“They were soldiers!” Sydney exclaimed. “We distinctly saw their uniforms as they entered the road.”
“What were they saying? Could you hear?” Phil questioned eagerly.
“One of them was the man you fought with at the gate,” Langdon answered; “it’s just as I supposed: there was a movement on foot to attack the mission if that party was successful in destroying the gateway. The one doing all the loud talking was ‘saving his face,’ as the Chinese say; he was explaining that a monster, half man and half bird flew down from the wall and put out the fuse as fast as he could light it, and that he had mortally wounded the ‘devil,’ but fear having entered his heart, he had run away as fast as he could, followed by his companions. He says that the ‘foreign devils’ can change into these monsters whenever they wish, and that their breath is like fire.”
Phil gasped in astonishment at the ludicrous account of his battle with the soldier.
“But his companions will not believe any such tale as that,” he cried; “surely they’ll know it is made up out of whole cloth?”
“On the contrary,” Langdon answered, “they’ll believe it, and what’s more he believes it himself by this time. Doubtless he was so frightened that he remembers little that happened, and their imagination is so vivid that a Chinaman will generally believe his own words as they fall from his lips.”
“What would have happened if they had been successful?” Phil questioned. “That small body of men could not have intended attacking us.”
“No, but after the gate had been blown in it would be an easy matter for a few thousand Chinese to gather. There are tens of thousands of Chinamen in these small towns within a mile of the mission. All they need is a match to start them, and that was the intention of these soldiers.”
“It looks as if it were serious,” Sydney said in an awed whisper as they cautiously regained the road. The soldiers were not in sight, so the Americans proceeded, cautiously watching for the first signs of their enemy on the highway ahead of them.
Finally they reached the limits of the foreign concession, and it was after midnight before they arrived on board the “Phœnix”; but Commander Hughes was awake and directed that they be shown down to his cabin immediately.