Chapter 19

He was no longer dressed in a servant’s white gown. Instead, he was arrayed to present a figure which must have represented the fulfillment of his boyhood dreams. He was dressed as a military man, in a starched khaki uniform, with red tabs on the shoulders and red tabs on the high collar, probably a uniform which marked one of his periodic services with the armies of the early republic. A Luger pistol was hanging at his belt, with its holster flap cut away so that it might be drawn the quicker. His chest glittered with medals; I have often wondered what they represented. The uniform made him tall, taller than anyone present. It brought out the gaunt, athletic lines of his figure, but his face was just as I remembered it. His hatless closely shaven head gleamed with perspiration. His cheeks were sunken, haggard almost. His narrow eyes were puckered, like the eyes of a nearsighted man. The haggard look accentuated a lump on the side of his jaw. His mouth stood out from the face, with all the incongruity I remembered, that rosebud mouth of which Major Best had spoken.

The fallacy that all Chinese look alike has always seemed to me another of those myths which have gathered cloudily about that country ever since Marco Polo discoursed on its peculiarities. It is the same as the myth that Japanese tellers must be employed in Chinese banks because of the inherent dishonesty of the race. From another quarter it is said that Chinese tellers must be employed in Japanese banks for the same reason. Then there is the story of the conscientious Chinese tailor who copied a pair of trousers even down to the patch in the seat. These racial misconceptions are shared by the Chinese themselves. There is a universal belief in the less enlightened portions of the country, for example, that the knees of Europeans bend backward rather than forward. The belief that all Chinese look alike falls into a similar category. You would have been convinced of this if you had seen Wu Lo Feng that evening. There are different marks of character upon Oriental features due to different tradition—that is all.

Anyone who might have had the bad fortune to have encountered Wu Lo Feng that evening, with the white gasoline light clear on him, would have understood that he was observing a very exceptional man. The face, the bony face of generations of poor farmers, had been refined by inexpressible suffering and degradation into an example of exceptional survival. There was room for brains in the high, narrow, close-shaven skull. The eyes were frankly calculating, frankly curious, serenely unclouded by any civilized compunctions of conscience or charity. The jaw, in spite of the incongruous mouth, belonged to the man of action. It was the jaw of a Hindenburg, or a Pershing, or a Foch. I can think of Wu Lo Feng now as rather splendid, rather overpowering. When his glance met mine I felt distinctly shaky. It was an interested, probing glance and there were no words behind it. He walked into the centre of the room and stopped and his decorative lips pouted slightly, thoughtfully and mirthlessly.

His presence made one unaware for the moment of the man who was with him, exactly as one momentarily accepts the presence of the pilot fish about the shark behind the plate glass of an aquarium, without doing more than accept it. I remember that I had to remove my gaze with a conscious effort from the tall man in the khaki uniform to his companion. When I did so, I realized that his companion was also exceptional. He was a Japanese, dressed in a tropical worsted suit whose cut reminded one of an American business man’s clothing. He was a man who was strange to me, and my first impression was of his physical frailty. His body must have been skin and bones beneath the worsted suit. The face, lined and nervous, was emaciated, almost skull-like; his upper teeth protruded over a receding lower jaw. It was the face of a man, probably a soldier, who had been severely, almost mortally, wounded once, and his left hand confirmed the impression. His left hand was badly deformed from some wound and was minus three fingers, leaving only the little finger and a thumb. I remember that he held a lighted cigarette between the thumb and little finger. The frailty was not impressive in itself; there was a feverish glow in the frailty, a sense of will power inside it, that was burning that inconspicuous man as if with a high, perpetual fever. I can shut my eyes still and bring back the parchmentlike pallor of the tight drawn skin over his cheek bones. I can still see his uneven, protruding teeth. He was the first one who spoke. He spoke in the rather whispering voice of a consumptive, and to my surprise he spoke in English.

“How do you do?” he said and bowed. There is nothing in the world as perfect as a Japanese bow. There is a dramatic timing in the way the head droops that invokes an indefinable impression of courtesy and modesty and pride. His glowing, dark eyes were examining all of us, intently and enigmatically.

Mr. Moto was the one who answered. I had always thought of Mr. Moto as being a high strung man, but he was solid and adjusted compared to his fellow countryman.

“Good evening, Mr. Takahara,” Mr. Moto said. “I thought you would be here.”

