Nestled in the hills surrounding the valley where Wukiang lay, sat an ancient abandoned monastery. Over a century earlier, Taoist monks had lived out their secluded, priestly lives within its stone walls. But when a plague swept through the place more than half the residents had been killed. The remainder of the order soon disbanded, and since that time none dared inhabit the picturesque spot where it was generally believed “bad Karma” dwelt.
But for the past week and a half this once holy site had been occupied again, this time by an evil breed of men who scoffed at spirituality of any kind. Wang’s handful of soldiers, using it as a barracks while performing their surveillance of the mission only a few miles away, were not intimidated by the ghost stories that had long been associated with the place. The day before Wang K’ung-wu himself had arrived, with his lieutenant Pien, and a very much degenerated Benjamin Pike.
If the sea captain had ever possessed any redeeming qualities, surely they were wiped away with his act of betrayal. When he had watched his dear Sea Tiger sink and his crew struggling futilely in the water, he might have experienced a small twinge of remorse, especially as he saw Robbie swallowed up by a seemingly fatal comber. But Pike was a survivor of the worst kind. He kept telling himself that the ship was doomed with or without him. He did not exactly betray his crewmen. The pirates were going to do what they were going to do regardless. He might as well save himself if he could. It would make no difference to the others, and as far as Robbie was concerned, hadn’t he hoped for just such an accident all along?
Pike could not live with guilt. He had no use for it. Yet he had to live, to survive, at all costs. So he squashed out that last remnant of humanity left within his sick and twisted mind. He forced from his brain the memory of his men going down with the ship. It would do no good to remember now. All life for him had to be focused on one goal—Benjamin Pike. First he had had to concentrate his efforts merely on staying alive. But as his position in his new surroundings became firmer, he began to think how he might get the better of these dirty foreigners.
He had been very fortunate when the pirate Chou brought him before Wang. For all Pike knew he might lose his head. But his bluff on Chou had worked, for it turned out that the warlord hated the pirate’s cocky arrogance even more than Pike’s pitiful countenance. Moreover, he could see some usefulness in having a white barbarian, hated though they were, in his counsel.
It had been with profound shock that Pike had learned that Robbie Taggart was still alive.
“He’s a bloody wraith!” screamed the old captain. “Ye can’t kill the blag’ard!”
He pounded his fist against the table and then tore at his greasy, matted hair like a madman, suddenly bent on a new goal other than staying alive—destroying Robbie Taggart, who all his life had given him no peace.
But that had been a week ago, and he had kept his thoughts to himself. Now he sat in close council with Wang and Pien. Why Wang included him was a mystery Pike never bothered to consider in-depth. Vaunted with self-importance, Pike did not stop to consider that in reality he was still but a prisoner, ever at the mercy of Wang’s twisted will and violent temper.
At the moment Pien was in the midst of a report gleaned recently by Wukiang’s spies.
“There have been no signs of gunboats, my lord,” said Pien in his ingratiating though cautious manner, speaking in Chinese, “nor of any other British presence. Wallace did travel to Hangchow a few days ago.”
“Speak in English!” ordered Wang, “so our esteemed guest can understand.” He cast a deprecating look in Pike’s direction that contradicted his verbal compliment.
“And why did those fools I so freely call soldiers not prevent him?” shouted Wang, shifting uncomfortably on the hard monastic floor, inwardly cursing those monks for their simple and stoic ways.
“It was believed you would not want an incident with a British subject.”
Slowly Wang shook his head. Someday he would rid himself of the whole pack of fools, and get rid of the British from his territory too! But the time had not come yet. In the meantime he’d have to show caution.
“And the girl . . . what is her name?” asked Wang.
“Hsi-chen, my lord.”
“Is she legally adopted by this missionary?”
“No, my lord.”
“How can you be certain?”
“I sent a man to Hangchow—I thought you might want to know.” Pien could not refrain from a satisfied smirk at his own ingenuity.
Wang made no comment on his lieutenant’s foresight. He only rubbed his beard and mused, “So, the little lotus blossom is not technically under the British protectorate . . . ?”
“As a Christian convert, my lord, she might call upon the government, and with Wallace’s support would very possibly receive help,” suggested Pien.
