The Blue Dragon: A Tale of Recent Adventure in China

As the dead are not collected in regularly established burying-grounds, but are scattered about in fields, gardens, or wherever it is most convenient to place them, and as the entire country is thickly sown with these precious relics, no line can be so run as to avoid them. Consequently they must be bought up and removed. For some time Rob could not account for the great anxiety shown by the natives to learn the exact location of the line. Finally, however, he discovered that those persons having graves known to be on the line could raise money on them in advance, while such as had none proposed to borrow or purchase a few ancestors at places so remote as to be beyond a possibility of disturbance and rebury them in more profitable locations.

In the cities of Siang-tan and Chang-sha, both on waters navigable by large Yang-tse junks, our travellers found shops equipped with foreign goods, and notably with American flour, prints, and canned foods, though they did not meet an American nor a European in either place. This discovery was of particular interest to Mr. Bishop, as the appearance in those remote localities, and under existing conditions, of these goods promised a vast extension of similar trade upon completion of the railway he was about to build.

Thus the entire trip had proved intensely interesting, and its results were so highly satisfactory that, as it drew to a close with their near approach to Hankow, our explorers already were preparing for another journey from that point to Pekin.

Much as they had enjoyed the one just ending, they were not sorry to see European buildings in the mission compounds and along the bund at Hankow, and it was good to hear their own speech once more. It also was good to sit down to an American table, eat home-cooked food, and, above all, to sleep between sheets in American beds. But with all these things to be enjoyed came two disappointments. Rob's lay in the entire absence of the letters that he had hoped to find awaiting him at this point. From Canton he had written both to his uncle and his parents at Hatton, requesting answers to be sent to Hankow, but the eagerly expected letters had not appeared. A number awaited Mr. Bishop, and in them lay his disappointment, for certain of them contained news that rendered it necessary for him to return at once to Canton. Thus he must give up the proposed overland journey to Pekin.

"It is too bad!" he exclaimed. "There is so much I want to find out about that northern line, its construction, the nature of the country it traverses, the feeling of the people regarding it, and a dozen other things. Now I must indefinitely postpone the trip, and so remain in ignorance of many things most important for me to know."

"I wish I could go for you," suggested Rob.

"That is an idea worth considering!" exclaimed the engineer. "And I don't see why you shouldn't collect the very information I want. You are pretty well broken into the work by this time. But would you dare travel another thousand miles through China, alone, and in view of the rumors of trouble that we have been hearing lately?"

"Of course I would," replied Rob, scornfully. "I can't see but what it is just as safe to travel here as in any other country, especially when one knows the ways of the people and their language as well as I do."

The conversation on this subject was long and earnest, but at its conclusion it had been decided that Rob Hinckley, provided with ample funds, should travel as special commissioner of the American railway syndicate from Hankow to Pekin. From the latter city he would return by rail and sea to Hong-Kong, where Mr. Bishop would meet him and receive his report.

"By that time," said the latter, "your pay surely will amount to enough to carry you to America, with a substantial surplus besides."

The only condition made by our lad was that, upon his arrival in Shanghai, Mr. Bishop should cable to the States for information concerning Rob's parents, and should transmit the same to Pekin, there to await the latter's arrival.

A couple of days later the companions who had travelled so far and endured so much together separated, the engineer to proceed by steamer down the Yang-tse-kiang to Shanghai, and thence by ship to Hong-Kong, and Rob, so confident in his own resources as not to dream of dangers that he could not overcome, taking train for the north over the short section of Belgian railway already constructed. It carried him to the border of the province of Ho-nan. Across this province and to the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, he made his way successfully, though not without encountering many difficulties during the following month. Then his real troubles began, for no sooner had he crossed the great river, which, on account of its frequent devastating floods, is called "China's Sorrow," than he found himself on the edge of a fierce "storm of wrath" that threatened to sweep over the entire empire.

