He ran him down in a few minutes since all white men are as easily traceable in the East as treasure-chests lying on a sea-shore. He was superintending the building of a long barricade, and labouring there were all sorts and conditions of men—foreigners in their shirt-sleeves, servants and respectable people who worked together in silence.
The master listened in silence to his tale, stroking his red beard.
"Good," he said at length, "now go off in another direction, and see if it is the same thing."
Once beyond this scene of activity the boy's easy manners fled, and he displayed caution; for all the time be it confessed he was thinking of that ghastly human head. He hugged the compound-walls of every deserted house and never failed to peer round each turning. And just as he was congratulating himself on his methods, he became vaguely aware that some one was looking at him down a rifle-barrel.
He scurried into a doorway, a little frightened in spite of his natural courage. But after an interval his curiosity got the better of him and he determined to try a new line of advance and see who this person was.
This was certainly a new development, he thought. So far the terrorist methods used had been employed under cover of the dark, and the decencies of everyday life had been more or less preserved. But now the soldiery were evidently getting out of hand; and it seemed that at any moment they might open an attack.
By this time he had worked round to another vantage-point. Very quietly and carefully he climbed a tree and looked over. There was the man not fifty feet away. He was lying on his stomach with some loose bricks piled in front of his head, and he had on the blood-red sash. He was a marauder evidently waiting to secure a foreigners head, not a regular soldier.
He remained motionless in the tree observing this ominous figure for quite five minutes. Then silently and swiftly he dropped to the ground. Now doggedly, with his head down and his fists tightly clenched he made his way onward. He threaded his way through a maze of little deserted lanes until he came out on the vast open street running round the Imperial Palaces.
He gave a sigh of relief. Here there were people moving—not many but still some—and towards them he walked quickly as though he craved their company.
Two men had stopped and were exchanging comments as he approached. He judged from the blue cloth bundles they carried that they were official servants from some yamen, and that their conical hats and high boots of office had just been exchanged for a more plebeian attire.