Chapter 17

I was tied up like one of the black, Chinese hogs for its trip to the market. I must have struggled involuntarily when another rope bit into my elbows, for someone hit me a heavy blow on the side of the head that sent my senses reeling. Everything was black and all my impressions became vague, what with the blindfold and the gag and the blow on the head.

The whole business must have been carefully planned by individuals who were specialists in the art of kidnapping and ransom. We were being carried through the courtyards, and next we were thrown into an automobile. Even in the best of times a lower class Chinese does not give much thought to personal comfort, and we were not being treated with particular consideration. I was doubled up, half on the floor and half on the seat, with my legs and arms growing numb and my back strained and aching. We were being taken somewhere but it was not for me to reason why. Nevertheless, I must have done a good deal of thinking on that ride, mostly on the subject of how suddenly life can change. Details of the tea party of the day before moved across my consciousness, in an irrational, half delirious chain. I could almost hear the cool clink of cocktail glasses. I could see the dancers on the terrace … Eleanor Joyce in her green dress dancing with the Attaché from the Italian Legation … the champagne corks were popping in the dining room of Major Best.

“He simply sets a straw beneath his subject’s epidermis,” Major Best was saying, “then everybody interested takes a blow on the straw. I saw Wu do it myself in the mountains outside of Kalgan.… I’d put him above the old Marshal of Manchuria for brains … they made the Chinese Army move out of Peking … anyone could take Peking. You and I could take it if we had a couple of thousand men.”

Everything was impossible. It was impossible that I was there. What I had seen and heard were all impossibilities. Yet there I was in spite of them, caught in one of those erratic tides of the distracted country which I had thought I loved; and I still loved it in a way. There was no use in struggling against the tide, but still I had a distinct desire to struggle. It surprised me to realize that the desire was not wholly one of self-preservation. Pride had something to do with it, and there was more than that. Eleanor Joyce was with us, a picture buyer for an American museum, engaged in a manipulation of which I could not approve. I was quite sure by then I disliked her. Nevertheless, we were of the same race; she had said the other night that we were the same sort of person, and perhaps we were. If there was anything that I could do to get her safely out from where we might be going, I knew almost against my will that I should be obliged to try.

If you have ever travelled by railroad around the outer walls of Peking you have an involuntary respect for the city’s area. We were carried by motor and the journey fortunately was not as long, but it was long enough. At the end of twenty minutes or perhaps half an hour, the car stopped and I could hear the creaking of large gates being moved; then the car crawled forward in low gear into what I judged accurately was a large courtyard where it stopped again. I was lifted out, still like a market pig, and as my ears were not closed I heard a number of low-voiced remarks about my personal appearance while I was being carried somewhere, to judge from the smell and the coolness, into a large and little used building, where my bearers stopped and tossed me onto the floor.

Then a voice said: “You can untie them now.”

The cords were removed from my arms and legs, but even so I was too numb to move. A minute later I did manage, however, to pull myself into a sitting position and to wrench the rag out of my mouth and the bandage from my eyes. It was somewhat like the return of consciousness once my sight was back. My first sensation, before my mind registered any impression, was one of acute bodily misery.

My tongue and mouth were distorted and swollen from the cloth that had gagged me; my arms and legs ached from the effort of returning circulation. The first thing I did was to cough and spit and try to rub my wrists and ankles; then I got on my knees and pushed myself to my feet.

There was a kerosene lantern beside a doorway where two men armed with rifles were standing, evidently a guard. Although the light was dim enough, it was sufficient to show the nature of the place. I was evidently in one of the buildings of an abandoned temple, one of the scores which are tucked away in corners of the city, now almost nameless and forgotten in that place where there is little respect, in spite of ancestor worship, for the works of past generations. Like so many of these buildings, the only light came from the doorways which now were closed and through windows which were boarded up. Thus the room, even with the lantern in it, was sepulchral and solemn; its corners were a mass of shadows which seemed to be moving visibly against the ring of light. This sense of light and shadow gave every visible object a scale that was grotesque and disproportionate. Columns of camphorwood rose up into the pitch blackness of the roof, like the stalactites of a cave; dim, faded frescoes of Buddhistic disciples made dreamlike patterns on crumbling plaster walls. It was a long while since incense had been burned to the gods. The figures on the central altar had nearly all been removed or destroyed, but various disciples easily twelve feet high stood on pedestals in front of the frescoed wall, their gilt paint cracked and tarnished, half distinguishable, mouldering works of mud. They stood there as inarticulate and as problematical as fate. A Chinese temple in disrepair is always an eerie place; a monument more to futility and cynicism than to the involved mysticisms of the Buddhistic faith.

I was standing in the space before the central altar. After those first dazed seconds of instinctive adjustment to my surroundings I saw that I did not have the apartment to myself. Prince Tung was standing near me, brushing the dust from his black silk robes, and Eleanor Joyce was helping him. I walked toward her rather unsteadily and asked her how she was.

“Thank you,” she said to me formally. It is odd what people say in such circumstances. “I can manage. I’m quite all right.”

“That’s very nice,” I said. “I’m very glad to hear it. An interesting spot, isn’t it? Since you are an authority on art, where would you place these frescoes? Probably rather late Ming would you say? But restored in the seventeen hundreds?”

Her blank stare made me aware that my speech was peculiar under the circumstances. As a matter of fact, my mood was as peculiar as my speech. I was angry at the treatment I had received, but it was a stimulating sort of anger. It had whipped my spirits into a perverted sort of gayety. It had stimulated me for the time being, beyond any great sense of pain or discomfort.

