So they remained watching. At last exhausted by their efforts, the great mob gradually ceased their crying. Deep silence ensued, only occasionally interrupted by some loud explosion in the distance as a roof fell in.
CHAPTER XV
Deep calm followed that night. It was so calm the next morning that it seemed unnatural. Hardly a soul was abroad in the foreign quarter; and apart from some dozing foreign sentries at the street-corners, the whole neighbourhood seemed deserted—particularly that broad leafy thoroughfare called in the vernacular "The People's Communication," along which were grouped the foreigners' houses.
A great exodus of the inhabitants had indeed taken place during the hours after dawn; and even now it was possible in the side-lanes to see the last little groups of blue-coated people slinking away—determined to seek safety no matter how far they had to go. The foreigner was all very well in times of peace. He was a good paymaster and worth cultivating. But in the face of murder and outrage, money lost its value, and safety was the only consideration.
Wang the Ninth, after a short troubled sleep, had gone out and picked up these facts for himself. By his system of gossiping with all and sundry, he knew in a few minutes everything that had taken place. Marvellous tales were recounted to him, gross and palpable exaggerations all cast in the same mould of fear.... And yet these are the things people believe in times of excitement, and he believed them too. At last having exhausted the subject he returned home, only to find that all his mates, excepting one, had deserted the stables during his absence.
He stood dumbfounded for quite a minute by this development.
"Here's a nice business," he remarked aloud, scratching his ugly face thoughtfully and coiling up his little queue tightly round his head as a sign that he was going to set to work. "We have nine ponies and there are two of us left. Where have these eaters of foreign rice gone?"
The remaining man said nothing. He went on morosely sweeping the cobblestones. It was only the fact that he came from a distant province that had prevented him from running at once. But he was meditating flight as he worked—that was plain.
The boy, reading these things in his sullenness, eyed him distastefully.