Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China

by George F. Worts

  CHAPTER XIV

  Now Peter was an emotional young man. And wrathful notions werekindled in him before he encountered the only guard Kahn Meng's men hadoverlooked--may the bones of that one rest gently!

  He saw little children clawing in red muck; he saw young girls withsunken breasts, their former beauty a wretched caricature, carryingdying babes upon their backs. He saw tired old men, and women,crippled, blind, with red fingers and wrists, as if they had beendipped in blood. He saw plenty to enrage him.

  Kahn Meng's guards bowed gravely as he passed them at tunnel passages.He had walked perhaps three-quarters of an hour generally in a singledirection, bearing a torch, when he collided with a smooth, flatobstruction.

  Somewhere in the earth distantly behind him occurred a metallic rumble,followed by a gust of soft wind, fragrant with the outdoors.

  He was staring at blackness, the varnished blackness of a great woodendoor. He was at the threshold! somewhere on the other side of thatenormous wooden barrier was the man of Len Yang! Chalked boldly uponthe surface was the legend:

  P. M.--straight on--K. M.

  Pulling with his fingers and bracing his feet in the rough floor, themass moved monumentally toward him. It swung wide, on great, concealedhinges.

  Peter's adventurous heart was beating an excited battle call. Hisburning eyes strained beyond the ruddy luminance of the torch, andexamined--white marble! He was at his journey's end--somewhere in thepalace of the Gray Dragon!

  Peter dragged the great door softly shut behind him, and found himselfin a chamber of vast proportions, built of what had at one time beenpurest white marble, discolored entirely now by the red taint of thebloody ore. The floor was perspiring redly.

  Going on tiptoe to the center of the space, he searched the blankwalls, listening breathlessly.

  He heard nothing but the faint patter of the dripping slime, and hewent swiftly to the end of the musty antechamber and discovered at thedistant end the fourth wall, hitherto unseen. Reaching from the leftcorner of the scarlet tomb was a narrow staircase built also of marble.

  Dropping his hand nervously into his right-hand tunic pocket, he wentup and pushed open another door. He found himself now in a snow-whitecorridor, faintly lighted by grilles overhead. The hall reachedgloomily into gray distance, and it was quite vacant. An unseenfountain was playing near by. At his left was another door, closed.

  The closed door attracted him. Certainly there was no other course nowthan a detailed exploration.

  Bracing himself for a surprise in this palace of hideous surprises, heflung open the door, and entered black darkness.

  Carelessly he closed the door behind him, listening and sniffing. Atfirst he heard nothing, but he smelled altar-incense faintly.

  A deep-voiced gong suddenly reverberated while Peter tensed himself.The sonorous melody lifted and crashed, subsiding into countlessunmusical overtones. Lighter metal rang upon wood.

  Then lights--electric lights--by the dozens,hundreds--thousands--blazed with a violent suddenness, a suddennessthat Peter could compare only with that of a tropical sun leaping outof the ocean; and Peter blinked upon green. It was a hideous green, agreen of diabolical intensity. He shivered. It seemed to creep, towrithe, this green.

  At first he could not absorb this insane color idea; and he stoodthere, with his heart sinking.

  He discovered that he was occupying an oblong green rug of satin. Hewas dazzled by the green glare of a cluster of quartz lights in frontof him, and he stared, first at a monstrous green Buddha, squatting ona thighless rump between flashing green pillars, and finally at themost hideous individual he had ever gazed upon, a human, who occupied athrone carved solidly from green jade.

  The glimpse was like stepping from a dark dream into the center of anaquamarine nightmare. And in the instant following his partialdigestion of the viridescent scheme he was possessed with the notionthat the occupant of such a chamber of horror must certainly be insane.

  That was the first idea to possess Peter. He was not surprised to findthat he was unafraid. Anticipation is much more fearful thanrealization. He had experienced many panicky moments in lookingforward to this meeting; and yet in the presence of him he was cool.

  The Gray Dragon of Len Yang?

  From the tail of his eye he detected a man with folded arms backedagainst the door. At either side of the green throne stood Mongolianguards, armed with rifles. They struck the only dissonant note of thepicture, for they were garbed in desert brown.

  Evidently all ways of escape were closed. For two years he hadcontrived to elude the tracers, the killers, sent out by this creature,and now he had deliberately walked upon his swords. Death? Where wasKahn Meng?

  Possessed with a feeling akin to cat-like curiosity, Peter walkedslowly to the beryl throne steps, where he paused, with his fistsgripped tightly in his pockets, his chin up, and his shoulders back.

  Close scrutiny did not soften the bestial cruelty of the face of LenYang's ruler. It was a startling face, as gray as fresh clay, sharplywrinkled. The nose was exceedingly long and sharp, with a crookedjoint. Dirty-yellow mandarin mustaches drooped like wet sea-weed fromthe sides of a curling, sneering mouth.

  And it was dominated by a pair of very small, very bright green eyes,set deep and exceedingly close together.

  But the tenor of the face was gray, the gray of living death, and fromthis emblem, Peter suddenly decided, the man had been given hisdescriptive name.

