UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES UNIVERSITY of CAL1FOKHA* AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY THE VERMILION PENCIL THE VERMILION PENCIL A ROMANCE OF CHINA BY HOMER LEA NEW YORK THE McCLURE COMPANY MCMVIII Copyright, 1908, by The McClure Company Publithed, March, 1908 Copyright, 1906, by Homer Lea All rights rttrrviJ TS To My Father and to Fred Phillips Tbit Book is Dedicated CONTENTS PAGE PROLOGUE THE TYPHOON 3 BOOK I. A WOMAN CHAPTER I. IN THE VALLEY OF THE FOUNTAIN . . 25 II. THE VICEROY 34 III. THE WIFE . 43 BOOK II. TWO UNKNOWNS I. THE YOUNGER 53 BOOK III. THE BEGINNING I. PRO DEO ET ECCLESIA .... 65 II. THE SCHOLAR 72 III. HOMO! MUTATO! 80 IV. A DRAGON AND THE GROTTO ... 88 V. THE MONSOON 98 VI. A GIFT in VII. DAWN 121 VIII. THE DELUGE FAMILY 128 IX. THE DERELICT 144 X. TWILIGHT 155 XI. NIGHT 172 CONTENTS BOOK IV. THE NEMESIS OF FATE PAGE I. THE WANDERER 185 II. WORD FROM THE UNKNOWN . . .198 III. DAWN AGAIN 205 IV. THE GROTTO OF THE SLEEPLESS DRAGON 211 V. THE PROPITIATION OF THE GODS OF THE WATERS 218 VI. THE PROPITIATION OF THE GODS OF THE WATERS (Continued) .... 238 VII. THE WHITE LAMB AND YELLOW WOLF . 260 VIII. AND So rr ENDED 276 IX. JUDGMENT 291 X. A FRIEND 305 XI. ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACTHANI. . . 314 [vi] PROLOGUE THE TYPHOON FROM the city of Yingching an old road runs northwestward to the mountains of Loh Fou that indescribable mass of grandeur and mystery, in whose gorges unnum- bered monasteries slumber, from whose peaks and cliffs temples gaze benignly down through the somnolent shadows upon the thoughtful pro- geny of Panku the World-Chiseller. This slab- worn road, after it leaves the suburbs clustering around the East Gate of Yingching, follows right- obliquely across the rice-fields to the foot of the White Cloud Hills. To the residents of Yingching these hills have always been a source of delight, and for uncounted ages multitudes have crowded at sunset the towers and pavilions of the city walls to watch their glens and slopes become veiled in a filtering of delicate shades lilac, amethyst and violet, until, through a deep of purple, they vanish into night a flutter- ing of gorgeous shadows. Up over these hills the old road climbs labori- ously until it disappears through a gorge of its own wearing. After crossing the southern slope it winds through deeply wooded ravines in whose [3] PROLOGUE alcoves Buddhist and Taoist monasteries sleep away the fretful ages of man, forming retreats for scholars, who come from Yingching, to escape in their brook-splashed groves the clatter and nagging of men. This ancient highway struggles on through the White Cloud Hills, mutilated, uncertain; past the great monastery of Kingtai below the south- ern summits; past reproachful ruins in whose crumbling shadows solitary monks remain to pro- pitiate the spirits of those that once dwelt in their cloisters; past the Silvery Rush Brook whose foam the banished statesman, Su Tungpa, compared, some centuries ago, to human greatness. Crawling, halting along its deepworn way the old road gropes through gorges, over mountains, across torrents and under the splash of cataracts until it reaches the green, undulating plains of Tsang Tsing. Thence it goes straight through canebrakes, past villages and tombs, under orchards of lichee, past ruins hid beneath creepers and cities old and new. Below the market-town of Chingkwo the ancient way crosses the Lung Mun River, and, entering the mountains of Loh Fou, is untangled into a hundred strand-like paths leading to monasteries that are hidden among the shadows of every gorge, and to temples hung on the shelves of cliffs. One path goes to the Monastery of Fa-Shau, in its deep pit of shrubs and lanwhui; another climbs [4] THE TYPHOON up among boulders and cataracts to the Temple of Wa-Shau, thence three thousand feet higher to the Royal Monastery of Putwan, while yet another threading path goes on a thousand feet above where the Temple of the Moon clings to a mountain peak and whither companies of chanting bonzes go from the monasteries below to offer up prayers when the harvest moon is full. The antiquity of this old road extends back be- yond the records of men, but it is known that, centuries after its trace had been deeply scarred through the White Cloud Hills and across the plains of Tsang Tsing, it was made into a king's highway and paved with granite blocks, eight feet long, two feet broad and often a foot in thickness. Yet the long bare tread has not only eroded them away, but hills have been worn down and canons have been made by these century streams of men's feet, treading to and fro and dwelling by it for so long that their comings and goings are unknown. For babes were born on this way and reared by its trace long before the she-wolf suckled Silvia's twins on the old road by the Tiber's bank. And like the road of Cenis, it has been traversed by armies of different ages; it has resounded with their triumphant march; it has echoed with the furtive footfall of their flight; the pageants of Emperors have passed over it and long files of sighing beggars. [5] PROLOGUE One September afternoon on this old road, past the ruins of Kingtai and near the southern sum- mits of the White Cloud Hills, were seen neither porters nor farmers nor beggars nor the retinues of mandarins. The road was deserted other than by two men climbing slowly to the summit. The sultry heat of the afternoon was choking, and at short intervals the men halted to gain their breath and wipe the perspiration from their faces. An oppressive, nervous lassitude weighed down the air; neither from bush nor tree, from hill- side nor glen, was to be seen or heard a living creature. The two men, approaching the top of the White Cloud Hills, were as silent as their surroundings, and, until they reached the summit, when the Val- ley of the Chu Kiang and the City of Yingching lay below them, they appeared as unconscious of each other's presence as they were apparently oblivious to their surroundings. But when they came to the bare mountain top, the manner of the older man changed; anxiously he scanned the sky, the horizon, the fields and the river below them as if to find in the wide estuary of the Chu Kiang some cause for alarm. Nothing could have been more peaceful or beautiful. The sky was cloudless, the horizon faintly hazy, while the slanting rays of the sun cast a golden sheen upon the great river and the [6] THE TYPHOON rice-fields that extended from it to the hills. These fields, in different shades of green and brown, in- terlaced with canals, were like a great shimmering, silken quilt stitched together by threads of gold. Far eastward, on the left, they merged into banana