THE REFUGEES OF CHENG-TING-FU
The malady with which Dr. Mason Hinckley had lain critically ill at Wu-Hsing was of so strange a nature that, directly after the cablegram calling Rob to his supposed death-bed was sent, it took a surprising turn for the better. As he longed for a change of air and scene, and felt that with them a full recovery of health might be effected, he decided to resign his position at Wu-Hsing and, with his wife, travel as far as Nagasaki. There they would meet the steamer on which, as they had been notified by cable from America, Rob was coming to them, and the reunited family would spend together a delightful holiday on the lovely Japanese coast.
So they set forth full of hopeful anticipations, and travelled down the Si-Kiang to Hong-Kong, where they were so fortunate as to find the China on the point of sailing for San Francisco by way of Nagasaki. At Hong-Kong they told an acquaintance who assisted the invalid to a carriage that they were going to Japan to meet an American steamer; but in the confusion of the moment he understood them to say that they were going to America, and so reported to Mr. Bishop, who, in turn, repeated the story to Rob a few weeks later.
In the mean time, the doctor and his wife journeyed to Nagasaki, the former so gaining strength with every mile of the voyage that upon reaching Japan he deemed himself to be practically a well man. Thus they were prepared to give Rob a most joyful surprise; but when, only three days after their own arrival, the Occidental steamed into Nagasaki harbor, they were met by the bitter disappointment of finding that their boy was not on board. From the purser, as well as from the gentleman who had taken Rob's cabin, they learned that somehow he had missed connection and had been left behind. After that the anxious parents waited in Nagasaki a month, boarding every incoming ship from the States, but without finding their boy or hearing a word from him. They had written to Hatton immediately upon their arrival, and finally from there came the cable message, "Rob, transport, Manila."
What could it mean? Why had their boy gone to Manila? Where would he go from there? Where was he now? How in the world did he happen to be on board a transport? Had he enlisted in the army? These and a thousand other equally puzzling questions presented themselves, but no one of them was accompanied by an answer. They had received news of the murder of missionaries at Wu-Hsing. Could Rob have reached there in time to become involved in the trouble? If so, was he alive or dead? They no longer could remain in Japan, but must return to China where news might more readily be obtained. So they sailed for Shanghai, from which place they sent letters of inquiry to Manila, Wu-Hsing, Hong-Kong, and Canton.
Then ensued another month of anxious waiting, during which Dr. Hinckley, now restored to perfect health, received from Pekin a fine offer to become missionary medical director for the province of Shan-Si. It was an offer that he gladly would have accepted but for his uncertainty concerning Rob.
At length came a letter from Canton informing the anxious parents that their boy had been there a month earlier, but almost immediately had joined an expedition that was to traverse the interior from that point to Pekin in the interests of an American railway syndicate.
Again did the puzzled parents ask each other questions concerning the erratic movements of their son that neither could answer. Finally, Dr. Hinckley said:
"It is useless to worry ourselves any more about the boy, since it is evident that he has passed entirely beyond our reach. He is in God's hands, and that there is some good reason for the apparent strangeness of his actions will sooner or later be made plain. Let us be thankful that he is alive and in the same country as ourselves. Also, we now can accept that offer from Pekin, where, as it seems, we are most likely to meet him."
So the bewildered but still hopeful parents took steamer from Shanghai to Tien-Tsin and rail from there to China's capital, at that time a wonderland of mystery to the greater part of the outside world. From Pekin they travelled south to Cheng-Ting-Fu, which then was the extreme terminus of railway construction, and here Dr. Hinckley left his wife, while he should go on by horseback to Tai-Yuan, the capital of Shan-Si, and prepare their new home.
Then, almost without warning, came the terrible Boxer uprising, sweeping over the northern provinces with the fatal speed of a storm-driven prairie-fire. From every direction were heard reports of murder and outrage—some of them simple relations of actual happenings, others gross exaggerations based upon fact, and still others pure inventions, but all equally terrifying to the handful of foreigners within the walls of Cheng-Ting-Fu. A little later refugees, bearing evidence of the terrible sufferings through which they had passed, began to straggle in. Some told of the beheadings and burnings to death in Pao-Ting-Fu on the north, and others of the frightful tragedies enacted in Shan-Si on the west, by orders of the infamous governor, Yu-Hsien, credited with being the originator of the Great Sword Society, and who was the most vindictive hater of foreigners in all China. The Shan-Si refugees reported that one day in Tai-Yuan this monster personally superintended the beheading of forty-five foreigners, men, women, and little children, besides a much larger number of native Christians; and on hearing this, Mrs. Hinckley lost all hope of ever again seeing the husband who had gone to prepare a home for her in that very city. Also, she mourned for her boy, who, if he had carried out his reported intention of traversing the interior provinces to Pekin, must have been overtaken by this same all-devouring storm of wrath.
