The Blue Dragon: A Tale of Recent Adventure in China

"Oh, he sent it off all right. That is, I suppose he did. Anyhow, he seemed a good deal impressed by the name I signed to it."

"What name was it?"

"Yu-Hsien."

"What! The governor of Shan-Si! The big man of all the Boxers! You didn't have the cheek!"

"I did, though," declared Jo, stoutly; "and if it don't get us what we want at Pao-Ting, there isn't another name in all China that would."

They were barely out of sight of the station before they came to a bridge across a small river. Here, as the telegraph-line was strung on it within easy reach, the locomotive was brought to a stand-still, while Rob again tried his hand at wire-cutting. Jo leaned from the cab to watch him, thus relaxing for a minute his close watch of their useful prisoner.

As Rob came back, calling out: "Let her go again, I'm aboard," Jo turned to give the necessary order, only to discover to his consternation that the engine-driver was nowhere in sight. In vain did they search through the cab and its tender, in the water-tanks, and even under the coal. In vain did they look up and down the track, at the bridge on both sides, even staring down into the water twenty feet below them. The man had disappeared, so far as they could discover, as absolutely as though the ground had opened and swallowed him.

"Well," remarked Rob, in a melancholy tone, "that beats anything I ever experienced. We certainly have got the old wagon to ourselves now, and the question is, what shall we do with it?"

"I say run it," replied Jo. "I've watched him until I know how to start and stop, and how to go slow or fast. I'll do that part if you will keep up the fire, and I don't believe there is anything else to be looked out for."

"All right," agreed Rob, "go ahead. I don't like it, and I expect we shall come to grief; but I can stand it if you can."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TIMELY EXPLOSION OF A BOILER

Greatly depressed by the unexplained disappearance of their Chinese engine-driver, our lads, ignorant of everything connected with machinery, set themselves the hazardous task of running a locomotive. They got it started without difficulty, and ten minutes later were running at tremendous speed over the level line that extended without grade or curve as far as they could see. While Rob shovelled coal until his back ached and his face was as black as that of a negro, Jo occupied the engine-driver's seat and anxiously stared ahead. Neither of them spoke, for the strain on their nerves was too great, since each knew that at any moment they were likely to be blown up, flung from the track, or sent plunging through some weakened bridge. They were facing death in a dozen forms, but stuck to their posts without flinching, for they knew that a like fate, absolutely certain, awaited the unprotected foreigner who should be caught attempting to cross those plains on foot.

So they drove on, mile after mile, dashing past the station of Sing Yang without a pause or even a slow-down, and shortly before sunset came within sight of the gray walls of Pao-Ting-Fu.

"Shut her off, Jo. We've done the act so far all right," said Rob, speaking jerkily and with ill-repressed excitement. "Now comes the real danger. What a crowd there is about the station. There's an engine, though, with a single car attached. See! Waiting up by the tank. Perhaps our bluff has worked! Steady! Here they come!"

The stolen locomotive had come to a stop at the lower end of the station platform, panting as though exhausted by its long run, and a group of Chinese officials were hurrying to meet it.

"Where is his excellency, Yu-Hsien?" asked one of these, peering with an expectant air into the cab.

"He is following on a special train," replied Jo, promptly; "but I am his representative, sent ahead to prepare the way for him. Is the track-repairing car ready, as the governor requested? If not he will cause the officials of Pao-Ting to suffer the same 'bitterness' that has gained him fame among the foreigners of Shan-Si."

"It has been prepared according to the most noble governor's desire," replied the official, hesitatingly, "but – "

"Let us, then, go to it," interrupted Jo, stepping from the locomotive as he spoke and starting up the platform.

Rob followed him closely. As he left the cab he caught a glimpse of a begrimed, dishevelled, and nearly naked man crawling from beneath the tender. In an instant it flashed across him that this was their lost engine-driver. Looking back a moment later he saw the same figure following them.

They in the mean time were being conducted towards the agent's quarters in the station-house, where refreshments had been prepared for Governor Yu-Hsien.