plantations, orchards of olive and lichee; westward they ended at the edge of the eastern suburbs of Yingching. The city, seen from the summit where the two men stood, appeared a vast expanse of reddish roofs, shaded here and there by groves of banians. A great old wall encircled the old city, but dimmed by distance, its broken merlons were not seen nor the ravages of war, nor the erosions of a thousand years, nor the veiling draperies of maiden-hair fern that hung from the chipped interstices. These huge, aged and lichen-warted walls loomed up black, impregnable. Outside of them the eastern suburbs could be seen extending from under the East Gate obliquely in direction of and along the bank of the river, while the western and southern suburbs were hidden by them. Above the city, on the heights where climbed the northern wall, rose the Great Sea-Guarding Tower. Just south of it, within the walls, was the wooded peak of Yueshan surrounded with the clustering courts and temples of the Goddess of Mercy that many-handed God- dess, who is so great in pity and compassion, sav- ing from misery and from woe, and who is ever [7] PROLOGUE listening to the cries that come up from the world. Below the Temples, near by, in the centre of the city, two pagodas pierce the sky, one round and tapering, the other octagonal. Geomancers squint- ing up at them, say that this city is like a junk; that these two pagodas are her masts and the broad, five-storied tower on the north wall her stern sheets, and that the city is thus sailing southward, toward the island of Honan, which lies on the other side of the river, or beyond where rice-fields shimmer and the sky-line is serrated by low, ragged hills. Here and there over the estuary of the Chu Kiang in the midst of their paddy-fields and orchards, lay walled towns and villages, half hidden under banians, while on the distant river bank, directly opposite the two men, the Lob pagodas point sky- ward, like great fingers, and on their left the pagodas of Wampoa and the Golden Lotus pierce the sky. It was the peace, the dumb, inanimate peace of this scene that alarmed the older man. The river, usually teeming with a vast number and diversity of craft, was deserted other than now and then when a boat crept furtively along its southern bank. The fields were without men or oxen; the city and all the tree-veiled villages, which were scattered about among the fields, were silent, and a thin blue haze hung motionless over them. For some time the two men looked down upon [8] THE TYPHOON the delightful yet ominous panorama spread out beneath them ; the older man troubled and uneasy, but the youth affected in no way, neither by the beauty nor the dumbness of it. When they began to descend the elder left the old road sloping gradually along the hills toward the city, and led the way down by a steep path that, on reaching the level, meandered along the paddy banks in the direction of the river. But before they came to the river's high embankment the sun had set, and as they turned westward along the top of the bank the older man suddenly stopped. Di- rectly over the part of the horizon where the sun had disappeared hung a great halo, the under part of which gleamed red, the top was shrouded in black while between scintillated iridescent colours; below the black lay a cold mottled grey and above the red glowed a pink like the cheek of a young girl. For some moments these colours hung distinctly over the misty horizon then commingled the corpse-grey with the cheek of the maiden and over all, the pall of black. The halo became ashen; wavered vanished. As the youth started to go the older man placed a detaining hand on his shoulder and pointed toward the skyline where buta moment before the halo had hung. Presently from where the sun had sunk were [9] PROLOGUE seen spreading enormous rays of light. Upward they unfolded, stretching finger-like, clear across the sky until they dipped their tips below the east- ern horizon. At first these great fingers shone red as though dyed with blood, then vermilion, chang- ing gradually through all the gold shades to an orange-saffron. When the finger-rays burned red, the intervening spaces were violet; when saffron, the sky was a pale green. The youth watched dreamily these fingers trem- ble, coruscate, and change. " It is God's benediction," he murmured. " Or the Devil's," growled the other. The two men waited until the great crepuscular rays, changing every instant their gorgeous colour- ings, had disappeared, leaving a red diffused light blotting the western sky, while a faint spectral mist crept along the eastern horizon. Troubled, the older man watched this whitish haze creeping along until it covered the eastern sky, then he hastened toward the city and the youth followed meditatively after him. When they reached the edge of the suburbs they found all the field workers, women and oxen passively huddled about their mud-walled dwell- ings. Boatmen had drawn up their sampans and fishing craft high upon the bank. And in the door- ways frightened faces peered uneasily down the [10] THE TYPHOON river while everywhere rustled that restlessness, a fretfulness that is known by its silence. The children alone made their accustomed noises. Nothing could disconcert them. They played tag with Death and cried: "You are it!" As the two men entered the suburbs these chil- dren were in the midst of that bubbling, which marks the end of a day's play. They were having unusual sport. Along the coast of Southern China, among the many warnings that foretell the iron whirlwind's approach none is more peculiar than the actions of dragon-flies, which seem to seek the companion- ship of men. They swarm into villages, fasten themselves on every projection, even lighting on the heads and shoulders of the inhabitants. Chil- dren, regardless of what they portend, seize upon them, and tying strings to their long abdomens, turn them loose amid laughter and cries. It was this easy conquest of the myriad-eyed monsters that aroused their wild mirth as the men ap- proached. The mothers of these gamins were burning in- cense-sticks in stone basins beside their doorways, and sometimes strips of red paper on which were written prayers. In the sampans and fishing boats, women were also making propitiatory offerings the boat's prow serving as an altar. In one place PROLOGUE on the river bank, a party of old leathery boat- women chattered garrulously over a stone slab on which were placed a row of bowls containing rice, fowls, sweets and wine. Near by stood a large paper boat and a basket of miniature boats. One of these old women took two pieces of wood shaped like an half pear and engraved with a number of characters. These she tossed into the air so that