And now Tuan became very important. I began to feel that he had arranged the whole for my benefit, and was keeping the best piece back to crown it all. We came to a piece of wild country and I was requested to get out of the cart. Getting out of the cart where there was no place to step was always a business. I was stiff from the jolting, felt disinclined to be very acrobatic, and Tuan always felt it his bounden duty to stretch out his arms to catch me, or break my fall. He was so small, though he was round and fat, that he always complicated matters by making me feel that if I did fall I should certainly materially damage him, but it was no good protesting, it was the correct thing for him to help his Missie out of her cart, and he was prepared to perish in the attempt. However, here was a soft cushion of fragrant pine needles, so I scrambled down without any of the qualms from which I usually suffered. We had come to a halt for a moment by the steep side of a little wooded hill where a narrow footpath wound round it. Just such a modest little path between steep rising ground one might see in the Surrey Hills. It invites to a secluded glen, but no cart could possibly go along it, it is necessary to walk. I turned the corner of the hill and lo! there was a paved way, a newly paved way, such as I have seldom seen in China. The faint morning breeze stirred among the pine needles, making a low, mysterious whispering, and out against the back ground stood, a splash of brilliant, glowing colour, the many roofs of golden-brown tiles that cover the mausoleum of the great woman who once ruled over China, the last who made a stand, a futile stand, against foreign aggression, and now a foreigner and a woman, unarmed and alone, might come safely and stand beside her tomb.
Perhaps that was the best way to view it, at any rate inside I could not go, for the key I discovered was at Malanyu, and it would have taken me at least half a day to go back and get it. Besides I don't think I wanted to go inside. I would not for the world have spoilt the memory that remains in my mind by any tawdry detail such as I had seen at the younger Empress's funeral. It was just a little spoilt as it was by my boy, who came along mysteriously and pointed with a secret finger at the custodian of the tomb, who had not the keys.
“Suppose Missie makee littee cumshaw. Suppose my payee one dollar.”
And I expect the man did get perhaps sixty cents, because Tuan was bent on impressing on these people the fact that his Missie was a very important woman indeed.