About mid-day they were slowly following the valley of a stream somewhat broader than those hitherto encountered, hoping that it would bring them out some distance up the Yalu about the neighbourhood of Sukuchen. As they proceeded, they came almost unawares upon a remarkable cleft in the hills to their right—a wild and rocky gorge, strewn with irregular masses of rock small and large, and narrowing as it led upwards to a sparse clump of trees at the top. Even in broad daylight it formed a dark forbidding gully, the hills rising sheer precipices on either side, showing masses of granite too steep even to give lodgment to the snow. From a point high up, a thin waterfall plunged over the crags and wormed its way down among the boulders. The travellers stopped for a few moments to observe the scene. Suddenly Ah-Sam pointed upwards: on a ledge of rock almost at the summit, near a narrow fissure, he had descried the form of a bear motionless on its haunches. Following the Chinaman's outstretched finger, Bob at last made out the distant form. For a moment the instinct of the British sportsman prompted him to attempt to stalk the animal, but even as he looked it suddenly disappeared, and he remembered then that as a menial Korean he would have cut an absurd and outrageous figure in pursuit of a bear.
He was still regretting the impossibility of obtaining the skin, when he was startled by the sound of a high-pitched voice coming from some spot ahead of them. The valley here rounded a prominent bluff; no human form was to be seen. Before he had quite collected himself he heard the voice again; it was a woman's voice, speaking in accents of distress, or at least excited remonstrance, and he fancied that it had a very British ring. Springing from the cart, and bidding Ah-Sam follow him quickly, he hurried on ahead, turned the bend, and saw before him, hastening up the slope, five persons, two of them little more than a hundred yards away, the other three at a somewhat greater distance. He was amazed to see that two of the five were ladies, in European costume. The nearer was a young lady, tall, in a costume of grey tweed; her right wrist was in the grasp of a native. The farther was a lady of maturer years, equally tall, very stout, wearing a heavy sealskin jacket, her bonnet awry, her arms pinioned by two natives who were urging her along. The captors were obviously Manchus; they wore the pigtails, the wide-brimmed hats, cotton blouses and loose pantaloons common to the country.
It was from the elder lady that the cries had proceeded and were still proceeding. They were not cries of fear or appeals for mercy, but rather outpourings of wrath and indignation. Her head was being shaken vigorously from side to side, threatening to dislodge her already disordered head-gear. She was evidently not merely protesting, but resisting with all her might, and as she dwarfed the men in both height and breadth, she was giving them no little trouble. The younger lady was causing no such commotion. She was walking quietly by her captor's side, unresisting, saying nothing, accepting the situation resignedly.
Bob took in these details in a few seconds. Then, without counting the odds, he rushed forward, fumbling in the slit of his wadded pantaloons for the pistol he carried there. In the soft snow his footfall made no sound that was not smothered by the unceasing denunciation of the stout lady, and the Manchus were too much occupied with their captives to be alive to the presence of strangers. Bob noticed that the man leading the younger lady held in his right hand a musket or rifle. Making rapidly up on him, Bob stooped just as the Manchu at last heard his tread and was turning, snatched the weapon from his grasp, thrust it between his legs and tripped him up. Then without waiting he dashed on, came within a few feet of the Manchus by the time they had contrived to face round, the lady still struggling between them, and pointing his pistol full at the head of one of them, shouted in English:
"Hands up!"
A Korean Knight-errant
The very sight of a Korean with a pistol in his hand was enough to throw a Manchu bandit off his balance. The Koreans are a soft, inert, unwarlike race; even their soldiers are never known to fight; and yet here was a Korean, without a topknot and therefore of no social account, actually pointing a pistol and uttering a menace which sounded all the fiercer because it was in a language never heard in these parts from Korean lips before. Bob did not give the bandits time to recover from their amazement. Rushing up to them he sent one spinning over with a right-hander, and wrested the weapon from the other. The large and indignant lady being now released, struck this man smartly over the head with her umbrella, and then, marched down the hill to meet the younger lady, who was coming rapidly towards her with an air of mingled astonishment and relief. Behind came Ah-Sam, who had left his team at the foot of the slope, and was driving before him, in cowed amazement, the Manchu who had held the girl. For a moment it seemed as if the three Manchus, trusting in their numerical superiority, were inclined to retaliate, but there was something in Bob's manner that warned them in time, and they slunk away, muttering curses Manchurian but unmistakable. As they did so, the elder lady stood watching them with menace in her mien, her left hand clasping the hand of the girl now by her side, her right retaining a determined grip of her umbrella. Bob meanwhile walked slowly down the hill towards her. He was a little out of breath, and a great deal astonished. His lips twitched with amusement at the sight of the elder lady, so large, and so unconscious of her disarray, like a ruffled hen in her attitude. The girl seemed partly to share his feeling, for he detected a slight twinkle in her dark eyes as they met his. When the Manchus were out of sight, the elder lady's features relaxed, and becoming aware that the stranger to whose intervention she owed her release was within arm's length, she turned to him and said quickly:
"You speakee English?"
"Yes, madam."