“The boy was here,” Mr. Fong said solemnly. He tapped his polished wooden counter with his long fingernail. “Here he was in my house. He came early to teach my son. Thus he escaped death. Surely there was meaning in it. I have considered it a good omen for my house.”
“What became of him?” Dr. Lane asked with intense interest.
“He came back,” Mr. Fong said. “And he told me what he had found in his own house. He stayed with us until he was able to escape. Then I told him to go east to the sea and to find a foreign ship and to return to his own land and his father’s father’s house.”
“That was very good of you,” Dr. Lane said. “I shall report this to the American officials.”
“Please do not do so,” Mr. Fong said hastily. “It is better not to tell anyone so long as the Old Woman is alive. She will come back smiling, as you will see tomorrow, but who will know what is in her heart?”
Who indeed could know? Dr. Lane himself would never wholly recover from the long siege within the Legation Quarters. He had caught dysentery in the heat of that summer, and was nearly dead when at last the soldiers from the West came surging into the city. When his wife came back to him from America, after William was safely in college, she had tried to make him give up China.
“Surely, Henry, you have done enough.”
“I have done nothing yet,” he replied. It was the beginning of the long struggle between them over whether China was worth his life.
“See how many foreigners have been killed!” she had cried passionately.
“Hundreds of us have been saved, and by six men,” he had retorted.
It was true. Junglu, the favorite of the Empress Dowager, had done all he could to save the foreigners from her fury. Yuan-cheng and Hsu Ching-cheng had deliberately changed the word “slay,” in the royal edict, to “protect.” Li-shao, Liu-yuan, and Hsu Tung-i the Empress had put to death for opposing the war against the foreigners. And there were the noble host, those whom he never forgot, the thousands of Chinese Christians, more than two score of them of his own church here in Peking, who had refused to give up their faith and who died, martyrs for a god who to them was a foreign one.
No, Dr. Lane told himself steadfastly, it was beyond his wife’s power, strong woman though she was, to move him from his own faith, not only in God but in the Chinese people.
“I will be here tomorrow,” he promised Mr. Fong.
Thus on the next day Dr. Lane stood upon the balcony, wrapped in a thick quilted Chinese robe inside of which he still shivered. Mrs. Lane had refused to stand there with him, when looking out from the window of their bedroom this morning, she had seen the city shrouded in yellow dust from the deserts of the northwest. A bitter wind was blowing, even then. Dr. Lane had been slightly exasperated to perceive it, for it added to the honor of the Imperial return. It was an ancient tradition in the city that whenever an emperor left his palace a strong wind would go with him, and would bring him back again. Heaven itself seemed to be on the side of the Old Buddha.
While he waited on the balcony in the fury of the cold wind Dr. Lane thought of what Mr. Fong had told him. The Miller boy had doubtless done exactly what his Chinese friend had bade him. He might now be safely in America. He must write and tell William of the possibility. He had reported the story to the American officials yesterday, concealing Mr. Fong’s name.
He glanced with concern at the great gate. There was still no sign of the royal entourage. Helen had been wise, perhaps, to content herself with seeing the Empress at the mighty reception which she was to give to her conquerors when she reached the Imperial Palace. Yet he did not want to attend it. He was not dazzled by her arrogant and heathen splendor. He hoped to see her as she came in the North Gate and to discern for himself whether she had repented. He had prayed solemnly that her heart might be softened for the good of the people. He did not honestly know whether such prayers were answered.
Everything was in readiness for the moment at the gate. Across the city the wide street had been cleared of all venders and stalls and booths. The street had been swept clean and spread with bright yellow sand, yellow, the imperial color. No common man was on the street. The imperial guard stood waiting, and princes and dukes were ready each with his own banner corps. Here and there down the street foreigners stood at windows, a few opened by permission that the visitors might witness the return.
Mr. Fong’s head appeared above the edge of the ladder. He held out a small brass handstove. “Take this, Elder Brother,” he whispered. “I have put fresh coals in it.”
Dr. Lane took the handstove gratefully and before he could speak his thanks Mr. Fong was gone. Now he perceived certain signs. A line of Chinese heads would appear here and there over a rooftop, instantly to disappear again. Word was running through the city that the Old Buddha was near. She had descended from the train. For the first time in her life the Old Buddha had ridden on a train, and with her, her court. She had not enjoyed it. The dust had been suffocating, the noise insupportable. When the whistle blew she had been terrified and indignant, and when she learned that this was the duty of the engineer she sent word by a eunuch that he was not to blow it without telling her before he did it. The railway from Paoting to Peking had been destroyed during the war and rebuilt again under the foreign victors and the foreign soldiers had brought it into the very heart of the city, tearing great holes in the walls.
The Old Buddha would not pass through these desecrated walls. She had ordered the court to alight outside and to enter their royal palanquins, that they might return to the city in proper state through the great gate.
Dr. Lane, holding the little handstove, heard a rising shout. A small army of eunuchs on horseback galloped from the gate. They wore black caps with red feathers and on the breasts of their robes were huge medallions of red and yellow embroidery. Behind them came the imperial herald, crying in a high voice that the Imperial Court was returned. All those officials waiting on the street fell to their knees and bowed their faces into the dust. Dr. Lane leaned on the frail banisters of the balcony and stared down into the street, and the destiny of this moment was impressed upon him. He watched everything, intent to remember it all, to tell William. He saw the Imperial Guard, followed by military officers. Great flags of yellow satin swirled in the wind, and upon each was embroidered a blue dragon swallowing a red sun. On either side of the flags were the imperial banners embroidered with the imperial arms.
Behind these rode the young Emperor, a sad young man, sitting within his yellow palanquin, which was lined with blue silk. The curtain was up and there he sat, his face unmoved, gazing straight ahead. He sat upon his crossed feet in the position of a Buddha.
“The sacrifice of youth,” Dr. Lane murmured to nobody. Death was already clear upon that tragic face.
But death had nothing to do with the Empress herself. He was indignant to see the redoubtable figure, seated in her great palanquin in the midst of her guards, followed by the young Empress and the court ladies. Upon that gay and wicked old visage there was nothing but the liveliest pleasure. Seeing the foreigners, who were her conquerors, she had put aside the curtains of the palanquin and waved her handkerchief at them. He was the more indignant to see some of the foreign ladies, among whom he recognized Americans, too, wave back to the old sinner, laughing as they did so. Thus quickly was all forgot.
He came down from the balcony and returned the handstove to Mr. Fong with thanks.