they fell before the stone slab. Five times were the symbols cast, then the old women launched the bright-hued paper-boat and set fire to the basket of small boats. The smoke ascended in a straight, unwavering column. Standing by the water's edge, the older man con- tinued to look intently down the river; neither noticing the children at play nor the prayers ascend- ing from the thresholds, nor the offerings of the boatwomen to the gods of the winds and waters. Suddenly a breathless expectancy fell upon those that were waiting and upon those that were sending their prayers heavenward in fragrant smoke. Far away, somewhere to the east and south, came a gentle murmur. At this sound some crowded into their houses; others came forth. Only the children did not heed this murmur, which at times became a moan to cease a sigh. The peo- ple on the water front and along the eastern rim of the suburbs peered over the rice-fields toward Lung Mun and down the river to where it broad- [12] THE TYPHOON ened out into a vast expanse of yellow waters. What they saw filled them with terror. Across the eastern horizon opened an eronmous crack. Many looked into it for an instant then ran and hid themselves in their hovels while those that remained shuddered. This abyss into which they looked commenced several degrees above the horizon; the bottom black, the top ashen; the river, bearing on its mighty current the boat- women's fragile offering, disappeared into it. The crack widened. Awestricken, the people crowded together on the suburb's edge and water front to watch it open. The thin blue stems of sandal-wood smoke, ascending from each doorway shrine, wavered. The sky became overcast. Suddenly the crowd swayed: backward, for- ward, backward, then scrambling, vanished a drop of rain had fallen. For a moment there was twilight, which was ghastly then night, which was impenetrable. A gust blew in from the sea and it was like a blast from a furnace. This sirocco that came from the ocean was the first breath of the typhoon. The elder seizing his companion by the arm pulled him along the narrow streets toward the city. In the blackness they could see nothing but the dying embers of sandal wood dully glowing in spectral clusters by each threshold. These red, [13] PROLOGUE weird eyes peering out into the darkness blinked and grinned joyously. They were friendly with the hot wind and the harder it blew and the more they winked the more they coaxed the two men along the tunnel-like streets. Suddenly the wind ceased and rain began to fall slowly in great drops. One by one the lights of the doorways went out. By their glow it had been possible to distinguish the alignment of the houses, but now what lay before them was cavernous. They were in a black labyrinth of winding streets : some leading into the river, while in the floors of others were wells; some extended a few feet, then ended. Familiar as the older man was with these suburbs, he stumbled along uncertain; the youth lagged. Both were stifling, for the scorching wind had started again with increasing severity, caus- ing them to cover their faces with their silken sleeves. There are winds that freeze, winds that burn, winds that tear and cut, but this wind that pre- cedes the typhoon, chokes. It fills a man's nostrils with so much burning air that he gasps for breath; he staggers, sometimes blood oozes from the eyes and ears, he strikes at the wind, claws the air, starts to run, stumbles and falls to the earth. Skeletons have been found with skulls clasped round in bony arms strangled by this breath of the iron whirlwind. [14] THE TYPHOON The older man, aroused to the danger, stopped, and pounding on a door begged for admittance. There was no answer, and they crouched together on the threshold. Presently the wind began to hesitate, to ebb, then it became quiet. But as they hurried along the black street a sound like a cough fell upon their ears, distant, piteous, wind-torn. They listened, and what they heard was terrible the muttering of a typhoon. Perhaps if the howl of a hell were known, the muttering of the typhoon, though dulled by dis- tance, might be compared to it. As the Great Wind approaches this muttering grows louder and louder until it becomes a gigantic gibber; when at hand, the heavens are filled with multitudinous screams, howls, laughter, moans, and shrieks a stir of sounds that is frightful. The outer whirlwind now seized the men. Sometimes they were picked up by its clutching fingers and hurled forward; again they tried to move and could not; reaching out to see what op- posed them they felt nothing; turning a corner they were often thrown against a wall and glued there as flies. They had made but a short way in their strug- gle when the blackness began to lighten and be- come livid. Everywhere shone a ghastly glimmer, which was more impenetrable than the black night. [15] PROLOGUE With this light the wind and rain increased in violence. Suddenly out of the livid blackness a flame darted: for a moment there was silent hesitancy, then the heavens burst into a conflagration. The typhoon was upon them. Floods now fell from burning clouds and tongues of fire spat out tor- rents. In time, the thick mud walls of the surrounding houses began to collapse, undermined by the water tearing along the narrow streets. Sometimes a wall fell outward and the lightning showed ter- rified families crouching upon the floor; when it flared again there was often only a pile of brick, a heap of shattered tiles. Thus they were driven from the shelter of one doorway to another and as the houses began to fall more frequently, they were kept in the middle of the streets breasting the storm with that strength remained to them. The older man, dragging the youth along by the arm, struggled in the direction of the great city wall under whose sheltering corners they could alone find safety. But to get out of this suburban labyrinth was difficult, doubtful, since its windings were becoming more choked and impass- able by the debris of falling houses. Sometimes they made their way forward only to find the street blocked and themselves exposed to the full [16] THE TYPHOON swish of the storm. They retreated, but even- tually their rear was also choked with houses that had fallen after they had passed and which formed just such a barricade as had turned them back. Hemmed in with houses falling first on one side, then on the other, they stumbled backward and forward in a continually narrowing space. At any moment an overhanging wall might crash into the street and then it would be empty. No one can hope to wholly describe a typhoon, that great wind, which is to the cyclone of the American plains what the tornado is to a little whirlwind adrift down a