CHAPTER XVIII
A SUPPER OF SACRED EELS
The great plain of northern China is composed of alluvial matterextending to an unknown depth, reddish-yellow in color, and possessedof wonderful fertility. When wet it packs closely; and later, under theinfluence of a hot sun, it bakes like clay. During seasons of drought itpulverizes to an almost impalpable dust that is blown by fierce windsinto ridges and heaps like snow-drifts. These are piled high againstobstructing walls, so that sometimes buildings standing in exposedsituations are completely buried beneath them. Such a drift of fine sandhad formed in an angle of the city wall, along which our lads fled; andChinese Jo, knowing of it, had selected this as a point for escape.
Thus, when Rob, with many misgivings, leaped into unknown blackness, hehad not dropped more than twenty feet when he struck a steep slope ofsoft material down which he slid with great velocity amid a smother ofchoking dust. The next thing he knew, Jo was pulling him to his feet,and bidding him make haste to get away before their mode of escapeshould be discovered by the torch-bearers, who now swarmed on the wallabove them. So the lads ran, with Jo acting as guide, across croplessfields, climbing over useless dikes, and stumbling through dry ditches,until a black mass, dimly outlined against the sky, rose before them. Asthey drew near, this resolved itself into a clump of trees, which, fromexperience already gained in China, Rob knew must be a sacred grove.It was, in fact, the very grove from which the frantic rain-dancershad streamed in pursuit of him a few hours earlier. Now it was silentand deserted, even the ancient temple of the rain-god, standing in itscentre, being empty of priests or worshippers.
Finding the door of this temple open, and hearing no sound within, thefugitives made a cautious entry into the sacred precincts. Here theirattention was attracted by a faint glow coming from a heap of embers onan altar that stood before a gigantic image of the rain-god himself.
"THE FUGITIVES MADE A CAUTIOUS ENTRY INTO THE SACREDPRECINCTS"]
While endeavoring to get a closer view of the idol, Rob stumbled andpitched forward, thrusting his outstretched hands into an invisible butshallow tank of water. He uttered a yell of affright as he withdrew themand sprang back. "It's a nest of snakes!" he cried--"slimy, wrigglingsnakes!"
"Hush!" admonished Jo, listening intently; but there was no sound, saveof a slight splashing in the as yet unseen water.
"If there were any priests here your racket certainly would have rousedthem," he said. "But, as nobody seems to be stirring, I expect we've gotthe place to ourselves. Close the door while I make a light, so thatwe can see where we are."
From the floor the speaker gathered a few bits of unburned joss-paperthat he laid on the faintly glowing altar embers and blew into a blaze.Though this lasted but a moment, it served to show some half-burnedcandles standing behind the altar, one of which Jo lighted from theexpiring flame.
By this faint light the lads discovered a number of crude figures of menand beasts ranged on either side of the rain-god, while a pool of waterglittered at their feet. In it squirmed a score or more of eels, emblemsof the god, among which Rob had thrust his arms.
"There are your snakes," laughed the young Chinese, "and with themplenty of water to drink, if you are thirsty."
"Goodness knows! I'm thirsty enough, and stuffed full of dust besides,but I wouldn't drink that water, with those things in it, not if I wasdying of thirst."
"I would, then," replied Jo, who was too thoroughly Chinese to befastidious; and, to prove his words, he scooped a handful of the waterto his lips.
"It isn't very good water," he acknowledged; "but perhaps we can findsome that is better where this came from."
A short search revealed a well just back of the temple, and from it,by means of a section of hollow bamboo attached to a long cord, theydrew a plentiful supply of water that was much purer than that in thetank, and was not visibly contaminated by eels, snakes, or any otherunpleasant creatures.
"My! what a blessed thing water is!" exclaimed Rob, after a long pullat the bamboo bucket. "I don't wonder that the people of a burned-upcountry like this pray to a rain-god. Now, if only we had something toeat we'd be well fixed to move on."
"That's easy," replied Jo, reaching into the tank and drawing forth alarge, squirming eel as he spoke.
"Eat a snake!" cried Rob, in a disgusted tone. "Not much! I won't!"
Jo smiled as he cut off the eel's head and proceeded to skin its stillwriggling body, which he divided into short sections. Wrapping each ofthese in green bamboo leaves that he procured from a clump of the giantgrass growing beside the well, he buried them in the hot sand of thealtar, and raked over them a lot of glowing coals.
While he did this, Rob, with the aid of a lighted candle was examiningthe strange figures that occupied the interior of the temple. All atonce, from somewhere behind the great idol, he called out, "Look here,Jo! He's hollow!"
Going to see what was meant, the young Chinese found his friend holdingthe candle above his head and pointing to a small door, standingslightly ajar, in the back of the image. It was so perfectly fittedthat, had it been closed, no trace of an opening could have beendiscovered.
Climbing to the place, they easily opened the door, and through theaperture thus disclosed crawled into the very body of the rain-god.They found themselves in a space large enough for them to stand up or tolie in at full length, but filled with a confused litter of garments,masks, banners, and other paraphernalia of the priestly trade.
"It's the biggest kind of a find," said Jo, evidently much excitedover this discovery, "and it gives me an idea; but I must eat beforeexplaining, so let us go to tiffin."