  Long, gray talons reached out from the folds of a mandarin jacket andtoyed nervously with a strand of gray hair which jutted from thepigtail winding over the slanting shoulder.

  The green eyes blinked as they completed the survey of Peter Moore.The curling lips were moving.

  "Peter Moore!" he rasped. "The most daring foreigner who has yetvisited my city! Peter the Brazen, with a reputation of breaking thehearts of beautiful women! You are late. I have been waiting uponthis visit for two years!"

  He leaned forward, and Peter retreated a step.

  "What have you done with her?" Peter snapped.

  The Gray Dragon sank back with a sigh. "Ah! Would you like to gazeupon that which can never be yours?"

  "May I see her--once--before I die?"

  "That is a wise statement. You are altogether wise--astonishingly so!Wisdom is a rare gem in one so young." He chuckled in an irritatingtreble. "Look about you again, youth. This is known as the room ofthe green death. Few men leave the room of the green death alive. Myhounds bay when they enter.

  "The young woman is here--safe. If you will answer my questions, I maypermit you to gaze upon her just once before you die! Perhaps I may beso lenient as to allow you to die together. Does not that appeal toyou?" he demanded, as if anxious. "You--who are so thirsty for thegold of romance?"

  Peter glared at him silently, and his fingers were twitching.

  His host tapped the resonant gong. Some one stepped behind Peter, forhe distinctly heard the seep of silken garments.

  The man on the green throne muttered, adding to Peter: "I am grantingyour wish. You may gaze upon her before you die. I, too, will gaze,for I prize her highly, as you know."

  He sank back meditatively, and in that moment the gray face becameoddly sane.

  "Peter Moore, seldom do I permit men who have troubled me so sorely toescape alive. Perhaps, in face of what has happened, you are foolishlytaking unto yourself credit. And still, for a reason unknown to me, Ihesitate.

  "Listen to me closely, youth! For these two years I have watched youwith my thousands of hired eyes--you cannot realize how closely!Because I was deeply interested. You are a riddle to me. You have theemotions of a woman, and the cunning of a _hu-li_.

  "Times without count word has gone forth from this green room that yourdeath must take place. Childish curiosity to stare just once upon thefoolish adventurer has caused that word to be revoked! Do not assumecredit for bravery that was not yours, Peter Moore! You are notheroic; yo
u have been a plaything. The gods are through with you.

  "Harken to me, Peter the foolish. Within these green walls daily areinscribed the names of men and women who must die. Your name has beenspoken, yet never once has it been written. When it is written----"He paused with a portentous hush.

  "To-day, when I realized you were at last coming to me, when spy afterspy ran to my feet to say that at last--at last--Peter Moore, theunconquerable, was coming to pay his long-overdue call--I hastened withthat daily quota of names of those who are doomed, so that I couldattend you with undivided attention.

  "Can it interest you? Nine men are doomed. Within two weeks from thishour a mandarin will die by the knife, an ambassador at the court ofPeking will expire by poison, an indiscreet Javanese merchant----" Hewaved his skinny arms impatiently.

  "Those whose names are written must inevitably die. If the name ofPeter Moore had but once appeared on the green silk--I could haveforgotten you--and rested. But I was restrained by a most curiousimpulse." He looked at Peter eagerly.

  "You have perplexed, almost fascinated me. Tell me first, what wasyour power over Romola Borria?"

  Peter only grunted, angrily astonished.

  "Wait!" cautioned the curling lips. "I am not ridiculing you. I amkeenly desirous of knowing." He frowned, pondering. "I will tell youabout that woman. Romola Borria was sent to me, and I employed her.For certain difficult tasks she was all that I desired--more beautifulthan sunset on the Tibetan snow--a glorious woman, yet as cold, asunfriendly as that same snow. Her spirit was one of ice, yet fire.

  "And her heart was stone--or snow also. I sent her directly tocommunicate a certain thing to you--to kill you in the event that youdeclined. Shall I tell you how many men she has put out of the way atmy bidding before and after she met you? No matter.

  "Romola Borria was proof against love. No man was created for her tolove. Yet that snowy heart melted, that precious coldness vanished,when she met--Peter Moore!"

  The Gray Dragon paused, and the cessation of his metallic voice, thequick relinquishing of the evil glint in his small, green eyes, leftPeter with a deeper feeling of revulsion than previously. It had beenhis imaginative belief that the Gray Dragon was utterly without humantraits; yet he possessed that lowest of them all, a bestial curiosity.

  "I can all but read your thoughts," he went on, lidding his green eyesa number of times. "You are saying what my victims invariably say whenI grant them these rare audiences before they die. Over and over youare repeating--'Beast! Beast! Beast!' Is that not true?"

  "That is absolutely true!"

  Malice seemed to hover about the glittering green eyes, and was gone atonce. "Peter Moore, to gaze at you is like gazing into a crystal. Inyou I witness that supreme quality which was denied me in my youth. Ican have anything in the world but that supreme, that sublime quality.I can buy anything in the world but that." The voice stopped.

