succeeded in reaching hiding-places, they were often betrayed by their own relatives and given over to the inhuman cruelties of the heathen.

So serious was the danger that the consul issued a warning to his nationals and those of other nations for whom he acted not to venture beyond the limits of the port, where they could be under the protection of the gunboat, as well as of the Chinese garrison. At that moment Dr. MacKay, Sinclair, and Gorman were the only white men who were outside of the protection of large forces of disciplined soldiers.

Several times on their way Sinclair and his companion were faced by armed men. But they moved resolutely forward. As the marauders opened up to let them pass Sinclair caught the word "I-seng" (the life-healer), while Gorman laughed to hear himself described as "Añg-mñg-kui (the red-haired devil). Their reputations had preceded them and stood them in good stead.

Elsewhere tragedies were being enacted. Five or six miles south of the road which they were travelling, nestling in among the foothills of the great mountain-chain which occupied all the centre of the island, was the prosperous town of Sin-tiam. There the missionary had gathered together a congregation of worshippers and built a church of unplastered stone.

With the eye for beauty in nature which characterized him, he had chosen a site at one end of the town, where a little dell smiled between some verdured hills and the river. In front of the church door lay a beach of shingle, round which curved the swift, clear green waters of the Sin-tiam River. Its farther bank rose steeply from the water's edge, a hillside luxuriant with trees and vines, ferns and grasses, their vivid green all starred with roses and morning-glories, or the massed beauties of myrtle-trees and honeysuckle. Behind the first abrupt hill rose higher hills, and beyond these mountains, in whose impenetrable jungles and savage retreats the wild headhunters had their home. Behind these again giant peaks towered into the heavens.

Into this paradise of beauty, bloodthirsty, heathen men burst and their rage turned it into a perdition. Early one fair summer morning the black flags of a party of marauders were seen approaching the town. The respectable citizens, whether heathen or Christian, hurriedly closed and barricaded their shops and houses. The worst element of the population rushed out to join the freebooters.

Like a pack of hungry wolves they entered the town on the run, yelling, screaming, beating drums, blowing horns, firing their guns. It was evident that they had a concerted plan, for they did not halt, but with yelp and yell and animal snarl they swept through to the far end, where the Christian church was situated. They poured into the native preacher's house, which adjoined the church. It was deserted. At the first alarm some of the Christians had rushed to the church, and hurried their pastor and his family by a circuitous route to a safe hiding-place. They knew that he would be the first victim. They hoped that their own obscurity would be their protection.

After a vain search for the preacher, the black-flags returned to loot his house and destroy everything they could not carry away. Then they began to search for other victims. Unfortunately in their haste the pastor and his friends had forgotten the roll of church members, which was in the drawer of the desk on the church platform. It was the death warrant of some of the flock.

With yells of savage delight the persecutors tore it open and began to read out the names:

He was a tolerably well-to-do merchant. At the mention of his name the mob scented plunder, and the most active fairly fought with one another in the rush to be foremost for the spoil. Lee Soon had sent his wife and daughter to a hiding-place in a forsaken mine in the neighbourhood. With his young son he remained to take care of his property. On the first assault of the mob he tried to parley with them and offered them gifts if they would leave him unmolested.

"Do you think that we would take part when we intend to get all?" was the jeering reply.

"We'll have no parley with friends of the foreign devils," yelled others.

All the while a rain of bricks and stones fell on the barricades he had hastily put up. Others climbed on the roof and tore off the tiles. In a short time a breach was made and they rushed in. Lee Soon was seized by the hair and dragged out over the piles of bricks and rubbish. Every one who could get a kick at him, a blow with a bamboo pole or the butt of a gun, gave it with insensate fury. At last he lay bleeding and unconscious in the midst of the street. But the mob still trampled upon him.

"Now will you go into the barbarian's religion?" cried one.

"Where is your God now?" shrieked another.

Meanwhile others were stripping the house and shop of its contents. Others still were searching high and low for the women of the household. Enraged at not finding them, they dragged out his son, Lee Ien, a mere youth, kicking and beating him as they had done his father.

"He has given his sisters to the foreign devils."

