“I have my doubts of the utility of a conference with the viceroy,” Langdon told the lads the next morning at the breakfast table. “He’s a tricky Chinaman and generally has his own way.
“Well, we shall soon see,” he ended as an orderly appeared to summon him and Phil to be ready within fifteen minutes to accompany their captain on the mission to the high Chinese mandarin.
A half hour later a bright array of uniformed officers landed on the jetty; there were three of the gunboat captains and their aides, all in full dress uniform, which is prescribed for an official visit upon a viceroy.
A line of green sedan chairs, the color portraying to the curious throngs that their occupants were of the first rank in official parlance, wended its way in single file through the guarded gates into the stench of the crowded, walled city. Each chair was carried on the muscular shoulders of four coolies, and at almost a dog’s trot, they bore their burdens over the narrow, crooked streets.
Phil gazed excitedly upon the thousands of inquisitive natives, crowding so near the foreigners that the pungent odor of their bodies came distinctly to his nostrils; their ignorant faces at such close range appalled him. The chair coolies cried out hoarsely, jostling the multitude to prevent being trodden under foot by the persistent rabble.
The embassy had covered but half the distance to the yamen when it was wedged tightly against a heaving mass of excited yellow bodies. Phil saw the faces of the crowd darken with a superstitious loathing; he seemed to read in their cruel eyes an awakening to the knowledge of their power, and the helpless plight of the despised “foreign devils”. The multitude pressed ever closer; reaching out their claw-like talons to touch the gold-embroidered uniforms of the naval officers. The lad cast a swift glance at Langdon next him; he felt confident he would read in his face the extent of the danger threatening them. The pilot was shouting unintelligible words to his chair coolies; the while his face was black with passion.
The coolies refused stolidly to budge, and by sign threatened to put down the chairs upon the ground; all the while jabbering and gesticulating wildly to each other and to the mob, which appeared on the point of engulfing the foreigners in its noisome embrace.
CHAPTER V
THE VICEROY’S TREACHERY
The gaping crowd pressed ever closer. Phil could feel the fetid breath of those nearest him; he saw a big Chinaman emerge from the dense throng and push his way to Langdon’s chair; the lad would have cried out a warning, but all happened with such lightning-like swiftness that he had not found his voice before the bold Chinaman had released his hold upon the pilot’s coat, and had fallen back into the arms of his countrymen nearest him, a deep red stain upon his closely shaved head, while Langdon waved menacingly his Colt revolver, the blunt butt of which had successfully cowed the would-be leader.
Fortunately for the foreigners, a troop of mounted soldiers arrived on the scene at this juncture and brutally cleared the way, trampling under their horses’ feet the nearest of the mob, chained as they were by the mass of humanity behind them. Presently the chairs were again in motion; the soldiers now keeping the crowd in check, and in a few minutes more the embassy arrived in front of the yamen, the official residence of the viceroy. The heavy, grotesquely painted doors were quickly opened, and closed sharply in the faces of the unruly crowd.