  Peter shifted his glance momentarily to the armed attendants whoguarded this evil life. An inner whisper counseled him: "Not yet! Notyet! There is time!"

  "Yet there is a chance that I may reconsider; that I may permit you tocontinue to live--perhaps in the mines. But certainly, Peter thefoolish, you must not yield to that present impulse. Of course, youare armed. But do not move! Two feet behind you stands an excellentshot with a pistol aimed at your backbone. Men with cracked spines donot live long!" He chuckled.

  "What was I about to say? Ah, yes! If I could purchase from you thatquality--if I could, I say, anything in my kingdom would beyours--everything! It is the one thing I have been denied. Holywheel! It is strange, this way I am talking! I have rarely had suchan interested audience. Most of my captives at this stage arecringing, are kissing my feet."

  The snarling grin left his lips again, and his mood became strangelysoft, like dead flesh, so Peter thought, as he waited--with that pistolat his backbone!

  "I intend telling you an amazing story, which you may or may notcredit. I am telling it--this confession--partly because I dislike thelook in your blue eyes. Like everyone else, you loathe me. But I willerase that look. I intend to show you I am even more human than you!

  "By Buddha, I will tell that story to you--you, Peter Moore, the mostfortunate man in all China this hour. Think, before I begin, of thatmandarin, that bungling Javanese merchant, who, also, are about to die.Then forget all else--and listen.

  "This took place many years ago, when I was a young man, like yourself.I, too, loved a woman. Can you understand me? I, too, once loved awoman, a maiden of the Punjab. I can conceive her in the veil of mymemory still. Eyes like dusty stars, skin the color of the Tibetandawn, the dawn that you may never again look upon.

  "Her heart was gold, so I thought. Yet it was dross. On a night inspringtime, in the bazaar at Mangalore, we two first met. I have notforgotten. That night I fell in love with the white orchid from thePunjab. She was more beautiful to me than life or death, a feast ofbeauty.

  "Len Yang was mine then, and I was a rich prince, but not so rich asnow. Drunkenly I was casting my gold about the bazaar when we met.She saw me--and she smiled! It was the first time any woman had smiledupon me, and I was alarmed and troubled. I was no more handsome thannow. I was the man that no one loved. _Chuh-seng_--the beast--was myname even then, among those who tolerated my friendship because of myfluent gold.

  "And when the Punjab maiden smiled upon me, I thought to myself:'_Chuh-seng_, love has come at last to sweeten your bitter heart.'What should a young lover have done? I--I bought the bazaar andpresented it to her--on bended knees!

  "She confessed that she could love me, despite my ugliness, this whiteorchid of the plains. Peter Moore, do not look at me. You canbelieve--if you do not look. She kissed me--on my lips! Again shesaid she loved me. Had I been a thousand times uglier, she would haveloved me a thousand times more passionately! Heaven had joined us.And I forgave my enemies, renewed my vows at the wheel, and blessedevery virgin star!

  "Love had come to me at last! Me--the most hideous in all of Asia.And I believed her. What would you have done, Peter Moore--you whoknow so well the heart of woman? Never mind. I believed everything.

  "We lingered in Mangalore. But I did not know then of the Singhalesemerchant--the trader who owned three miserable camels. He possessednot handsomeness, but the romantic glamour which you possess, Peter theBrazen! Reveling in my love, I was as blind as these imbeciles in mymines. Our child was born.

  "She could have taken more, had she not been so lovestruck. She couldhave had my all--my gems, my pearls, and rubies, and diamonds, morecolossal than the treasure of any raja--my mines which dripped with theprecious mercury!

  "Yet she stole only my gold which was convenient, and went out into thestarlit night with the Singhalese trader, to share the romance of theblinding desert--the Singhalese trader, a man of no caste at all!Love? That was my love!"

  The hideous, gray face retreated behind talons as though to blot outthe thought of that ancient betrayal. When the talons again droppeddown, the dead softness of the face was replaced by the former sneer.

  This change was quite shocking.

  The beast was laughing harshly. "If I could not have love, I could atleast have hate! I have hated more passionately than any man has everloved!"

  Peter said nothing to this, although the gray lips closed and the greeneyes looked at him expectantly, almost demanding comment. Surely thiscreature was insane, with his room of the green death, his wild talesof love of a Punjab maiden, of wholesale hate.

  The Gray Dragon seemed irritated. "What have you to say now?"

  "I was only wondering," said Peter, as if suddenly tired, "when thatpistol is to explode at my back."

  "There is yet time," muttered his host. "No man has yet left this roomin contempt of me! Can you believe I have lied?" he snarled. "Why,you fool!" he croaked. "I will teach you! What do you suppose hasbecome of that other one whom you met at the _weng_ into the h
ills? Doyou imagine my men were not in his camp? Every inch of the way you twowere watched.

  "And what has become of your prudence? You who defied me, who escapedme--undone by a woman! She is why you are here. Because you are sucha fool you shall die. I might have relented. I thought you were proofagainst love. Is any one? Is any one proof against it but me? Ah----"

  He looked eagerly beyond Peter, and Peter heard a frightened sob, thena little cry, as the door closed heavily.