Sha Feng was both a secret agent and an Oriental, which means that facial control was with him a matter of both inheritance and of training. Yet when he looked past me down the corridor, there came a light into his eyes that made me avert my own and resolve to stay where I was a moment longer. One mystery at least was almost solved; if I had needed further evidence I would have found it in the sound of a woman’s swift, tumultuous breathing.
Yet was I still mistaken, who had given that phase of the affair somewhat of a romantic interpretation, for when a minute later Sha Feng, in the softest of whispers, introduced the pseudo-beggar woman to me, he said—
“Tsai Mu’i, my daughter!”
VI
I BOWED. I had at least been nearly right; Tsai Mu’i’s figure was now so erect and lithe and youthful even under its rags, and her face, from which the heavy hair had been flung back, was so comely under its grime, that I wondered at the efficacy of her mimicry in the streets. She was a symbol of China’s womanhood which is changing as all things change, from the passive bravery that endures to the active courage that achieves. But just then was no time for considering that metamorphosis. I looked nervously through the open door of the bedroom into which we had retired and I wondered how soon an end would come to that pool of water which alone protected Hazard from the Ko Lao Hui.
“I am honored,” I whispered. “But will your Excellency tell me—”
I had meant of course to ask him for an explanation of what was closest to my mind, Hazard’s position and the chances of a rescue; but Sha Feng calmly took the words out of my mouth, assuming my interest to lie in that which most interested him.
“Gladly will I tell you, and indeed my daughter begs your exalted forgiveness for deceiving you. She had no message from me, but knew only that I had come to this house and that I had not returned; and she had heard from me of the very great wisdom of you and your honorable companion, and of the many things you have done for the Republic. Also I had told her of the way you had altered your features, so that you might walk unrecognized by the devils of the Ko Lao Hui. So, seeing you in the crowd—”
Rather impatiently I put in a question with a view to shortening his discourse.
“But why her beggar’s disguise?”
“Because she knew our house was watched by the Ko Lao Hui—is it not so? And also it is not good that a lady of rank should be on the streets alone at night. She had started for the Government House when she saw you, and she knew that if I needed help yours would be quicker. And so—”
“Ah, yes,” I cut him short, and indeed the girl’s part in the affair was now quite clear to me. “But what of Hazard? They are going to kill Hazard.”
“Once I also had a friend,” said Sha Feng, passing over my question with Oriental facility. “He was killed by the Manchus and as a consequence I understand your fears. But your friend will not die this night, I promise you. That is, unless Koshinga—”
Moments were precious as I viewed matters; words were precious, too, and not without an element of danger, for though Li Fu Ching’s men could not possibly hear our whispering from the side of the pool, there was no guaranteeing that all of them would remain there.
And I was just then intent upon one question, that of Hazard’s safety. But the moment I heard the name of that arch-enemy of ours, my thoughts became confused, went whirling every way. I do not apologize for that. If Koshinga were personally involved in this affair, then indeed there was no forecasting the next moment.
“Koshinga! Is he here?”
“I have heard him talk. The roof of the vault is the floor of the room; it is a thin metal plate through which sound carries easily. So I, hidden in that hiding-place of Koshinga’s treasure, heard words from him to Li Fu Ching. They were evil words to hear. The treasure is found, and must be saved to the Republic; but now it has come to me that your friend was right when he told me that it would be better if it were not found at present. For it is my belief that Koshinga in his desperation and madness will now fulfil the prophecy that has been written—”
I was impatient with his circuitousness, and interrupted him sharply.
“Can you not tell me, simply, what has happened here tonight? Where you left Hazard and why you left him and what is ahead of us?”
“There will hardly be time. But I left your friend because he has not my skill to move quietly in the water. Besides, there were two reasons why one of us must stay, and your friend insisted that he be that one. He also insisted that you be told of his safety, so that you would not throw your life away in a needless attempt to rescue him. So I came— Listen!”
