Behind her, rising gently and quietly out of sight, was a smiling boy and a tree of jewels she would never miss.
CHAPTER 31
hris's thoughts were so taken up with the pleasure of the little Chinese Princess at her first rose that he had miscalculated. As a matter of fact he had forgotten about the guards in his excitement at holding the Jewel Tree and at getting away, and just as the eagle rose to the top of the wall, one of the guards saw him.
Had it been earlier, Chris could have risen quickly out of sight. But the Jewel Tree was heavy in itself; the earth holding its roots was an additional weight, so that the eagle only rose half as quickly as it had before.
The guard gave a shout, and a spear whistled past Chris's ear. Instantly the flames of bonfires spurted on all the walls, and to his terror Chris found himself in a glare of light as powerful as modern searchlights. He clutched the Jewel Tree, urging the magic bird up, but there are limits even to magic and the bird was moving at the peak of its ability. Black racing figures darted along the walls, the flames of the watchfires leapt higher in the air, and now arrows were singing their keening note of death about the boy lifting so slowly into the night.
Chris, crouching behind the Jewel Tree, was rocked and nearly unseated from the eagle when an arrow hit the earth around the Tree roots, imbedding itself deeply and quivering there at an angle. The shouts and confusion grew, but after a few terror-stricken moments Chris knew he was high enough to be out of danger. He gave a deep shuddering sigh of relief, and turned the head of the laboring eagle toward the city. His thoughts were on escape, but first he had a duty that as an honorable person he felt bound to perform.
He was naturally observant; he had also made a point of noticing landmarks, so that he found the garden from which he had taken the rosebush without too much trouble. What he was totally unprepared for was that the entire city of Peking, aroused by the watchfires on the palace walls, was awake and in alarm, and the light of flares and lanterns glowed from every house.