It was that promise that moved Mackay's resolution. His utter weakness held him down from work, and he longed with all his soul to go out through the country to help the poor, suffering churches. So he finally consented to take the short journey and pay a visit to his dear ones in Hongkong.
He did not get back quite as soon as he intended, for the French blockade delayed his vessel. But at last he stepped out upon the Tamsui dock into a crowd of preachers, students, and converts who were weeping for joy about him and exclaiming over his improved looks.
The voyage had certainly done wonders for him, and at once he declared he must take a trip into the country and visit those who were left of the churches.
It was a desperate undertaking, for French soldiers were now scattered through the country, guarding the larger towns and cities and everywhere mobs of furious Chinese were ready to torture or kill every foreigner. But it would take even greater difficulties than these to stop Kai Bok-su, and he began at once to lay plans for going on a tour.
He first went to the British consul and came back in high spirits with a folded paper in his hand. He spread it out on the library table before A Hoa and Sun-a, who were to go with him, and this is what it said:
British Consulate, Tamsui,
May 27th, 1885.
To THE OFFICER IN CHIEF COMMAND OF THE FRENCH FORCES AT KELUNG:
The bearer of this paper, the Rev. George Leslie Mackay, D.D., a British subject, missionary in Formosa, wishes to enter Kelung, to visit his chapel and his house there, and to proceed through Kelung to Kap-tsu-lan on the east coast of Formosa to visit his converts there. Wherefore I, the undersigned, consul for Great Britain at Tamsui, do beg the officer in chief command of the French forces in Kelung to grant the said George Leslie Mackay entry into, and a free and safe passage through, Kelung. He will be accompanied by two Chinese followers, belonging to his mission, named, respectively, Giam Chheng Hoa, and Iap Sun. A. FRATER, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at Tamsui.
They had all the power of the British Empire behind them so long as they held that paper. Then they hired a burdenbearer to carry their food, and Mackay cut a bamboo pole, fully twenty feet long, and on it tied the British flag. With this floating over them, the little army marched through the rice-fields down to Kelung.