"Give me as much as I can eat and I will pay at the rate demanded."
This time two rough flour-cakes were added to the bowl of millet for the price; and when he had finished he was given a cup of poor tea.
"The money is exhausted," said the woman when he tried to get more. But now his spirits had risen and his defiant manner had returned.
"See here," he exclaimed, taking out and ringing on a stone one of the small silver coins which the master had given him to show that it was not base metal. "I have a good coin and as I must reach Yangtsun this evening to find my uncle I will purchase enough to carry me there."
"Silver!" exclaimed the woman in the same covetous tones the priest had used. "You carry silver!"
The coin passed from the hand of the man to the hand of the woman and then back again twice before a bargain was struck. But finally it was agreed that for the price he could take the sixteen small and very rough flour-cakes that were ready.
He ate four of them as he stood there, and stowed away the others, talking to the couple with his mouth full all the while. And when the woman's back was turned he nearly emptied the coarse earthen tea-pot which she had prepared for the delectation of her man, feeling now that matters had been equalized. Then he scrambled up the embankment and hastened on.
The sun rose and he sweated just as the night before he had shivered. Presently he overtook a party of men with heavy saddlebags on their shoulders who said that they were bound for Yangtsun. His heart leaped within him as he heard that and without further ado he attached himself to them. They were all timid and frightened, but they said that there was nothing for it but to push on since their business demanded it. Also they were too much concerned about themselves and the dangers they might encounter to ask him a single question—excepting the inevitable one as to whether he had seen soldiers.
"It is said all of them have left Yangtsun," they repeated again and again to him, apparently to reassure themselves. "Otherwise we should have never started. For ten days we have been waiting in a village and now that the rains have closed the roads we decided to risk the journey along the railway. Several have done it safely already."
"You were wise, you were wise," agreed the boy, "I, too, have been forced to travel owing to death in our family. I go to find my uncle who is employed in a wine factory."