“Oh Papa,” Clem whispered, “don’t go. How shall I find you if something happens to you?”
“Nothing will happen,” his father said. “We will pray together before I go — as soon as I get my clothes on.”
Quickly his father was back again, dressed in his ragged cotton suit. “On your knees, dear boy,” he said in the same ghostly whisper.
For once Clem knelt willingly. He was helpless. They were all helpless. Now if ever God must save them.
“God who hearest all,” his father prayed, “Thou knows what is going on in this city. I feel I ought to be about my business and Thine. Probably there are a good many suffering people out there we ought to be looking after. Fires bring suffering as Thou knows. Protect my dear ones while I am gone and especially give strength to my dear son.”
His father paused and then in his usual firm voice he added, “Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven, for Thy Name’s sake. Amen!”
They got up and his father shook Clem’s hand strongly and was gone.
It was nearly dawn before Clem, sleepless upon the board of his bed, heard his father’s footsteps carefully upon the threshold. He sat up in bed and saw his father at the door drenched with sweat and black with smoke.
“I must clean myself before your mother sees me,” he said. “Get me some water in the basin — some soap if we have any. I’ll wash here in the court. Has your mother waked?”
“No,” Clem said and got out of bed. He went to the old well in the little courtyard and let down the wooden bucket. A bit of soap was hidden where he had left it above a beam, his own bit of soap, still left from a yellow bar his mother had managed to give him at Christmas. He stood beside his father while he stripped and began to wash.
“The Boxers are in the city,” his father said in a low voice. “The Old Empress has given us up. We are in the hands of God. The persecution of the Christians has begun.”
“What about the other foreigners?” Clem asked. For the first time he knew that his place must be among those who had rejected him. William Lane, that proud boy—
“I went to Brother Lane’s house,” his father was saying. “Of all of them, Brother Lane is the kindest. He gave me the food I have brought back and a little money. A man of tender heart! He is alone in his compound. He has sent his family away to Shanghai. They went before the railroads were broken. He has been sheltering Chinese Christians but now they are leaving him. It is safer for them to be among their own people.”
Now Clem was really afraid. If the railroads were broken Peking was cut off.
His father looked at him tenderly. “Are you fearful, Clem? Don’t be so, my son. The Lord is the strength of our lives. Of whom shall we be afraid?”
Clem did not answer. They were alone among enemies. He sent his own angry prayer toward the sky, where sunshine and smoke were in combat. “God, if you fail my father, I will never pray again.”
Then he turned and went into the house and heard his sisters talking softly over their clay doll while their mother still slept.
Mr. Fong knew upon each day what had happened in the palace. His old cousin stole out by night to report the doings of the Empress whom he now called the Old Demon.
“A mighty struggle is going on,” he declared to Mr. Fong in the depths of the night. The two men sat in the shop in darkness. The cousin would not allow a candle to be lit, neither would he allow the presence of Mrs. Fong. His hatred of the Empress had become so violent that he trusted no woman. Yet his family feeling was such that he felt obliged to tell Mr. Fong of all possible dangers in order that the Fong clan might be kept safe.
Mr. Fong dared not tell his cousin of their one real danger, which was Clem. Neighbors had seen the foreign boy coming day after day to the house.
“Proceed,” Mr. Fong said to his cousin.
“Prince Ching has been dismissed. He was the only reasonable one. She has appointed that blockhead Prince Tuan and three others who understand nothing. This is to prepare for her open union with the foolish Boxers.”
On the sixteenth day of this month the cousin reported that the Empress had called a meeting of her clansmen and then of the Manchus to whom she belonged and the Chinese whom she ruled. To these she spoke long of the evils the foreigners had done. She said the Manchus wanted war.
“Then she was confounded,” the cousin whispered, “for even among the Manchus there was Natsung, a man of sense, who told her she could not fight the world. He was upheld by a Chinese, Hsu Ching-cheng. The young Emperor, as her nephew, also begged her not to ruin the country. Upon this the great quarrel burst forth. That fool Prince Tuan spoke for the Boxers, though Prince Su spoke against him, saying that it was madness to believe that these ignorant men could not be shot to strips of flesh.”
On the eighteenth day the cousin told Mr. Fong that the Empress had seen the Boxers prove their powers, and she had decided to join with them.
“When the young Emperor heard the Old Demon declare this,” the cousin said, “he began to weep aloud and he left the room. It is now too late for us to hope. Prepare yourself, Elder Brother, and prepare our family for what must come, for we are lost. The forts at Tientsin have already fallen to the foreign armies but our people do not know it. Neither do the foreigners here in the city know it, since they have no word from the advancing armies sent to rescue them. And the Old Demon puts her faith in these monsters, the Boxers! Tomorrow, before the foreigners can hear of the loss of the forts or of their own coming rescue, she will demand that they leave the city. But how can they go, hundreds of them with women and little children? They will not go. Then the Boxers will try to kill them all. For this our people will be cruelly punished when the foreign armies reach the city. Prepare — prepare, Elder Brother!”
On the twentieth day of that month Clem was waked by his mother in the early morning. He opened his eyes and saw her finger on her lips. He got up and followed her into the court. There were times when between his parents he felt he had no life of his own. Each made him the keeper of secrets from the other, each strove to bear the burden of danger alone, with only Clem’s help.
“Clem dear,” his mother said in her pretty coaxing voice. In the dawn she had a pale ghostlike look and he saw what he had seen before but today too clearly, that she was wasting away under this strain of waiting for lonely death.
“Yes, Mama,” he said.
“Clem, we haven’t anything left to eat. I’m afraid to tell Papa.”
“Oh Mama,” he cried. “Is all that bread gone?”
“Yes, and all the tins. I have a little flour I can mix with water for this morning. That’s all.”
He knew what she wanted and dreaded to ask him and he offered himself before she spoke.
“Then I will go into the streets and try to find something, Mama.”
“Oh Clem, I’m afraid for you to, but if you don’t Papa will, and you can slip through the hutungs better than he can. He’ll stop maybe to pray.”
“I won’t do that,” he said grimly.
“Then put on your Chinese clothes.”
“I’d better not go until after breakfast, Mama, or Papa will notice.”
“Oh yes, that’s true. Go after breakfast when he is studying his Bible.”
“Yes.”
His mother’s soft eyes were searching his face with anxious sadness. “Oh Clem, forgive me.”
“There isn’t anything to forgive, Mama. It’s not your fault.” He saw the tears well into her eyes and with love and dreadful impatience he stopped them.
“Don’t cry, please, Mama. I’ve got all I can bear.” He turned away, guilty for his anger, and yet protecting himself with it.