And I passed on through Yung Ning Chou, on across the stony plateau, and at last, at a village called Liu Lin Chen, I was brought up with a sharp turn with a tale of Pai Lang.
I was having my midday meal. Not that it was midday. It was four o'clock, and I had breakfasted at 6 a.m.; but time is of no account in China. Liu Lin Chen was the proper place at which to stop for the noonday rest, so we did not stop till we arrived there, though the badness of the road had delayed us. I was sitting in the inn-yard waiting for Tsai Chih Fu to bring me the eternal hard-boiled eggs and puffed rice when Mr Wang came up, accompanied by the two muleteers, and they—that is, the two muleteers—dropped down to the ground and clamoured, so I made out from his excited statements that the gates of Sui Te Chou had been closed for the last four days on account of Pai Lang! And Sui Te Chou was the first town I proposed to stop at after I crossed the river! If I would go to Lan Chou Fu and on through Sin Kiang to the Russian border through Sui Te Chou I must go. There was no other way. These days in the mountains had shown me that to stray from the caravan road was an utter impossibility. Had I been one of the country people conversant with the language I think it would have been impossible. As it was, I had my choice. I might go on or I might go back. Mr Wang apparently thought there should be no doubt in my mind. He evidently expected I would turn tail there and then, and I myself realised—I had been realising ever since round the table in the mission station at Ki Hsien we had read Dr Edwards' letter—that my journey across the continent was ended; but to turn tail in this ignominious fashion, having seen nothing, within, I suppose, twenty-five miles of the Yellow River, with the country about me as peaceful as the road in Kent in which I live at present, how could I? It was more peaceful, in fact, for now at night searchlights stream across the sky, within a furlong of my house bombs have been dropped and men have been killed, and by day and by night the house rocks as motors laden with armament and instruments of war thunder past. But there in Shansi in the fields the people worked diligently, in the village the archway over which they held theatrical representations was placarded with notices, and in the inn-yard where I sat the people went about attending to the animals as if there was nothing to be feared. And I felt lonely, and James Buchanan sat close beside me because at the other side of the very narrow yard a great big white dog with a fierce face and a patch of mange on his side looked at him threateningly.
“I'll have none of your drawing-room dogs here,” said he.
But Buchanan's difficulties were solved when he appealed to me. I—and I was feeling it horribly—had no one to appeal to. I must rely upon myself.
And then to add to my woes it began to rain, soft, gentle spring rain, growing rain that must have been a godsend to the whole country-side.
It stopped, and Mr Wang and the muleteers looked at me anxiously.
“We will go on,” I said firmly, “to the Yellow River.”
Their faces fell. I could see the disappointment, but still I judged I might go in safety so far.
“Don't they want to go?” I asked Mr Wang.