An almost unprecedented drought had prevailed over the whole of the vast plain of northern China for nearly three years. For two years there had been no crops, and now the same dreadful condition was promised for the third. Everywhere were starving, desperate people, who, in their ignorance, attributed their woes to the evil influence of foreigners, and especially to the missionaries, who sought to overthrow the gods of the country.

The priests taught that the angry gods thus were punishing the unbelief of the people, and that prosperity never would return to their land until every foreigner was driven from it. Thus it happened that the inhabitants of three provinces were rising against missionaries and railway-builders, robbing and killing all who did not fly in time, burning and destroying their property, as well as that of all native converts to the new religion. At the same time they were making pilgrimages to the shrines of their own gods, and imploring them to once more send the life-giving rains.

Rob heard rumors of these things, but, believing them to be exaggerated, refused to turn back. So he pushed doggedly ahead, ever nearing the storm-centre. Finally, late one day, as he approached a walled town in which he expected to obtain lodging for the night, he suddenly found himself beset by a mob of frantic rain-dancers, who rushed upon him from a sacred grove by the road-side. The slender escort of soldiers that had thus far accompanied our lad instantly took to their heels, leaving him alone to face the hundreds of yelling demons, who firmly believed that, if they could take his life, the act would be pleasing to their insulted gods.

CHAPTER XVI

"FISTS OF RIGHTEOUS HARMONY"

The people of China have suffered much at the hands of foreigners, and, in their ignorance of everything beyond their own line of vision, imagine many grievances that really do not exist. Once China was the foremost nation of the earth in arts, literature, commerce, and all that goes to the making of what we call civilization. She invented, used, and forgot a thousand things that the Western world is only now discovering. She was sufficient unto herself, and desired only to be let alone.

But the Western nations would not let her alone. They insisted upon forcing their unwelcome trade into the country; and, moreover, upon conducting it themselves, according to their own ideas. When she resisted their demands they took possession of her seaports, destroyed her forts and war-ships, placed their own steamers, protected by gun-boats, on her rivers, monopolized her coasting trade, and even appropriated as their own, large slices of her territory.

Thus, while England holds the island of Hong-Kong, together with two hundred square miles of the opposite mainland, Shanghai, and Wei-hai-Wei, besides controlling the trade of the great Yang-tse Valley, Russia, on the north, has seized Manchuria, Germany occupies the province of Shan-tung, Portugal has for three hundred years been established at Macao, and France, the chief aggressor, already in possession of Anam and Tonquin, is making insidious but certain progress northward through Yunan, with covetous eyes cast in the direction of Canton, where she already has gained a foothold. Japan owns the great Chinese island of Formosa, and only awaits a favorable opportunity for seizing the opposite mainland province of Fu-Kien, while even Italy has laid claim to a Chinese port and "sphere of influence."

All these foreign nations, together with Americans and Belgians, are building, or are proposing to build, railways in China, and all of them, with the further additions of Canada and Sweden, are overrunning the bewildered country with missionaries of clashing denominations, each one of which teaches that it only is right, while all the others are wrong. Some of these foreign teachers even go so far as to interfere with local governments, taking upon themselves the office of magistrate, administering the laws according to their own interpretation, and always in favor of their own converts, and at the same time demanding to be accorded all outward forms of respect due only to mandarins.

On the other hand, the great mass of Chinese, groping in the darkness of the Middle Ages, burdened by densest ignorance, steeped in superstition, robbed by their rulers to the extreme of poverty, and forced to unceasing toil from long before daylight until long after dark every day of the week throughout every year of their joyless lives, are taught by their priests, and by others of their own race to whom they look for guidance, that all their sorrows, including floods, famines, and plagues, are caused by the foreigners who are spreading over their country with the ultimate intention of seizing it and subjecting its people to their own barbarous customs. They are told that these same foreigners sweep the rain-clouds from one portion of the sky to cause droughts, and gather them at another to produce devastating floods, and that they poison wells to bring on plagues. They are made to believe that the "foreign devils" collect Chinese children in asylums, homes, and hospitals for the sole purpose of extracting their eyes, to be used in enchantments; that every railway-sleeper, and the foundations of every Christian edifice, are laid upon living human bodies; and a thousand other tales, equally monstrous but equally terrifying.

