It is clear that the white contingent stood their ground with difficulty, looking straight in front of them, and not at the furious brown, black, and golden faces confronting them, and holding their positions only with an effort of will. There was a long and intense silence. The old white did not move. The two children on either side of his chair deliberately raised their heads and stared up and around the tiers of faces. It seems that Benjamin Sherban maintained a characteristic lounging and almost casual posture.
The sun was already going, the shadow had engulfed George Sherban's contingent, and the evening had arrived: a warm, gritty, uncomfortable evening.
"I am now going to call my first witness," shouted George Sherban - and these were the last words he was to say for many days. He was never absent from the "Trial" while it was in progress, but he kept himself inconspicuous among the group on the Prosecution side.
The first witness was brilliantly chosen. (From a certain point of view.) She was a delegate from Shansi Province. A girl of about twenty. She was, of course, well fed and neatly dressed and looked healthy and at once the atmosphere lost tension. We are not popular. This is the penalty we have to pay for our superiority! (I rely on our old understanding of the subtle, and necessary, and often ironic shifts and changes of events.) It is not that our Chinese Youth behave incorrectly. On the contrary, they are at all times enjoined to correct behaviour, wherever they may find themselves. But the fact is that they do enjoy certain advantages from the very nature of our Beneficent Rule, and - in short - it was not easy for the underprivileged Europeans, and the representatives of the Emergent Nations, to identify with her. Our Agent Tsi Kwang commented that she was pleased that the first witness was Chinese, and then "disturbed," for she felt it was "impertinent in a way she couldn't grasp without further analysis." The comment by the unfortunate Benjamin Sherban was: "What a thing a crowd is! A conglomeration of unstable elements, would you say? If the Devil may quote scripture..."
This witness recited, for no more than fifteen minutes, slowly and clearly - as was the style imposed on everyone - the crimes committed by the white races on China, and ended (this was to prove the conclusion or summing up of nearly every witness) "... and were always guilty of insulting and inhuman contempt, and of stupidity, and of ignorance of the Chinese people and our glorious history."
It was by now nearly seven, and the arena was a well of dusk. The tiers were in semi-darkness. Our delegate, having finished, returned to stand with the others in the shadows, as the tiers called applause and clapped. But it was not the tumultuous applause that might have been expected for the first of the "witnesses," and that would have been forthcoming (I say this in a spirit of dispassionate comment) if the first witness had been an American Indian - for instance. No, the emotional temperature had dropped, and this is a conclusion quite inescapable after study of the various agents' reports. And besides, I am writing as the - I hope not altogether unskilled - organiser of a thousand public events.
The torches were then lit. It was done like this: from four different aisles through the tiers were seen descending great flaring lit torches, and under them shadowy figures that turned out to be of different colours, gold, brown, black, and white. They ran with these torches across the arena, inevitably evoking associations of the Olympic games, and similar emotional international occasions from the past, and handed the torches to the children who stood waiting to take them. The children were dressed in the various uniforms of their organisations. They reached up on tiptoe - this detail was mentioned by all the agents, so it clearly made an impression - to put fire to the bundles of reeds that stood out from the arena walls. One after another torches flared up, and illuminated the arena. This little ceremony was watched with great attentiveness. There was a murmur of appreciation. What this murmur meant was interpreted differently by the agents.
The lighting ceremony took some time. Being the first, there were snags. One torch fell from its place, the two children retreated, an older girl leaped down from the tier just above and took charge, inserting the torch again in its sconce, and helping the children to light it, skillfully - and dangerously - using the remains of a torch that had been carried down through the tiers: all this was obviously unpremediated and unorganised, and in tune with the informal atmosphere. Another torch had burned up too bright, and was sending up tongues and wings of flame too close to the people in the rank above, and it had to be brought down, put out, and another put in its place. By the time all this was done, the atmosphere was loose and relaxed, the delegates were chatting to each other, and it was quite dark. It was a hot and dusty dark, and the stars were not strong enough to relieve it. Below, the two opposing groups faced each other. And strong in the wavering and flaring light, was the old white man, sitting quite still, with his two children, white and black, on either side.
The moon came up from a bank of low cloud. I swear this was stage management! It was a half-moon, but brilliant, and Venus was near it. The setting was quite perfect for a Torch Pageant, or Banner Event, or a Dragon Dance.
Nothing happened for a few minutes. It is evident that everyone was silenced by the beauty of the scene, the drama of the arena. Then it was observed that the group on the prosecution side was conferring. Informally. That everything was to be kept informal had been indicated from the start, and then confirmed, and confirmed again. People from both groups had already left them and gone to sit in the tiers, and others had replaced them - a continual coming and going. The first "witness" had made her way back to the Chinese Delegation. Which, incidentally, had been put prominently and distinctively in a bloc in the very best position, low down and halfway between the two groups. This was the only national group which was allotted a special position and marked with a banner - the only one, in other words, to which attention was directed throughout the "Trial."
After a few more minutes of starlight, the rising moon, the ambiguous arena, and, of course, the charming children who were bravely and earnestly attending to the flaring torches - one of the group, but not George Sherban, strolled forward to confer with the accused, and then this person, a girl, shouted up that it was felt by the contenders that the proceedings had been opened, everyone knew how things stood, and people must be tired and hungry, and perhaps it would be a good thing if the Trial should be ended early, just for this one night. Did everybody agree? No one disagreed.
And in that case, she shouted, the meal would be served at nine, for this one evening, and not at twelve, as it would on future nights. She then outlined the plan for the sessions, asked for tolerance, since food had not been obtained easily and would be limited, asked for everyone to be vigilant against looters, and to treat the local people with respect, and emphasised that they would have to "call on reserves of good will and comradely understanding during the coming month which would tax their endurance and patience to the limit."
That this girl was an ordinary delegate, not one of the "stars," and that most people did not know who she was, made a good impression.
The tiers emptied fast, as the delegates found their way in a half-dark. The camp was minimally lit, with hurricane lamps in the mess tents and at their entrances, and outside the latrines, which were tents over pits.