CHAPTER XVIII. THE DREAM OF SIN SIN WA
For a habitual opium-smoker to abstain when the fumes of chandu actuallyreach his nostrils is a feat of will-power difficult adequately toappraise. An ordinary tobacco smoker cannot remain for long among thosewho are enjoying the fragrant weed without catching the infection andbeginning to smoke also. Twice to redouble the lure of my lady Nicotinewould be but loosely to estimate the seductiveness of the Spirit of thePoppy; yet Sir Lucien Pyne smoked one pipe with Mrs. Sin, and perceivingher to be already in a state of dreamy abstraction, loaded a second, butin his own case with a fragment of cigarette stump which smouldered in atray upon the table. His was that rare type of character whose possessorremains master of his vices.
Following the fourth pipe--Pyne, after the second, had ceased to troubleto repeat his feat of legerdemain, "The sleep" claimed Mrs. Sin. Herlanguorous eyes closed, and her face assumed that rapt expressionof Buddha-like beatitude which Rita had observed at Kilfane's flat.According to some scientific works on the subject, sleep is notinvariably induced in the case of Europeans by the use of chandu.Loosely, this is true. But this type of European never becomes anhabitue; the habitue always sleeps. That dream-world to which opiumalone holds the key becomes the real world "for the delights of whichthe smoker gladly resigns all mundane interests." The exiled Chinamanreturns again to the sampan of his boyhood, floating joyously on thewaters of some willow-lined canal; the Malay hears once more the mysticwhispering in the mangrove swamps, or scents the fragrance of nutmeg andcinnamon in the far-off golden Chersonese. Mrs. Sin doubtless lived anewthe triumphs of earlier days in Buenos Ayres, when she had been La BelleLola, the greatly beloved, and before she had met and married Sin SinWa. Gives much, but claims all, and he who would open the poppy-gatesmust close the door of ambition and bid farewell to manhood.
Sir Lucien stood looking at the woman, and although one pipe hadaffected him but slightly, his imagination momentarily ran riot and apageant of his life swept before him, so that his jaw grew hard and grimand he clenched his hands convulsively. An unbroken stillness prevailedin the opium-house of Sin Sin Wa.
Recovering from his fit of abstraction, Pyne, casting a final keenglance at the sleeper, walked out of the room. He looked along thecarpeted corridor in the direction of the cubicles, paused, and thenopened the heavy door masking the recess behind the cupboard. Nextopening the false back of the cupboard, he passed through to thelumber-room beyond, and partly closed the second door.
He descended the stair and went along the passage; but ere he reachedthe door of the room on the ground floor:
"Hello! hello! Sin Sin! Sin Sin Wa!" croaked the raven. "Number onep'lice chop, lo!" The note of a police whistle followed, rendered withuncanny fidelity.
Pyne entered the room. It presented the same aspect as when he had leftit. The ship's lantern stood upon the table, and Sin Sin Wa sat upon thetea-chest, the great black bird perched on his shoulder. The fire in thestove had burned lower, and its downcast glow revealed less mercilesslythe dirty condition of the floor. Otherwise no one, nothing, seemed tohave been disturbed. Pyne leaned against the doorpost, taking out andlighting a cigarette. The eye of Sin Sin Wa glanced sideways at him.
"Well, Sin Sin," said Sir Lucien, dropping a match and extinguishing itunder his foot, "you see I am not smoking tonight."
"No smokee," murmured the Chinaman. "Velly good stuff."
"Yes, the stuff is all right, Sin."
"Number one proper," crooned Sin Sin Wa, and relapsed into smilingsilence.
"Number one p'lice," croaked the raven sleepily. "Smartest--" He evenattempted the castanets imitation, but was overcome by drowsiness.
For a while Sir Lucien stood watching the singular pair and smiling inhis ironical fashion. The motive which had prompted him to leave theneighboring house and to seek the companionship of Sin Sin Wa was soobscure and belonged so peculiarly to the superdelicacies of chivalry,that already he was laughing at himself. But, nevertheless, in thishouse and not in its secret annex of a Hundred Raptures he designed tospend the night. Presently:
"Hon'lable p'lice patrol come 'long plenty soon," murmured Sin Sin Wa.
