CHAPTER XXV. LARKIN RETIRES FROM BUSINESS.
When Fred Larkin grasped the full significance of the situation in which he found himself, on awaking in the Manchurian hut, he felt that he was nearer death than ever before in all his hardy, adventurous life. At Santiago, indeed, he had thought himself led out to execution, but this had proved to be a mistake. The Spaniards were but conducting him, under a flag of truce, to the American lines, where he was exchanged for a prisoner of war, one of their own countrymen. In this lonely hovel, in one of the remotest and dreariest districts of Manchuria, cut off from all hope of help, not only by the leagues that lay between him and the travelled road to Feng-Weng-Chang, but by the storm which now shook the hut with its fierce blasts; surrounded by lawless men who thirsted for gold and cared not a whiff from their pipes for a human life; trapped by the cunning guide, and completely at the mercy of his wolfish captors as he lay before them pinioned hand and foot; he realised in a swift flash of thought that he could be saved by little short of a miracle. Still he would try. He was not a man to give up while the faintest shred of hope remained.
"What do you want, Kanuka?" he asked quietly, looking his treacherous guide straight in the eye.
The villain hesitated, and Fred knew his life hung by a hair. The blade did not fall.
"We want everything you have, everything!" said Kanuka. "If you resist we kill you."
"You would gain nothing by that," said the prisoner. "I am perfectly helpless. Who are—your friends?"
"They are not my friends; they are my men. If I lift my finger to them, you are dead. Is it not so?" he added, turning to the motley crew and speaking in his own tongue.
A low snarl went round the circle, and they showed their teeth. They drew still nearer, and fingered the hafts of their knives, which Fred could see sticking in their girdles. Two of the men carried guns. One of the band, younger than the rest, seemed to have no weapons, and remained in the background. The old woman had succeeded in getting possession of the watch and dangled it so that the light shone upon it.
"I don't doubt your word, Kanuka," observed Fred in the same calm, even tones. "Those followers of yours seem quite willing to finish up the job. But you know better than that. You are an intelligent man."
The guide could not conceal a gratified expression, and drew himself up a little.
"You know," continued the reporter, "that if I should be killed there would be a hue and cry after the American war correspondent. The newspaper I represent would spend a fortune in hunting down every man that took part in the murder. Very likely the United States Government would take the matter up, and you would be caught and executed, every man of you, at Pekin, if it took ten years. Probably you remember what happened to the men that put two or three American missionaries to death, a few years ago? Yes, I thought so. And the Chinese method of execution is so very unpleasant, in such cases!"
Kanuka stood erect, motioned back his men, and gnawed his moustache, frowning irresolutely.
"You joke!" said he, with a meaning gesture of his knife.
"Joke? Not a bit of it. I never felt less like joking," said Fred honestly. "I want to get out of this scrape alive, and to do that, I must save you. If I die, you die, and the old lady and your hopeful crowd there, as sure as fate. Pekin never lets an international offence go; and if Pekin would, Washington wouldn't. You know that as well as I do."
"What you propose?" asked the chief.
"Well, as I said, I can't help your taking all my worldly goods," said the reporter. "The next thing is to get rid of me without imperilling your own head—or limbs," he added significantly. The bandit shuddered in spite of himself. He had witnessed the execution of a Boxer murderer, near Pekin. Fred went on: "I would suggest that as soon as the storm will permit you to move—I assure you I am ready to take considerable risk on the road—you take me, blindfolded if you wish, to some point from which I can strike out for the settlements. You, meanwhile, with your men, could make tracks for parts unknown—of which there happens to be a good supply within easy reach of this forsaken hole."
"You would inform on us," growled the ex-guide. "We should have Japanese police on our trail in twenty-four hours."
"I would give you my word of honour——"
The rascal shrugged his shoulders. "I would not trust you. You newspaper men tell what stories you like."
Fred flushed, and felt an overpowering desire to plant one good blow between the man's sulky, sneering eyes.
"Oh, well," he said, "settle it yourself. You asked my advice and I've given it. When the Chinese authorities are getting ready to deal with you, don't blame me, that's all."
Kanuka turned to his men and talked to them rapidly and in low tones. So far as Fred could judge, the old crone and the youngest of the bandits, who, he afterward learned, was her son, were advocating his liberation. The rest clamoured for blood. The chief seemed undecided, and fingered his knife nervously. At last he spoke to his followers sharply, with an abrupt gesture of dismissal. To Fred's relief they all filed out, leaving him alone with the chief.
"They think it would be foolish to let you go," said the latter. "Dead men tell no tales. But they are beasts—pooh! As you say, I am an intelligent man. You shall not die to-night. In the morning we shall see."
He knelt again beside his prisoner and rummaged his pockets thoroughly, drawing out their contents and surveying them by the light of the lamp. The papers he threw contemptuously into the fireplace; the silver change and small articles he thrust into his own pouch. Fortunately Fred had taken a purse containing about fifty dollars worth of gold pieces, to use on his trip. To the Manchurian this was an enormous sum of money, and it did not occur to him to examine his captive's belt, which contained a much larger amount.
"Look here, old chap," said Fred, as Kanuka rose to his feet with his plunder, "ease up these ropes a little, will you? They cut me, and I want to sleep."
The man gave a contemptuous grunt, and, bestowing a kick on the helpless prisoner, retired without a word. Again Fred's blood boiled, but he realised his utter helplessness, and lay quietly, trying to concoct some plan for escape, or for action, on the following day.