Then I remembered. This was the man of whom Mr. Moto had spoken. So had Major Best. Mr. Moto did not say it was very nice. It was plain that Mr. Moto felt that Mr. Takahara’s presence portended something diametrically the opposite.

“Yes, I am here,” said Mr. Takahara. “In a few minutes you and I will step outside for conversation, Mr. Moto. I am sure you understand.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Moto, “perfectly.”

“I am sorry,” Mr. Takahara said softly, “that we are not of the same political persuasion. And this lady and this gentleman—they are the two Americans? My name is Takahara, sir. I was in your great country once at the Washington Naval Conference. America and Japan are friends. I am sorry that a misunderstanding should be existing here to-night.”

I bowed to Mr. Takahara and he bowed in return. Curiously enough, this exchange of courtesies did not seem out of place.

“Mr. Takahara is very kind,” I said, “I am a great admirer of his country. I gather, Mr. Takahara, that you are one of the more advanced imperialists.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Takahara. “I am so sorry we have no time to talk, because I have heard that you are a reasonable, interesting man. I am so sorry. Mr. Wu Lo Feng says that he will have need of you later. You and I are men of the world enough to know that accidents will happen. I am so sorry. I speak in English so that you will understand my position. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I repeated.

Wu Lo Feng bawled out an order to the guards. His voice boomed jovially through the room.

“Why are these people not tied up?” he shouted. “Have two men to hold this foreigner. I am going to teach him something.”

Mr. Takahara answered quickly in Chinese: “No,” he said, “not now, General, you forget.”

“Very well.” Wu Lo Feng shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I can wait. This room will do. Bring in two chairs and a table and tapers. We will start off the messages.”

Mr. Takahara raised his deformed left hand and examined a wrist watch.

“Yes,” he answered, “this will do. Headquarters can be here, I think. There is not much time.” Wu Lo Feng frowned at him. Two men were bringing in a table and two chairs. Wu Lo Feng let his belt out two notches, shifting his pistol holster on his side, and sat down. Mr. Takahara sat down also and the lantern was placed on the table between them.

“First,” said Mr. Takahara, “we shall send runners to the mustering points. The arms will be issued; it is time to do so, I think.”

Still frowning at Mr. Takahara, Wu Lo Feng leaned back in his chair, and again his voice boomed out:

“Please not to forget,” he said, “I have conducted these matters before. You Japanese may control the provinces but I am not to be controlled. I can be hired but not controlled. Do you understand me, Mr. Takahara?”

“I understand you,” said Mr. Takahara, “as long as you do what you have promised.” Mr. Wu pursed his rosebud lips, his forehead creased with wrinkles, and he stared at Mr. Takahara insolently, with an active sort of dislike.

“Then do not talk,” he said, “you are talking too much. You are annoying me and I do not like to be annoyed. You have seemed to be giving me orders to-night. Well, these men of mine take my orders and not yours. You are here as my guest. You are not even armed, Mr. Takahara. You are talking to Wu Lo Feng, who has seen more fighting than you have. I tell you again to be quiet. I am conducting this affair.”

Mr. Takahara answered softly:

“Do not disturb yourself,” he answered, “I never carry a weapon. I shall not forget anything you say.”

Wu Lo Feng half rose from his chair and banged his fist on the table.

“And do not forget,” he shouted, “that I am familiar with your methods. I know how far to trust you. You have given me money and assistance. That is all I have wanted. I know how to treat men who have betrayed me. Do you remember Major Best?”

“Please attend to the business you have undertaken,” Mr. Takahara said, “and first, there are only two guards by the door. I should have more guards.”

Wu Lo Feng laughed coarsely. He laughed and pounded his hand on the table. There was a reek of rice wine about him which told me that he had been drinking, but not to excess.

“They told me you were brave,” he said, “and now I know they lied. You are a woman. You are afraid of this miserable countryman of yours, and of a debauched Manchu, and of an American woman and a man. If I had the proper weapons my boys could exterminate any Japanese Army that comes here. You think I am afraid with this courtyard full of former Chinese soldiers? No. I am not afraid. I have never been afraid of anything.”

Wu Lo Feng looked at us and grinned. He had the bluster of a character in a Chinese play and I knew his type. I had seen war lords in Peking before; some had been small, quiet men but others had been arrogant egotists, exactly like Wu Lo Feng. He had all the overbearing pride and conceit of a self-made business man. He was the captain of his own industry and the master of his own soul.

