4
The road was blocked ahead. Drawing near, he saw beyond the mules and horses and men of the highway and the curious, pressing country folk a considerable number of yellow turbans crowding the road canyon. There must have been a hundred or more, with many rifle muzzles slanting crazily above them. After a moment the rabble broke toward him.
Doane did not wait for them to discover him, but raising his stick and calling for room to pass he walked in among them. He stood head and shoulders above them, a suddenly appearing white giant whom a few resisted at first, but more gave way to as he pushed firmly through. Emerging on the farther side he walked on his way without so much as looking back. And not a shot had been fired.
The road wound its way between steep walls of loess, so that ii was impossible at any point to see far ahead. He came upon other, smaller groups of the Lookers. Only one man, the largest of them, threatened him, but as the man raised the butt of his rifle Doane snatched the weapon from him and knocked him down with it; then tossed it aside and strode on as before.
He came at length to a scenic arch in a notch. Through the arch Ping Yang could be seen in its valley.
He stopped and looked. Near at hand were the tents of some of the Looker soldiery; beyond lay the village; and beyond that on the hillside, the compound of the company, lying as still as if it were deserted. There were no puffs of smoke, no sounds along the village street; between the outlying houses small figures appeared to Le bustling about, but they made no noise that could be heard up here. The scene was uncanny.
Doane, however, went on down the hill. None of the Lookers were in evidence now on the winding street, but only the silent, curious villagers; this until two soldiers in blue came abruptly out of a house; and then two others firmly holding by the arms a man in red and yellow with an embroidered square on the breast of his tunic that marked him as an officer of rank. Other soldiers followed, one bearing a large curved sword.
Doane stopped to watch.
Without ceremony the officer's wrists were tied behind his back. He was kicked to his knees. A blue soldier seized his queue and with it jerked his head forward. The swordsman, promptly, with one clean blow', severed the neck; then wiped his sword on the dead man's clothing and marched away with the others, carrying the head.
Duane shivered slightly, compressed his lips, and, paler, walked on. He passed other blue soldiers in the heart of the village, and a row of Lookers standing without arms. Emerging from the straggling groups of houses beyond the village wall he took the road up the hill. Away up the slope he could see the men of the outposts standing and sitting on the parapets of the rifle pits. At the gate of the compound he called out.