Delphi Works of Robert E. Howard (Illustrated) (Series Four)

by Robert E. Howard

  But I’d found Hong Kong in turmoil, just like all the rest of China. Up in the hills a lot of bandits, which called themselves revolutionary armies, was raising hell, and all I couldst hear was talk about General Yun Chei, and General Whang Shan, and General Feng, which they said was really a white man. Folks said Yun and Feng had joined up against Whang, and some tall battling was expected, and the foreigners was all piling down out of the interior. It was easy for a white sailorman with no connections to drop out of sight and never be heard of again. I thought what if Soapy has got hisself scuppered by them bloody devils, just when maybe he was on the p’int of coming into big money.

  Well, I stuck the letter in my pocket, and sallied forth into the lamp- lit street to look for Soapy some more, when somebody hove up alongside of me, and who should it be but that dapper Chinee in European clothes I’d noticed in the first row, ringside, at the fight.

  “You are Sailor Costigan, are you not?” he said in perfect English.

  “Yeah,” I said, after due consideration.

  “I saw you fight the Yellow Typhoon tonight,” he said. “The blow you dealt him would have felled an ox. Can you always hit like that?”

  “Why not?” I inquired. He looked me over closely, and nodded his head like he was agreeing with hisself about something.

  “Come in and have a drink,” he said, so I follered him into a native joint where they wasn’t nothing but Chineses. They looked at me with about as much expression as fishes, and went on guzzling tea and rice wine out of them little fool egg-shell cups. The mandarin, or whatever he was, led the way into a room which the door was covered with velvet curtains and the walls had silk hangings with dragons all over ‘em, and we sot down at a ebony table and a Chinaboy brung in a porcelain jug and the glasses.

  The mandarin poured out the licker, and, whilst he was pouring mine, such a infernal racket arose outside the door that I turned around and looked, but couldn’t see nothing for the curtains, and the noise quieted down all of a sudden. Them Chineses is always squabbling amongst theirselves.

  So the mandarin said, “Let us drink to your vivid victory!”

  “Aw,” I said, “that wasn’t nothin’. All I had to do was hit him.”

  But I drank, and I said, “This is funny tastin’ stuff. What is it?”

  “Kaoliang,” he said. “Have another glass.” So he poured ‘em, and nigh upsot my glass with his sleeve as he handed it to me.

  So I drank it, and he said, “What’s the matter with your ears?”

  “You oughta know, bein’ a fight fan,” I said.

  “This fight tonight was the first I have ever witnessed,” he confessed.

  “I’d never thought it from the interest you’ve taken in the brawl,” I said. “Well, these ears is what is known in the vernacular of the game as cauliflowers. I got ‘em, also this undulatin’ nose, from stoppin’ gloves with human knuckles inside of ‘em. All old-timers is similarly decorated, unless they happen to be of the dancin’-school variety.”

  “You have fought in the ring many times?” he inquired.

  “Oftener’n I can remember,” I answered, and his black eyes gleamed with some secret pleasure. I took another snort of that there Chinese licker out of the jug, and I begun to feel oratorical and histrionic.

  “From Savannah to Singapore,” I said, “from the alleys of Bristol to the wharfs of Melbourne, I’ve soaked the resin dust with my blood and the gore of my enermies. I’m the bully of the Sea Girl, the toughest ship afloat, and when I set foot on the docks, strong men hunt cover! I—”

  I suddenly noticed my tongue was getting thick and my head was swimming. The mandarin wasn’t making no attempt to talk. He was setting staring at me kinda intense-like, and his eyes glittered through a mist which was beginning to float about me.

  “What the heck!” I said stupidly. Then I heaved up with a roar, and the room reeled around me. “You yeller-bellied bilge-rat!” I roared drunkenly. “You done doped my grog! You—”

  I grabbed him by the shirt with my left, and dragged him across the table top, drawing back my right, but before I could bash him with it, something exploded at the base of my skull, and the lights went out.

  I must of been out a long time. Once or twice I had a sensation of being tossed and jounced around, and thought I was in my bunk and a rough sea running, and then again I kinda vaguely realized that I was bumping over a rutty road in a automobile, and I had a feeling that I ought to get up and knock somebody’s block off. But mostly I just laid there and didn’t know nothing at all.