To remedy these evils the people are invited to form themselves into associations, and thus gain strength for the destruction of the hated foreign devils, or at least to drive them back into the sea, whence they came. For the benefit of those who can read, pamphlets setting forth these views are written, printed by the million, and distributed throughout the land; while the minds of the more ignorant are inflamed by pictured posters illustrating the horrors perpetrated by foreigners, and posted broadcast in every direction.

To these invitations a Chinese readily responds; for there is nothing in which he more greatly delights than to belong to an association of any kind or for any purpose. Thus societies for the exclusion of foreigners have sprung up like mushrooms, especially in those coast provinces where foreign influences are most noticeable; and strongest of them all is the great I-Ho-Chuan, or "Fists of Righteous Harmony" Society, sometimes called "The Great Sword Society," but known to the world at large as "Boxers," a name first used by the missionary correspondent of a foreign journal. The motto of this society, as borne on its banners, is, "Protect the empire! Exterminate foreigners!"

During the initiation of its members they fall into trances, and believe that, while in this state, the spirits of departed heroes enter their bodies. After that they are pronounced invulnerable to sword or bullet, and are declared to be possessed of magic charms that no enemy may withstand.

In 1898 the Boxer movement was checked by the sudden declaration of China's young emperor, Kuang Hsu, in favor of sweeping reforms based upon Western ideas. These he proceeded to carry out with unsuspected energy, deposing corrupt officials in all parts of the empire, and replacing them with others who had been educated abroad. He issued edicts intended to revolutionize the army, the navy, the time-honored but senseless methods of literary examination, and the manner of collecting taxes, which, if obeyed, would place his people upon the upward path of progress so recently and so successfully trodden by Japan. There is no doubt that the Emperor was sincere in his avowed determination to lift his distressed country from the depths to which it was sunk; and had he remained in power the awful Boxer uprising of two years later never would have taken place. But his enemies were too strong; and, after a few months of praiseworthy effort, the young reformer was overthrown by a powerful palace clique, headed by his great aunt, the Empress Dowager, and composed of the high officials whom he had removed from office. They forced him to sign a decree announcing his own abdication of the throne, and again the Empress Dowager, China's worst enemy, assumed the reins of power.

At once all reform decrees were repealed, the old order of things was restored, and hatred of foreigners was preached more loudly and more bitterly than ever. A new life was infused into the Boxer movement, which from that moment spread like wildfire over the northern provinces, until in the summer of 1900 it reached its height. During that dreadful summer mission stations everywhere were looted and destroyed, while their unfortunate occupants were driven out to be killed or cast into loathsome prisons, from which death was their only release. Christian converts were massacred by scores and hundreds, railroad property was destroyed, and railroad employés suffered the fate of missionaries. A rumor to the effect that all foreigners, including members of legations, had been driven from Pekin, was generally believed; as was another, stating that every foreign resident of Tien-Tsin had been killed. Above all, it was understood that the Empress Dowager was in full sympathy with the movement to rid her kingdom of foreigners, and would render every assistance in her power to those engaged in the effort.

Such was the condition of affairs in north China when, in the early summer of 1900, the young American, Rob Hinckley, on a peaceful mission to Pekin, suddenly found himself deserted and alone in the presence of a mob of crazed fanatics, intent upon taking his life. Our lad did not know why they wished to kill him; for, since leaving the Yang-tse River, he had found an ever-increasing difficulty in comprehending the dialect spoken by the common people, until at length it had become wholly incomprehensible. Thus he knew almost nothing of the Boxer movement, nor of the awful state of affairs existing in the country between him and Pekin.

