CHAPTER V
The answer was of such importance that Herrick neglected Kuei-lien in his effort to find it. Herrick's wrath had gathered for a great outburst; and then Nancy, by kneeling, by her sign of reverence for his position if not for the man, had dissipated all the heaped-up vapors of anger. They had passed like summer lightning. The man grew sunny again.
Not for months had he shown such friendliness for his children. He took them walking, busied them collecting flowers, led them up the heights of the opposite ravine to see the desolate beacon tower. Nancy did not talk much on these excursions. Her spirit was not yet at ease; the rebellious impulses, however, sought outlet in the unusual exercise. They spent themselves, for the present, on the hills which taxed her legs and revealed to her eyes so many novelties of sight. Edward, on the other hand, prattled continuously, amusing his father by his voluble excitement over every strange blossom and his certainty that every cave contained a leopard or a tiger.
"Ah, there's English in you, my lad," said the father wistfully, "you ought to be playing cricket."
"What is cricket?" asked the boy, instantly curious.
"I'll show you," said Herrick, beaming from indulgent memories of his own youth. After searching out a clear place, he constructed implements as primitive as they were ingenious, a pitch of mountain turf cleared of boulders, pine twigs for stumps, and cones for bails so insecurely perched that the afternoon breeze put up the best of the bowling. Edward combined the conflicting duties of bats-man and wicket-keeper while his father hurled large cones down the pitch and Nancy, stationed in the slips, invariably fumbled the rare ball Edward lifted in her direction.
So absorbed were the players in their very rudimentary game that an unexpected cry of "Well hit, sir," burst upon them like a thunderbolt. Edward's desired tiger could not have startled them more thoroughly.
Nancy turned to run, but she saw her brother gazing with wide eyes and open mouth till her own fear could not keep her from seeking with half-averted face the object of his astonishment. She saw two men walking toward her father. They were not Chinese; that she knew instantly, for they wore strange white helmets and shirts open at the throat and short khaki trousers and thick foreign boots. They carried knapsacks and strange black boxes such as Nancy, in her inexperience, did not recognize as cameras. Each of them swung a stout cane. Could they be bandits, Nancy wondered, her heart beating in alarm; they looked extremely fierce. Then she realized by a flash of insight that she was seeing the spectacle she had looked forward to—the spectacle of foreigners from the mythical lands of the West.
"Wait a minute," called out one of the two men, removing his hat courteously and exposing a shock of blond hair, "wanchee take picture, allee same photograph."