  When I did finally come to myself, the first thing I discovered was that my hands and feet was tied with ropes. Then I seen I was laying on a camp cot in a tent, and a big Chinaman with a rifle was standing over me. I craned my neck, and seen another man setting on a pile of silk cushions, and he looked kinda familiar.

  At first I didn’t recognize him, because now he was dressed in embroidered silk robes, Chinese style, but then I seen it was the mandarin. I struggled up to a sitting position, in spite of my bonds, and addressed him with poignancy and fervor.

  “Why,” I concluded passionately, “did you dope my licker? Where am I at? What’ve you done with me, you scum of a Macao gutter?”

  “You are in the camp of General Yun Chei,” he said. “I transported you hither in my automobile while you lay senseless.”

  “And who the devil are you?” I demanded.

  He gave me a sardonic bow. “I am General Yun Chei, your humble servant,” he said.

  “The hell you are!” I commented with a touch of old-world culture. “You had a nerve, comin’ right into Hong Kong.”

  “The Federalist fools are blind,” he said. “Often I play my own spy.”

  “But what’d you kidnap me for?” I yelled with passion, jerking at my cords till the veins stood out on my temples. “I can’t pay no cussed ransom.”

  “Have you ever heard of General Feng?” he asked.

  “And what if I has?” I snarled, being in no mood for riddles.

  “He is camped nearby,” said he. “He is a white foreign-devil like yourself. You have heard his nickname — General Ironfist?”

  “Well?” I demanded.

  “He is a man of great strength and violent passions,” said General Yun. “He has acquired a following more because of his personal fighting ability than because of his intellect. Whomever he strikes with his fists falls senseless to the ground. So the soldiers call him General Ironfist.

  “Now, he and I have temporarily allied our forces, because our mutual enemy, General Whang Shan, is somewhere in the vicinity. General Whang has a force greater than ours, and he likewise possesses an airplane, which he flies himself. We do not know exactly where he is, but, on the other hand, he does not know our position, either, and we are careful to guard against spies. No one leaves or enters our camp without special permission.

  “Though General Ironfist and myself are temporary allies, there is no love lost between us, and he constantly seeks to undermine my prestige with my men. To protect myself I must retaliate — not so as to precipitate trouble between our armies, but in such a way as to make him lose face.

  “General Feng boasts that he can conquer any man in China with his naked fists, and he has frequently dared me to pit my hardiest captains against him for the sheer sport of it. He well knows that no man in my army could stand up against him, and his arrogance lowers my prestige. So I went secretly to Hong Kong to find a man who might have a fighting chance against him. I contemplated the Yellow Typhoon, but when you laid him low with a single stroke, I knew you were the man for whom I was looking. I have many friends in Hong Kong. Drugging you was easy. The first time a pre-arranged noise at the door distracted your attention. But that was not enough, so I contrived to dope your second drink under cover of my sleeve. By the holy dragon, you had enough drug in you to have overcome an elephant before you succumbed!

  “But here you are. I shall present you to General Feng, before all the capt
ains, and challenge him to make good his boast. He cannot with honor refuse; and if you beat him, he will lose face, and my prestige will rise accordingly, because you represent me.”

  “And what do I get out of it?” I demanded.

  “If you win,” he said, “I will send you back to Hong Kong with a thousand American dollars.”

  “And what if I lose?” I said.

  “Ah,” he smiled bleakly, “a man whose head has been removed by the executioner’s sword has no need of money.”

  I burst into a cold sweat and sot in silent meditation.

  “Do you agree?” he asked at last.

  “I’d like to know what choice I got,” I snarled. “Take these here cords offa me and gimme some grub. I won’t fight for nobody on a empty belly.”

  He clapped his hands, and the soldier cut my cords with his bayonet, and another menial come in with a big dish of mutton stew and some bread and rice wine, so I fell to and lapped it all up in a hurry.

  “As a token of appreciation,” said General Yun, “I now make you a present of this unworthy trinket.”

  And he hauled out the finest watch I ever seen and give it to me.

