"He stabbed himself."
"Anticipating a worse fate," Jack explained to the officers.
"We are aware of our good fortune in falling into your hands, Ivan Ivanovitch," said Borisoff gravely; "and if, when we are rescued, I can do anything——"
"Thanks, Lieutenant! I don't owe much to the Russians," he added bitterly, "my father less. When he is righted I shall hope perhaps to pick up my old friendships again."
Towards the close of the day the convoy reached Ah Lum's mountain fastness. The chief's little eyes gleamed when he saw the great haul made by his son's tutor.
"You are bold enough to stroke a tiger's beard," he said. "Where there is musk, there will of course be perfume."
The supplies captured were very welcome. Ah Lum had found it necessary to lie low, to avoid the forces on the hunt for him. But after a few days he learnt that the troops from the Korean frontier had been recalled, and the only Russian column now in the mountains was nearly a hundred miles away. He could therefore afford to live on his gains for a time.
The band settled down to a period of quiet camp life. The Cossacks were distributed over the settlement and carefully guarded. Jack proceeded with the education of Ah Fu, and the further training of his men. There was considerable competition among the Chunchuses for enrolment in his corps; he was looked upon as lucky, a special favourite of heaven. For himself, he regarded his position differently. Harassed with anxiety as to his father's fate; among uncongenial surroundings; an exile, without anyone to confide in as a friend; he felt anything but lucky. As week after week passed he grew terribly weary of his life; winter had settled down upon the hills; the snow lay inches thick, and even the warm clothing captured from the Cossacks—the fur caps, thick gray overcoats, felt-lined boots, ear gloves, and what not—proved but insufficient protection against the intense cold. He volunteered for what active work was going; but there was little, and he did not covet the command of any of the parties that went out from time to time to replenish the larder. Ah Lum was punctilious in giving receipts for the supplies he requisitioned from the country people, but Jack felt that they were little likely to be paid for: it was a mere form at the best. And the villagers could ill afford the contributions demanded, though after all they were better off than their countrymen living in the main current of the war. To all except the few merchants and contractors, who made huge profits by supplying the rival armies, the war had brought blank ruin.
Occasionally news of the progress of the war filtered through the country. Jack learnt that Admiral Alexeieff, after continual wrangling with Kuropatkin, had been recalled; that the combatants had gone into winter quarters on opposite sides of the Sha-ho, both Russians and Japanese living in dug-outs, called by the Russians zemliankas; that Port Arthur was still holding out, though from Chinese reports it seemed inevitable that the end must soon come; that fresh troops were continually arriving from Europe. One day a dirty copy of the Manchurian Army Gazette was brought into the camp; the Chinese are always loth to destroy anything written or printed. The most interesting item of news it held for Jack, and one on which he had a battle-royal of argument with the Russian officers, was the statement that the Ocean, a British battleship on the China station, had been sold to the Japanese, and would appear in the next naval fight as the Yushima, which the Russians declared had been sunk by a mine while blockading Port Arthur. Captain Kargopol stoutly maintained that this was another instance of British perfidy, and came very near to losing his temper when Jack refused to take the report seriously, and bantered him on his anti-British prejudice.
At last, one bright cold January day a Chinaman came in with the news that Port Arthur had fallen. Jack could not but sympathize with the captive officers. Personally they were the best of comrades; their distrust of England did not alloy the cordiality of their relations with Jack; and their air of hopeless dejection was distressing to one who bore neither to them nor to their nation any enduring ill-will.