“Then we will all go,” cried the uncle eagerly. “In foreign parts we will all be safe!”
“Father, you cannot,” said Sheng patiently. “The foreigners will not let men of our race on their shores unless it be for study or some such special thing.”
At this the old man swelled himself out and opened up his little eyes and said, “And are they not here upon our shores?”
But the lady said to soothe them all, “It is scarcely useful now to talk of ourselves. We old ones are safe enough. They will not kill such old staid folk as we are for revolutionists and scarcely you, eldest nephew, who have wife and children and are no longer young. But Meng is known and through him Sheng is in danger and so is Yuan, and we must somehow get them from the country to foreign parts.”
So they planned how this could be done, and the lady bethought herself of a foreign friend whom Ai-lan knew, and how through him the many papers to be written and signed and hastened on could be written, and the lady rose and put her hand upon the door to call a servant to go fetch Ai-lan home from a friend’s house where she had gone for a morning’s gaming, for she was not willing to go to school these days of disturbance, because it made her sad, and she could not bear sadness.
Even as the lady put her hand upon the door a mighty noise rose up from the lower rooms, the noise of a bold rough voice shouting, “Is this where one Wang Yuan lives?”
Then they all looked at each other, and the old uncle turned as pale as the fat upon a butchered beef and looked about to hide himself. But the lady’s quick thought was for Yuan first, and then for Sheng.
“You two,” she gasped—“quick — into the little room beneath this roof—”
Now this room had no stairway to it, and its entrance was no more than a square hole let into the ceiling of this very room where they were gathered. But the lady even as she spoke had pulled a table beneath it and dragged at a chair, and Sheng sprang forward, being ever a little more quick than Yuan was, and then Yuan after him.
But none was quick enough. Even as they hastened, the door was flung open as by a gale of wind, and eight or ten soldiers stood there and the captain cried out, looking first at Sheng, “Are you Wang Yuan?”
Now Sheng was very pale, too. He waited for one instant before he answered, as though he took thought for what he should say, and then he answered very low, “No, I am not he.”
Then the man roared out, “Then this other one is he — Aye, I remember now the maid said he was tall and very dark, and his brows were black above his eyes — but his mouth soft and red — it is this one—”
Without one word to deny himself, Yuan let himself be bound, his hands behind his back, and no one could stay the matter. No, although his old uncle wept and trembled and though the lady came up beseeching and said in her grave sure way, “You are mistaken — this lad is no revolutionist. I can swear for him — he is a studious, careful lad — my son — who has never taken any part in all this cause—”
But the men only laughed coarsely, and one great round-faced soldier cried out, “Ah, lady, mothers never know their sons! To know a man one must ask the maid — never his mother — and the maid gave his name and the number of this very house, and told his looks exactly — aye, she knew his looks very well, didn’t she? — I swear she knows his every look! — and she said he was the greatest rebel of them all — yes, she was so bold and angry at first, and then she grew silent for a while, and then she gave his name of her own will, without a moment’s torture for it!”
Then Yuan saw the lady look dazed at this, as at a thing she did not understand at all. He could say nothing. He kept silent but in his heart he thought dully to himself, “And so her love turned into hating! She could not bind me by her love — her hate binds me fast enough!” And thus must he let himself be led away.
Even at that moment Yuan feared with every certainty that he must die. These latter days, though it was never public, yet he knew the end of all such as were known to have been joined to the cause was death, and no proof could be surer than this of his guilt, that the maid herself had given his name. Yet though he told himself so, that word death could not seem real to him. Not even when he was thrust into a prison cell, full of other youths like himself, and not when the guard shouted at him when he stumbled on the threshold because it was so dark, “Aye, pick yourself up now, but tomorrow others must do it for you—” even then he could not understand the meaning of the word. The guard’s words struck into his heart like the bullets waiting in the guns for tomorrow, and yet Yuan could take thought to look through the dimness of that crowded cell, and be eased because he saw none in it but men, and not one woman. He could think, “I can bear to die better than I could bear to see her here and have her know I am to die, and have her know she has me after all.” This thing remained an ease to him.
All had come about so quickly Yuan could not but believe that somehow he would be saved from here. At first he thought that any moment he would be saved. He trusted very much the lady his mother, and the more he thought the more confident he was that she would think how to save him. The first hours he so believed, and the more because he felt, as he looked about upon his fellows, that he was much better than any of them, and they looked poor and less wise than he, and of families of less wealth and influence.
But after a while the darkness fell completely black, and in the black silence they all sat or lay upon the earthen floor. For none spoke, lest out of their own mouths they be committed by some word which might confirm their guilt, and each man feared the other and so long as face could see even the dim shape of face, there was no sound except the movement of a body changing its position, or some such voiceless sound.
Then night fell, when none could see another’s face, and the darkness seemed to shut each into his own cell, and a first voice cried softly, “Uh, my mother — oh, my mother—” and broke into desperate weeping.
This weeping was very hard to bear, for each felt it might be his own self weeping, and a louder voice cried out, very loud and surly, “Be silent! What child is it who cries for its mother? I am a loyal member — I killed my own mother, and my brother killed our father, and we know no parents but the cause — eh, brother?”
And another voice out of the darkness answered, twin to that voice, “Yes, I did it!” And the first voice said, “Are we sorry?” And the second sneered and answered again, “Though I had a score of fathers I would gladly kill them all—” And another cried emboldened, “Aye, those old men and women, they only breed us to make sure they have servants for their old age to keep them warmed and fed—” But the first softest voice moaned on most steadily, “Oh, my mother — oh, my mother—” as though the one who cried these words heard nothing.
But at last as deep night wore on even such cries must be stilled. Yuan had not spoken once while others spoke, but after they were quiet the night stayed on and on forever with its deep exhausted stillness, and he could not bear it. All his hopefulness began to ebb away. He thought the door must open any moment and a voice shout forth, “Let Wang Yuan come — he is freed!”
But no voice called.
At last it seemed to Yuan some sound must be made because he could not bear the stillness. He spent himself in thought. Against his will he thought of all his life and how short it was and he thought, “If I had obeyed my father, I would not now be here—” and yet he could not say, “I wish I had obeyed him.” No, when Yuan thought of it, some stubbornness he had made him say honestly, “Yet I do believe he asked a wrong thing of me—” And again he thought, “If I had forced myself a little and yielded to that maid—” And then again his gorge rose and he thought honestly, “Yet I did not like to do it—” And at last there was nothing else to do than to think ahead to what was to come, since the past was shaped and gone, and he must think of death.