He, however, instantly recognized the danger of his present position, and, clapping spurs to the jaded pony he was riding, he dashed away in the direction of the nearest city gate, with the mob in full cry at his heels. The distance was short, and Rob was within fifty feet of the outer gate, with a good lead of his pursuers, when all at once it occurred to him that he was about to jump from the frying-pan into the fire, since once within the city walls his enemies could close all exits and hunt him down at their leisure. With this he pulled his pony so sharply to one side that the animal, already exhausted to the point of dropping, stumbled and fell, flinging Rob to earth over his head. As the lad scrambled to his feet he was amazed to hear in English a shout of —

"Keep on to the gate! It's your only chance!"

Although he could see no one in that direction, the voice seemed to come from the gateway itself; and, as his madly yelling pursuers were now close upon him, Rob accepted the advice so strangely given and darted forward on his original course.

A few minutes earlier a young Chinese, clad in the uniform of an officer of imperial troops, stood at a narrow loop-hole in the watch-tower above the city gate, gazing listlessly outward over a vast expanse of flat, parched, uninteresting country. He had carelessly noted the approach from afar of Rob's little party, whom he supposed to be ordinary native travellers, and had only been aroused from his apathy by the yells of the rain-dancers, as they raised the cry of, "Death to the foreign devil!"

"They must be mistaken," thought the officer, "for there can't be any foreigners left in this part of the country." He watched Rob's flight with ever-growing interest, and was about to descend from the tower so as to meet him at the gate when the young American attempted to change his pony's course. Then the watcher uttered the surprising call that again altered Rob's determination, and in another moment he was springing down the flight of stone steps leading to the outer gateway. As he reached it, Rob had just entered, and was starting across the barbican towards the inner gate.

"Stop!" shouted the young Chinese. "Come here quick and help me!"

Rob hesitated only the fraction of a second and then did as he was bidden. The Chinese was straining at one of the two massive, iron-bound doors of the gateway, and in another moment Rob was adding every ounce of his own strength to the effort. It yielded slowly, and its hinges creaked rustily as it swung heavily into place.

"Now the other, quick!" exclaimed the stranger, and with an effort that nearly started blood from their swelling veins the two young fellows closed the great valve in the very faces of the frantic outside mob that flung themselves bodily against it mad with baffled rage. They could not open it, for a stout iron bolt had dropped into place as the gate was closed, and nothing short of a cannonade could now force an entrance.

"Follow me!" said the Chinese, huskily, and panting from his recent exertion, at the same time turning up the narrow stairway leading to the watch-tower, and Rob obeyed.

The latter was full of perplexity at finding in this out-of-the-way place a Chinese who not only spoke English, but apparently was willing to endanger himself to rescue a foreigner from a mob. So quick had been all their movements since he darted through the gateway that he had not yet obtained a view of his rescuer's face, and, of course, had not been able to question him.

In the tower, at the top of the stairway, he found his strange companion taking a quick view of the raging mob below. As he stepped to his side, the young Chinese turned and stared him full in the eyes. For a moment they regarded each other in amazed silence. Then a simultaneous exclamation burst from their lips:

"Rob Hinckley!"

"Chinese Jo!"

CHAPTER XVII

LEAPING INTO UNKNOWN BLACKNESS

To the friends who had been so mysteriously separated many months earlier, and on the other side of the world, their reunion at this place and under such conditions was bewildering and incredible. They could scarcely believe the evidence of their own eyes. The last time Rob had seen Jo the latter had been shorn of his queue, while now his hair again hung in a long, glossy braid. For a moment they stood clasping each other's hand, after the fashion of the West, and staring without speech. There was so much to be said that they could say nothing. Then they were aroused to a sense of imminent danger by the sounds of ascending voices and hurrying footsteps on the stone stairway. Evidently the present was no time for explanations.

"Quick, Rob! Go up there and hide," whispered Jo, pointing, as he spoke, to a rude ladder leading into the darkness of an upper loft. "Stay there till I come or I cannot save you."

Even as he spoke, Jo turned to the stairway as though about to descend, while Rob sprang to the ladder.