"If he were but here," remarked the official spokesman, deprecatingly, "of course, everything would be at his disposal; but we have been so expressly ordered not to allow the passage north of any save troops or mandarins of the highest rank, that we are at a loss how to act."

"Am I not a representative of one of the greatest mandarins of the empire?" demanded Jo, fiercely, "and am I not come to prepare the way for him? Has it not already been told to your dull ears that upon his reaching the imperial city within two days depends the very life of the Son of Heaven?" At this august name every one present, excepting Rob, and including the speaker himself, made a deep reverence.

"The Emperor is no longer in danger, since the ocean-devil army has been driven back, and now is being cut to pieces by his own invincible troops," boasted the official.

"What do you mean?" asked Jo. "No such news has come to the ears of his excellency the governor."

"It is nevertheless true that from the ships gathered off Taku bar thousands of ocean men were landed to go to Pekin. They travelled by the road of iron-fire, restoring the track, even as you now propose to do. Slower and slower they moved, being beset on all sides by sons of the Great Sword. Beyond An-Ting they could not go, for there they were met by imperial cavalry from the South Hunting Park, and turned back in disorderly flight. Hundreds were killed, and hundreds more are being cut down at this moment. All their guns and banners are captured, and it is certain that not one of them will escape alive. The ocean devils still on their ships have threatened to fire on the Taku forts, but they dare not do it. General Nieh has made answer that, with the firing of the first shot, every foreign devil in Tien-Tsin and Pekin will be put to death; for so commands an edict from the imperial city."

"What has all this to do with us?" inquired Jo, pretending not to be at all affected by this startling news. "The governor of Shan-Si must pass in spite of everything. Let him be delayed by so much as the fraction of an hour, and those whom he will hold responsible may well tremble in their shoes."

"Is not the man with the black face, standing by your side at this moment, a foreign devil?" suddenly demanded the official, ignoring Jo's threat and pointing an accusing, clawlike finger at Rob.

"No," answered Jo, stoutly. "He is a native of the Middle Kingdom; but he comes from the far south, where he was born. Also, he is wise in the science of iron-fire, and has been sent on in advance of the great governor to make safe his way. If you should harm so much as a hair of his head, the vengeance of Yu-Hsien would be swift and terrible as that of Heaven itself."

"He is yang-kwei!" (foreign devil, northern dialect) cried a voice from the back of the room, and Rob, turning quickly, caught a glimpse of the begrimed engine-driver whom he had seen crawl out from under the tender and who afterwards had followed them.

At the same instant he, together with every one in the room, was hurled violently to the floor, the walls of the building were blown in as though they were of card-board, and the city of Pao-Ting-Fu was shaken by an explosion so terrific that its inhabitants ran shrieking from their houses into the streets.

Some of the occupants of the station-agent's room fled from it unharmed, while others, and among them our lads, more or less bruised by falling bricks or tiles, crawled out from the débris and made exit more slowly. Only one remained behind, crushed to death beneath a heavy roof-timber, and he was the engine-driver, killed, in the very act of denouncing Rob, by the blowing up of his own locomotive. It had been left with a roaring fire behind its closed furnace door and very little water in its boiler.

"Are you hurt, Rob?"

"Nothing to speak of. Are you?"

"No."

"Then what do you say? Shall we take advantage of the confusion to light out? Things seemed to be getting pretty hot for us when that blessed old engine interrupted the proceedings."

"What do you mean? Run away? No, indeed!" replied Jo, earnestly. "Things are just as we want them now. Don't you remember that I was telling them what Yu-Hsien would do if they interfered with his plans? He is the head Boxer, you know, and just now the I-Ho-Chuan are credited with being masters of magic. Wait till I speak to these big men."

The official, or, as Jo called him, "the big man," who had been foremost in examining our lads, was excitedly chattering with one of his fellows when Jo and Rob stepped up to him.

"You are alive and not harmed?" he gasped at sight of them.

"Of course we are not harmed," replied Jo. "Did I not tell you that we are the servants of Yu-Hsien? and do you think he would harm his own?"

"Is this terrible thing the work of the great Boxer?"

