“What do you seek?”
“Nothing your treasure could give me,” J. D. said smiling. “But I come with one from whom you stole a treasure greater than the treasure you took from the Peking Court.”
“What is this treasure?”
“She stands beside you, Li Hung Chang.”
Li Hung Chang nodded slowly. J. D. slipped the pistol into his belt; it was needed no more.
“So it has come,” said Li Hung Chang. “The time of parting I have feared so much has come. Day by day and year by year I have watched her grow and gather loveliness, and day by day and year by year I have told myself she should be with her people, living as they live, seeing China as they see China, seeing us as they see us.
“Often I have had the message ready; but always I have told myself that she was young, and that another day would be but a day, and a week a week. So from a little thing that crawled about the floor she has grown to be as you see her now, and still she stayed with me.”
J. D. nodded. “But the other has more claim.” He tapped on the door behind him, and opened it for Joan. She stood an instant hesitant, then slowly passed him, and halted again.
“Elaine!”
The girl stood silent, but a little pale, one hand at her breast, her eyes wide.
“Elaine, don’t you know me?” Joan pleaded.
“I do,” said the girl, very softly, in perfect English. “I remember you, a little.” Walking forward, she held up her face to Joan, who took her in her arms and kissed her. “But it’s so long ago—”
She began to cry, her face against Joan’s shoulder. J. D. stood in embarrassed silence, but Li Hung Chang watched with a smile half wistful, half pleased. While still the two girls whispered together, he turned to J. D.
“The guard at the door attacked you? You did not kill him?”
“No.”
“I am glad. He is faithful, and the sight of a white man must have surprised him. He has watched for fifteen years, and you are the first to come. One of our people he would have brought to me. So Sin Tiel, S’hih Quen, and the others, are dead?”
J. D. nodded.
“If you would tell me—” Li Hung Chang began.
A white man, pistol in hand, stood in the doorway.
“Keep your hands still,” he said easily to J. D., “until we get to know each other. I suppose you’re Stewart?”
“I am,” J. D. said, waiting.
“That’s all right, then.” The stranger slipped the gun back into his pocket. “Joan here will introduce us.”
“Dave,” Joan said, “this is my brother Jim.”
They shook hands. Jim Manville turned to Li Hung Chang.
“Li Hunch Chang, do you remember me?”
“You are as your father was thirty years ago,” Li Hung Chang said slowly. “It might be he who stands where you stand now.” He moved one hand. “Be seated.”
“First,” Joan said, “won’t you say hello to your little sister, Jim?”
Laughing, embarrassed, he picked Elaine up in his arms, kissed her, and sat down with her on his knee. “Such a thing to go twenty thousand miles to find!”
“To begin at the beginning,” Li Hung Chang said in his precise English, “sixteen years ago, at the outbreak of anti-foreign feeling, I advised your father to stay in my house in Peking. But he preferred to leave the capital, and make for the white settlements either in Shanghai or Tientsin as opportunity came.
“Tientsin being the nearer, and the foreign naval forces being concentrated there, the road thither was watched, and he decided in favor of Shanghai. On the way, your mother was murdered by brigands, and the baby stolen and held, presumably with ideas of ransom.
“Your father, helpless with the country as it was then, sent a message to me, and I dispatched spies who succeeded in locating and rescuing the baby. But it was then too late to send her to your father, who had successfully reached Shanghai, so I kept her, contenting myself with assuring him of her safety, and intending to return her when opportunity arose.
“I saw the allied forces advance on Peking, halt, and retreat. I saw the bloody encounter in Tientsin, and the second and triumphal advance of the white armies. I had known it would eventually be so, and had prepared. Force can accomplish little, and what it does accomplish is but transient.
“I knew that for awhile the West would rule the East, until the East had learned to rule itself. I knew, too, that when the East awoke she would need riches.
“So I took the greater portion of the treasures of the Summer Palace, and hid it away, and had the news spread that I was dead. And for sixteen years I have stayed here, within sight of the city where I served the empress, without discovery.
“The allied army was close on Peking when by stealth I left the city, and, knowing what would follow, I was afraid to leave the child. It was not until afterward that I learned your father had come with the army from Tientsin, and had shortly died.
“Pursuing inquiries necessarily cautious, I found that you were being cared for by relatives in Shanghai, and that the baby was believed dead. It was then that temptation came to me to keep her awhile, for I had grown to love her.
“So year after year she stayed with me, and I taught her what I thought would be of value to her, and kept before her mind the fact that she was white. When she was old enough, I told her of her parents, and why she was here with me, and she agreed to stay yet a little longer. She has seemed content enough, and even happy.” He turned to Elaine. “Is it not so?”
She nodded, but her glance was on her brother. “I was wonderfully happy, always.”
“I had meant to send her to you when she was of an age to marry,” Li Hung Chang continued; “but you have come to take her first. Perhaps that is as well, for in my old age and selfishness I might have kept her by me until the springs of love had died in her breast, and her face had lost its beauty.”
Joan nodded. She had intended, a little, to reprove him; but in face of what he had said she could not find the words.
IV
“Jim and I decided there was a chance I of her being alive,” she said, “because of the rumors of the treasure you had hidden, and because there was no definite proof that you were dead. For a long time we meant to search, but could find no starting point, and no clew, however small.
“Then Jim was given a post in the Diplomatic Service, and after a few years our chance came. The government had discovered one of the holders of the Soapstone Buddhas, and wanted a man to follow up the clews.
“They thought a white man would have more chance, and Jim was given the job, but without official recognition. He was to work as he pleased, and if he got into trouble was in no way to demand or expect help.
“The government just then was in great need of funds, and wanted the treasure badly. The Boy Emperor was far from secure on his throne, and all China was seething with unrest.
“Jim talked it over with me, and I told him I was going to take a hand in it. He didn’t like that, but I wouldn’t listen to his reasons why I should stay at home out of danger, and in the end we agreed to work together.
“We were to keep in constant touch with one another, and exchange any information gained. But” — she smiled at J. D. — “in no way was one to even so much as hint at the existence of the other, so that if one went under the other could go on. Then Jim set out to look for Sin Tiel.
“But Sin Tiel had been warned, and had left Peking. We trailed him first to Shanghai, and then to Canton; and there he joined a ship, the Gay Girl, as a hand, paying a little money for the privilege.
“Jim, who is a miracle at disguises, made himself into a coolie, and did the same. In the meantime I took another boat for Manila, where the brig was bound first.