dusty road. Slaughter as well as destruction marks its path, for the ty- phoon is made up of flames and floods as it is of winds, and what escapes death or ruin from its cy- clonic breath is devoured by its fires or swept away by its torrents. No one hopes in a typhoon, and men flee but a little way from it. Nothing is more frightful than this iron whirl- wind, nothing more wonderful. It has the cunning brutality of the inanimate and its treachery; the bloodthirstiness of some gigantic beast, the gran- deur of God. It is horrible, yet sublime. This monster of nature is born somewhere out of the huge womb of the South Pacific, upon whose bosom it strays aimlessly and recklessly about, romping, wrestling, growing, until it gets into a [17] PROLOGUE temper and buffets its mother, the sea. Becoming cyclopean, it spits at heaven petulant it departs. Like a loosened monster it allows itself every liberty, and wanders with the greatest ease in any path. It sucks up the sea and snatches lightning from the clouds; it fills its belly with floods and its breast with fire. Headlong it falls upon every obstacle; ships become as dust motes in its breath. It devours towns and babies with the same ease, the same glee. It laughs and screeches simultane- ously. It is full of joy and rage at the same time and its joy is the more terrible. Sometimes it gets into traps and difficulties from which it can scarcely extricate itself; then it becomes frantic, shrieks, lingers and mutilates. But in spite of all this gyratory brutality, this iron-toothed monarch of all winds cannot ravage far from the sea, though in its blind rage it never hesitates. Falling upon the coast it hurls ships into rice fields or upon hillsides; the sea front it covers with wrecks ; fishing fleets are crunched into splinters and towns are strewn about as picked bones. So the two struggled feebly against this mon- ster backward and forward in the midst of falling houses, until finally, bruised and bleeding, they tottered into an open court surrounded by high massive walls. Near the centre of the court stood a low crucifix, a tub, and two black stones. Against [18] THE TYPHOON the windward wall was built an open shed, and into this beyond the crucifix they tottered and lay exhausted, while the typhoon raged and destroyed around them. The lightning burned steadily and the noises, which once muttered and cried about them, were lost in the terrifying grind of the iron wind; a wind that picked up great logs like rice straws, and sometimes sent rice straws with such force that they pierced wood as steel needles a wind that in its antics screamed, and in its butchery laughed. The two men under the shed lay still, apparently oblivious to the storm wrack until the older man rose to his knees and began to feel around for his companion. Beside him, lit by the lurid glare from without, were a number of headless corpses, and among these lay the youth. "Where are we?" he asked meditatively when the older man had aroused him. " In the Execution Grounds." "What are these?" "Corpses." " Ah ! their souls may now be witK God." " Or in Hell." The storm was abating; the moans and cries 'from the heavens ceased; the lightning grew less violent. Suddenly all became an absolute calm and the men crept out from among the corpses under the shed. [19] PROLOGUE A faint, uncertain light glimmered in the dark- ness above them; enormous black masses of clouds could be seen rolling close to the earth, but directly overhead was a circle of clear sky, darkly blue, and almost in its very centre shone a star of mar- vellous brilliancy. The youth gazed up at it in gratitude. " It is the Eye of God." The elder also regarded the star, but said nothing. " Let us go," said the youth, " the storm has ended." " Not while the Eye of God is in the heavens." For some time they stood still and silent, watch- ing the low black clouds roll around the clear cir- cle of sky. "What is that?" asked the youth thought- fully, pointing to the low crucifix, the tub and the black stones showing dimly under the pale light that came from the Eye of God overhead. " Lingchee" growled the older man; " on that an adulteress salutes the world and passes on." For a long time both looked meditatively yet intently at the low crucifix, the tub and the black stones beside it. "They tie her naked upon it," growled the elder, more to himself than to the youth, " and then cut her into pieces. The first three cuts are called the strokes of mercy, and are no doubt dedi- [20] THE TYPHOON cated to the many-handed goddess. The first stroke the executioner draws his knife across the brow and a fold of skin drops over the eyes, which is merciful, for it shuts out the sneering faces around her." The elder, looking up, saw that the Eye of God no longer shone in the heavens. Above and around them fell unfathomable darkness. " Then the ears are cut off, which is also merci- ful, for jeers are no longer heard." A wolfish giggle came from the abyss about them; a drop of rain fell and their wet garments flapped heavily. " Her tongue is cut out next," continued the growl in the darkness, " and this is the crowning stroke of mercy, for it stops her piteous cries." Again came an interrupting roar, low and sul- len. The typhoon was near at hand but the older man raised his voice above the distant roar. " Then they cut off her breast, where " Gnashing, grinding, the iron-toothed wind fell again upon the hapless suburbs, revolving in the opposite direction. It is what sailors call the re- turn storm, when its cyclonic revolutions are reversed and the typhoon returns to complete its devastation. Going, the typhoon is a monster; re- turning, it is in addition, a maniac. What it has failed to destroy, it returns to mangle. The ter- rible winds now came from the northwest through [21] PROLOGUE the open side of the court, and the two men were no longer protected. The shed that had sheltered them was shattered by the first returning blast. Helpless and bleeding they were hurled together with the headless corpses into a corner of the court, making altogether a hideous pile but wherein the cadavers protected them from the debris that was hurled into the corner. It often happens that in these storms the dead succour the living. The typhoon continued to shriek and to laugh triumphantly in the black and fiery abyss overhead. It was as if hell had been turned upside down and out of its vast chasm its green fires were being poured and all those bruised noises that are said to resound there. The typhoon was making its departure, which is not less terrible than its coming. Screaming, hover- ing and hastening it makes its retreat; mangling what it has heretofore destroyed. In time it weaken^ and begins to linger, then