"Certainly it is. I warned you how it would be. He has killed one who defied him, that you may have evidence of his strength; and if you still go against his wishes your own sons will shortly erect a new ancestral tablet."

"It is true, most honorable one," admitted the frightened official, humbly; "and we are not so dense but that we can learn the lesson thus plainly stated. Tell us, then, how we can serve you, and thus appease the wrath of the mighty Boxer, that he may not visit further destruction upon us."

"Give us the slight thing for which we asked: a few rails, a few track-layers, and a fresh engine, that we may go about our work and prepare the way for our master," replied Jo, boldly, "then shall all go well with you and with this city of Pao-Ting, which otherwise might be bereft of its walls by the next exhibition of Yu-Hsien's wrath."

So superstitious are the Chinese, so dreaded were the mysterious incantations of the I-Ho-Chuan, and so unnerved were the officials of Pao-Ting-Fu by the explosion of a few minutes before, that they yielded to Jo's demands.

A locomotive attached to a car holding rails and a gang of coolies had been made ready in anticipation of Yu-Hsien's coming. This train, standing by the water-tank, at a distance from the scene of explosion, had remained uninjured, and now was placed at the disposal of our lads. They were told that for fifty li the track still was in good condition; after that they could readily repair it with the means at their disposal, until they came to the great bridge at Cho Chou, which had been hopelessly destroyed.

So our young adventurers left the officials of Pao-Ting-Fu, promising them that Yu-Hsien should be informed of their efforts in his behalf, and were thankfully seen to disappear in the gathering twilight.

"Well!" exclaimed Rob, who had not spoken during all these negotiations, heaving a great sigh of relief as they pulled out from the deadly neighborhood. "Our bluff worked, after all. But, take it all around, it was about as close a call as I ever want to experience."

"Yes," replied Jo. "I never expected to be saved from sudden death by the blowing-up of a boiler."

That night they remained on board their new locomotive at the little town of An-Su-Hsien, where Jo procured for each of them the red hats, sashes, and shoes worn by Boxers. At daylight they again were under way, and, though they were obliged to stop a dozen times to replace missing rails, they had reached Cho Chou, only forty miles from Pekin, before dark. Here they were able to hire horses that by late afternoon of the following day had carried them within sight of the far-extended walls of the great Chinese capital. Beyond the wall rolled dense clouds of smoke, as though the whole city were on fire, while distinct above all other sounds rose the sharp rattle of musketry, mingled with the deeper roar of heavier guns.

At these evidences of strife our lads drew rein and looked inquiringly at each other. After all, was the city of Pekin a good place for a young American and a Chinese who had befriended him to enter at that moment?

"Yes," said Rob, at length, "I think we will keep on, only we will give up our horses here. I don't see that we will be any worse off, in any event, inside the city than where we are. There is fighting going on, to be sure, but it must be between our friends and our enemies. If the former are getting the worst of it, then they need our help; while if the fight is going the other way, we have nothing to fear."

"I wonder," remarked Jo, bitterly, as they moved slowly forward on foot, "which side will prove friendly to me, or will all prove enemies of the Chinese who has befriended a foreigner?"

CHAPTER XXV

IN CHINA'S CAPITAL CITY

China's capital, the great northern city of Pekin, is situated on a plain one hundred and twenty miles from the sea, and near the eastern base of a low mountain-range known as the Western Hills. It is divided into two nearly equal parts, the northern being the Manchu, or Tartar City, while the other is called the southern, or Chinese City. The northern city is surrounded by a vast brick wall ten miles in length, fifty feet thick at the base, sixty feet high, and forty feet wide on top, pierced by nine massive gateways, two on the north side, two on the east, two on the west, and three on the south. These last open into the southern city, which is of about the same size as the other, and also is surrounded by a lofty wall having seven gates. In the southern city, standing in the middle of a forty-acre park, is the great Temple of Heaven, in which the Emperor alone may worship.

In the centre of the northern, or Tartar City, and occupying one-eighth of the enclosed space, is located the Forbidden City, surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of red brick coped with tiles of imperial yellow. This wall has but four gates, and within it are the yamens, or palaces of high-rank mandarins, besides parks and pleasure-grounds. Inside of the Forbidden City is yet another, known as the Imperial City, strongly fortified, and containing the palaces, pleasure-grounds, lakes, and lotus ponds of the imperial family.