“Yes,” said Wu Lo Feng, “I shall conduct this business by myself. I know exactly when the guns you have supplied me will open fire against the wall. I know everything and there is time enough.” Mr. Wu paused and rested his broad hands on the table. Anyone could tell that he was pleased with himself. He called to me by my Chinese name.

“Step nearer here,” he said, “I think I can make use of you. I wish you to explain something to, this woman, your countryman. You will tell her honestly what I say, I think. You do not wish her to come to any harm, I think. Many of your women are very delicate. Once, some years ago, I captured three Russian women when I raided a town to the North. They were not beautiful. I think all your women are very ugly but I saved them out of curiosity. I had to kill them finally because they could not stand the travel.” He looked at Eleanor Joyce and then looked back at me. “Tell her truthfully what I say, please,” he said.

I looked at Wu Lo Feng carefully. I was anxious to learn as much of him as I could because there is always a chance at such a time that something may be gained by temporizing talk. The most dangerous situations in China sometimes evaporate mistily in a cloud of words.

“What do you wish to tell the young woman?” I asked him.

Wu Lo Feng grunted. It has been said that there is always a touch of the shopkeeper in a Chinese bandit; as he framed the words of his next speech his manner grew suave.

“I wish to tell her nothing that she will not like,” he said. “It was due to your meddling that she is here at all. Did Major Best tell you of the pictures? He demanded them in payment for his work; then he turned traitor. The young virgin wishes to buy them. I am pleased to have her buy them. Money is important to me. This life of mine cannot go on forever. A man in my position must retire. In a year, I trust that I shall be safe in Shanghai with sufficient property. I wish the money for those pictures, which I understand are very good. Mr. Pu is already looking for them. If he cannot find them I think Prince Tung will tell us where they are. Will you not, Prince Tung?”

Prince Tung nodded slowly. He also had been watching Wu Lo Feng.

“They are in my storeroom,” he answered. “Yes, I have no doubt that Mr. Pu will find them. You will want ransom money from me, I suppose. I shall be relieved to learn how much.”

Wu Lo Feng considered the matter. As he did so I remembered what Major Best had said that Wu knew exactly what he wanted.

“We shall all move to the hills in the early morning,” said Wu Lo Feng, “you and Mr. Nelson both will go with me. We will discuss ransom there.” He smiled slightly. “I offered to give Mr. Nelson a dinner last night. There would have been poison in it. To-night I shall give him a better dinner when we get to the hills. I shall cook a piece of his flesh with my own hands. You have heard the custom, Mr. Nelson?” I knew that I should not have a pleasant time with Wu Lo Feng, but I was not sure that he would go as far as that. I did not answer. I even endeavored to appear indifferent because I knew it would be dangerous to betray any anxiety or fear.

“You will not wish the young virgin to go to the hills, I think,” said Wu Lo Feng.

“No,” I answered. “On the whole it would be better not.” Wu Lo Feng grunted again and fiddled with the butt of his Luger pistol.

“Then tell her that Mr. Pu is coming with the pictures,” he said. “Mr. Pu will lead her out of here to a place which is safe and comfortable. In fact, I think she may go back to her hotel before morning. Mr. Pu will collect the money for the pictures. There is no reason for her to remain here. Tell her that I have no wish to hurt her. That will do. Take her to one side and tell her.”

I walked toward Eleanor Joyce and took her arm. My respect for her was growing; she was holding herself well in control. She had been examining General Wu as though he were a figure in the circus. He was certainly as far removed as that from any type which she had ever seen. She was watching his hands as he toyed with the butt of his heavy Luger pistol.

“Come over here with me,” I said and I tried to speak as casually as I could. “It’s just what I thought. Everything is working out nicely for you. No one intends to harm you at all. Mr. Pu is coming with the pictures; then he is taking you away. You will be safe at your hotel by morning. You’re out of this and I am very glad.”

Her eyes looked as though she had not slept for a long while. She seemed to look straight through me.

“What will happen to you?” she asked. I tried to smile but I made a rather poor attempt at it.

“It really doesn’t matter,” I said. “Mr. Wu is taking me out to the hills with him. Country air and a change of scene. Don’t worry, I shall manage.”

“You mean they won’t let you go, when I go?” she asked.

