That night M. Pourmont telegraphed Elmer Boatwright confirming the news of Doane's death, and urging an immediate attempt to get through to Ping Yang.
On the preceding day he had sent a party of twelve men, white and Chinese, in command of an Australian engineer, to Shau T'ing, on the Eastern Border, to get the supplies that had been shipped down from Peking. These men returned on the following day; and among the cases and bales of supplies borne on the long train of carts they guarded were the bodies of two dead Chinese and a Russian youth with a bullet in his throat.
News came then that a large force of Lookers had started in an easterly direction from Hung Chan. And Boatwright wired that the mission party was at last under way, seven whites and fifty natives.
M. Pourmont at once sent a party of forty mounted men westward along the highway, commanded by an Englishman named Swain. This small force fought a pitched battle with the Looker band that had been evaded by Brachey, suffering several casualties. A native was sent on ahead, riding all night, with a note to Boatwright advising great haste. But it was difficult for the mission party to travel with any speed, as it had been found impossible to secure horses or carts for many of the Chinese converts, and not one of the missionaries would consent to leave these charges behind. It became necessary therefore for Swain to move a half-day's march farther west than had been intended. He joined the missionaries shortly after the advance guard of the Western Lookers had begun an attack on the inn compound. Already six or seven of the secondary Christians had been dragged out and shot or burned to death when Swain led his white and yellow troopers in among them, shooting right and left. There must have been several hundred of the Lookers; but they amounted to little more than a disorganized mob, and as soon as they found their comrades falling around them, screaming in agony and fright, they threw away their rifles and fled.
Swain at once ordered out the entire mission company, mounted as many as possible of the frightened fugitives on the horses of his troop, and with such extra carts as he could commandeer in the village for his wounded, himself and his uninjured men on foot, he pushed rapidly hack toward Ping Yang. The few Chinese who lagged were left in native houses. The horses that fell were dragged off the road and shot.
This man Swain, though he concerns us in this narrative only incidentally, was one of a not unfamiliar type on the China coast. He was hardly thirty years of age, a blond Briton, handsome, athletic, evidently a man of some education and breeding. He had once spoken of serving as a subaltern in the Boer War. A slightly elusive reputation as a Shanghai gambler had floated after him to Ping Yang. He was at times a hard drinker, as his lined face indicated, faint, purplish markings already forming a fine network under the skin of his nose. His blue eyes were always slightly bloodshot. He never spoke of his own people. And it had been noted that after a few drinks he was fond of quoting Kipling's The Lost Legion. Yet on this little expedition, unknown to the archives of any war department, Swain proved himself a hero. He brought all but twelve of the fifty-seven mission folk and eight of his own wounded safely to Ping Yang, leaving three of his Chinese buried back there. And himself sustained a bullet wound through the flesh of his left forearm and a severe knife cut on the left hand.... The drift of opinion among respectable people along Bubbling Well Road in Shanghai, as here in Ping Yang, was that Swain would hardly do. Certain of these mission folk, in particular Miss Hemphill, whose philosophy of life could hardly be termed comprehensive, were later to find their mental attitude toward their rescuer somewhat perplexing.
3
Though she evidently tried to be quiet about it, Mrs. Boatwright's first act was troublesome. She had been taken in, of course, with the other white women, by the Pourmonts; in the big house. Here the principal three of them—Dr. Cassin on her one hand and Miss Hemphill on the other—were put down at the dinner table on that first evening directly opposite Betty. Miss Hemphill flushed a little, bit her lip, then inclined her head with what was clearly enough meant to be distant courtesy. Dr. Cassin, already too deeply occupied with her wounded to waste thought on merely personal matters, bowed coolly. But Mrs. Boatwright stared firmly past the girl at the screen of carved wood that stood behind her.
Betty bent her head over her plate. She had of course dreaded this first encounter; all of her courage had been called on to bring her into the dining-room; but her own sense of personal loss and injury had lately been so overshadowed by the growing tragedy in which they were dwelling that she had forgotten with what complete cruelty and consistency this woman's stern sense of character could function. She had lost, too, in the mounting sober beauty of her love for Brachey, any lingering sense of wrong-doing. Here at Ping Yang Brachey commanded, she knew triumphantly, the respect of the little community.
They were thinking, he and she, only at moments of themselves. Indeed, days passed without a stolen half-hour together. She gloried in her knowledge that he would neglect no smallest duty to indulge his emotions in companionship with her; nor would she neglect duty for him........And the people here were all so kind to her, so friendly! The presence of this grim personally was an intrusion.