“Bah! The British government is not quick to come to the aid of converts! Too many of those Chinese betrayers have only espoused their Western religion for the protection the powerful governments can give them! But I think those times are past.”
Wang leaned back against the wall, and, folding his hands before him, paused in thought. But it was only a reflex action. He knew what he must do; there was no need to deliberate over it.
Pien cleared his throat timorously. He had one more piece of information to deliver. But how he wished he could have forgotten about it. He feared Wang’s reaction. Yet even more he feared for his life if his master discovered that he had withheld it.
“It may be, my lord,” said Pien, “that swift action will be required in this matter.”
Wang sat forward, glaring. “What can you mean? Speak quickly, you fool!”
“It appears as if the girl and the British sailor”—here Pike perked up—“are becoming intimate.”
“Intimate?” asked Wang. “How do you think so?”
“They have been seen frequently together. Often alone.”
“Ha, ha!” barked Pike, breaking at last his silent observation of the council.
“What do you know of this?” demanded Wang, turning his menacing gaze on the sea captain.
“Only that if there’s a pretty lass about,” answered Pike with just a touch of admiration mingled with his sarcasm, “Robbie Taggart’ll win her heart!”
“What do I care?” shouted Wang, though inwardly galled that a cursed foreign devil should dare tamper with his prize. “Let him have her heart! It will do him little good when I have the rest.”
Now it was Pike’s turn to become pensive. Expert manipulator of situations that he was, he had immediately taken note, as Wang spoke, of a small crack in the warlord’s redoubtable armor. The shrill, almost desperate quality of his outburst had told cunning Benjamin Pike more even than Wang realized about himself. To the egomaniac Chinese overlord, it was the final insult that the woman he wanted might have pledged her loyalties to another—a white man at that! Working upon him were thirteen years of shame at the hands of the girl’s mother.
It took Pike but a moment to see how this realization could work to his advantage and help him see the fulfillment of his own cherished plan for revenge.
“Of course, of course,” mumbled Pike as if the whole matter was of no concern to him. “What do a woman’s affections mean to a man like you?”
“Love and affection are foolish Western notions,” said Wang. “They mean nothing in China when a man wants a woman.”
“And a good custom it is too,” agreed Pike. “Who wants a woman’s love, her loyalty, eh? You’ll get what ye really want from the woman—and it don’t bother ye none if ye gots to hold a gun on her fer it. Ha, ha!” Pike laughed, leering at his captor, hoping he didn’t cross the line of the madman’s tolerance. “A man like yersel’ gets what he wants an’ who cares that she silently curses ye all the while, right, mate?”
Wang suddenly lurched at Pike, grabbing the front of his shirt. “What are you trying to say, you foul pig?” he screamed. Pike had indeed taken his little game right to the edge of safety and was dangerously close to imperiling his life.
Pike did not wince at the insult. He had sunk too low years ago to be bothered by verbal abuse, especially when he sensed himself gaining the upper hand in a life-and-death game of mouse chasing cat. “I wasn’t gettin’ at nuthin’, guv,” answered Pike nonchalantly.
“You are saying I am a man who must use violence to win a woman!”
“It don’t matter to you, now does it?”
“No it doesn’t!” yelled Wang.
“That’s good,” returned Pike calmly. “So ye’d have no interest in learning jist how ye might win this little lotus flower, win her completely.”
In a mighty fit of wrath, still holding Pike’s shirt, Wang slammed the skipper’s body against the stone wall. “Speak your mind, imbecile!” shouted Wang, his mouth but an inch from Pike’s. The jolt had winded Pike, and, coughing and sputtering, it was a while before he could regain his previous composure. “Speak!” repeated Wang, “or you will die where you stand, you groveling fool!”
Pike opened his mouth. His voice was noticeably weaker, but he had come too far to falter now. Despite the warlord’s portentous bluster, he knew Wang was in the palm of his hand.
“You know how women are, Lord Wang,” said Pike. “They like to be made o’er, they do. An’ the best attention ye can give a woman is fer two men to fight o’er her affections, if ye take my meaning. They love it—and it makes them love all the more the man what wins.”