A loud gurgling of water came to our ears; obviously the pool was nearly drained. The end was nearer than I had expected; the drain which Li Fu Ching had opened must be very large.
“Very soon you will see that your friend is armed against his enemies as few men have ever been armed. He will escape, and together we will combat the doom that overhangs Asia as a result of this night’s work. For Koshinga, thinking his treasure safe, gave utterance to Li Fu Ching of what he would have done if Ho Pu Bon’s treachery had succeeded, and he had lost it.
“Now it is lost to him and passes back to the Republic; it can not be altered, for it is written. But of what is written for the future, no man can tell. Come.”
Sha Feng, motioning his daughter to stay in the room, was stealing noiselessly toward the door.
And I with my mind beset by a thousand conjectures followed him. But even Sha Feng’s hint of a great disaster to come, which disaster could be none other than the one Hazard had forecast on our way to this place, failed to dull the edge of my fear for Hazard.
It was then that a vague suspicion of Sha Feng began to beat in my brain. Of Sha Feng, wholly possessed, as his past life proved him to be, by love of the Republic he had helped to bring into being and by hatred of the Ko Lao Hui who threatened to destroy that Republic.
BUT a little later I was lying by Sha Feng’s side at the end of the darkened corridor, and cudgeling my brain in vain to see any safe escape for Hazard. Already the Ko Lao Hui had descended the sloping bottom of the pool and were standing in the center of it; so that only their heads and shoulders were visible to us from their position on the floor. They were standing in a circle, evidently grouped around the door which led to that refuge of Hazard’s, which had become a trap.
“Hai!” exclaimed one of them. “Was it here where the door is fitted that the water which continually entered the pool drained away? Will not the vault be filled and the foreign devil drowned?”
“Am I a fool, who arranged this thing; or Koshinga, who instructed me?” inquired Li Fu Ching. “Here is the pipe for letting off the water. Here is the larger drain, which I opened. Now will you make way, so that I may manage the door, which whirls and closes again, as it closed behind him who is to die, or stands open according to whether this button is pressed with force or lightly?”
Several of the group moved slightly. Followed the sound of smooth, metal surfaces, close-pressed, sliding against each other, and a slight creaking, as of the turning of pivots in metal sockets. Then—
“True,” said Li Fu Ching, “this door could not be fitted so tightly but that there was leakage. But a way was made for the leakage to drain away, as you will see. The war-fund of Koshinga, which he is so soon to use to establish himself against the kingdoms of the earth, must always be in readiness to his hand. You will find the vault dry at bottom.”
At that I thought the veriest shadow of a smile flitted across Sha Fang’s face. And that smile, seeming to contradict Li Fu Ching’s words, prepared me for the half-mirthful reply of one of the latter’s men.
“My master makes a mistake so rarely that my eyes must lie when they tell me that there is water below.”
“Your eyes tell you truly,” said Li Fu Ching after a moment’s pause. “But it is no matter.”
Still by his voice the discovery disconcerted him a little. It was a trifle; but I have long known
the occasional weight of trifles. And the waters in that house had proven themselves in all truth the very “waters of death.” A vague hope, for which I could find no reasonable justification, struggled for a moment on the surface of my mind and then was swept down again and submerged.
For the Ko Lao Hui were beginning to disappear one by one, to drop down into the treasure-vault. Before each one vanished he placed a knife between his teeth, Chinese pirate fashion. Though their heads and shoulders only were visible to us, I knew that in the hand of each was a revolver. And if either Sha Feng or Hazard had had hope of salvation from some mysterious quality in the water, it seemed that the barely audible splash which followed each descent must give that hope the lie. They were wading in the water; it did not harm them.
But when I glanced at Sha Feng, I read nothing on his face but complacent satisfaction with the way things were going.
At that my suspicion of him revived again and flamed higher; for was it not altogether probable that he, fervid patriot that he was, had planned to sacrifice Hazard’s life to the recovery of the treasure and the capture of Li Fu Ching and his men? Logically I could not blame him if he had, but for all that I went hot with rage as I lay there bulwarking that suspicion with other fancied evidence.