“It wouldn’t be very wise under the circumstances,” I answered. “Mr. Wu has taken an interest in me, but you needn’t worry.” My hand was still on her arm. Her fingers closed over mine, unexpectedly, convulsively.

“Tom,” she said, “look at me, Tom Nelson. You can tell Mr. Wu that I am going out to the hills too, and there won’t be any money for his pictures unless he lets us both safe off. I’m not going to leave you. I won’t.”

It was the first time that I realized that I had been laboring under a considerable strain. I realized it when she spoke. The self-control on which I prided myself was going into the discard. My face was growing red, my voice was thick.

“Don’t be a fool,” I said. “You’re out and you’re safe out. At any rate, he won’t let you go.”

“Tom,” whispered Eleanor Joyce, “stay here with me. Don’t speak to him yet.”

We had walked a good many steps away from the table. We were far enough away in that shadowy room to have the illusion of being away by ourselves. The light was softer there. The people we had left were framed by the gasoline lamp but we were in the dusk, watching everything for a little while as spectators in a darkened theatre watch the stage. The guards with their rifles were standing by the closed door—Wu Lo Feng and Mr. Takahara sat side by side at the table. Wu Lo Feng was writing messages with a brush. Mr. Moto and Prince Tung were standing disconsolately a little distance off.

“Would you be so gracious,” Prince Tung asked, “as to send for another pot of tea?”

Wu Lo Feng looked up abstractedly and shouted to the guard: “Send out for tea and wine,” he bellowed.

I saw Mr. Moto move toward Mr. Takahara. My knowledge of Japanese was rudimentary but I heard him asking:

“Might I trouble you for a cigarette?”

And Mr. Takahara was saying: “It is a pleasure.”

Matters were moving on smoothly as Eleanor Joyce and I stood watching that amazing scene. That somnolent Oriental scene of order had crept in upon it decorously, in a way that defied a Western comprehension. The pot of tea came in and a small flagon of hot rice wine. General Wu tossed off two small cups of it.

“Send messengers,” he bawled. Three men entered and he gave them each a slip of paper. He and Mr. Takahara were discussing something. Mr. Takahara was looking at his watch.

“I tell you,” Wu Lo Feng was saying, “everything is ready.” Eleanor Joyce pressed my hand again.

“Tom,” she whispered, “why do you just stand here? Why don’t you say something? Isn’t there anything to do?”

“No,” I answered, “of course there’s nothing to do. You are looking at a remarkable scene if you stop to think of it. You see a Chinese bandit sitting at the table giving orders to start rioting. You see a Japanese provocateur sitting beside him; you see another Japanese agent who doesn’t want an incident to be precipitated—not now at any rate. You are seeing history, in a way. It’s a strange world here, isn’t it? A nightmare of a world. It will be something for you to think about when you get home. There are Mr. Takahara and Mr. Moto both working for Japan, one trying to force the hand of the government, the other trying to let things go more slowly; and Wu Lo Feng thinking about himself, and Prince Tung drinking his tea. Here come some more messengers. Listen to the noise in the courtyard.” I looked at my watch. For some unknown reason neither my watch nor my money had been taken. It was a quarter before one in the morning. “Yes, it’s an amazing scene,” I said. I was talking more to reassure her than for any other reason.

“I rather think something is going to happen before long. There is no doubt about it. This is the real thing. See—he is sending out more messages and here come some more men for orders. They look like foreign educated Chinese.”

While I had been speaking a stream of men had been padding in and out through the temple doors, most of them young and intelligent. Some were Chinese in European clothes, some were in the coolie blue denims. For nearly a quarter of an hour we stood there watching Wu Lo Feng give orders while Mr. Takahara listened and gave an occasional suggestion. There was no doubt it was the real thing. Then the room grew quiet again and the guards stood by the closed doors. Mr. Takahara looked at his watch.

“In a few minutes,” I heard him say to Wu Lo Feng, “we must be starting. You have charge of the railroad station, I believe.”

“There’s time enough,” I heard Wu Lo Feng say. “We will not leave here until we hear the gun.” Mr. Takahara rose.

“There is a detail at my orders outside, I believe,” he remarked. “Perhaps it will be as well for Mr. Moto and me to leave, if you will excuse us. I shall be back in a few moments. Are you ready, Mr. Moto?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Moto. “Will you permit me to say good bye to Mr. Nelson and Miss Joyce?”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Takahara, “as long as Miss Joyce does not understand.”