"Indeed?" said Sir Lucien, glancing at his wristwatch. "The door is openabove."
Sin Sin Wa raised one yellow forefinger, without moving either hand fromthe knee upon which it rested, and shook it slightly to and fro.
"Allee lightee," he murmured. "No bhobbery. Allee peaceful fellers."
"Will they want to come in?"
"Wantchee dlink," replied Sin Sin Wa.
"Oh, I see. If I go out into the passage it will be all right?"
"Allee lightee."
Even as he softly crooned the words came a heavy squelch of rubbers uponthe wet pavement outside, followed by a rapping on the door. Sin Sin Waglanced aside at Sir Lucien, and the latter immediately withdrew,partly closing the door. The Chinaman shuffled across and admitted twoconstables. The raven, remaining perched upon his shoulder, shrieked,"Smartest leg in Buenos Ayres," and, fully awakened, rattled invisiblecastanets.
The police strode into the stuffy little room without ceremony, a pairof burly fellows, fresh-complexioned, and genial as men are wont to bewho have reached a welcome resting-place on a damp and cheerless night.They stood by the stove, warming their hands; and one of them stooped,took up the little poker, and stirred the embers to a brighter glow.
"Been havin' a pipe, Sin?" he asked, winking at his companion. "I cansmell something like opium!"
"No smokee opium," murmured Sin Sin Wa complacently. "Smokee Woodbine."
"Ho, ho!" laughed the other constable. "I don't think."
"You likee tly one piecee pipee one time?" inquired the Chinaman."Gotchee fliend makee smokee."
The man who had poked the fire slapped his companion on the back.
"Now's your chance, Jim!" he cried. "You always said you'd like to havea cut at it."
"H'm!" muttered the other. "A 'double' o' that fifteen over-proofJamaica of yours, Sin, would hit me in a tender spot tonight."
"Lum?" murmured Sin Sin blandly. "No hate got."
He resumed his seat on the tea-chest, and the raven muttered sleepily,"Sin Sin--Sin."
"H'm!" repeated the constable.
He raised the skirt of his heavy top-coat, and from his trouser-pocketdrew out a leather purse. The eye of Sin Sin Wa remained fixed upona distant corner of the room. From the purse the constable took ashilling, ringing it loudly upon the table.
"Double rum, miss, please!" he said, facetiously. "There's no treasonallowed nowadays, so my pal's--"
"I stood yours last night Jim, anyway!" cried the other, grinning. "Goon, stump up!"
Jim rang a second shilling on the table.
"Two double rums!" he called.
Sin Sin Wa reached a long arm into the little cupboard beside him andwithdrew a bottle and a glass. Leaning forward he placed bottle andglass on the table, and adroitly swept the coins into his yellow palm.
"Number one p'lice chop," croaked the raven.
"You're right, old bird!" said Jim, pouring out a stiff peg of thespirit and disposing of it at a draught. "We should freeze to death onthis blasted riverside beat if it wasn't for Sin Sin."
He measured out a second portion for his companion, and the latter drankthe raw spirit off as though it had been ale, replaced the glass on thetable, and having adjusted his belt and lantern in that characteristicway which belongs exclusively to members of the Metropolitan PoliceForce, turned and departed.
"Good night, Sin," he said, opening the door.
"So-long," murmured the Chinaman.
"Good night, old bird," cried Jim, following his colleague.
"So-long."
The door closed, and Sin Sin Wa, shuffling across, rebolted it. As SirLucien came out from his hiding-place Sin Sin Wa returned to his seaton the tea-chest, first putting the glass, unwashed, and the rum bottleback in the cupboard.
To the ordinary observer the Chinaman presents an inscrutab
le mystery.His seemingly unemotional character and his racial inability to expresshis thoughts intelligibly in any European tongue stamp him as a creatureapart, and one whom many are prone erroneously to classify very low inthe human scale and not far above the ape. Sir Lucien usually spoke toSin Sin Wa in English, and the other replied in that weird jargon knownas "pidgin." But the silly Sin Wa who murmured gibberish and the Sin SinWa who could converse upon many and curious subjects in his own languagewere two different beings--as Sir Lucien was aware. Now, as the one-eyedChinaman resumed his seat and the one-eyed raven sank into slumber,Pyne suddenly spoke in Chinese, a tongue which he understood as it isunderstood by few Englishmen; that strange, sibilant speech which isalien from all Western conceptions of oral intercourse as the Chineseinstitutions and ideals are alien from those of the rest of thecivilized world.