The cooked eel, which Rob still insisted was nothing more nor less thana snake, looked and smelled so good that the latter's desperate hungerfinally persuaded him to taste a morsel. Then he took another, and afew minutes later, gazing thoughtfully at a small heap of well-cleanedbones, he asked Jo if he didn't think they might cook a few more eelswhile they were about it. An hour later he declared that he had eatenone of the best meals of his life, and was altogether too well contentwith their present situation to think of travelling any farther thatnight.
Jo readily agreed that they should spend a few hours where they were,as he wanted time to think out a plan of escape, and believed that forthe present this temple was as safe a place as they were likely to find.So, while they removed all traces of their presence, Rob arranged thepriestly vestments they had found inside the rain-god into a sort ofa bed, and a little later, lying on this, each of the lads gave theother an account of his adventures since they had parted in far-awayAmerica. Rob's story we know, as we do that of Jo up to the time ofhis commitment to prison in New York, charged with being a Chineselaundry-worker who had illegally entered the United States.
"I was kept there two weeks," he now said, "and treated worse than a dogall the time. They would not allow me to write or telegraph to you orany of my friends, and finally carried me off at night in a prison-van,together with a dozen coolies gathered from different parts of thecountry, who hated me because I had cut off my queue. After that wetravelled handcuffed together, two and two, in a crowded immigrant-car,to San Francisco, where we were locked up in a filthy shed until asteamer was ready to sail. On our journey to that point we got verylittle to eat, but what we had was fairly good. The food given us in theshed was bad, but what we got on the steamer, where we were put in thehold, without being allowed to go on deck during the whole voyage, wassimply rotten.
"The ship was under contract to deliver us at Shanghai; but when sheanchored off Woo-Sung and they began to transfer us into a launch thatwould take us to the city, fourteen miles farther up the river, we werein such a horrible condition that the other passengers objected tohaving us on board. So we were set ashore at Woo-Sung and told we mightwalk the rest of the way.
"I was so sick and weak that, after we had walked a few miles, I gaveout and laid down by the road-side. There, I suppose, I should havefrozen to death, for it was bitter cold, winter wea
ther, if a farmerhad not found me and taken me to his house. My father afterwards madehim a rich man for it. He fed, clothed, and kept me until I could getword to some friends in Shanghai, after which, of course, I was allright.
"Finding that my father had been transferred to Pao-Ting-Fu--betweenhere and Pekin, you know--I went there; and when he heard how I hadbeen treated, he was so angry that he swore he'd do everything in hispower to drive foreigners out of China. He did drive a good many fromhis own district, especially railroad people; but when the Great Swordsbegan killing them, he drew the line and said that that was going toofar. One day a Boxer army came along with a lot of missionaries, whomthey proposed to burn to death in the city temple. My father told themthey must give up their prisoners to him, and when they refused heordered out his own soldiers, killed a lot of the Boxers, rescued themissionaries, and sent them under guard to the coast. For that he wasrecalled to Pekin, and Mandarin Ting Yuan was put in his place. Lastweek that man turned over fifteen missionary people, some of them womenand little children, to be tortured and put to death by the Boxers ofPao-Ting-Fu."
"But what were you doing all this time?" asked Rob, his face paling atthought of these horrors.
"I had obtained a commission as captain of imperial troops, and was sentdown here, where I have been ever since."
"You haven't seen any missionaries killed, have you?" demanded Rob,anxiously.
"No, and I don't think I should have, without trying to save them, inspite of the way I was treated in America. But I received orders fromPekin only yesterday not to oppose the Boxers in anyway, no matter whatthey did. I was up in that watch-tower wondering what I ought to doif any missionaries should come this way, when I saw the rain-dancerschasing you. Of course, I didn't recognize you; but the moment Idiscovered you were a foreigner I knew that I couldn't stand by and seeyou killed without making an effort to prevent it."
"Didn't you know who I was until we stood together on the watch-tower?"asked Rob, curiously.
"No. I had not time for a good look at you until that moment. Even thenI couldn't at first believe it really was you; it seemed so utterlyimpossible that you could be in China."
"What do you propose to do now?"
"Stay with you until I get you to a place of safety."
"But you will lose your position in the army if you leave your post."
"Yes."
"And perhaps be shot as a deserter."
"Quite so."
"Aren't you almost certain to be killed if you are found in company witha foreigner whom you are aiding to escape?"
"Yes."
"And you are willing to risk your life, besides throwing away yourcareer, for the sake of one of the very people who treated you soshamefully when you were in America?"
"It is a saying of the ancients," replied Jo, "that friendship shinesamong the brightest jewels in the ring of life; also, that life withoutfriendship is as a barren fruit tree, and that for a true friendshiplife itself is not too high a price to pay. Therefore, may I not risk,and gladly, a life of little value, to save that of one who, though heis of a people who ill-treated me, is also the best friend I have in allthe world? Did he not, even when we were strangers, fight to save mefrom abuse? and can I do less for him now that we are friends? So it isfoolish for you to ask questions, since it is assured that until I canleave you in a place of safety your enemies are my enemies, your friendsare my friends, and wherever you go there go I also."
"Then," said Rob, who was greatly affected by these words, "let us stayright where we are until morning, for I want to think over all you havetold me."
After this the lads did not talk any more, but a few minutes later weresound asleep inside the very rain-god to which one of them would havebeen sacrificed had he been caught in that vicinity a few hours earlier.