That afternoon the young man rode for many miles with him up behind a trooper and with other horsemen accompanying them. They went at a gallop far to the north. Only when the sunlight was gone did they set him down on a rutted road that coiled away to the southwest. Quite near now were hills and mountains.
"From here it is exactly 120 li—forty miles—to the nearest Gate of the capital," declared the young man in his fluent vernacular. "It would be possible in a single day to walk thither. But allow five days, then one extra day to make your way through the city to the foreign quarter." He unslung a big bag of blue cloth. "Here is sufficient to eat—here is food for six days so that you need ask no one for assistance."
The boy took the package. There was a set expression on his face.
"I am ready," he said abruptly. "For two hours I shall travel. Then I must rest. At dawn I start again. If I have good fortune tomorrow I shall reach the city."
He scrambled on to the side-path running along the edge of the fields of millet, and was soon lost to view.
CHAPTER XXVII
This time his emotions were different from what they had been on his first lonely journey. Then the whole world had been spread before him like some feast, and his flight through danger had possessed a sacrificial quality. The freedom after the days of confinement with the sound of dropping rifle-fire ever in his ears, had given life a new zest. The experience had been wonderful. The fascination of coming upon the overwhelming army had been like a dream from a theatre. Now, however, the feast was over. He had exhausted everything. He knew what was before him, just as he knew what was behind him.
Yet even in such circumstances his sense of duty held him to his pledge. The Chinese are like that, doing exactly what they undertake to do, in spite of some misconceptions which have lately grown up. He travelled until it was night—slept in the fields—rose at the first streak of dawn and pushed on with stubborn energy until he was exhausted. Rubbing his tired legs, he wondered whether he dared enter a village to find out exactly where he was.
The country had become strange to him for he had travelled northwards along the curve of a vast semi-circle. Very close towards the west the mountains and foot-hills of the Mongolian Passes now frowned down on him, the barren land looking purple in the sunlight which poured over the mountain brim. Twice he had seen trains of camels pass slowly along as if all the world were at peace. But warned by their clanking bells, each time he had hid himself until they were far away. Several times, too, during that day he had also seen low clouds of dust hanging in the air above roadways; but even his expert eyes could not tell at such distances whether the dust signified flocks of sheep or cavalcades of bellicose horsemen.