“You’re hurt,” said Eleanor Joyce. “Did they hit you?”

“Just an affectionate slap,” I answered. “Probably nothing to what’s coming.” And then I lowered my voice. “Don’t be frightened,” I said. “Don’t let them see you’re frightened. Everything around here is a matter of face.”

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I understand.”

“You only have to look at Prince Tung,” I suggested, “don’t make him ashamed of us.”

“No,” she said, “I won’t.”

I was proud that I knew Prince Tung. If ever there was an example of inbred self-control, Prince Tung was its perfection. The Prince had dusted himself off carefully and now he was looking about him with scholarly curiosity, as though he had been set down purposely, on a tour of pleasure.

“It seems odd to me that I have never been in this temple before,” he said, “but then there are so many interesting monuments to be visited that only an antiquarian could be supposed to have the time. Evidently this has had some bad luck connected with it, just as we have had bad luck now.” He looked coldly at Eleanor Joyce. “To have the female element of creation, the Yin, connected with affairs, frequently presages bitterness and misfortune. No, I have never been here, though I have some recollection of this place being mentioned in the old days of the Court, and I have a suspicion that we are near the East Straight Gate which was provided with a bell instead of a gong. There is an amusing story about it that doubtless you have heard.”

“No,” I said, “but if you should condescend to tell the story, what would be more fitting, considering the time and place?”

Prince Tung sighed.

“I am growing old,” he said, “and somewhat unused to rough handling, but polite conversation removes the mind from the immediate. I must say for you, my friend, that you are conducting yourself up to the present in a far better way than most foreigners. You have not lost your temper. You are neither blaspheming or giving way to useless activity or useless speculation. Yes, the story is amusing, and it may promote tranquillity to tell it. I am sorry that the young virgin cannot understand me, but it may be that there will be ample time for you to translate my remarks.” Prince Tung rubbed his hands together, and I actually found myself half-listening to his story.

“It appears,” he said, “during some period in an earlier dynasty, that a young Bachelor of Arts was approaching this gate of the city in order to take the metropolitan examination. As he neared the walls he encountered a tortoise, disguised as a scholar.”

“A difficult disguise,” I said.

“What is he saying?” Eleanor Joyce asked suddenly, “aren’t you going to do anything? Where are we? What has happened? What is he talking about?”

“About a scholar disguised as a tortoise,” I said.

“Dear God!” said Eleanor. “Are you both going mad? Aren’t you going to do anything?” I took her hand and drew her near to me.

“Don’t interrupt,” I said. “Prince Tung knows more about this than you or I. Prince Tung is always correct. There is nothing possible to do except to wait just now,”

“A difficult matter of disguise, as you say,” Prince Tung said placidly, “but at the same time possible. Both the Bachelor of Arts and the tortoise stopped at an inn outside this gate. ‘It will be your fortune to see the Emperor,’ the tortoise said, ‘because you will take a first degree in your examination. When you see the Emperor will you do me a favor? Will you please to ask him when I may come into the city and go up for my examination?’ Matters came to pass exactly as the tortoise had predicted. The scholar took a first degree, and when he came back to the gate again he stopped to see the tortoise. You understand that he had the interests of the city at heart?”

“Yes,” I said, “naturally I understand.” I said it, but as I listened to the folk tale I could almost agree with Eleanor Joyce that we were both a little mad, although the madness seemed quite natural.

“And the scholar said to the tortoise,” continued Prince Tung, “‘The Emperor sent you this message. When the gong on the East Straight Gate is struck it will indicate that you are summoned for your examination.’ You understand the significance of this, of course? It is hardly necessary to add that the scholar in all haste repaired to the suitable officials. The gong on the East Straight Gate was removed and the bell was set up in its place. Thus the tortoise is still waiting outside the gate, and thus he has not been offended. You understand how important all this was.”

In spite of myself my mind was wandering. There were sounds outside the temple door of footsteps and voices. “What did you say?” I asked absent-mindedly. “Perhaps I don’t understand after all, I’m sorry.” Prince Tung surely must have heard the voices too but he gave no sign of interest. He smiled at me mockingly and rubbed his hands together.

“I regret that I have outstripped your great knowledge of our country,” he said. “I had taken it for granted that you would be completely acquainted with our symbolism.” The tortoise is the sign of floods, thus one could naturally not let him into the city, and at the same time one could not offend him. And now my story is over at exactly the right moment. See? The main temple door is opening.”

The two guards by the door straightened and had put their rifles at a rough imitation of European port arms. I do not know what I expected to see come through the door but certainly not what I saw. Three men entered carrying a fourth, bound and gagged, just as we had been. They tossed him on the floor, untied his ropes, turned and walked out.

“They’ve brought someone else,” said Eleanor Joyce. It was an idiotic remark but I did not tell her so. I was gazing at the figure on the mud floor. It was a small man, in a light grey business suit which was torn in several places and spattered with mud. For a moment I could not see his face because a bandage was still across his eyes. His head was bleeding from a scalp wound and he was lying motionless. The guards by the door stared at him placidly. They made no objection when I walked over to him. I put my hand beneath his head and pulled the gag from his mouth. The man was a Japanese but even before I took the bandage from his eyes I knew who he was and so did Eleanor Joyce.

“It’s Mr. Moto!” she said.