“It would be easier for those who live under their yoke,” she thought, “if they were all evil.”
But no, for every evil white man, she thought, there were a hundred who were only blind, and of the two the blindness was harder to bear. Thus, probing this one with her skillful questions as they walked along the road together, she heard him say, “We have a responsibility to this country.”
When he said the word responsibility, he lifted his head and looked over the greenness of Burma through which the road cleft like a silver sword.
“Why,” she asked, “why do you feel responsible for this country?”
“Because,” he said soberly, “it is part of the Empire.”
“But why the Empire?” she persisted. “Why not let these people have their own country to hold and to rule?”
“One cannot simply throw down a responsibility,” he said gravely. “One has to fulfill it.”
She saw from his honest troubled look that indeed he meant this well and that he felt the weight of duty upon him and upon his own people.
She looked over the green country, too. “It would be a better world for us all,” she said at last, “if you and your kind were not so good.”
He looked at her and stammered as he always stammered when she was too quick for him. “Wh — what’s the meaning of that?”
“We could be free if you did not think it your duty to save us,” she said, her eyes sad and laughing together. “Your duty keeps you master and makes us slave. We cannot escape your goodness. Your honesty will not let us go. One of these days we shall defy your God and then we shall be free.”
“You sound mad,” he said astonished. “Do you know what you are talking about?”
“Not quite,” she said, “not quite, for I’m not talking out of my head but out of my heart. But I feel you such a weight here.” She put her hand on her bosom. “Yes, even just being with you, I feel is a weight on me.”
“I’m sorry for that,” he said, very grave. “I really like you enormously—”
“Which surprises you for you never thought you could like a Chinese,” she said.
He flushed heartily. “I would never have said that,” he said. “It’s simply that one doesn’t expect a Chinese — to—”
“Be wholly human,” she finished.
Now as they had talked they came near to a large town and he being absorbed in what they were saying and she in her thoughts that were as large as the world, they entered the town too carelessly, without seeing what the people were, whether friendly or not. So a young yellow-robed priest saw them first, and he ran secretly to his fellows to tell them that Englishmen had come into the town with women who were Chinese and the most evil thoughts came running up from his words like little flames from coals dropped in dried grass, until in less than an hour, while they sat down at a wayside table to eat and drink, the whole town had turned against them and they did not know it. They sat there on wooden benches in the main street, eating rice and curried vegetables which they had bought, and drinking tea. One moment was all peace and the hot sun shining down over the cloth that was spread above them for shade and the next moment they looked into sullen furious faces gathering around them.
“Why — what the devil?” the Englishman muttered. He leaped to his feet with his gun, and so did the other two men, but Mayli put her hand on his arm and turned the bayonet point down. “You and your guns,” she murmured, “always a gun for the cure to any trouble! Wait, you fool, and let us see what is the matter.”
She searched that crowd for any face that looked Chinese, for often in a town as large as this there was a Chinese merchant, but there was none here. Her heart beat hard once or twice as she thought what she could do in this evil circumstance. Then she said to the Englishman, smiling as she did so into the faces of the mob. “Put down your gun — tell the others to put theirs down. Sit down all of you and go on eating—” This she murmured and unwillingly the men obeyed. Then she held out her hands to the people and showed them empty and bare. She took up a gun, shook her head and put it down. She pointed up the roadway, and signified that they were going on. She took out money and paid the innkeeper for the food. Then she motioned to the others who sat there trying to eat. “Come,” she said, “show no fear. Let us go together as though nothing were wrong.”
Whether it was her calm, whether it was her voice speaking a language which they did not know, whether it was, after all, the three guns which the men had, the people allowed them to pass but they closed in behind them and pressed close while they walked.
Now while this was happening Sheng and his men and the Englishman with them had entered the town from the other side, and they too were coming up this street and they saw this great crowd and halted.
“Is this the enemy?” Sheng asked Charlie, for the crowd was very great and all along the street others were running to join it.
“Let us turn back and go around a side street,” Charlie said, “and come out of the town in a roundabout way and so avoid whatever it is.”
This they did, and a few minutes striding along they were nearer the gate than the others were and they went through and were on the other side. At that very moment they heard a voice shouting in English, “Let’s run for it!”
“I’ll be damned,” that Englishman with Sheng now said when he heard this voice, and he stood still and they all stood still and stared behind them. In a moment they saw the three Englishmen holding the hands of women and running toward them and behind them came a shouting yelling mob, now full of desire for attack. Sheng and those with him stood ready across the middle of the road and they fired their guns full over the heads of those fleeing and over the crowd. At the sound of these guns the Englishmen turned and dropping the hands of the women they too fired over the heads of the crowd, and at this fire the crowd stopped. Not one had a gun and how could they withstand such weapons?
Had they been a hardier people they might have plunged on. But those people were only mischievous and impetuous as children are and they were not hardy and rather than risk death they let these go on and they turned and went back into their town, laughing and full of good spirits as though they had won a victory.
It was only now that Sheng and Mayli had time to see each other, and for one full instant each stood staring at the other and then Mayli forgetting shame ran forward toward him and Pansiao was just behind her.
“Sheng!” she cried, “it is you! And your arm — is it healed?”
“Brother!” Pansiao screamed. “Brother, how did you come here?”
But Sheng, as soon as he saw Mayli and saw the company she was in, was thrown into a turmoil of jealousy. Who were these white men with whom Mayli traveled? And he remembered with sharp pain how easily she talked with white people and how near she was to such foreigners, and he felt the old wall of difference between him and Mayli. He stood still and looked very cold and he put on a false smile and he said, “Are we met again? I see you are with friends. As for my arm, it is healed enough to fight with.”
At this Mayli stopped, too. Here was such folly as she could not imagine. She stamped her foot in the dust of the rough road and she shouted at Sheng, “What do you mean, you Sheng? What are you thinking? How can you speak to me so?”
But Pansiao went up to him and put her hand on his arm and said, “Brother, now that you are here, we can leave these strangers.”
“I am not sure you wish to leave them,” Sheng said with his great eyes full of anger still on Mayli.
Now Mayli was very hot and weary, how weary she did not know until the anger of the mob was over, and suddenly she felt weary enough to lie down in the road where she stood and die. Her lips began to tremble and it was Charlie who saw it and he said to Sheng,