After taking note of the surroundings so that they would be able to find the spot again, they continued their journey until they reached the place from which they had started.
'Now for the feast,' Ping Wang said, quietly, and they started off in the direction of the ghosts' feast. It was a merry, jovial crowd they joined. Most of the people were carrying provisions as well as offerings for the ghosts, and Ping Wang, not wishing that he and his friends should be conspicuous, purchased three legs of pork. Then they walked on again, but, before long, came to a large and excited crowd gathered round a poster on the outside wall of a joss-house or temple. Ping Wang, leaving the Pages in a dark corner, hurried forward to read the placard, and, to his horror, found that his fears were realised. It was an anti-foreign poster, and the following is what he read:—
'We publicly announce that the foreigners who entered our Middle Kingdom many years ago have made plans to seize our territory. They ignore the teachings of Confucius, and have already taught the people their false religion, and have practised their sorceries upon them. Now the right-minded and superior men of our land are boiling with rage at the harm which the foreigners have done, and are determined to kill them. Every foreigner must be killed, and every house, shop, and church which they inhabit must be destroyed. Any one who shelters a foreigner will be killed, and all converts to the foreign religion who do not recant immediately will be executed. Kill the foreigners who are hoping to seize our country and introduce their barbarian customs! Kill the men who have made friends with them! Kill the foreigners! Kill the foreigners!'
Ping Wang turned away. He knew that the placard would have the desired effect of rousing the people to a state of frenzy. Already hundreds of people were shouting, 'Kill the foreigners!'
The cry was, by this time, familiar to Charlie and Fred, and there was no need for them to ask Ping Wang what was printed on the poster.
By a slight movement of his head, Ping Wang signed to the Pages to follow him. He walked a few yards down the crowded street, fearing every moment that his friends would be detected by the mob and killed before his eyes, and then turned into a narrow lane, dark and almost deserted. The people had evidently flocked into the main road. He sighed with thankfulness, and, having glanced round and seen that the Pages were following, he quickened his speed. It was some years since he had traversed the bye-streets of his native town, but they were not changed to any great extent, and he had no difficulty in finding his way. He led his friends through street after street—gloomy and squalid places, but happily deserted by the residents. At last they came into a main road which led to the town-gates; not the ones at which they had entered early that morning, but those on the other side. He could see them in the distance. They were open, and he was tempted to lead his friends straight out into the country, and away from the danger which threatened them. At any rate, it seemed to him that he would be doing an unfriendly action if he did not tell them that escape was still easy.
'There are the gates,' he said in an undertone. 'Shall we go out and hurry off to Barton?'
'No,' Charlie said, firmly; 'not until we have got your treasure.'
'But do you know what was on that poster?'
'We have a very good idea, I fancy. An order to kill all foreigners, was it not?'