Wang loosened his deadly hold on Pike, allowing the skipper to collapse on the floor. He turned and paced about the room, rubbing his beard all the while. Finally he turned back to Pike.
“Tell me what you have to say.”
Pike pulled himself up as straight as his degenerated figure could go, and spoke with a casual tone, though triumph glistened in his yellowed eyes.
“I figured ye was plannin’ on kidnappin’ the little lady,” he said. “Ye might jist go ahead as planned. Ye’ll win her in the end, but she might need a bit o’ proddin’ at first. Then, sure as my names’s Ben Pike, Robbie’ll come to try to rescue her.”
“He will come alone?”
“Now’s the Vicar’s gone, he don’t have no one but those missionaries—none of them Chinamen are going to help a white man get one of their women. And even so, he ain’t never goin’ to raise anything to match yer crowd here. So once he gets here, ye challenge him to a fight to the death, fer the hand of the woman. ’Course ye’ll win, ain’t that so?”
“It is so, you white pig!”
“There ye go!” laughed Pike. “She’ll see that ye was willing to risk yer life for her, an’ she’ll fall madly in love with ye.”
Wang stopped his pacing. The dirty sea captain’s plan was simple enough, and was not without merit. Though why shouldn’t he simply take the girl and go? Why wait around for something to go wrong? What did he care, after all, if the daughter of Shan-fei loved him?
“And if she should see the qualities you speak of in the sailor instead?” he asked at length.
“He’ll be too dead to matter to her anymore. A living hero means more to a woman than a dead one.”
“And this sailor . . . what skill has he?”
“He is a tough one, I gots to admit that,” replied Pike. “But nothing compared to yer lordship. He don’t know nothin’ about weapons—take swords, for instance. Now with guns, he might get lucky. But with swords, it’s skill pure and simple. And he ain’t got none.”
“Tell me this, sea captain: is your sailor stupid enough to walk in here where he knows that—however remote his chances—if he should win, he will be instantly killed?”
“Robbie’s a headstrong lad,” said Pike, running a hand over his four-day growth of beard. “But if he hesitates, ye’re a smart fellow. Ye can figure something out.”
“You may go, pig!” ordered Wang. “Get your wretched, stinking self away from me!”
Pike grabbed his crutch, and, partly leaning on it, partly bracing himself against the wall, he hobbled from the room, not once looking back over his shoulder, neither worrying about an unexpected rear attack from the warlord. Wang needed him. He’d be safe for a while, and by then he’d have figured out some other safeguard. Nothing would deter him from his prime goal—self-preservation. Especially now that the destruction of Robbie Taggart was within his grasp.
He grinned to himself as he limped along the deserted corridor to his own little cubicle. The true beauty of the plan he had just laid before Wang was that Pike himself would not have to lift a finger against Taggart.
Not that he was squeamish. He could do it if he had to. But he would just as soon have someone else handle the actual deed.
Perhaps, after all, there was a small, misplaced shred of humanity left in Benjamin Pike. Enough at least to make him afraid of forever seeing the face of his best friend’s son in his dreams, if he had to be the one to strike him down. He remembered too vividly that first time . . .
He had been in one of his hateful fits on the Macao. Robbie was just a kid, and the apple of the captain’s eye. How his favor with the officers had galled Pike, himself nothing but a grimy sea cook with no hope of advancement. One night he sneaked up into the rigging, nearly killing himself with that fool peg leg of his. But he had made it to the top, and had fixed the ropes so that no one would be able to make that climb again and survive. He made sure it was Robbie who took that line the next day—it hadn’t been hard to do; Robbie loved nothing more than going aloft.
A pang of guilt—he’d had some feelings left back then—suddenly struck him, and he nearly cried out a warning at the last moment. But in silence he watched the lad fall to the deck, saved from a certain death only by a turn of the wind. The gust had forced his descending body against the other rigging that had remained secure. It had been weeks before Pike could get the vision of that falling body from his mind.
“He’s inhuman!” cried Pike, his voice echoing against the stone walls of the monastery. “More lives than a bleedin’ cat!”
Robbie had survived, though badly injured. Yet the incident still haunted Pike, and he’d rather not risk repeating it.
Better to let that fool Wang do the deed. Let him have the nightmares!