The Island Where Time Stands Still (43 page)

The night was chilly, but Gregory's anxiety was so great that little beads of perspiration were breaking out on his forehead. With his right hand still on his hidden gun he
made his final bid. Kneeling down, he put his left hand on Chou's shoulder, gave him a slight shake, and said:

‘Listen, Chou. By doing as I ask you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you stay here you are going to be in bad trouble in the morning. Even if you get away later, but arrive at the House of Lin without me, your Lord is going to give you hell for leaving me behind. I have the precious thing—the thick paper with the gold designs on it—which will give him the power to humble his enemies. Take me to him so that I can hand it over and he will give you a handsome reward. Come! We have no time to waste! Wake your men and tell them to saddle the ponies.'

Chou's little dark eyes had narrowed to slits, but he nodded. ‘If my Lord ordered the Princess's death so that you might take from her the precious thing, his anger would be great if I prevent it reaching him. If he did not, then when we come to him he will have you impaled upon a stake and afterwards throw your body to the vultures. We have talked enough. It shall be as you wish.'

As what Gregory had termed ‘the precious thing' was no more than a slim booklet containing his photograph and a record of his more recent travels up to the past April, it could be of no possible use to the master of the House of Lin; so he had no cause at all to be elated by Chou's forecast of the situation in which he would find himself on reaching the house. Nevertheless, he had at last emerged victorious from their long wrangle, and that was all that mattered for the moment. Suppressing a sigh of relief, he stood up.

Chou, too, got to his feet and began to wake his companions. As they roused, one glanced at the still bright stars in the dark vault overhead was enough to tell them that dawn was still a long way off. In loud angry voices they began to curse him, and ask what the devil possessed him to have got them up in the middle of the night.

On tenterhooks, Gregory had to stand there, fearing that at any moment the noise they were making might arouse a score of other men sleeping nearby, and that a general argument would follow, during which the reason for
Chou's decision to make an early start would come out, with the result that he would yet find himself surrounded by a hostile throng.

In gutteral phrases of dialect, Chou stilled the clamour made by his fellows, and with surly looks they went about their preparations for departure. But others in the vicinity stretched out round dying fires were now stirring and calling questions; so Gregory knew that he was not yet in the straight.

He passed the next twenty minutes in an agony of apprehension; but, one by one, their more wakeful neighbours, whose curiosity had been aroused, accepted Chou's trumped-up explanations and again dropped off to sleep. The ponies were given a few gulps of water from leather buckets, then saddled or loaded with their panniers containing tents and provisions; the camel that had brought Shih-niang down to Tung-kwan was prodded up on to its legs, and the little caravan was ready to start.

Mounting the pony that had been saddled for him, Gregory trotted it up beside Chou's, and together they led the short procession out of the courtyard. Half an hour later they had left the last straggling houses on the outskirts of Tung-kwan behind, with dawn still a good hour away.

Gregory knew that he had much reason to be thankful; but, all the same, he was beginning to wonder if during the past hour he had not behaved like a crazy fool. He had pulled off an incredibly difficult coup, and was now safe in the arm-pit of the tortoise, but how the devil he was ever going to get out of it again he had not the faintest idea.

The little caravan had not been on its way for many hours before it was quite clear to Gregory that, unless he took some definite action, he was in for a most unpleasant journey; and, infinitely worse, might not even live to reach the end of it.

Having already spent a week in the company of Chou and his villainous-looking crew on the way down from Yen-an, he had had ample opportunity to take their measure. These small, tough pony-riders all had a good dash of Mongolian blood and differed little in essentials from the hordes of wild tribesmen with which Genghis Khan had overrun four-fifths of the known world in the thirteenth century. Mentally they were primitive and, for the most part, lived only in the moment. They were greedy, ruthless, cruel and boastful, but brave, gay and open-handed. With reckless enthusiasm they would fling themselves into any violent sport, and, although they were quick to anger, their general attitude to life was that of happy children, for they chattered incessantly and laughed immoderately at the most infantile jokes. It was the unnatural lack of chatter and laughter among them now that so greatly perturbed Gregory.

The surly looks they had given him on setting out had been readily accounted for by his having caused them to lose two hours' sleep; but after the first hour of the journey, during which they had carried on a heated argument in their own dialect, all five of them had fallen into a sullen silence. To Gregory's own efforts at conversation Chou replied only in monosyllables, while the others openly
showed their hostility by pretending not to understand him, and even refusing to meet his glance.

The prospect of six or seven days in such uncongenial company was far from pleasant; but the matter which really agitated Gregory's mind was the memory of the attempt to stone him to death on his first journey to Yen-an. That had been made by a more numerous band of ruffians but of very similar type; and these five had firearms. Once they were well out into the wilds, Gregory could see nothing to prevent their doing him in, if they felt so inclined, and for a much better reason than the mere fact that he happened to be a Longnose.

To induce Chou to let him accompany them back to the house of Lin he had had to provide a suitable excuse for wanting to return there. For that, the story he had invented about the ‘precious thing', and having been commissioned to secure it for Lin Wân, had served admirably; but it was now a potential source of danger.

The minds of these primitive men were still steeped in magic and superstition. Had the ‘precious thing' he had displayed to Chou been some fabulous jewel, that would have been the end of the matter. It would never have entered their heads to rob him of a thing which they could neither use nor dispose of to advantage in this remote and poverty-stricken province. But his British passport was a very different matter. Since it was a paper engraved with strange symbols, and the Lord Lin set a high enough value on it to have a Princess murdered in order to secure it for himself, to them it could only be some form of talisman which conferred great magical powers on its possessor.