"Might as well give them to the beasts, for the foreign devils are the offspring of beasts."

"We'll teach him to give the women of our country to foreign devils."

Dragging the unfortunate youth to a tree, they threw the end of his long braid of hair over a branch and pulled until he was lifted off the ground. Then they spit on him, jeered him, and prodded him with their poles, making his body swing to and fro.

"Now will you forsake this Jesus faith and go back to the gods of your ancestors?"

Around his neck and from various parts of the torn scalp blood was oozing and trickling down. The body writhed in agony. The youth, really only a boy in years, was alone, ringed round by foes. From the drawn, quivering lips came the prayer:

"Lord Jesus Christ, help me! Jehovah God, give me strength!"

A wild yell arose from another part of the town. More victims had been found. There was more loot. Those who had been torturing Lee Ien were anxious to get a share. They released their hold on his hair and rushed off with the others. He fell in a limp heap on the ground.

With the physical toughness of his race, he soon recovered and hurried to where he had last seen his father. He found that a heathen neighbour, more pitiful than the rest, had carried him into a place of safety and had brought him back to consciousness.

Tan Siong had escaped, but came back to help some of his fellow-believers. He accomplished this and effected their escape. But it was by sacrificing himself. He was caught, and being a man of some prominence special tortures were devised. Sharp-edged splits of bamboo were placed between the fingers of both hands. Cords were wound tightly around the fingers, pressing the angles of the bamboo into the flesh.

"Will you forsake the black-bearded foreign devil?"

"Pastor MacKay has never done me anything but good. He healed me when I was sick. He saved my son's life when he had the fever. Why should I forsake him?"

The cords were drawn more tightly. The blood oozed out around his nails and along the edges of the bamboo.

"Will you give up the barbarian's religion and go back to the gods our ancestors worshipped from of old?"

"The gods our ancestors worshipped are only idols. They cannot see or hear or understand our prayers. I cannot go back to them. I believe in Jehovah God, maker of heaven and earth——"

A rifle butt fell with a sickening thud on his head and, with the blood still oozing from his finger-tips, Tan Siong lay senseless on the earth. His tormentors rushed off to find other victims to rob and maltreat.

So the morning wore away. There were about forty families of Christians. Probably the majority of the individuals in them escaped with their lives, and by keeping in hiding did not suffer torture. But all lost their possessions. Many were put to the test of indescribable physical agony. Yet they did not deny their faith.

There were two, a man and his wife, so humble that they thought they might be overlooked. They could not flee. They were both between sixty and seventy years of age. The wife's feet, crushed and broken by being bound for a lifetime, would not bear her in flight. Her husband, with a devotion rare in a Chinese and the more beautiful because of its rarity, determined to stay with her and meet his fate whatever it might be. They hoped that their insignificance might save them.

But Lim Tsu had for many years been a maker of idols. Then he had lost faith in those gilded bits of wood or plaster he had so long offered to others to worship. He had heard strange words from some native Christians. Then he had heard them from the lips of the foreign pastor. After long hesitation he gave up the beliefs of his fathers, gave up the practices of a lifetime, what was harder still, gave up the means of a livelihood, and accepted the Christian faith. From that hour Lim Tsu was a marked man. He was the worst of renegades.

His name and that of his wife, Oo-a, were nearly the last upon the communion roll, for they had been but recently received. When they were read out a howl like that of a pack of wild beasts went up from the mob, and with one consent they flocked pell-mell towards the humble cottage of the former image-maker. He heard them coming, and with his aged wife met them outside the door. Was it something in the calm demeanour of the old couple, standing quietly there with the summer sun shining on their whitening heads, which awed them? The ones in front paused, irresolute. Those behind pressed them forward.

"Friends, whom do you seek?"

"Lim Tsu, the idol-maker."

"Lim Tsu, the idol-maker, is not here. But Lim Tsu, the worshipper of the living God, is here. Friends, I am Lim Tsu."

The leaders of the mob quailed before the quiet dignity of the old man. But the crowd behind pressed them on. They held a hurried consultation while the old Christian and his wife stood quietly waiting.