exhausted it hesitates, stops, and whispers. Frenzied, it again wanders uncontrollably about; revolving always in the same circle and moving whimsically hither and thither until its strength is gradually ex- pended. Quivering, shuddering, whimpering, it at last disappears again into the mother sea a pro- digal returned. [122] BOOK I. A WOMAN CHAPTER ONE IN THE VALLEY OF THE FOUNTAIN JUST south of where the Yangtse River empties into the ocean lies the Province of the Winding Stream venerable and beauti- ful, with a history written back almost to that long hour when the world was yet supposed to be unmade by the hand of God a nebulous vapour adrift in the night. This province is one vast park of alternating hills and valleys, where peaks, cascades, and wood- lands intervene in a fascinating confusion; where walled cities and temples rise majestically on all sides; where canals and watercourses, alive with boats, form a silvery network among fragrant hills and tree-hid hamlets, making it altogether just such a land as the imagination conceives belong- ing alone to the sunlit East. This province is like an endless garden; where- ever the eye reaches is seen not only a luxuriant vegetation but one that has been tended and reared by man for his uses. Patches of pink orchard blossoms alternate with grey thickets of mulberry; clumps of feathery bamboo flutter as plumes by the edges of rice fields; plane trees with their [25] THE VERMILION PENCIL snowy blossoms alternate with orchards of pumelo, while along the lower hills, forming wide and densely shaded tracts, spread groves of silvery olive and lichee with delicate pink leaves and strawberry-like fruit. Throughout all of these hills and orchards wind rivers, brooks, and canals, overspanned at short intervals by high curved bridges of stone. Under their arches innumerable boats glide from dawn until night. In some places the country is covered with tea plantations, and from each willow- whipped cottage rises the fragrant breath of burn- ing tea. Here and there on hills thick with cypress and pine are seen the carved gleaming roofs of temples, while on the paths leading to them every crag and turn has its miniature pagodas and grot- toes. Again, the hills in many places are covered with groves of oil-bearing camelias, whose grace- ful shape and dark green foliage add an indescrib- able charm to the landscape. But Che Kiang is not more famous for the charm of its countryside than it is for the beauty of the women, who dwell among its hills and valleys, working in the midst of their tea shrubs, rearing cocoons, spinning silk; and are no more thought of than the azaleas that brighten the hillsides or the purple lanwhui that scatters its perfume on the bosom of the careless passing winds. In the Tien Mu Mountains, toward the southwestern [26] IN THE VALLEY OF THE FOUNTAIN part of the province, these women have a peculiar hauteur and independence of their own, a vivacity and laughter, which is found nowhere else in China. It was among these mountains and forests of the Tien Mii Shan that that tireless spider, Fate, set to weaving one of its innumerable webs of in- visible strands: a net fragile yet terrible. Unseen or half seen, a spirit-glint in the azure heavens, it is a barrier through which and from which the little man-fly never breaks. So the spider webbed in the Valley of the Fountain, and before this net is finally torn and shattered by the bluster of Time there shall be found in it those that did not know of its weaving. One spring morning, probably about the same hour when a melancholy Breton and an unknown priest were setting out from the Mission of Ying- ching upon their errands of mercy, a mandarin's retinue moved slowly along the Tien Mu Moun- tains and before the night mists had entirely cleared away the path brought them to the upper heights of a small glade, known as the Valley of the Fountain. Around this vale the rugged t broken mountains were clothed in trees of various sorts. The bright golden leaves of the camphor and amber mingled with the purple foliage of the tallow, while over these rose the deep soft green of pine and arbor vitae. As the sun rose and sent its broadening beams I*?} THE VERMILION PENCIL down into the purple Valley of the Fountain the lower mountain sides became a gorgeous mass of red and yellow azaleas; on every hillbank where- ever the eye could reach spread a flower mantle of dazzling brightness. From the valley came the fragrance of tea; from the ravines, the breath of lilies and lanwhui. As the retinue moved slowly down the tortuous path there rose from a thicket of tea shrubs on a round slope to the right an outburst of song not unlike that of the mocking bird in its sweet inten- sity and freedom but vibrant with the melody of human passion. And, as this wild song rose with supreme impulse and passion above the tea thicket, the mandarin's retinue stopped. Never was an auditorium more suitable to song than this amphitheatre of flower-packed hills that surrounded the Valley of the Fountain. The sun's rays were just stealing through a purple haze and turning the dew, which lay heavy upon the flowers into myriads of opals; the murmur of ra- vine-hidden cascades, the chorus of bird-song in the still-aired morning, all seemed but part of the song that rose from the tea thicket. This tempestuous outburst made the hills ring with its echoes, calling, scorning, pleading, threatening; now bubbling like the wood-warbler with cadences of silvery notes; now rising, exultant as the nightlark, to the ear of heaven; triumphant, declamatory, beseeching, full [28] IN THE VALLEY OF THE FOUNTAIN of defiance, of mockery and laughter until at last it ceased, dying away among the neighbouring gorges, as soft as a kiss. "What was that?" demanded the mandarin excitedly, putting his head out of the sedan. " That is Ma Shue's daughter," said several voices at once, "the girl with a tongue of a hun- dred spirits." " On with you and stop your chattering," cried the mandarin. Ma Shue, the old farmer of the Valley, stood watching from the door of his rice-thatched cot- tage the procession winding down the mountain path. "Where is she?" demanded the mandarin, stepping hastily from his chair. " How greatly honoured is my poor and miser- able abode," murmured the old farmer, bowing repeatedly. "Where is she?" demanded the mandarin again, as he peeped about the corners of the cot- tage and through the open door. " I am ashamed to set before your honourable self the wretched food we live upon," apologised the old man as he followed at the heels of the mandarin. " Go get her," commanded the mandarin im- patiently as he peered into the cottage. " Yes, yes," murmured the farmer hastily, " but [29] THE VERMILION