  “If the gift pleases you,” he said, noting my gratification, “let it nerve your thews against General Ironfist.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said, admiring the watch, which was gold with dragons carved on it. “I’ll bust him so hard he’ll be loopin’ the loop for a week.”

  “Excellent!” beamed General Yun. “If you could contrive to deal him a fatal injury during the combat, it could simplify matters greatly. But come! I shall tangle General Feng in his own web!”

  I follered him out of the tent, and seen a lot of other tents and ragged soldiers drilling amongst ‘em, and off to one side another camp with more yeller-bellied gunmen in it. It was still kinda early in the morning, and I gathered it had tooken us all night to get there in Yun’s auto. We was away up in the hills, and they was no sign of civilization anywheres.

  General Yun headed straight for a big tent in the middle of the camp, and I follered him in. A lot of officers in all kinds of uniforms riz and bowed, except one big man who sot on a camp stool. He was a white man in faded khaki and boots and a sun helmet; his fists was as big as mauls, and his hairy arms was thick with muscles. His face and corded neck was burned brick-colored by the sun, and he wore a expression like he habitually hankered for somebody to give him a excuse to slug ‘em.

  “General Yun—” he begun in a harsh voice, then stopped and glared at me. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Joel Ballerin!” I said, staring at him. I might of knowed. Wherever they was war, you’d usually find Joel Ballerin right in the middle of it. He was from South Australia, and had a natural instinct for carnage. He was famed as a fighting man all over South Africa, Australia and the South Seas. Gunrunner, blackbirder, smuggler, pirate, pearler, or what have you, but always a scrapper from the word go, with a constant hankering to bounce his enormous fists offa somebody’s conk. I’d never fit him, but I’d saw some of his handiwork. The ruin he could make of a human carcass was plumb appalling.

  He glared at me with no love, because I got considerable reputation as a man-mauler myself, and fighting men is jealous of each other’s fame. I couldst feel my own short hairs bristle as I glared at him.

  “You have boasted much of your prowess with the clenched fist,” said Yun Chei, softly. “You have repeatedly assured me that there was not a man in my army, including my unworthy self, whom you could not subdue with ease. I have here one of my followers whom I venture to back against you.”

  “That’s Steve Costigan, an American sailor,” snarled Ballerin. “He’s no man of yours.”

  “On the contrary!” said General Yun. “Do you not see that he wears my dragon watch, entrusted only to my loyal henchmen?”

  “Well,” growled Ballerin, “there’s something fishy about this. When you bring that cabbage-eared gorilla up here—”

  “Hey!” I said indignantly. “You cease heavin’ them insults around! If you ain’t got the guts to fight, why, say so!”

  “Why, you blasted fool!” he roared, jumping up off his stool like it was red hot. “I’ll break your infernal head right here and now—”

  General Yun got between us and smiled blandly and said, “Let us be dignified in all things. Let it be a public exhibition. I fear this tent would not prove a proper arena for two such gladiators. I shall have a ring constructed at once.”

  Ballerin turned away, grunting, “All right; fix it any way you want to.” Then he wheeled back, his eyes flaming, and snarled at me, “As for you, you Yankee ape, you’re going out of this camp feet-first!”

  “Big talk don’t bust no chins,” I retorted. “I never did like you anyway, you nigger-stealin’ pearl-thief!”

  He looked like he was going to bust some blood-vessels, but he just give a ferocious snarl and plunged out of the tent. General Yun motioned me to foller him, and his officers tagged after us. The others follered General Feng. They didn’t seem to be no love lost betwixt them two armies.

  “General Ironfist is caught in his own snare!” gurgled General Yun, hugging hisself with glee. “He lusts for battle, but is furious and suspicious because I trapped him into it. All the men of both armies shall see his downfall. Call in the patrols from the hills! General Ironfist! Ha!”

  General Yun didn’t take me back to his tent, but he put me in another’n and told me to holler if I wanted anything. He said I’d be guarded so’s Ballerin couldn’t have me bumped off, but I seen I was as good as a prisoner.

  Well, I sot in there, and heard some men come marching up and surround the tent, and somebody give orders in broken Chinese, and cussed heartily in English, and I stuck my head out of the door and hollered, “Soapy!”