It was evident that he had fallen into the hands of that dangerous and as yet only partly understood power, the Boxer element of north-eastern China. In 1901 these bandits, or highwaymen,—for such they really were, and are—terrorised a district extending from Newchwang to Kirin. Their operations were so systematic and successful that Chinese as well as foreign merchants finally had come to recognise their authority, and it is said that an office was actually established in the port of Newchwang where persons desiring to import goods might secure insurance against molestation from the robbers. When the insurance was paid for, the bandit agent gave the merchant a document and a little flag, and with this document in his possession, and the flag nailed to his cart or boat, he travelled in safety.
As soon as the real Boxer movement was disposed of by the Powers, and by China herself, the Russians undertook the suppression of this systematic brigandage, by which some thousands of outlaws were living in insolent security. Moukden was garrisoned with twelve thousand soldiers, and troops took the field against the robbers. In less than six weeks three thousand bandits were killed and nearly as many captured. The remainder scattered and fled to the fastnesses of the mountains, where they were hunted like wild beasts. As an organised force, they were, indeed, "suppressed"; but strong gangs of criminals escaped, and during the early months of the Japanese war they gained courage and assumed their unlawful calling with something of their former boldness.
Fred knew all this—he had followed the recent history of China carefully—and he had no doubt whatever that he had fallen into the hands of one of the scattered bands of this still powerful organisation. He knew, moreover, that a more daring and remorseless set of men never gained their living by highway robbery than these same bandits, through whose agent, Kanuka, they had so cleverly entrapped him.
Revolving these things in his mind and trying to concoct some sort of plan for escape, the reporter at last fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, in spite of the pain caused by his bonds, and the presence of two bandits who had remained to watch the prisoner.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. The mistress of the hut was occupied in preparing another seething mess over the fire, exactly as she had been when he entered the hut. Fred felt lame and sore from head to foot, and soon discovered, moreover, that he had taken a severe cold. He was hot and feverish, and had a weak longing for his mother's cool, soft hands upon his burning forehead.
The old hag presently lifted the pot from the fire, groaning as she did so.
"I wish I could help you, ma'am," said Fred, trying to assume a cheerful tone, "but 'circumstances over which I have no control,' you know!"
She seemed to gather the import of his words—perhaps remembering his courteous assistance on the preceding night—and dishing out a portion of the nauseous mess offered it to him. When she saw that he was so tightly bound that he could not help himself to food she uttered an exclamation in which he recognised the first hint of pity among his captors. Looking over her shoulder with evident apprehension, she freed his right arm, and when he indicated with a feeble smile and shake of his head that it was benumbed, she rubbed it with a not unwomanly touch until he could use it and feed himself. Having forced down a little of the distasteful food, to avoid hurting her feelings, he lay back on his couch and motioned to her to lay the rope lightly over his arm, giving it its former appearance of confinement. This she did at once, and not too soon, for the whole gang of seven men, including Kanuka, trooped in for their breakfast a minute later.
The storm continued through the day, and Fred found his condition unchanged, save that he was allowed to walk about the room a little, under guard of three of the ugliest-looking of the bandits. As night came on once more, his feverishness increased. He felt faint and giddy. He had no doubt that his drink was drugged the day before, and it was quite possible that the process—though for what purpose he could not guess—was being kept up. He was too feeble to care much what he ate or drank. All he wanted was to be left alone.
At about midnight on the second night in the hut, as the sick man was tossing on his filthy bed, the inner door of the room opened softly, and the woman appeared, shading the flame of the lamp with her hand. Her son, who had been left on guard, was standing silently by the window, gun in hand. The aged crone now knelt beside Fred, and noiselessly cast off the ropes, which had been tied with less caution than at first, it being deemed impossible that the captive, weakened as he was, could make his escape. Fred managed to gain his feet, and stood stiffly, half supported by the woman. She led him to the outer door, which she opened. The stars were shining, and it was bitter cold. The young bandit now slipped around the corner of the house and presently reappeared with one of the ponies, upon which Fred managed to scramble. The old woman gave the reporter a soft pat on the back and whispered something to her son, who stooped and kissed her! Then she went into the house, wiping her eyes on her ragged skirt, and leaving the two men outside, free.
Fred soon found that he could not sit upright in the saddle without help, and the bandit, slinging his gun over his back, put his arm around the rider and so held him on, while the pony picked his way down the mountain trail. In places the drifts made the path almost impassable. The wind still swept fiercely through the defile, although the night was clear. Once the young robber stopped suddenly and unslung his rifle; but the noise he had heard was but that of a falling tree, and he resumed his steady walk beside the pony.
How he survived that night Fred never knew. It was a vague, horrible dream of snow and ice, of piercing chills and fever heats, of monotonous plodding through the snow, alternating with plunging descents over rough ground, that seemed to jar him to pieces, while every bone and muscle was a separate anguish. Still on and on, the guide saying never a word.
Before dawn Fred dimly understood that they had struck the main road to Wiju. Less snow had fallen here, and their progress was more rapid. Early in the forenoon the noise of wheels and loud voices was heard on the path behind them. Whether or not it was a band of pursuers he neither knew nor cared. The world was one wide horror of pain and glaring light and bursting misery of head and limb.
The cavalcade in the rear overtook the rider. It was a train of three ambulance carts returning from the front with wounded Japanese. The guide spoke briefly to the leader and Fred was lifted from his horse with delicate brown hands as gentle as a woman's, and was placed on a cot in one of the wagons. The young bandit disappeared. Fred never saw him again.
Four days later the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin took up a bit of yellow paper and read: "Frederic Larkin, Correspondent, sick in hospital at Hiroshima."
The chief smiled grimly as he laid down the cable despatch.
"In one of his scrapes again!" he said, tossing the paper over to his sub. "We shall have to depend on the Associated for a while!"