"So you make a profit on your rum, Sin Sin Wa," he said ironically, "atthe same time that you keep in the good graces of the police?"
Sin Sin Wa's expression underwent a subtle change at the sound of hisnative language. He moved his hands and became slightly animated.
"A great people of the West, most honorable sir," he replied in thepure mandarin dialect, "claim credit for having said that 'business isbusiness.' Yet he who thus expressed himself was a Chinaman."
"You surprise me."
"The wise man must often find occasion for surprise most honorable sir."
Sir Lucien lighted a cigarette.
"I sometimes wonder, Sin Sin Wa," he said slowly, "what your aim in lifecan be. Your father was neither a ship's carpenter nor a shopkeeper.This I know. Your age I do not know and cannot guess, but you are nolonger young. You covet wealth. For what purpose, Sin Sin Wa?"
Standing behind the Chinaman, Sir Lucien's dark face, since he made noeffort to hide his feelings, revealed the fact that he attached to thisseemingly abstract discussion a greater importance than his tone ofvoice might have led one to suppose. Sin Sin Wa remained silent for sometime, then:
"Most honorable sir," he replied, "when I have smoked the opium, beforemy eyes--for in dreams I have two--a certain picture arises. It isthat of a farm in the province of Ho-Nan. Beyond the farm stretchpaddy-fields as far as one can see. Men and women and boys and girlsmove about the farm, happy in their labors, and far, far away dwell themountain gods, who send the great Yellow River sweeping down through thevalleys where the poppy is in bloom. It is to possess that farm, mosthonorable sir, and those paddy-fields that I covet wealth."
"And in spite of the opium which you consume, you have never lost sightof this ideal?"
"Never."
"But--your wife?"
Sin Sin Wa performed a curious shrugging movement, peculiarly racial.
"A man may not always have the same wife," he replied cryptically. "Thehonorable wife who now attends to my requirements, laboring unselfishlyin my miserable house and scorning the love of other men as she hasalways done--and as an honorable and upright woman is expected todo--may one day be gathered to her ancestors. A man never knows. Or shemay leave me. I am not a good husband. It may be that some little maidenof Ho-Nan, mild-eyed like the musk-deer and modest and tender, willconsent to minister to my old age. Who knows?"
Sir Lucien blew a thick cloud of tobacco smoke into the room, and:
"She will never love you, Sin Sin Wa," he said, almost sadly. "She willcome to your house only to cheat you."
Sin Sin Wa repeated the eloquent shrug.
"We have a saying in Ho-Nan, most honorable sir," he answered, "and itis this: 'He who has tasted the poppy-cup has nothing to ask of love.'She will cook for me, this little one, and stroke my brow when I amweary, and light my pipe. My eye will rest upon her with pleasure. It isall I ask."
There came a soft rapping on the outer door--three raps, a pause, andthen two raps. The raven opened his beady eye.
"Sin Sin Wa," he croaked, "number one p'lice chop, lo!"
Sin Sin Wa glanced aside at Sir Lucien.
"The traffic. A consignment of opium," he said. "Sam Tuk calls."
Sir Lucien consulted his watch, and:
"I should like to go with you, Sin Sin Wa," he said. "Would it be safeto leave the house--with the upper door unlocked?"
Sin Sin Wa glanced at him again.
"All are sleeping, most honorable sir?"
"All."
"I will lock the room above and the outer door. It is safe."
He raised a yellow hand, and the raven stepped sedately from hisshoulder on to his wrist.
"Come, Tling-a-Ling," crooned Sin Sin Wa, "you go to bed, my littleblack friend, and one day you, too, shall see the paddy-fields ofHo-Nan."
Opening the useful cupboard, he stooped, and in hopped the raven. SinSin Wa closed the cupboard, and stepped out into the passage.
"I will bring you a coat and a cap and scarf," he said. "Yourmagnificent apparel would be out of place among the low pigs who waitin my other disgusting cellar to rob me. Forgive my improper absence forone moment, most honorable sir."