“What are they saying?” Eleanor Joyce asked me.

“They are only talking politics,” I said.

Wu Lo Feng poured himself another cup of wine.

“Would it not be better,” he asked, “if I took Mr. Moto to the hills? There must be no shooting yet.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Takahara, “there will be no shooting.”

“Tom,” whispered Eleanor Joyce, “aren’t you going to do anything?”

Her words made an idea flash through my mind. It was probably valueless but at least it seemed worth trying. I was reasonably sure that if Mr. Moto went out the door that he would not come back, and I rather liked Mr. Moto.

“Perhaps I can try,” I said, and I walked toward the table where Wu Lo Feng was sitting. They all seemed annoyed as I moved near them.

“Please,” Mr. Takahara said, “there is nothing here that concerns you.” I did not answer him. As I walked toward that brightly lighted table I seemed to be back in a courtroom at home about to propose a motion before the Court. Wu Lo Feng, with his wine cup and his Luger pistol, was the judge.

“One moment, please,” I said. “Perhaps the General is forgetting something.”

Wu Lo Feng pursed his lips and set his wine cup down.

“What?” he asked me. “What am I forgetting?”

“It is simply a humble suggestion,” I told him, “but one which can do Your Excellency no harm. Mr. Takahara is, no doubt, paying you to create a disturbance in the City. Have you ever thought to ask Mr. Moto how much he would pay you if you did not create it?”

There was a moment’s silence. Mr. Takahara half rose from his chair. Mr. Moto drew in his breath with a long, sibilant hiss. Wu Lo Feng frowned and then he smiled:

“That is an excellent suggestion,” he said, “and one I had not thought of. Sit down, Mr. Takahara. Please sit down. You have a good mind for a foreigner, Mr. Nelson. No, I have not thought of that.” Suddenly his shoulders shook and he gave a shout of laughter. “It is very amusing. I have not thought of that. How much will you offer, Mr. Moto? But no, it will not do. You would offer a great deal, but how should I get the money? No, it will not do.”

I stole a glance at Mr. Moto. His head bobbed toward me in a hasty bow.

“Thank you,” he said to me, “thank you very, very much. Your suggestion is such a kind one, but Mr. Takahara knows that it is not in my power to make an adequate offer, just as he knows it is not in my power to promise not to mention his activity if I should be allowed to go free. You do not understand the complexities of our internal situation and I am very, very sorry there is no time in which to tell you of them. Mr. Takahara and I belong to different parties, his more radical than mine which is now in power. Mr. Takahara is very considerate. Mr. Takahara and I, unfortunately, can only do certain things. If I had the opportunity I should have to dispose of Mr. Takahara. Now he has the opportunity. Nevertheless, he is a very nice fellow, and we are both in a way loyal servants of our Emperor. Please do not blame him. I am sure that Mr. Takahara is very, very sorry for you also; but now that you are in possession of certain facts, Mr. Takahara must allow Wu Lo Feng to take you to the hills.” Mr. Takahara rose and bowed.

“Thank you,” he said, “Mr. Moto. Thank you very much. Of course, the young lady does not understand the Chinese tongue and she must not know of this. I am sure that Mr. Nelson understands. I think now that the young lady had better be removed at once to the safe place of which the General speaks, and that Mr. Moto had better come with me.”

The voluble flow of Chinese conversation moved about me dizzily. The politeness, the entire lack of animosity, was on the whole the strangest part of it. With cold fact all around us we were exchanging compliments as though we were at an evening party, while Eleanor Joyce stood in the background watching. General Wu moved heavily and grunted.

“Wait,” he said, “wait a moment. It would be better for nothing to alarm the young virgin, and she is very valuable to me. It is far better that she leave before we do anything.” And then he shouted to one of the guards by the door: “Ascertain if Pu has come. If he has send him here at once.”

Mr. Takahara looked at his watch. I remember the shadow that his thumb and little finger made on the table as he raised his wrist.

“There is not very much time,” he said. “Three o’clock is the hour.”

“Be silent,” said General Wu, “this is my affair. At any rate, here comes Pu.”

