MISS LEE, GOING for a picnic, had slipped away from Dragon Town without formality. It was different now that she was going to pay a visit to the Taicoon Wu. A crowd of people were waiting at the landing-place under the cliff. There were more men with rifles, some who had come over from Dragon Island and some sent by Wu himself as a guard of honour. There was Miss Lee’s travelling chair, and eight others, each with its bearers. As Miss Lee stepped ashore, a man unfurled a black banner with a golden dragon, like the tiger banner that had been carried in front of the Taicoon, Chang, on the march home after giving an airing to his birds.
‘Gosh,’ said Roger, ‘we’re all going to be Taicoons . . . I say, I’m sorry for the ones who have to carry Captain Flint.’
‘Don’t you think, ma’am, I’d better walk?’ said Captain Flint himself.
‘Evellything allanged,’ said Miss Lee, who was already sitting among the golden cushions of her chair. ‘We visit the Taicoon, Wu. Please . . .’
‘It’s all right,’ called Roger. ‘There’s one with four men to carry it, specially for you. All ours have only two.’
A moment or two later they had started. The man with the dragon banner walked in front. Then came half a dozen guards. Then Miss Lee, in her gold cushioned chair. Then the old amah in a rather plainer chair lined with blue silk. Then one after another in chairs like the amah’s came six of the model students. Then, in a larger chair Captain Flint, still firmly clutching his sextant. Then the rest of the guards.
Some of the guards in front set up a chant, taken up by those at the rear, tossed to and fro as it were, from one end of the procession to the other and back again. There could be no talking. Swinging in their chairs, slung from bamboos on the shoulders of the coolies, the students had enough to do to pretend they did not mind as the procession began to climb the narrow track cut in the face of the cliff. Up and up they went, the wall of the cliff above them on one side, a precipice below them on the other. Up and up, till they could see the blue water over the topmost trees of the little island they had left. Up and up, till the island looked no more than a small green blot on the water beneath them, and the green roof of the temple no more than a pinpoint different in colour from the trees. Again and yet again the track twisted back upon itself climbing always till it reached the top of the cliff.
Here the men rested, but only for a moment, and then went swinging on along a wider road now dropping gently into a wide valley. On the further side of the valley they could see the road again climbing over bare rock. But in the middle of the valley they could see paddy-fields, with women working among the rice, trees, and a walled village. The procession, with the dragon banner waving before it, hurried down the road towards the fields.
At the gate in the wall of the village a gong sounded, twenty-two times. The procession was growing like a snowball. The women in the rice fields left their work and ran to join it. Men and women poured out of the one-storied houses to bow, to shout ‘Missee Lee’ and to run beside the chair-carriers, staring at the students. Men and women, getting their dragon ready for the feast, left their work to join the crowd.
Suddenly, a little way ahead, the students saw another banner, grey and scarlet, coming out of a gateway, and knew it for the turtle banner of the Taicoon Wu that they had seen once before in the courtyard at Miss Lee’s. The Taicoon Wu was coming out to meet his chief. They saw him, the same little stout man with the wrinkled face, in his blue and purple robe, whom they had last seen sitting beside Miss Lee in the council hall. The crowd came no further but waited. The banner-bearers met. The Taicoon Wu was bowing to Miss Lee, and pointing towards the gateway. He bowed to the old amah but took no notice of the students. Miss Lee, in her chair, was carried in, the stout little man walking, bandy-legged, beside her. ‘Boom, boom . . .’ Twenty-two times a gong was sounded. Miss Lee and Wu disappeared under the gateway. The amah was carried in after them, and the chair-bearers lowered the chairs of the students, stretched their arms and squatted on their heels.
‘Great chopsticks,’ exclaimed Nancy, getting out of her chair. ‘Call that manners! I do think he might have invited us in too.’
‘How did you like being a Taicoon?’ said Roger, running up to join Titty.
‘I wish they weren’t humans,’ said Titty, thinking of the coolies.
‘They’re much better than donks,’ said Roger.
Peggy, still a little shaky, joined them. ‘Again and again I thought we’d be over the edge,’ she said.
‘So did I,’ said Nancy, ‘till I saw they were as good as goats.’
‘There’s still that bridge to cross,’ said Roger. ‘I say, they’re bringing out something to drink.’
They were, but it was not for the students. A huge bowl was brought out from the gateway, and a great pile of small ones; guards and coolies crowded round, dipped, drank and smacked their lips.
‘Mr Wu didn’t look too pleased to see us,’ said Captain Flint, strolling up with John and Susan.