PENCIL for the poor our food is not sufficient; how can it be tasted by " "What are you talking about, old coxcomb? Have you not a daughter? " "Alas, Great Sir, it is true, I have been un- fortunate " " Go get her at once, at once," interrupted the mandarin excitedly. " How can I, how can I ? " asked the old man, bowing with trepidation. " How can you ? " mocked the mandarin scorn- fully. " How can you ? Because I ordered it. I, Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank." And Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, scowling with dignity, stepped back and folded his hands majes- tically on his stomach. When the farmer returned he bowed mutely before the mandarin. "Well?" he demanded. " I told her; yes, yes," cried Ma Shue, " she is coming." "When?" " She said," and the old farmer looked uneasily at the feet of the mandarin, " she said " "Well?" " When she got ready " It was a long time before a soft patter was heard in an adjoining room whence came low, amused laughter; then a light flutter of garments, [30] IN THE VALLEY OF THE FOUNTAIN and the tea-farmer's daughter entered. Cast- ing a hasty glance at the mandarin she turned her back on him with a haughty but almost imper- ceptible toss of her head. For some moments the mandarin looked at her in astonishment, yet with intense satisfaction. " Maid." " Man." The mandarin started, his eyes opened to the utmost of their narrow width and he glared at the old man shivering in his chair. "Did I not hear you singing this morning?" he demanded severely. " Your knowledge should be greater than mine," she replied coldly. "Were you singing?" " I am always singing." "Were you not in a tea-thicket?" " I should be at my work now." " Then it is settled. I heard you singing. You see I am quick in my judgment as well as sagacious. Will you sing for me ? " "Sing for you?" she repeated in soft, amazed tones. "Sing for you? Why?" " I am Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank " " I never sing for mandarins," she interrupted decisively. "What?" THE VERMILION PENCIL " My song," she replied in cold, careless tones, " is for the birds and tea-pickers of the Valley, but not for wolves or tigers of the Yamen." The mandarin became rigid; the old father's pipe fell from his hand and the daughter, cast- ing a fleeting glance at him continued, her voice becoming suddenly gentle and humble : " But your coming down into our valley is as the turning of raindrops into pearls." The mandarin's countenance beamed with pleasure. " By my Fifth Button," he exclaimed, " I be- lieve you could be taught something." " I am afraid it is impossible," she murmured contritely. "Never! You allow these rustics " and Ho Ling glared his challenge around the room. " Yes," she continued meditatively as she turned her head slightly toward him, " a shrub may appear lofty in the desert and a tea-plant among the tea-plants is not small but," she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, " I am only a fragile weed in the shadow of the luxuriant pine." " Yes, it is true," he replied, settling back in his chair with supreme satisfaction. " It is true. I am Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank." The farmer's daughter with unconscious coquet- tishness turned her head slightly toward him so [32] IN THE VALLEY OF THE FOUNTAIN the rose brown of her cheek and her full lustrous eye were visible. Suddenly, in the midst of the mandarin's self- contemplation, a chime of laughter pealed through the room. Tossing her head, the child of the Tien Mu Mountains glanced roguishly at the astounded mandarin and darted laughing through the door- way. Again and again came the birdlike notes, until in the distance they ceased in a silvery echo. " Call her! " shouted the mandarin, rushing to the door. The old man bowed excitedly. "Call her! Get her!" cried the mandarin, turning fiercely on the old farmer. "What can I do?" he mumbled pathet- ically. " She is gone. You do not understand, she moves as the kin deer, she is as wild as the pheasant." The mandarin returned to the doorway and re- mained for a long time in moody silence. Pres- ently he turned to the farmer. " Let it be known that Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, will depart." And the old man skipped gleefully from the room. [33] CHAPTER TWO THE VICEROY HANGCHAU, the capital of Che Kiang, rests haughtily upon its hills in full view of the ocean. Its granite walls, more than thirty miles in circumference, higher than a four-storied building and wide enough on top for four vehicles to drive abreast, extend north from the river Tsien toward a vast plain that stretches out an unending garden threaded with a thousand strands of silvery waterways. South of the city along the blue waters of the bay is another mighty garden spotted with clumps of trees, covered with luxuriant crops and villages nestling in groves of feathery bamboo; westward is the lake of Si Hu, and beyond, a wide amphitheatre of wooded hills and mountains. Hangchau, like Che Kiang, has an antiquity of its own and though it stands to-day one of the world's great cities, so it has stood for innumerable ages, more or less, in the manner Marco Polo saw it in the thirteenth century, " pre-eminent to all other cities in the world in point of grandeur and beauty as well as from its abundant delights." In that uncertain antique age when Babylon [34] THE VICEROY rested securely within its hundred-mile wall pierced by eighty brazen gates; when the massive town of Troy frowned down upon the troubled waters of the Xanthus, and Darius peered anxiously from Persepolis across the plains of Merdueth, even then was Hangchau a city. And now while Baby- lon is but a mud-mound on the willow-fringed banks of the Euphrates, Troy a myth, and jackals come forth when the moon is high to howl where once kings commanded yet Hangchau lives, thrives, and is great. Another wonder of Hangchau other than its antiquity and greatness is the Lake of Si Hu, a lake transparent as a diamond, its brilliant surface gleaming and fluttering amongst dark green hills for many miles in irregular circuit. On the north, west, and southwest rise picturesque mountains whose slopes along the lake's edge are laid out in groves and gardens, beautiful though fantastic; having here and there temples, palaces and pa- godas, while numbers of fanciful stone bridges are thrown across the arms that reach out among the hills. About over the waters great numbers of barges gaily decorated, sail to and fro, the passen- gers dining, smoking and enjoying the breezes which blow down from the higher mountains, as well as the gay scenes, the whimsical gardens, palaces, pagodas, and overhanging groves. This lake, so like a jewel in its brilliancy, is [35] THE VERMILION PENCIL studded with innumerable islands adorned with palaces and temples and on one of the larger islands, near the north shore, is a viceregal palace used as a suburban dwelling by the Viceroy of Chukiang. One spring afternoon, when the pink petals lay strewn about, the Viceroy sat in the sun on a marble terrace thoughtfully munching his melon seeds, occasionally throwing one to the goldfish and turtles that crowded toward the terrace bank, snuffling, flopping but impatient to be fed. On a high ebony table beside his pipe and tea bowl lay a package of papers and at intervals the Viceroy re- perused some part of their contents, then placidly resumed his melon seeds, gazing over the lake to the hills bright in their spring foliage, to the slopes pink with blossoms, to the lake's edge, fringed with the feathery bamboo. The shadow of a wutung tree slowly creeping across the ter- race passed over the table and, hiding his bare grey head from the warm rays of the spring sun, aroused him from his meditation ; again he looked over the papers then raised his hand. In a moment Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, came from an adjoining pavilion and bowed before him. " I have read these reports," said the Viceroy gruffly, decisively tapping the package of papers. " They are guilty, and to-morrow shall die." [36] THE VICEROY The mandarin bowed. "Justice," continued the Viceroy, cellent thing when not delayed; to put off the punishment of the guilty is to destroy the dignity of the state a procrastinating Justice is the buf- foon of the populace. Do you understand? " And squinting his eyes, the Viceroy surveyed inquisi- tively the mandarin, who bowed repeatedly, un- easily. " You were one day late." The mandarin continued bowing. " Well ! " demanded the Viceroy, impatiently tapping the papers that were spread upon his knees. I stopped " " Yes? " interrupted the Viceroy. " I could not get " " Eh.? " The mandarin bowed fervidly. "Where did you stop?" " In the Heavenly Mountains," he answered furtively. " In the mountains? " The Viceroy uttered these three words weigh- ingly. " That is in a little valley a very little valley." " Ah," and for a moment the Viceroy looked at him in silence. "What valley?" [37] THE VERMILION PENCIL The mandarin became became sallow. " My poor memory " " I will call your escort." " When I think of it," put in the mandarin hastily and with trepidation, " the name comes to me it is the Valley of a Fountain." "Why?" " Great Sir," answered the mandarin with an excited burst of confidence, " I am to marry the daughter of this valley." "Ah?" A sympathetic inquisitiveness was in the Viceroy's voice. " I suppose you will now want a leave of absence? " The mandarin's face became suffused with joy. Nothing could have prevented him from bowing repeatedly. " Well," commanded the Viceroy impatiently, " this only daughter, is she well dowered? " " Great Sir, I do not know; I do not care ! " he cried excitedly. " What ! " demanded the Viceroy, peering at him in amazement. " O Great Sir, if you could but see her you would understand that she is richer than wealth itself; it you could but hear her you would under- stand how my desires are as spring freshets surg- ing against Time's wintry constraint " "Ah?" The Viceroy uttered this with a great depth of feeling. [38] THE VICEROY " Yes, yes," went on the mandarin hurriedly, never lifting his eyes from the floor, " Fate, the Judge, decreed it, and Fate, the Jailor, pulled me into it. As I was passing along a mountain path, suddenly from out of the tea-shrubs came sweeter music than the song of the phoenix the Song of Fate. My escort stopped and I was unable to make them amble onward. I can now understand how the flute of Liang Kiang stole away the courage of eight thousand men. My escort stood breathless while in vain I blustered and threat- ened. I was obliged to send a horseman to find out the source of the song and I found the phoenix-singer to be a girl living in the valley. My escort became mutinous, then like a gleam of sun- light shafted through a black rebellious storm flashed the thought of gain for Your Excellency a musician rarer than any in the Middle King- dom and it determined me to go down in the glade. " When the girl's father learned that I was Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, he told me confidentially confidentially, that is the way it was that his daughter lingered in the outer room tearful to see the hem of my robe. So I admitted her thinking that I might be of great service to Your Excellency. When she bowed down before me she trembled with delight " "What was her appearance?" demanded the [39] THE VERMILION PENCIL Viceroy, interrupting the mandarin's breathless monologue. " O Great Sir, if I had all the wisdom of nine times the Nine Classics I could not describe her. She is not beautiful in the manner of the women of Hangchau. Her big eyes are round like those of 'oxen, but charged with most unoxen fires. She does not dainty along with golden lilied feet as the women here, but ankled as the kin deer and winged as the wild pheasant, she derides the very rocks and mountains. Her cheeks of almond flower the jealous sun has lacquered over with ruddy gold and her pouting lips are so pent full of ruby blood that they would turn the honestest man into a thief if he could but perform the sub- tle theft of gaining them. "And yet, Great Sir, I do not know whether you would have called her beautiful or not before I conquered her, for she had somewhat of the devil in her." "You conquered her?" demanded the Viceroy, eying him doubtfully. " Yes," replied the mandarin, scowling proudly into the tree tops. " I conquered her, but not more by my personality than by stratagem for, as Your Excellency well knows, I am not unskilled in that contentious art." "So you captured her?" queried the Viceroy again, somewhat sarcastically. [40] THE VICEROY " Yes, she came haughtily into my pres- ence " "And kissed the hem of your robe?" inter- rupted the Viceroy. " Exactly, exactly, a figure of speech ; I have renamed her humility haughtiness. But in con- tinuation, when she beheld me and heard me speak in fluent familiarity the wisdom of the ancients, her rebellious, warring heart sent at once through every dainty vein its bold scouts that for them- selves did redly dare the combat. Her eyes be- came a perfect arsenal and the arched bow of her lips shot from some inexhaustible quiver shafts divinely smeared with a poppy that would lull into dreams the most valorously inclined defence. " Ah, it would have done Your Excellency a world of good if you could but have seen how her eyes, her lips, and even the shy little dimples, which hid in her cheeks and chin, contended