They were seized by the arms and led towards the river. The spot chosen was the beach of clean shingle in front of the church. Unlike the other prisoners who had been taken that day, they were not beaten. But the feeble old woman hobbled painfully over the stones. Her husband encouraged her:

"If they drown us, it will not take long. Just a moment and it will all be over. Then we'll not be old any more. Your feet will not pain you any longer. I'll not have the fever. We'll not have to worry about getting rice to eat. Just a moment and all these things will be forgotten. In heaven there is no suffering."

As their feet touched the edge of the water they were halted. One of the leaders said to them:

"Lim Tsu, you used to make images of the gods. You used to worship the spirits of your ancestors. You used to perform the rites as our fathers have done since ages eternal. But now in your old age you have been bewitched by the foreign devils and joined the Jesus belief. If you leave the barbarian's religion and go back to the faith of your fathers, it will be well. You will be safe and men will honour you. If you do not, we will drown you both."

"Friends," came the quiet, firm reply, "I do not believe in idols. I made them for many years. I know that they are only wood or stone or earth or plaster. I know that I can knock them down and break them, or throw them into the fire and burn them. How could they help me? Now I worship the true God, who made the earth and the sea and the sky, who made us all, for we are His children. And I worship Jesus Christ, His Son, whom He sent into the world to save me. You may drown us if you will. But we will not give up the Jesus belief."

Yells of rage burst from their persecutors. They were pushed forward into the water up to their knees. Again the offer was made, and again refused.

Execrations, foul language, inarticulate screams of rage rose from the throng on the bank. The old couple were pushed farther into the stream. The water had risen to the old man's arm-pits. It was up to the woman's throat. Again they were halted.

"Lim Tsu and Oo-a, his wife, will you give up the Jesus belief? If not, we will drown you."

The old woman's thin treble rose in answer:

"I cannot give up the Jesus belief. Jesus is my Saviour."

"You may drown us if you will," answered her husband. "That will not hurt us much. It will soon be over. But we can never deny the Lord Jesus."

For a few moments the mob-leaders paused. They were plainly nonplussed by such constancy. Even the rabble on the bank hushed their howling.

Oo-a's grey head swam on the surface of the clear green stream. She turned her face upward. Before her were the steep green hills, thick with trees and ferns and grasses, and all starred with flowers, on which she had looked since her childhood. A bird sang in the thicket. The cicadas shrilled ceaselessly in the hot sunshine. All the world was at peace. Why was man so cruel? She lifted her eyes to the blue sky which bent over her. Her thin tremulous voice was heard in prayer:

"Pe Siong-te."[#]—"Father God, help a weak old woman. Make her strong to confess her Lord. For Jesus' sake."

[#] Pronounced, Pay Seeong-tay.

Then the old man lifted up his voice, and she joined him in that immortal prayer which ever circles the world around and runs through all time:

"Goan ê Pe ti thî nih."[#]—"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done——"

[#] Pronounced, Go-an ā Pay tee thee neeh.

Their voices were silenced by the waters. Their captors had plunged them under and held them there. The fair flowers still bloomed on the high bank. The birds sang on. The cicadas shrilled their monotonous melody. The sun poured down its wealth and bounty on the evil and on the good. Only a few bubbles rising to the surface told where the souls of the two martyrs had been set free to go home to God.

Just plain, ignorant old Chinese peasants! Alone amidst their enemies, all unknown and unknowing, unsupported by and unthinking of the world's applause! Yet without a murmur they died for their faith. Even an Apostle Paul could do no more.

XVIII

TO THE RESCUE

Two days later Dr. Sinclair and Sergeant Gorman were nearing the capital on their way from Keelung to Tamsui. Sometimes they talked and laughed. Sometimes they walked in silence one following the other along the narrow trail, each busy with his own thoughts. Sinclair was thinking of a perplexing, teasing young woman of queenly stature and bearing, with eyes and mouth which haunted him in spite of his determination to persuade himself that he was unconcerned. He knew that she was still in Tamsui. McLeod had sent him a note the last time the Hailoong was in port. Mr. MacAllister had made trips to various ports on the mainland, and to South Formosa. But his wife and daughter remained at Tamsui in the congenial company and care of Mr. and Mrs. Beauchamp.