‘I wonder how long she’s going to stay in there talking to him,’ said Susan. ‘There won’t be light enough to do much at the dragon by the time we get home. I simply can’t sew with those lanterns.’
‘Did you spot the dragon they’ve got here?’ said Roger. ‘It looks about ready.’
‘Well, they’ve got about a dozen people working at it,’ said Susan. ‘Not only Peggy and me.’
‘I put in at least a hundred stitches yesterday,’ said Nancy.
‘I wonder what they’re talking about,’ said John.
‘I had a sort of idea she was going to talk to him about us,’ said Captain Flint. ‘I think it was in her mind to get him on her side against the old counsellor. Hullo. Cheer up, Roger. This looks as if he’s relented.’
A man was coming out of the gateway carrying a tray with a row of little bowls on it.
‘It isn’t as if we were really thirsty,’ said Roger. ‘And anyway, it won’t have sugar in it.’
All the same they felt a little less like unwanted guests when the man came up to them and they were sipping pale tea out of the little bowls.
Ten minutes later it seemed that the Taicoon had relented a little further, for a man came out to them with a tray heaped with sweet and sticky lumps, each pierced with a thin bamboo with which to lift it to the mouth.
Perhaps twenty minutes after that there was a stir among the guards. The old amah in her chair was coming out of the gateway. As soon as they saw who it was the guards settled again in their places. The amah was set down close to the little group of waiting students. Her face was grimmer than ever. They all wanted to ask questions, but even Roger thought it better not. ‘No relenting there,’ said Captain Flint.
Suddenly coolies and guards sprang to their feet. Miss Lee and the Taicoon Wu were walking towards them together, followed by the bearers with Miss Lee’s empty chair.
‘She’s talked him round,’ said Captain Flint.
‘She doesn’t need to,’ said Nancy. ‘She’s a twenty-two gonger and he’s only a measly ten.’
Miss Lee was talking happily, and the Taicoon, Wu, was smiling all over his wrinkled walnut of a face. They came up to the group of waiting students.
‘I am telling the Taicoon, Wu, how happy I am with my students,’ said Miss Lee. ‘My velly good students. I am telling how you love your work, how quick you learn . . .’
The students shifted uncomfortably on their feet. This was a little too much like prize-giving day at school when people who had spent most of the term in trouble were being given prizes for good conduct before a lot of admiring visitors. Then Miss Lee began introducing them one by one.
‘Loger,’ she said and, after naming him, turned to the Taicoon with a lot of talk in Chinese. The Taicoon listened, and smiled at Roger. Roger, hardly knowing what he ought to do, put out his hand. The Taicoon laughed and shook it heartily.
‘John,’ said Miss Lee and went on in Chinese, perhaps telling how fast John was picking up the Latin he had forgotten. John too shook hands with the Taicoon.
‘Tittee’ was the next name. Miss Lee was evidently going through the list of her pupils in order of merit. There followed ‘Su-san’, ‘Peggee’ and ‘Nansee’. Each in turn shook hands with the little smiling brown-faced man.
Miss Lee turned to Captain Flint, and Captain Flint, ready for the handshaking, shifted the mahogany box from his right hand to his left.
‘Captain Flint,’ she began and stopped.
The smile had left the Taicoon’s face. Much shorter than Captain Flint, though no less stout, he was pointing at the polished wooden box. His brown, wrinkled face looked almost black. He spoke to Miss Lee and pointed angrily at the box. Miss Lee answered him, and said in English, ‘The Taicoon, Wu, asks what you are callying. I tell him it is part of the luggage John and Su-san left in my father’s temple.’
The Taicoon, scowling furiously at Captain Flint, spoke to Miss Lee.
‘He asks to see what is in it,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Please show him.’
There was nothing to be done. Captain Flint put the box on the ground, flicked back the catches and opened it. Wu stooped, snatched away the bit of chamois leather, took hold of the sextant and tried to lift it out. It stuck.
‘Let me,’ said Captain Flint, and tenderly lifted his precious instrument from its case. Wu put out his hand and Captain Flint unwillingly let him have it, waiting to save it if the Taicoon should let it drop.
The Taicoon stamped his foot.
‘Six-tant,’ he said and began talking something like English. ‘Six-tant,’ he said. ‘Missee Lee tell my she keep you . . . you stay here . . . Safe . . . You no can find Thlee Islands . . . You no can tell gunboats where to find Thlee Islands . . . This is six-tant. You take melidian altitude . . . You put finger on map . . . so . . .’
Captain Flint started, and John, remembering what they had done only a few hours earlier, turned a deep red.