While Canton, in the far south, has been called the most wonderful city of the world, Pekin is almost as remarkable, although in an entirely different way. Canton streets are noted for their extreme narrowness, and those of Pekin for their width, some of the latter being one hundred feet wide. In Canton there are no wheeled vehicles and no beasts of burden, while Pekin streets swarm with blue-covered, two-wheeled carts, very heavy, and drawn by large, fine-looking mules, two-coolie jinrikishas, bullock-carts, wheelbarrows loaded with passengers or freight, pushed by one coolie and pulled by another, long caravans of shaggy, two-humped camels, besides innumerable riding ponies and donkeys. Also, in Pekin, may occasionally be seen the smart European brougham, drawn by a high-stepping American horse, of some wealthy mandarin, though most of those who can afford to ride prefer to do so in sedan-chairs. Of these chairs, those used by members of the imperial family are roofed and curtained in yellow, those of the higher-class mandarins are red, those of the next lower grade are blue, and so the descent is continued through green to black, while mourning chairs of every class invariably are white.

In Canton a large proportion of the houses have two stories, while in all directions tower lofty, six-to-nine-storied pawn-shops, looking like flat-topped grain elevators; but in Pekin all dwellings and shops, even including the imperial palaces, have but a single story. The only buildings in all the city that exceed this height are the pagoda-like Temple of Heaven, the great drum-tower, the great bell-tower, the fortified gate-towers surmounting the city walls, and certain foreign establishments belonging to missions, legations, or business firms that have been erected since 1900.

Pekin is well provided with wide breathing spaces in the shape of temple and palace grounds, and shade trees are fairly abundant throughout the city. Most of its broad avenues are unpaved, and it is visited by suffocating dust-storms at certain seasons of the year, while at others it wades through fathomless mud.

In 1897 the capital was connected with Tien-Tsin, eighty miles away, and with the sea by rail, but the track was compelled to end two miles outside the southern wall. In 1900 came the great Boxer uprising, the siege of the foreign legations in Pekin, and the capture, occupation, and terrible punishment of the city by the troops of nine foreign powers. These retained possession for a year, during which time they carried the railroad into the very heart of the city, largely increased the area of legation "concessions," established a clean-swept neutral zone three hundred feet wide around the legation territory, paved Legation Street, built commodious barracks for the foreign troops that were to remain as permanent legation guards, and erected handsome legation buildings; while the United States and Germany took possession of and will permanently control a quarter of a mile of the city wall adjoining their legations. After a year of foreign control Pekin was restored to its Chinese rulers, and the self-exiled imperial court returned to their capital city. During 1903 a number of large foreign buildings, including a European hotel, banks, hospitals, chapels, schools, etc., were erected, and many more were projected for this year (1904). Electric lighting on an extensive scale, as well as electric trams, are already planned for. The Pe-Han (Pekin-Hankow) Railway, over a portion of which our lads travelled, and which was wholly destroyed by Boxers immediately afterwards, has been restored and the track extended southward to the Yellow River. Beyond this construction is being so rapidly pushed from both ends that the completion of the whole line is promised by 1906.

Thus China's capital, rudely roused by foreign guns from the sleep of ages, is now awake and in a fair way speedily to take a prominent place among the progressive cities of the world.