He was right. The door was opening and Mr. Pu was entering, walking slowly with a great cloth bundle in his arms, and one of the guards shut the door behind him. Mr. Pu was bowing and smiling. Although I had grown to dislike him, I was never more relieved to see anyone than I was to see Mr. Pu and his bundle. It meant, if I was not wrong, that Eleanor Joyce would be safe. Whether she liked it or not, she would be sent away with Mr. Pu; and after that I believed that everything would be much better. Mr. Pu came walking in, exactly as. I remembered him in the past, not in the least like a criminal engaged in a difficult intrigue. He came in venerably, bowing and smiling and puffing under the weight of his bundle, much as I had seen him a dozen times before entering my own house with a bundle of his wares. He had all the obsequiousness and the merriment of a good Chinese salesman who is ready to bargain or to laugh or to expostulate or to weep.

“Excellency,” he said, “everything has been very fortunate. We came upon the pictures without difficulty and upon some other objects besides.” I heard Prince Tung sigh softly but he made no remark.

Wu Lo Feng rose from behind the table.

“Let us see the pictures,” he said, “the light will be good if you unroll them upon the floor. We shall speak of the other objects some other time.”

“Time presses,” said Mr. Takahara. “There is no time.”

Wu Lo Feng snorted rudely:

“Let us hear no more from you, please,” he answered. “I am the one who says whether there is time or not, and I say that I wish to see the pictures. I wish to examine them because I desire to have the bargain correct. I wish to have no mistake. Unroll those pictures. One of those men with a rifle—, you there, Cheng, put your rifle down and fetch stones to lay on the corners. And you, Mr. Nelson, tell the young woman to stand here beside me so that she may see them better.”

Mr. Pu was kneeling upon the floor, unwrapping his bundle exactly as he might have unwrapped it in my house at home. One of the guards was standing over him, helping him. He looked like a shop assistant now that he had leaned his rifle against the wall.

“Ah!” Mr. Pu was saying, “they are beautiful, beautiful. I say without boasting that I have an eye for art. The work is beautiful, Your Excellency.”

I walked past the kneeling old man and spoke to Eleanor Joyce. I wanted her out of this as quickly as possible. I was sorry that there was even a delay about the pictures.

“Wu Lo Feng wants you to stand beside him and look at them,” I said. “And then, thank God, you are getting out of this.”

She moved forward obediently but she answered: “Oh no, I’m not. Not if you aren’t.”

I remember thinking resignedly that she and I would part forever, quarrelling.

“Oh yes, you are,” I answered. “You won’t get your own way this time. They’ll carry you out of here if you won’t go quietly. You mean money bags to Wu Lo Feng.”

“Tom,” she said, “I don’t care about the pictures.”

“Don’t argue,” I answered, “it won’t do any good.”

There was one thing at any rate that satisfied me. She evidently understood at last that there are times when argument is futile, because she walked toward the table and stood beside Wu Lo Feng. There was nothing as far as I could see that anyone could do, except to be resigned. There was one guard at the door with his rifle and another with his rifle at easy reach. Any sound of a struggle would have brought fifty or sixty others. There was nothing to do except to stand and take anything that came. I could only think that Eleanor Joyce was being let out. In a minute or two now, she would be gone. That dull hopelessness which was settling over me actually kept my thoughts slow and tranquil. I still seemed to be dissociated from the realities and the implications of that scene. I recalled thinking how right I was that events turn men and that men cannot turn events. The dusky figures around the temple wall were as solemn as the Fates. All sorts of unseen things in the room seemed to be gazing down as I did into the circle of bright light, where Mr. Pu was unrolling the scroll pictures. Although the last thing which I wished to do was to look at them, it was impossible not to look.

They drew my attention from everything else, once my glance fell on them, and it was the same with everyone else in the room, I think. Everyone was looking at the pictures on the floor. Wu Lo Feng stood gazing at them, a little puzzled, as though he could not decide why they should be coveted. Eleanor Joyce, standing near him, seemed to have forgotten everything but the pictures. Mr. Takahara, on Wu Lo Feng’s left hand, forgot to look at his watch. Prince Tung and Mr. Moto and I stood by ourselves about three paces off. But we were looking also.