‘Here, I say,’ said Captain Flint, ‘what do you know about meridian altitudes?’
‘Olo seaman,’ said the Taicoon Wu, setting his bandy legs wide apart and looking through the sextant at the sun, which was now well down in the west. ‘Olo seaman . . . Blitish ships. China Merchants . . . Boy . . . Deckhand . . . Bo’sun. Take time for my captain when him take melidian altitude. I olo seaman. Know six-tant velly well. You fool Taicoon Chang . . . You fool Missee Lee. You no fool Taicoon Wu . . . I tell Missee Lee . . . I tell Taicoon Chang . . . Not safe keep you here. Moa betta chop you head . . .’
He showed the sextant to Miss Lee, talking angrily in Chinese. His voice grew louder as he talked. The guards and bearers were listening. The amah, in her chair, leaned forward, listening too. The Taicoon made as if to throw the sextant on the ground. Miss Lee put out her hand for it. He gave it to her.
‘The box, please,’ said Miss Lee coldly.
‘I’ll put it in,’ said Captain Flint. She let him have it and he lowered it carefully into the felt-lined box, found the chamois leather on the ground, laid it over the sextant and closed the catches.
Wu put out his hand for it. Miss Lee shook her head without a smile and herself took the box from Captain Flint, and put it on the footboard of her chair. Polite farewells were being said. Wu and Miss Lee were bowing to each other. There were no farewells for the model students, who seated themselves silently and nervously in their chairs. The banner-bearer waited for the signal. It came. One after another the twenty-two gong strokes sounded from Wu’s gateway. The banner-bearer marched ahead, followed by Miss Lee in her chair, using the sextant for a footstool. The procession was on the move again. The Taicoon Wu, standing with his men, watched Captain Flint being carried away and made that same quick gesture that they had seen for the first time in Chang’s yamen, a sharp cutting motion with his hand at the back of his neck.
Gone now was the holiday feeling of the day. Each one of them was feeling more prisoner than student. Each one of them knew that something serious had happened. It was worse because, each in a chair, carried in single file along the narrow road up out of Wu’s valley, they could not talk. They had no eyes for the road, no eyes for the sun sinking in the west. In gloomy silence, swinging in their chairs, they came to the gorge and were carried across that narrow bridge, hundreds of feet above the rocks below.
They had hardly crossed the bridge before they heard shrill whistling from behind them. It was answered not from Dragon Town but from Tiger Island, on the other side of the river. They saw Miss Lee, riding in her chair ahead of them, put up her hand. Instantly the procession stopped and the chairs were put down. Roger, less easily dismayed than any of the others, and anyhow delighted to have passed the bridge, skipped out of his chair and ran forward to ask Miss Lee what the whistling was about.
He found her sitting still and listening with a dead face.
‘What is it, Miss Lee?’ he asked. ‘Do tell me what it is.’
The whistling ended.
‘The Taicoon, Wu,’ said Miss Lee dully, ‘is asking the Taicoon Chang to come acloss the liver and have a talk with him.’ She gave the word for the procession to go on.
Roger, dodging back to get to his own chair, shouted the news to the others. It did not cheer them.
Outside Dragon Town the people were coming in after the day’s work tending the growing rice. At the sight of the dragon banner they came running and splashing to the roadside to cheer as Miss Lee went by. A crowd were waiting at the town wall to cheer as the twenty-two gong strokes sounded. All through the streets the people poured out of their houses to cheer and cheer again. People lifted their children to see her as she passed. Crowds, running together from other parts of the town, were waiting to cheer her at her own gateway. Once more the gongs sounded for her. The chairs one after another were carried through into the courtyard. The holiday picnic was over and Missee Lee was home again.
‘Well, there’s one comfort,’ said Captain Flint as he left his chair and joined the others, ‘she may be at outs with Mr Wu and Mr Chang, but she reigns in the hearts of her people.’
‘We ought to thank her for the picnic,’ said Susan.
It was too late. Miss Lee had left her chair and, carrying Captain Flint’s sextant, was already going up the steps and in through the verandah of the council room.
The prisoners went into their own house. There, neatly piled on the floor, were all the things they had left in the temple, everything except Captain Flint’s sextant.
‘If you’d only left it with the rest,’ said Nancy, ‘it would have been here and you wouldn’t have lost it.’
‘I’ve mucked it,’ said Captain Flint. ‘And now we’ve got another enemy.’
‘I saw him do that beastly thing with his hand,’ said Roger.
‘So did I,’ said Captain Flint, tenderly rubbing the back of his neck.