Sinclair wondered to himself in what humour he would find this wayward maiden who had so suddenly been projected into his life, and now occupied so large a place in his thoughts. Why was she so capricious with him? She was not like that with others. With Captain Whiteley or McLeod or Mr. Beauchamp she was amiability itself. Apparently she treated Carteret quite differently from him. Even with himself there had been moments when she had been cordial and kind. In those brief spells of friendliness she was irresistibly fascinating.

But most of the time she seemed to bend all her energies to making him feel uncomfortable. Why did she do it? Was it possible that McLeod was right? Or was it that his approaches were disagreeable to her and she was trying to make him keep his distance? That was much more likely. But he would find out. He was not going to make a fool of himself by pushing himself in where he was not wanted. He closed his teeth firmly. His lower jaw was set and stern. He would find out this time. He would either make or mend it.

But he did not.

He had hardly made the aforementioned resolution when it and even the object of his thoughts were driven out of his mind altogether. From a high bank beside the road, covered with a thicket of bamboo, a native boy of fourteen or fifteen years dropped into the middle of the pathway at Sinclair's feet. His face was drawn with fear. His eyes had a strained, hunted look. Without any of the customary salutations, he poured forth a stream of nervous, fluent Chinese, in which Sinclair could catch nothing but his own title of "I-seng" and "Kai Bok-su" (Pastor MacKay).

"Here, Gorman, can you make anything out of what he says? There is evidently trouble somewhere, and Dr. MacKay is in it."

"Hould on, boy! Go aisy! Fwhat the divil wud you expect a Christian man to make out of such a jabber as that?"

Then in Chinese:

"You talk too fast. Speak slowly. Don't be afraid. If there is any trouble, we'll help you out."

Getting a grip of himself, the excited boy told them that he was the son of one of the Christians of Sintiam. He related the events of two days before. He said that Dr. MacKay had heard of what had taken place and, in spite of the pleadings of his converts, had insisted on going to the help of those who were still in danger. He was already there, and if the black-flags caught him they would assuredly kill him. He, the boy, had been sent out to look for some Chinese troops, but had found them instead. Would they come to Pastor MacKay's rescue?

"Begorra, an' that we will!" exclaimed Gorman, as he gave his heavy stick a couple of fancy twirls around his head, felt for his revolver to assure himself that it was there, and plunged into the carrier coolie's basket to get more cartridges.

"Tell the coolie to go on to Taipeh and wait for us there. Tell this boy to guide us to Sin-tiam by the shortest route. He needn't try to hide us. We don't care if those devils do see us."

Sinclair spoke in sharp, incisive tones. Instinctively the sergeant came to attention and saluted. It was the accent of command.

In another moment they had left the main road, which they had been following, plunged through the bamboos, and headed directly south. Soon their guide picked up a blind pathway which zigzagged through a labyrinth of rice-fields, dropped into shady ravines, or climbed a projecting spur of rock. The afternoon sun blazed down upon them. But with relentless energy they pressed on. Peasants working in their fields uttered loud cries of wonder, not unmixed with alarm, as the two foreigners strode silently, determinedly past. The native boy never ceased from his steady run. The long, powerful strides of the two whites pressed continually on his heels.

The day was wearing on as they drew near their destination. The by-path they were following did not join the main road entering the town, but led over some wooded hills nearly at right angles to the principal highway. While still unable to see the town, they heard wild yells and occasional shots. Their rapid walk quickened into a run.

As they came over the last bluff, through an opening in the shrubbery they could see the end of the town where the main road entered it. Just emerging from between the houses was a man dressed in white and wearing a sun-helmet. It was MacKay. He was walking steadily, resolutely out along the road which led towards the capital. Behind him, in close but irregular order, was a band of natives—men, women, and children. Among them were a few sedan chairs, evidently carrying aged and wounded. Pressing upon their rear, crowding upon them on either side, threatening to block the road in front, was a screaming, jeering, cursing mob. Black flags were waving over their heads; guns were discharged; mud and filth were thrown; howls like those of beasts of prey burst from them in chorus.