Hazard and he had been in the vault under the floor; he had come out, while Hazard had remained; why, save that Sha Feng had by some clever device tricked him into remaining? He had tricked him into remaining because he wanted to use Hazard as bait for Li Fu Ching and his men. Obviously Hazard was the bait, the vault was the trap, the door in the middle of the great porcelain basin was the door of the trap. When the last of the Ko Lao Hui had entered it Sha Feng would close that door, and upon Hazard would the rage of the imprisoned Ko Lao Hui vent itself.
There were many things that were by no means explained by this reasoning, but so much I felt was true, and I waited in an agony of suspense to see what it was that I should presently do.
Now no more than half of the Ko Lao Hui were left on the bottom of the pool. Every instant I expected to hear the beginning of the struggle which could end only in Hazard’s death. It was a situation to shock from its balance the most unimpressionable mind, and my mind where Hazard was concerned was not unimpressionable. A pressing desire for activity, however hopeless, came over me, creeping into every nerve and muscle, into the very centers of my being, like an imperative physical hunger.
I think I unconsciously edged forward. Sha Feng reached over and touched my arm. He looked into my face—tense with that horrible waiting, for what? His lips moved soundlessly. I thought he sent me this message—
“Trust me!”
It was very well for him to ask that; and indeed I trusted him—as a patriot. In a sense his treachery was not treachery; it was but the sacrifice of one man for the larger good. But for all that I looked quickly away from him, unwilling that he should read what was in my eyes.
AND so I lay there, with my anger against Sha Feng rankling in my mind, with my distress at Hazard’s fate intensified by the scarifying chains of impotence. For there was nothing I could do to help him now. All but six of the Ko Lao Hui had disappeared, and every instant I dreaded to hear the shot, the cry, the struggle, the fall—whatever sound it might be that would herald Hazard’s death.
But that sound was long delayed. I wondered a little at that. It suited what I conceived to be Sha Feng’s purpose well enough; but it was not like Hazard to hide away so long—for he must be in hiding—knowing that every moment increased the odds against him, lessened his chance of putting up even a damaging fight. But still, save for the stealthy movements of the Ko Lao Hui, the House of the Myriad Lights remained a house of tomb-like silence.
I fidgeted in spite of myself. Fidgeting, I crept forward again, my muscles unconsciously reacting to a certain intense desire. Before I knew it I was out of the corridor, inside the room. Sha Feng, I suppose, could think of no way to stop me without making a noise; perforce, he kept pace with me. The slight sound of his movements called my attention to my own; he was still at my side but I did not look at him.
He had had his way so far, and it now seemed that nothing could prevent him from having his way to the end; but I did not care for his further guidance. And I wanted to see—
I wanted to see the bottom of that great porcelain basin which had contained the swimming-pool, to see where Hazard had gone and where the Ko Lao Hui were going, to discover whence and how Sha Feng had emerged, without disturbance of the water. My long and helpless waiting in anticipation of calamity had taken severe toll of my nerves and that rush of curiosity was probably a reason-saving reaction.
The remaining Ko Lao Hui had their backs to us and seemed to be intent on the opening through which one of them was about to descend. And so of a sudden I was on my hands and knees not ten feet away from the edge of the basin, over which I was now able to peer.
And then came what I had been expecting for a good many minutes—a revolver shot!
But before that shot came, before my instinctive and involuntary reaction to it, before the many simultaneous and swiftly silenced shrieks that answered that shot impinged upon my ears, before the tense quiet of the situation had broken into tumultuous action, I had seen that the dark-colored bottom of the basin was broken, not by two openings, but by three. One was obviously the immense drain, several feet in diameter, through which Li Fu Ching had emptied the pool so swiftly. Another, the purpose of which I could not guess, was about the size of a manhole and was still full to the brim of water. The third was in the exact center of the basin; it was circular in shape, about six feet across, and was bisected by an iron door which now stood in a vertical position, its rusty surface paralleling my front. It was of course through this third opening that the Ko Lao Hui, who were now all on my side of the door, were descending.
