Life and sport in China / Second Edition

by Oliver George Ready

The poor wanderer seemed at last to see some faint possibility of reward for her dreary pilgrimage. She followed the hermit to the river side, where his small and leaky sampan was drawn up on the mud. After considerable effort the boat was launched by the feeble pair, and taking her place in it she was rowed by the old man across the heaving river, which is here more than a mile in width, to the opposite beach, where a little above high-water mark the grave was found. Scraping aside the loose sand and rubble, and raising the unfastened lid of the rough coffin, the mouldering skeleton was unrecognisable. Quick as thought the woman thrust her fingers into the crumbling mass and raised an arm of the dead, on which was seen to be the half of a jade bracelet. Immediately baring her own arm to the hermit's gaze she displayed on it the other half of the same jewel.

A common Chinese practice is for man and wife to have one jade bangle split so as to form two bangles, and to wear one each, with much the same idea as our Mizpah rings.

The woman looked as if turned to stone. She moved not a muscle, but with livid face and hard, glassy eyes kept her position in the open grave, leaning on one hand across the coffin and grasping with her other the mouldering arm of the corpse, so that the two bangles were laid side by side.

Silently and reverently the old hermit stole away, leaving the living with the dead, and rowed back across the river to his home without once turning his eyes, for curiosity he had none, but in its place the Oriental's deep and mystic knowledge of life and death.

In the lonely grave amongst the rank grass and sand mounds the woman stayed, oblivious of the cold and soaking rain. For a long time she rested absolutely motionless as if also dead. Then a few upward movements of the head told of her silent agony. By-and-by a low, tremulous moan broke from her ashen lips. Almost inaudible at first, her sobs increased until her whole frame was convulsed. She called upon her husband, she poured blessings on his name, she craved blessings from his spirit. Long and loud, with all her soul, with all her strength and in most absolute sincerity, she bewailed her dead, as is the custom in the East, until exhaustion overpowered her and she slept.

It was almost dark when the hermit returned and thus found the faithful woman, sodden by the rain, her hair unbound and trailing in the sand. Gently rousing her and speaking soothing words he held out his humble offering of two little bowls containing rice and samshu, some sticks of incense and a few tiny candles. These the poor woman took, but without a sign, for her gratitude was too deep to show, and reverently placed the bowls, the lighted candles and smouldering incense-sticks in position round the grave.

Then, having kowtowed many times before the corpse, the lid of the coffin was replaced and covered with a few inches of sand, after which she turned as one in a trance and followed the hermit to his boat. Her husband was dead, she had bewailed him and burnt incense at his grave, and what further could this poor, broken woman do?

What her intentions then were I do not know, but a few days later, when returning at dusk from Kiukiang to the pagoda, she was stopped in a lonely alley outside the western gate by a man who said, "Your husband was murdered eighteen moons ago by Wang Foo-lin, who is now living in Hankow." It was too dark to see the man's face and the voice she did not know, but it was probably one of the sailors of the missing junk who had some grievance to avenge. From the effect these words had on the woman's fallen strength it might have been a message from the gods pointing afresh the path of duty. She sought her friend the hermit and related to him what had befallen her, and explained that she would now go to Hankow in quest of the murderer, for that her husband's spirit could never rest until his assassin had been brought to justice.

How she travelled the one hundred and twenty miles from Kiukiang to Hankow I do not know, but it is certain that she appeared in the latter place begging from house to house, and after a time recognised Wang Foo-lin trading under an assumed name in a shop of considerable size. Wang on his part did not recognise the feeble and unkempt old beggar-woman, so changed was she from the prosperous Mrs Chin, and took but little notice of this one amongst many tens of other mendicants, so that she was able to stand for some time at the shop door without attracting undue attention, when she carefully noted the contents of the store, and amongst other things recognised the gilt joss which her husband had taken with him. Her next step was to procure an audience of the local magistrate, and to do this she was obliged to expend a considerable part of her remaining cash in bribing the yamên underlings ere they would consent to lay her case before the official or give her admittance to his court. After waiting many days the audience was granted, and kneeling on the filthy floor before the judgment seat she unfolded her story, accusing Wang Foo-lin of the murder of her husband. The magistrate listened to her tale, but at the end said, "You accuse this man of murder but produce no evidence in support of your statements, and your bare word is not sufficient. If you can bring forward any actual proof I will then take action." Mrs Chin replied that in Wang's shop she had seen a gilt image of Buddha which her husband had taken with him on his ill-fated voyage. That many years ago at Kanchow she had knocked over and broken the nose off this same image, and that to repair the damage she had melted down one of her gold earrings and replaced the nose. If, therefore, it were found that this gilt joss had a gold nose then the magistrate would know her tale was true. The official replied that he would accept this as sufficient evidence and would at once put it to the test. Sending his runners with Mrs Chin to the shop, Wang was arrested, and together with the gilt joss taken to the yamên, where it was quickly found that the image actually had a gold nose as declared by the old woman.

Knowing his case to be hopeless, and yielding to the racking torture which was quickly applied, the guilty wretch made a full confession of his crime. As a boy he had often heard of Chin Pao-ting's annual voyages to the West, while local gossip had so enlarged upon the merchant's wealth that the junk bearing him and his merchandise might well be a veritable treasure ship, so that when still a youth Wang had journeyed to Kiukiang with the deliberate intention of forming a scheme to waylay the annual expedition and thus acquire riches at a single stroke. As attendant in an opium den near the quay, he had come in contact with many low and desperate characters, amongst whom was the lowdah of a certain junk which plied for hire between the Poyang lake and the provinces of the West.