The situation was obvious. MacKay had appealed to the Chinese authorities at the capital to protect the Christians. They had replied that they could not protect them in outlying districts like Sin-tiam, but would protect them if they came to the capital, where there was a garrison. He was endeavouring to bring the survivors to where their lives would be safe. They had lost their homes, their property, their church. They had only their lives left. He was trying to save these.

But the mob were determined that they should not escape. They crowded closer and closer on the native Christians, but still opened up before the missionary. His cool, resolute demeanour, the instinctive recognition of unruffled courage and conscious superiority made them give way. As the little band passed out of the town they began to fear that their prey was going to give them the slip. Bricks and stones were flung. Jostling passed into interchange of blows. Shouts of "Kill the barbarian. He is not very big. Tear the foreign devil in pieces" mingled with inarticulate yells of rage.

Suddenly with a surge from behind the mob flung themselves like wolves on their prey. The Christian maidens, always the first victims, were being dragged away, their terror-stricken shrieks mingling with the fiendish yells of their captors. Sedan chairs were overturned. Men and women were beaten down. The hopelessly outnumbered Christians were fighting desperately for their lives.

At the first sound of the onslaught, MacKay turned back. He would save his people or share their fate. The muzzle of a rifle was jabbed against his chest. Like a flash he thrust it up with his left hand and it was discharged harmlessly past his ear.

It was the last time that Chinese freebooter ever pulled a trigger. Simultaneously with the explosion of the rifle Sinclair's stick came down on his head and cracked his skull like an eggshell.

The same instant, with a wild "Hurroosh!" Gorman was into the melee. MacKay's Highland blood was up, too. Alongside of his bigger and heavier companions he was proving that his slight, sinewy frame had not for nothing gone through more than a dozen years of strenuous training in that tropic clime.

For a few minutes it was rough-and-tumble fighting, with foot and fist and shillelagh. Friends and foes were so mixed together that Sinclair and Gorman were afraid to use their revolvers. But the terror those big, fiercely-fighting foreigners inspire in the hearts of a Chinese mob fell on the rioters. They loosed their holds on their prey and fled in wild disorder, hurried by the barking of the two revolvers and the fall of some in whom the bullets had found their mark.

"Thank you, Dr. Sinclair; Sergeant Gorman. You have done me, and you have done my poor people, a great service."

"It seems that we did happen to come at the right time," replied Sinclair.

"You didn't happen. God sent you."

"Perhaps that is the right way to put it, Dr. MacKay. At any rate, we are glad to have been here. Now we must look at those people. I am afraid that some of them are pretty badly hurt."

All three turned their attention to caring for the sufferers and to making them as comfortable as possible. When they reached the capital Sinclair found it necessary to remain there several days to care for some who were most seriously injured.

Before he felt free to leave them to make his intended trip to Tamsui word came that there had been some sharp skirmishes around Keelung and a considerable number had been wounded. So he and Gorman turned back to duty.

This was the reason why he did not at that time succeed in making or mending his relations with Miss MacAllister. Perhaps it was better for him that it was so. His exploit in coming to the rescue of MacKay was likely to stand him in better stead than a premature demand for explanations.

But Sinclair did not know that. He was not versed in the ways of women. Like most men in love, if he had been allowed his own way, he would have made a mess of it. When Providence came to his rescue and sent him back to Keelung without seeing Miss MacAllister, he was inclined to fall out with Providence.

But his sense of duty and his habitual good-humour prevailed. And when he saw again the strained, eager looks of the wounded men, saw hope come into their faces as the word passed from lip to lip, "I-seng lâi" (the life-healer has come), he was glad that he had done his duty. He was at his chosen work.

XIX

ALLISTER

On the morning of the 24th of September, Sinclair, looking down from a mountain height on the town and harbour of Keelung, saw one of the warships get up steam and put out to sea. Watching it with his glasses, he saw it heading north, and then west, till even the trailing smoke disappeared beyond the far blue coast line which curved away towards the northernmost point of the island.

"I'd give something to know where that Frenchman is heading for and what mischief he has in mind."

"Bedad, an' if he doesn't do more than he's been doin' here these last six weeks, he'd better give up the job."

"That's just the reason why I think that he may be intending to try his hand somewhere else. He can't do any more damage here without a land force. But there are other places where he could—Tamsui, for example."