Four remained, of whom Li Fu Ching was one, not counting the man who was just swinging down through the hole. Then as I have said, the revolver shot, sounding from somewhere below. It could have but one meaning for me—that the Ko Lao Hui, searching for Hazard, had found him at last. And that, as I learned afterward, was the truth.
And the next instant I was on my feet and somewhat astonished to find myself there. I was on my feet with my revolver extended, and I pressed the trigger before I knew it.
Sha Feng was standing beside me, and saying quietly:
“The clumsy, impatient West. It is no matter, but—”
And cutting into the first of his words had come those chopped off shrieks, which might have been belated and multiplied echoes of that cry which Hazard and I had heard when we entered the house—the cry which Ho Pu Bon had uttered when he died.
My aim had been for Li Fu Ching, but he had leaped aside at the moment of my shot. I think it was those shrieks, and not any sound from me, that impelled him. He leaped and ran with marvelous swiftness up the sloping bottom of the pool toward the door by which he had entered the room. I fired at him again but missed for I was also running, going forward toward the basin.
Li Fu Ching escaped through the door.
The three remaining Chinese, caught entirely off guard and unwarned by the cries of their companions, had lost their heads and were fighting each other to get through the opening in the bottom of the basin. One of them gave way and scurried around to the similar opening on the other side of the vertical door, and the remaining two plopped down through the hole together.
Even as they dropped they seemed to strain upward, as though” they had suddenly discovered a danger below that was greater than the danger above them. Even as they released their clutches on the edge of the door they made spasmodic efforts to regain them. But they disappeared as Sha Feng and I raced down the slope of the basin; and even in my excitement I wondered amazedly that after that outburst of simultaneous shrieks not another sound had come from the mysterious vault which had swallowed them all and swallowed Hazard, too.
Not a single sound; but was there now, as these last men desc
ended, a flash of bluish light that showed for just an instant against the red rust of the iron door? Was there a crackling, and two other cries that blended into one, and that in their turn were instantly silenced? I was not sure.
There are moments in which incidents crowd upon each other so swiftly that no man’s brain can recall all of them. This was such a moment. Moreover, I was by now filled with a sense of fantasy such as I had never before felt even in those days of struggle with Koshinga, Master of the Extraordinary. Save for a certain purpose that had been born full-grown in my mind, nothing was clear to me.
I take no credit for that purpose, which was really sprung from impulse and might not have endured the test of quiet decision; but if I could I would descend to where Hazard was, share life with him as long as he lived and die with him if I must. Sha Feng would remain behind; he would cause that vertical door to swing to the horizontal again; he would shut us in with our enemies—and for that I could not blame him. Nevertheless I cursed him under my breath as he, guessing my intention, called out to me with what seemed, for one who had so far conducted himself so placidly, a strange rush of terror.
“Stop! Below there is death—death!”
Death! I knew it. But there might be a way out. “There is always a way out—always!” Hazard’s own pet motto flashed through my mind. If Hazard was still alive, and if I could reach him—
By then, still running, I had reached the opening; and though I checked myself by gripping the upper edge of the door my momentum still carried me forward, so that I looked over that door and saw what was on the other side of it.
The last of the Ko Lao Hui, whom I had believed to have fled into the vault, was still there, crouching low, his yellow face twitching. Instinctively I clubbed my revolver to strike him. He had time to drop through the opening to join his companions but instead he merely tried to dodge my blow. He was only partially successful. The butt of my revolver struck him glancingly on the forehead, stunning him and knocking him backward, so that he cleared the hole. My upper arm struck on the edge of the door with almost the full force of my downward blow; and my revolver slipped from my partially numbed hand.
The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge Page 43