It was therefore, Gregory now felt, a highly dubious asset. On the one hand, as they knew him to be carrying it they might be too scared of its possible powers to attempt anything against him. On the other, the temptation to gain such a prize might easily lead one of them to creep upon him in the night and murder him for it.

Obviously something had to be done to change their attitude and win, if not their friendship, at least their wholesome
respect. The first item on the programme was to show he was armed; so he began to keep his eyes open for a suitable opportunity to produce his automatic and, if possible, use it with good effect. Having prepared it for an instant draw he rode on a little way ahead of the column and, after about twenty minutes, saw his chance.

At his approach a small flight of duck rose from a pond near the track and winged away towards the river. As he was a crack shot with a pistol there was just a chance that he might bring one down, but if he missed he would still have shown his gun, which was really all that mattered. Taking careful aim just ahead of the last bird in the flight he loosed off at it. His luck could not have been better. The bullet severed the bird's neck and it came hurtling earthwards.

With spontaneous cries of delight two of the men who were not leading strings of animals galloped forward in a race to retrieve it. Pocketing his gun Gregory produced a U.S. dollar bill and held it out to the winner. The man gave him a look of surprise but took it eagerly. Then, as he returned to his companions they all began to chatter.

While Gregory was tying the dead duck on to his saddle, Chou came up beside him, and said with open admiration, ‘That was a fine shot, Lord. Few men could bring down a bird at that distance with a pistol.'

Gregory shrugged. ‘From my youth I have been what you would call a soldier of fortune; so arms are my trade, and several times I have owed my life to being able to draw a pistol quickly.' Then, with a glance behind him he added, ‘It is good to hear the men talking again. Why have they been so silent all the morning?'

Chou gave him an uncomfortable look. ‘All of us admired the poor dumb Princess, Lord; and how can we help but believe that it was you who killed her. If it were done by the orders of the Lord our master, it is not for us to question the act; but as men we cannot be expected to approve the killing of a defenceless woman.'

His answer was more or less what Gregory had expected,
and it gave him the opening to say, ‘I robbed her after she was dead, Chou, but I swear by your gods and mine that I did not kill her. Please tell your men that. And now, will you in turn swear to me that you had no hand in her death?'

‘Yes, I swear it. And I can vouch too, for the innocence of my men. None of them could have left our camp-fire before midnight without my knowing.'

‘In that case it must have been done by an agent of the Lord Lin's living in Tung-kwan, to whom he sent secret instructions. Perhaps we shall learn the truth when we arrive at Yen-an. Anyhow, until we get there let us accept one another's word that we were not responsible for this horrible business, and say no more about it.'

To that Chou nodded assent. Then, after a glance at the sun, which, as it was nearly nine o'clock, was now well up, he pointed downhill towards a stream some half a mile ahead that ran into the river, and said:

‘As we started so early it is time for a long halt. That looks a good place so we will eat our rice there.'

Seeing another opportunity to get things on a better footing Gregory replied, ‘Good; then let us cheer the party up. I'll take the lead animals and all of you shall race to it. To the first man to water his pony at the stream I will give a prize of five U.S. dollars.'

Chou's face broke into a grin, and on his shouting the offer to his companions it was received with acclamation. A few minutes later the five men were lined up. Gregory fired his pistol in the air and in a cloud of dust they thundered off down the slope.

When he joined them with the two strings of animals, and duly handed over the prize, he felt that he was making good progress; but the men had still not regained their natural cheerfulneess and he wanted to get them laughing; so he resorted to another stratagem.

As they set about preparing the meal he went behind a nearby rock and took his trousers down. After crouching there for a few minutes he rejoined them and began to lend a hand. Suddenly he let out a yell and clutched himself
between the legs. They all stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at him, as he treated them to a delightful piece of pantomime. With a look of agony on his face he proceeded to slap himself about the crutch, shout, run up and down, jump about, and swear lustily. Having seen him go behind the rock they naturally assumed that while his trousers were down a centipede or a stinging ant had got into his clothes and was now making a meal off him.

It was just the sort of happening to appeal to their sense of humour. All five of them pointed at him, jabbered to each other and went into fits of laughter. Clapping their hands, and slapping their thighs in imitation of his frantic gestures, they laughed till they cried; and as he finally ran off behind the rocks to debag himself again and pretend to rid himself of his tormentor the whole valley was ringing with their mirth. The episode kept them merry all through the meal, and when they set off after it their gloom of the morning had been dissipated.

Soon afterwards they came to a fair-sized village, where Gregory managed to buy some toilet articles and other oddments, to replace things he had been compelled to abandon in Tung-kwan, and in addition a hooded cloak, fur hat and blankets.

By three o'clock in the afternoon they had already put in a longer day than usual, so they camped for the night in the courtyard of a small ruined temple. After they had eaten, as the men were not yet sleepy and Gregory knew that one of their favourite sports was wrestling, he suggested that they should have a series of matches, for which he would give prizes. They needed no second invitation but with ready shouts ran to collect stones for drawing lots, their system being that the two who drew the largest and smallest stones out of a hat should lead off in the first bout.

All of them were strong and agile but Gregory had no doubt that he could master any of them individually, and he had led them into the contest with a definite purpose. He had no intention of wrestling himself, but when the tournament was over he went up to the winner, gave him
his prize, then in three swift moves threw him over his arched back.

There was a roar of applause, except for the man he had thrown, who picked himself up and came at him like a panther. But Gregory had expected that and, without ever allowing him to get a hold, tripped or flung him again and again in a succession of judo passes. When he had tired the man he told him to stop, and that he should have an extra five dollars for the falls he had taken. As he paid his panting antagonist he told them all that his ability to get the better of a stronger man was not due to any magic, but simply to a special form of training that anyone could learn. Then, to their delight, he spent the next half-hour teaching them the elementary principles of ju-jitsu.