as jealous allies, each first to make a breach in the hitherto impregnable fortress of my heart. " But like a wise general, I simulated dismay, abandoned my outer works, and retreated to the keep. Straightway the jealous allies scaled the walls. I opened the inner gates and they, sur- charged and petulant with fancied victory, rushed in. There was a momentary struggle, then she yielded, and now remains a willing captive in the very donjon of my heart." THE VERMILION PENCIL For some time the Viceroy eyed the mandarin in a manner unappreciative and in no way to his liking. "Ho Ling!" The mandarin started violently. " You are still an ass." [42] CHAPTER THREE THE WIFE A Destiny fated it, the Viceroy himself mar- ried, that summer, the daughter of the tea-farmer and not Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank. More than a year had passed since the Vice- roy had married this farmer's daughter from the Valley of the Fountain, which extraordinary event had been duly commented upon by the gentry of Hangchau and had been forgotten. But with the Viceroy it was different. Though many months had mysteriously vanished he was still an uneasy bridegroom unable in any degree to resume that tranquil state he had enjoyed years before. " Tranquillity of the spirits," said a guest one day, " is the culmination of a scholar's life ; it is the essence of propriety; the golden mean between the heart and the mind." " Undoubtedly, undoubtedly," replied the Vice- roy gruffly, " but there is no happiness in it." So the Viceroy, while by no means tranquil, was happy. And though a year had rushed hastily away, he still paced restlessly back and forth be- [43] THE VERMILION PENCIL fore a richly carved screen; waiting, frowning, biting his under lip. Suddenly stopping in his impatient pacing, he clapped his hands and an old woman timidly entered. "Is she coming?" he demanded in a voice of mingled anxiety and doubt. " Great Sir, she will be here in just " "Get out! I will not tolerate this any longer; not another " A soft, tinkling laugh from behind the screen caused him to turn, startled, uneasy; a gentle rustle and the tea-farmer's daughter entered. The deer-like freedom of her home was altered; she came slowly into the room with graceful but restrained hauteur. Her rich, brown skin was now white as an almond petal; in her cheeks wavered a transparent pink but her lips were as red as ever and her eyes shone with the same liquid brightness. Bowing, she said mockingly, u Most impatient and ungentle Great Sir, you are angry at my delay?" " No, no, just bothersome dispatches " " Indeed ! then I shall leave you to consider them in peace." Tossing her head she turned to leave the room. "Just a moment! Just a moment!" cried the [44] THE WIFE Viceroy hastily. She stopped with her back to him. " I have a necklace of pearls." " Yes? " she inquired carelessly. "You wish it?" She could hear the pearls trickling through his fingers. "Ah, do you not admire it?" " I have not seen it," she answered curtly. " I am seated on the divan here." " I am standing by the door." " Are you not going to take these pearls? " " Are you not going to bring them to me ? " The Viceroy got up, hesitated, then came and stood beside her. She held out her hand and he wrapped the necklace around her palm and wrist, while a childish happiness dimpled her cheeks as she admired and fondled the gold-strung baubles from the sea. " They would be most beautiful," she said, look- ing up at him with a smile that brought a flush to his face, " did not the jewelled kindness that sug- gested them dim their brilliancy." " Eh? Yes, yes," his Excellency bowed. " Pearls are a very worthy jewel unfortunate women have not their attributes " "What are they?" she demanded, throwing back her head. " Why, why, Time's incrustations " [45] THE VERMILION PENCIL " Yes? " she inquired, with such a mocking chill in her voice that it caused him to lower his eyes. " Yes," she repeated, walking over to a table where an inkstone lay, " it is quite true that what Time adds yearly to the pearl, it steals from a woman's cheek but," she put the pearls in the wet ink and with the tip of her tiny forefinger rubbed them around and around until they were but a blackened mass, " you see," she continued naively, " that they are alike in a way." "Isn't it strange?" she murmured, still rub- bing her little finger tip among the blackened jew- els. " Isn't it strange?" The Viceroy stood immovable, while a net- work of purple veins began to spread across his face. The wife's hands rested for a moment on his shoulders, then seizing his ears, pulled him down into a chair. "You are not angry?" she said consolingly. The Viceroy looked up at her reproachfully. " I know it was very wrong," she said with con- trition. He eyed her questioningly. . " Do you think," she frowned and her tones be- came threatening, " that my father did not teach me gratitude?" " Yes, yes," answered the Viceroy hastily. " Yes; economy is a woman's highest virtue " [46] THE WIFE "Economy in what?" she demanded, straight- ening up and looking down at him coldly. He moved restlessly and tried to say some- thing. " Money! " she repeated with scorn. "I knew you would say that! Money! Oyah! A pool of filth where men are defiled and drowned bah ! " She stamped her little foot fretfully, and threw the pearls on the floor. "Would you let wealth all run away?" he asked pathetically. " Does not a running stream irrigate more fields than a pond? Is there not more purity in a brook than in a stagnant pool?" His Excellency sighed deeply. "Why don't you learn other economy?" She leaned over him, pouting her red lips like a teas- ing child. " Why don't you be economical of punishments, wasteful of mercy, and treat greed as a rogue? Because, my husband," and taking hold of his ears, she tilted his head back, " I think whoever is a miser in punishments and a spend- thrift of compassion, not only hoards up inestima- ble treasure, but practises the economy of heaven." " That is true," mumbled the Viceroy, thickly, "very " " It is not! " she interrupted, letting go his ears and stamping her foot. "Not true?" [47] THE VERMILION PENCIL " It never happens." " That is so," replied the Viceroy in a relieved tone. "It is not!" What " " Because you could make it so if you wished." Speaking these words in half whispering tender tones, she again took hold of his ears and looked down into his eyes, serious, begging. " Will you promise me not to have any more prisoners beheaded this week?" " Again ! " " Will you promise? " she pulled harder on his ears. " But but " "Promise I" " Yes." " And you will send away that thin, wicked lictor?" " Eh ? Yes, yes ; he is a rogue." " And you will rebuild the hospital at Ho Yong?"