  There he was, all right, commanding the guard, with a old British army coat three sizes too small for him, and a sword three sizes too big. He nigh dropped his sword when he seen me, and bellered, “Steve! What you doin’ here?”

  “I come up to lick Joel Ballerin for Yun Chei,” I said. And he said, “So that’s why they’re buildin’ that ring! Nobody but the highest officers knows what’s goin’ on.”

  “What you doin’ here?” I demanded.

  “Aw,” he said, “I got tired tendin’ bar and decided to become a soldier of fortune. So I skipped to Hong Kong and beat it up into the hills and joined Yun Chei. But Steve, the life ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. I don’t mind the fightin’ much, cause it’s mostly yellin’ and shootin’ and little damage done, but marchin’ through these hills is hell, and the food is lousy. We don’t get paid regular, and no place to spend the dough when we do get it. For ten cents I’d desert.”

  “Well, lissen,” I said, “I got a letter for you.” I reached into my britches pocket, and then I give a yelp. “I been rolled!” I hollered. “It’s gone!”

  “What?” he said.

  “Your letter,” I said. “I was lookin’ for you to give it to you. It come to the American Bar at Tainan. A letter from the Ormond and Ashley law firm, ‘Frisco.”

  “What was in it?” he demanded.

  “How should I know?” I returned irritably. “I didn’t open it. I thought maybe somebody had left you a lot of dough, or somethin’.”

  “I’ve heard pa say he had wealthy relatives,” said Soapy, doubtfully. “Look again, Steve.”

  “I’ve looked,” I said. “It ain’t here. I bet Yun Chei took it offa me whilst I was out. I’ll go over and bust him on the jaw—”

  “Wait!” hollered Soapy. “You’ll get us both shot! You ain’t supposed to leave this tent, and I got to guard you.”

  “Well,” I said, “t’aint likely they was any money in the letter. Likely they was just tellin’ you where to go to get the dough. I remember the address, and when I get back to Hong Kong, I’ll write and tell ’em I got you located.”

  “That’s a long time to wait,” said Soapy, pessi
mistically.

  “Not so long,” I said. “As soon as I lick Ballerin, I’ll start for Hong Kong—”

  “No, you won’t,” said Soapy. “No ways soon, anyhow.”

  “What d’you mean?” I asked. “Yun said he’d send me back if I licked Ballerin.”

  “He didn’t say when, did he?” inquired Soapy. “He ain’t goin’ to take no chance of you going back and talkin’ and revealin’ our position to Whang’s spies. No, sir; he’ll keep you prisoner till he’s ready to change camp, and that may be six months.”

  “Me stay in this dump six months?” I exclaimed fiercely. “I won’t do it!”

  “Maybe you won’t at that,” he said cheeringly. “A lot of things can happen unexpected around a rebel Chinee camp. I see you’re wearin’ Yun Chei’s dragon watch.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Ain’t it a beaut? Yun Chei give it to me.”

  “Well” he said, “that watch has been give away before, but it has a way of comin’ back to Yun Chei after the owner’s demise, which is generally sudden and frequent. Four men that I know of has already been made a present of that watch, and none of ’em is now alive.”

  “The hell you say!” I said, beginning to perspire copiously. “This is a nice, friendly place I got into. Do you want to stay here?”

  “No, I don’t!” he replied bitterly. “I didn’t want to before, and when I thinks they’s maybe a million dollars waitin’ somewhere for me to spend, I feels like throwin’ down this fool sword and headin’ for the coast.”

  “Well,” I said, “I ain’t goin’ to spend no six months here. Yet I wants that thousand bucks. Let’s us make a break tonight, after I collects.”

  “They’d run us down before we’d went far,” he said despondently. “I got one of the few good horses in camp, but it couldn’t carry us both at any kind of a clip. All the other nags are fastened up and guarded so nobody can desert and carry news of our whereabouts to General Whang, which would give a leg to know, so he could raid us. Yun Chei knows he can trust me not to, because Whang wants to cut off my head. I stole a batch of his eatin’ chickens onst when we was fightin’ him over near Kauchau.”