Although the southern end of the railway as far as Pao-Ting-Fu was kept open by the Chinese for the transportation of their own troops, it was reported that everything north of that point, including the telegraph-line, had been destroyed. Thus Cheng-Ting-Fu, with closed gate and surrounded by enemies, was cut off from all news of the outside world. Only rumors drifted in, and these were of such a nature that the handful of refugees facing an almost certain death in the cathedral believed themselves to be the only foreigners left alive in northern China.
Such was the state of affairs on that evening of early summer when Mrs. Hinckley, hopelessly weary of life, happened to glance from one of the cathedral windows just as a yellow-robed priest was passing along the narrow street. She turned quickly away, for, of all Chinese, the priests had been most active in persecuting foreigners, and she never saw one without thinking that he might be the murderer of either her husband or son.
An hour later the "boy" who brought in her light supper of tea and toast laid something else on the tray beside it, and disappeared without having spoken. For a minute Mrs. Hinckley did not notice the strange object, but finally it caught her eye, and she picked it up. It was a narrow strip about six inches long, cut from the dried leaf of a talipot palm, the material used instead of writing-paper in certain Buddhist temples. Characters traced on the smooth surface with a sharp stylus, afterwards are rubbed with lampblack, which brings them out in bold relief. In the present case, to Mrs. Hinckley's amazement, she found the strip of palm-leaf to be a letter written in English, and beginning, "My own dear mother!"
The poor woman uttered a stifled cry, and a blur so dimmed her eyes that for a moment she could read no more. Then it passed, and she eagerly scanned the following message, written on both sides of the slip:
"I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you at the cathedral window. How did you get here? Where is father? I am the priest who rode past on horseback with a guard of soldiers. Am safe and on way to Pekin. They will not let me come to you, nor even leave this temple where I am spending the night under guard. I must go on at sunrise, when they will put us out of the city. Jo is with me. Perhaps I shall again pass window, so please stand in same place on chance. I will come back to you from Pekin quick as possible. Don't worry a single little bit about me, for I am all right. Your own loving Rob.
"Send an answer by the one who gives you this."
Over and over did the happy mother read this message from the boy whom she had been mourning as dead, until she knew every word of it by heart.
Then, on a leaf torn from her journal, she wrote with lead-pencil an outpouring of love, joy, and anxiety such as only a mother situated as she was could write. She begged Rob to be careful, for her sake, and warned him of the danger of going to Pekin, though she added that if his father still were alive that city would be the most likely place in which to obtain news of him. She said she should remain near the window all night for fear of missing her boy when he again passed. Then the servant came for the untouched tea-tray, looked at her inquiringly, and she only had time to sign: "Ever your own devoted mother," fold the note, and slip it into his hand ere he again left the room.
The shock of seeing his mother in that dreadful place, when he had supposed her to be safe in America, was so great that Rob had been on the point of proclaiming his amazement aloud, when Jo, always keenly on the watch for some such slip on the part of the pretended priest, checked him.
"It is but a little more to go," he said in Chinese, so that all who heard might understand him, "and then the holy one shall find a place of rest. He is very weary," added Jo to the officer of the guard, "and his vow of silence sits heavy upon him."
"Yet he does not look so old," replied the officer.
"It is true that he is well preserved, and may give us the joy of his presence for some years to come; but mere looks cannot restore to age the lost strength of youth. I pray you, therefore, find for him a place of quietness, where he may have a season of rest undisturbed."
Thus it came about that a small building of the temple to which our lads were conducted was set apart for them, and orders were given that no other person should enter it that night.
When they were alone, and Rob had explained to Jo the cause of his excitement, he added: "And now I must go to her for a long talk."
It took Jo some time to persuade his friend of the impossibility of what he proposed, and that to attempt it would only endanger all their lives, including that of his mother.
"Then," said Rob, finally convinced, "I must write, and you must somehow manage to get the letter to her."
The letter was prepared with the only materials that the temple afforded, and by the liberal use of money Jo got it sent to its destination and had the answer brought back. After that, much as Rob hated to leave his mother behind, he had the sense to realize that she probably was safer in the cathedral of Cheng-Ting-Fu just then than she would be anywhere else in north China. Also, what she had written concerning the possibility of gaining news of his father in Pekin made him more than ever desirous of reaching that city.