A Chinese soldier was so close at hand that he would have gained the room and caught sight of the fugitive had not the young officer arrested his progress with the stern inquiry:

"What is going on below? Are you all mad or drunk with the juice of poppies? Cannot I meditate in peace without being disturbed by the howlings of you swine? How dare you come up here without orders? Answer me, dog, and son of generations of dogs, before I cause you to be beaten with a hundred blows!"

The terrified soldier, who held a petty office, corresponding to that of corporal of the guard, recoiled from the presence of his angry superior, who, if he had chosen, could have him beaten even to death, and, kotowing until his forehead touched the stones, answered:

"Know, your honorable excellency, that the outer gate has been closed without knowledge of any in the guard-house, and beyond it many persons, mad with anger, are clamorous for admittance. It is a mystery; and before opening the gate I came up here for a look at the outsiders, to make certain that they are not enemies."

"Closed, pig? How can it be that the gate is closed without orders from me, the keeper of the gate? This thing must be examined into," cried the young officer, with every appearance of extreme anger. "Let it be opened without delay. But first come with me and look at these outside howlers. It may be, even as your stupidity suggests, that they are men from Chang-Chow, who have ever been unfriendly to this city because of its greater prosperity."

This was said to give the soldier an opportunity for seeing that no other person was in the room, which fact he would report to his comrades.

As they examined the furious crowd besieging the gate, Jo exclaimed, even more angrily than before:

"Those be no Chang-Chow men, but our friends and own people. They are the dancers, who, together with the good priests, pray constantly for rain, and who went out to the shrine of the holy rain-god but an hour ago. Ah, but you shall smartly suffer for closing a gate of their own city against them. Hasten and open it again if you would have the setting sun behold your worthless head still upon your wretched shoulders."

Thus saying, the young officer spurned the trembling soldier with his foot and followed him down the stairway. In another moment the great gate was opened to the torrent of frantic humanity that rushed in demanding to know what had become of the foreign devil whom they had seen enter only a few minutes before, and where the soldiers had hidden him. Also why they had closed the gate in the very faces of his pursuers.

"Give him up to us," shrieked the priests, "that we may kill him, for doubtless it is he who keeps away the blessed rain."

The denials of the guard that they even had seen any foreigner, or that they had closed the gate, were so little heeded by the clamorous throng, that it might have gone hard with them had not Jo secured a hearing by firing a shot from his revolver, a weapon that he alone of all those present possessed.

"The guard has not seen the foreign devil or surely they would have arrested him," he cried, in the awed silence that followed his shot. "Nor did they close the gate, for they would not dare without my orders, and I gave none. Nor could one man, not even a foreign devil, close the gate unaided, since it often has been tried and they have proved too heavy. Only by magic could he have done this thing, and by magic must he have blinded the eyes of the soldiers so that they did not see him pass them into the city. But your priests have magic as well as the foreigners, and by means of it he may be discovered. Let us then again close the gate that he may not escape, and search for him in every quarter of the city. When he is found let his head promptly be cut off, before he has time again to use his magic. Thus shall the city be purified and the wrath of the rain-god be appeased. Protect the empire! Exterminate foreigners!"

With this rallying-cry of the Great Swords, Jo led the way across the enclosed space separating the inner from the outer gate, past the guard-house, where his soldiers spent their waking hours in gambling with long, slim Chinese cards and piles of beans, and on into the narrow streets of the city. There he was so active in the search that was maintained, until stopped by darkness, that he gained a notable reputation as a hater of foreigners. Thus by his prompt action were Rob's enemies so completely thrown off his track that not once was his real hiding-place approached or even suspected.

In the mean time he, intensely wearied by hours of confinement in that hot, dusty loft, grew vastly impatient of inaction. He was hungry and parched with thirst; no sound penetrated his prison, nor any ray of light. He had no idea of the passage of time, and imagined it to be much later in the night than it really was, when he was startled by a sharp "Hist!" that seemed to come from the top of the ladder.