None of these things were thought of, however, on that June day of 1900 when Rob Hinckley, accompanied by his stanch friend, Chinese Jo, hesitatingly approached the great city; for at that moment it was shadowed by the darkness of despair. The tidal wave of Boxer uprising had reached and overwhelmed it. The I-Ho-Chuan were in complete possession, and Pekin, with its teeming population, its accumulated wealth of years, and, above all, with its hundreds of hated foreigners, diplomats, missionaries, business men, and legation guards, lay at their mercy. They had nothing to fear from imperial troops, for these, always in sympathy with their movement, already had begun to co-operate with them in their killing of Christian converts, their burnings and their lootings. Bolder and bolder they became, wilder and wilder grew their excesses, until shortly before the arrival of Rob and Jo they had started fierce conflagrations in all parts of the city, had destroyed two Roman Catholic cathedrals, and were regularly besieging a third with cannonade and rifle-fire. In this great fortress, and within its spacious, wall-enclosed grounds, ninety foreigners, forty-three of whom were French and Italian marines, and more than three thousand native converts had taken refuge. For sixty days this isolated stronghold of Christianity was shelled and bombarded with cannon-ball and rifle-bullet; but it held out to the end, and stands to-day a monument to the heroic endurance of its defenders. The attack on it had been begun three days before the arrival of our lads, and the sounds of heavy firing that had so aroused their anxiety was the cannonade directed against its walls.

With many misgivings they skirted the southern city, which seemed a seething caldron of riot and flame, and sought an entrance to the Tartar City through one of its western gates. Here, to Jo's great satisfaction, he found, in the officer of the guard who examined them, an acquaintance not only willing to admit them, but of whom he could ask questions. Believing Jo to feel even more bitterly than himself concerning foreigners, this officer did not hesitate to give him the very latest news. He confirmed the report heard at Pao-Ting-Fu of the defeat and driving back towards Tien-Tsin of the combined American and British relief expedition, under Admiral Seymour, told of the siege of the northern cathedral, and, most startling of all, informed Jo of the imperial edict, issued that very day, ordering the destruction of every foreigner within the walls of Pekin.

"Already," he said, "have the invincible troops of Jung Lu entered the city, and with them are the Kwang-su tigers, under the terrible Tung-Fu-Hsang, who thirsts for foreign blood as does a babe for its mother's milk. To-day they are placing guns to command the legations, and to-morrow at four o'clock, if the ocean devils have not left the city, they will be attacked and killed like rats in their holes."

It was fortunate that Rob failed to comprehend what the officer said, for he could not have listened unmoved as did Jo. That the latter did so was because he was not quite certain that he did not approve of the plan for driving all foreigners from China. Foreigners expelled Chinese from their countries, so why should not his people in turn expel foreigners from China? Still, he did not express any views on the subject at that time, but changed the topic of conversation by asking the officer if he could tell him where his father might be found.

For a moment the latter hesitated, and his face assumed a peculiar expression. Then he said: "Did you not know that his excellency Li Ching Cheng had been given a position on the Board of Punishment? It is doubtless at the yamen of that illustrious body that you will find him."

Thanking the officer for his courtesy, Jo and his companion took their departure, and, making their way through alleys and the quieter streets as remote as possible from conflagrations and all scenes of disturbance, they finally reached the yamen of the Board of Punishment, which corresponds to what in an American city would be a combined court-house and jail.

A main entrance through the street wall led to a court, reached by the descent of several steps. This court was surrounded by low buildings, occupied as offices of the board, and in its centre was a pond of water. As no person of whom they could ask questions was to be seen here, our lads passed on to a second or inner court that opened from the first. It also contained a stone-bordered reservoir of water, and was surrounded by fantastically ornamented buildings. In one feature that was immediately noticeable, these low buildings differed from any other that Rob ever had seen in China. They were provided with cellar-like basements, divided into small compartments, from each of which a little, grated window opened into a tiny outside well-hole.

About one of these well-holes stood a group of half a dozen Chinese officials, towards whom Jo made his way, intending to ask them where his father might be found. As he drew near and was about to speak, he glanced downward to see what so had attracted their curiosity that no one of them had turned at his approach. What he saw was a human face, tortured and livid, pressed against the grating, and straining upward in mute agony. The man was supporting himself by hands clinched about two bars of the grating, and evidently was standing on tiptoe.

Rob, looking over Jo's shoulder, also saw the awful face, and for an instant wondered at the black line that seemed to cut it at the uplifted chin. Then it flashed across him that this was a line of black water, slowly but surely rising, and that in another moment the man would be drowned. And no one dared try to save him, even were it possible to do so, for he was a condemned prisoner suffering one of the innumerable, ingeniously awful forms of Chinese capital punishment.