"Begorra, an' if I thought there was goin' to be a shindy there, it's not one minute longer I'd spind kickin' me heels around this ould dead-an'-alive camp. I'd be makin' for Tamsui as fast as the two legs of me cud carry me."

"So would I. But there doesn't seem to be any movement among the rest of the fleet. We'll just keep a sharp lookout and perhaps we'll get some word from Tamsui. If there's anything doing there, I'm blamed if I am going to be stewed up here and miss the fun."

Two days later Sinclair was again at his lookout. From the departure of that first French warship which had steamed away to the west, either he or Gorman had kept a constant watch on the movements of the French fleet. Perhaps it was all because of his anxiety to be where he was most needed. Perhaps there were other reasons which he did not mention to Sergeant Gorman.

He had found a shady seat for himself beneath the wide-spreading fronds of a tree-fern, and through his glasses was carefully scanning the squadron of men-of-war in the harbour below. A footstep sounded on a rock near him. It was Gorman:

"A letter for you from Dr. MacKay. A boy has jist arrived wid it. I thought that you moight want to see it at wanst."

"Thank you, Gorman," he replied, tearing it open. "Just as we thought. He says that the Château Renaud arrived off Tamsui on Wednesday.... That's the day we saw her leave here.... Over-hauled the Welle yesterday, and the Hailoong, too.... Then Mac's at Tamsui. Boys, but I'd like to see him! ... Says that the consul has got a hint somewhere that the French are going to bombard Tamsui.... What did I tell you, Gorman? ... Thinks we had better come back there at once and take his boys with us.... So do I.... Says your ambulance corps can take care of any wounded there are likely to be here.... Of course they can. Whether they can or not, I'm going."

"Another moving!" exclaimed Gorman, who had been using the glasses.

"What! By Jove, you're right!"

Sinclair was manifesting unwonted excitement.

"We'd better start at once if we want to get through this evening. Pretty nearly thirty miles of a walk if we should happen to miss the launch. I'd like to get there before the Hailoong sails. I want to see McLeod."

Gorman's left eye, which was invisible to Sinclair, winked and that side of his face assumed a most comical expression. The other eye looked straight out at the landscape, and the other side of his face was judicial in its seriousness. He was a man of some perception.

"An' you think that the hospital here will get along widout us?" he asked.

"Of course it will! I'm going to Tamsui."

"Faith and you're a man afther me own heart. Let the hospital go to Ballyhack. I'm wid you.... There she goes headin' for the west. The parley-voos are plottin' somethin' an' we want to be there whin it happens."

* * * * *

Late that afternoon practically the whole foreign population of North Formosa and the officers of the Locust were gathered on the deck of the Hailoong. Captain Whiteley and McLeod were giving what they called their "Farewell At Home!" After their experience of the day before they were doubtful whether they would be allowed to enter the port again so long as the Frenchmen stayed.

It was perhaps the largest party of foreigners which had ever gathered in North Formosa. Consular, mission and custom staffs, merchants, the doctor, naval officers, visitors, and hosts, they numbered thirty or more. The measure of uncertainty, the spice of a possible peril, added zest to their intercourse. Just out of sight over the projecting ridge of the hill to the north of the harbour, the Château Renaud was lying at anchor. That very day the long, low, sinister-looking Vipère had slipped into the very mouth of the harbour. She could be plainly seen from where they sat chatting and sipping their tea on the deck of the Hailoong. Every one felt that these engines of war were big with potentialities of danger and death.

As usual, since her arrival in Formosa, Miss MacAllister was the centre of attraction. Bald-headed seniors like De Vaux and Boville vied with young men like Carteret and mere youths like Lanyon for her company and her smiles. But for reasons best known to herself she chose to give those privileges in much the largest measure to McLeod. As one of the hosts he had not in any way tried to monopolize her. But she showed so marked a partiality for his companionship that it did appear as if he had the monopoly.

"It seems as if no person but a seaman has any show with the ladies to-day," said Carteret with that indefinable bitterness of tone which he so often used. It called attention to the fact that each of the ladies present was deep in conversation with an officer of one or other of the ships.