Any foreign visitor, ignorant of the technique of Chinese painting and prone to be puzzled by, its unfamiliar technique, would have known that these scrolls were the work of a master, because they had that sense of greatness which can speak to any race in any language. There is a saying in China that a picture is a voiceless poem; those pictures had a breath-taking voicelessness. Something rose from them which laid hold of the senses and called for silence. They conveyed the idealism of the man who had painted them, the thought which was behind his work seemed to fill the room with infinite peace. They were beyond war or rumors of war. They were abstractions that rose above cupidity or fear. They were the Sung interpretations of landscape, which have never been surpassed by any succeeding Chinese dynasty or by the artists of any other race. The scrolls were like the first one which I had seen, of mountains and misty waterfalls, of pieces of countryside familiar to any one of us, but the artist had endowed them with his own interpretations. The brush strokes conveyed thought in a way that was as subtle as the strokes that go to make up the Chinese characters. They spoke of that paganlike, naturalistic religion which one can hear in sound between the lines of Chinese poetry. You had a sense of the earth and the water gods, of the rain gods and of the spirits of the air. There was some element in that landscape which must have spoken to anyone. Perhaps to each in a different way, but at any rate it spoke.

The impression which those scrolls gave me was one which leaves no memory of exact detail, for the impression was too dramatic and too strong. It was the contrast which I remember best between the deep, lucid stillness of those pictures and the sordid, anarchistic motion around us. It did not seem possible that brush strokes on silk, the combinations of color and line should leave such an impression in such a place, yet I remember thinking that the breathless, brooding clarity was an attribute of the land and of the genius of its people; that bottomless tranquillity was a part of the mountains and the valleys of the almost endless land outside our city walls. It lay behind all the turbulence of the life, mystically, indelibly. It explained why one felt security even in periods of the greatest disturbance. I remembered listening to the city sounds from my own house at the hour of sunrise. There was always a roar of sound from a Chinese city, unfamiliar to the native of another land because the sound is human rather than mechanical. Yet always underneath that sound was the mystical silence of the pictures.

Wu Lo Feng stood peering down at them, wrinkling his brows and puffing through his rosebud lips. He was a strange corollary to the perfection of Chinese art, but I think he was swayed by it like the most ignorant of his countrymen.

“These are very cheap,” he said, “for two hundred thousand dollars.” Mr. Pu, still on his knees, nodded obsequiously.

“Indeed,” said Mr. Pu, “they are cheap at any price. They are the work of the Emperor Hwei-tsung himself. Look! One has only to read the inscriptions.”

Prince Tung spoke to me sadly:

“You must agree with me,” he said, “that these are far too beautiful to be looked upon by any but suitable persons. They have been the treasures of ruling houses. I have never shown them to you, because, although I value your friendship, I have been afraid that your cultivation was not great enough; and now they will be taken from me, to be stared at by pale-eyed ghosts of barbarians who do not even know how to walk or speak, if you will excuse my saying so. I can truthfully remark that this is the saddest moment of my life. Will you excuse me if I turn my back?” And Prince Tung turned away.

Mr. Takahara gazed at the pictures also. He spoke more to himself than to any of the rest of us.

“Such work should be in Japan,” he said, “where it would be suitably cared for and properly appreciated.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Moto, “I am very, very much ashamed of myself that I have never heard of them until this afternoon.”

“Well,” I began. My mind was still on the pictures. I was pleased now that I had seen them, if only for a little while. I looked up from the floor toward Eleanor Joyce. “I shall tell Mr. Wu that you will be glad to buy them,” I began, “and then—”

I stopped. I could not have finished that sentence if my life had depended upon it. My eyes were glued on Eleanor Joyce. I could not believe what I saw and I had no great wish to believe it. She was reaching out her left hand, cautiously but none the less certainly, in the direction of Wu Lo Feng. At first I believed that the gesture was unconscious, but it was not. She was reaching for the Luger pistol that hung in the holster from the General’s belt. I wanted to shout at her to stop but I seemed incapable of speech. The time element was too brief to think of anything much. I can almost think of her moving slowly, but actually she must have moved very quickly. No one noticed her at that instant.

“Stop!” I wanted to say to her. “Stop! you fool!” But the words were choked inside me. It was too late to tell her to stop. No one noticed her until the last moment, when Mr. Moto did. As I say, this all occurred in an instant, though it seemed like a distorted, dragging length of time that I stood there, mesmerized, watching. And then I heard Mr. Moto draw in his breath sharply.

“Ha!” said Mr. Moto. “Ha!”

Wu Lo Feng had never conceived the possibility of such a thing any more than the rest of us, until Eleanor Joyce was snatching his pistol from his holster.

“Tom!” Eleanor Joyce was calling to me. “Tom! Quick!” And she had Wu Lo Feng’s automatic drawn in her left hand.