The Island Where Time Stands Still (51 page)

‘Honourable Sir. Permit me to inform you that this island is a leper settlement, and that to land upon it is forbidden unless you or your ship's company are in distress.'

‘I have been here before,' Gregory replied promptly.
Then, with memories of the pompous individual who had daily strutted up and down the wharf, when he had been an inmate of the cage up on the hill opposite it, he asked, ‘Where is the Harbour-Master?'

The tall man gave him a surprised look, and answered, ‘I am the Harbour-Master. My predecessor had the misfortune to join his ancestors a week ago.'

Josephine, Foo and Tû-lai had meanwhile come up the steps and were now standing beside Gregory. In a loud voice, so that the crowd of fishermen and wharf-hands could hear, he cried:

‘Then, most honourable Harbour-Master, this is a great day for you. My friends and I have brought you Her Imperial Highness the Princess Josephine, whose arrival was expected here early last summer.'

The Harbour-Master's eyes opened wide, a murmur of astonishment ran through the crowd, then it broke into loud cries of excitement and applause.

For a moment the new Harbour-Master remained dumbfounded; then, with a deep bow to Josephine, he stammered, ‘We … we believed Your Highness to … to be dead. I … I will send a runner immediately to inform the Council.'

‘Thank you,' said Gregory. ‘And I would be glad if he could also apprise the lady A-lu-te of our arrival.'

The man nodded, but an uneasy expression had appeared on his face, and he muttered with a thin-lipped, slightly apologetic smile, ‘Her Imperial Highness must forgive me, but I have no accommodation down here in which it would be at all suitable for her to wait until a fitting reception can be arranged. The building up there on the hill, will, I fear, be considered by so illustrious a person a place of extreme squalor; but at least it has been fitted up as a rest house for unexpected guests. Permit me to send for a chair, so that she may be carried up there.'

‘By all means send for a chair,' Gregory replied promptly, ‘but Her Imperial Highness will be quite happy to sit in it down here.'

With an acutely worried look, the Harbour-Master plucked at the sleeve of his jacket, drew him slightly aside, and whispered, ‘We have been told on excellent authority that the Princess was murdered nearly two months ago. I do not know you, and I have only your word that this is her. Perhaps I am being extremely foolish, and shall have to pay for my attitude later. But it is a regulation that all strangers arriving here should be accommodated in the guest house. I must enforce it; otherwise I may lose my position. Any trouble between my men and the crowd would be most regrettable. Please give me your assistance by allowing us to escort your party in an orderly manner up to the building on the hill.'

Gregory was loath to allow his friends and himself to be penned up in the cage, but he had visualised having to submit to it temporarily on landing as a definite possibility; and, as they were armed, he felt that, if the necessity arose, they could always shoot their way out again; so he said:

‘Very well, then; but send the runner off at once to let the Council know that the Princess is here.' Then he told the crew of the launch that they might take it back to the ship.

Murmuring his thanks, the Harbour-Master turned away and began to rap out sharp orders to some of his men. A few minutes later a sedan-chair was produced, Josephine got into it and, accompanied by the entire crowd, they went round the inland end of the harbour and up the steep winding path to the guest house.

Its keeper, old Chung, was still there. Recognising Gregory at once he greeted him with surprise but obvious pleasure; then set about superintending the bestowal of the guests' baggage, which had been carried up by a score of coolies who had fought for a share in the job.

The Harbour-Master bowed himself away, and, as Gregory observed with satisfaction, made no move to lock the gate of the cage after him. A portion of the crowd accompanied him back down the path; but the greater part of it remained outside the cage, staring goggle-eyed through the
wire at Josephine, who had seated herself in one of the bamboo arm-chairs on the terrace.

As soon as Chung had got rid of the volunteer porters, he had returned to his small kitchen to make tea for his visitors. Gregory joined him there and said:

‘Well, Chung; how have things been going on the Island since I left it in June?'

‘I had here the crew of a native canoe, that had been caught up in a storm and blown several hundred miles, soon after the yacht's departure,' Chung told him, ‘but we got rid of them early in August. Since then we have had no excitements until the return of the yacht after her long voyage. She got back about a fortnight ago.'

‘And since then?' Gregory prompted.

Chung frowned. ‘There has been a happening which has caused everyone in the Island much grief.'

‘Really,' said Gregory, disguising his swiftly aroused interest by giving his voice a sympathetic tone. ‘I'm sorry to hear that. Tell me about it?'

Taking the boiling kettle off the stove, Chung replied, ‘Eight days ago, to celebrate his return, the Lord Kâo Hsüan gave a banquet. There were sixty guests, and afterwards nine of them died; it was said from food poisoning. Among those who went to greet their ancestors were the Lord Kâo's brother, the Mandarin Li-chia Sung, the Chief of Police, Dr. Ho-Ping and our old Harbour-Master.'

For a second, Gregory held his breath. Chung's words had instantly revealed to him that he and his friends had placed themselves in a highly dangerous situation. Before they set out he had felt certain that Kâo would not be content to await events, but would take some further step to bring his plans nearer fruition as soon as possible after he got home. It would not have surprised Gregory at all to learn that A-lu-te's father had met with a fatal accident, and that Kâo had succeeded him on the Council. But that, in the brief space of a fortnight, a holocaust of this kind might have wrought such havoc among the ruling caste of the island was a possibility that had never entered his mind.

He had expected to have been met with the open enmity of Kâo as well as more subtle forms of attack; but he had counted on getting a fair hearing from the Council, and the support of both the Chief of Police and his old friend Ho-Ping, whom he knew to be honest men of influence. By their removal the scales had been weighted enormously in Kâo's favour, and Gregory now had to face the grim thought that he was up against odds that might well prove too much for him.

After having said to Chung how distressed he was to learn of the tragedy, he left him, returned to the others, took Tû-lai aside, and told him what had happened. They discussed the possibility of getting Josephine back to the ship at once, but decided that for the time being it was out of the question. The news of her arrival was swiftly spreading all over the Island. More and more people were streaming up the hill to gaze through the wire at her with excited interest, and outside the cage there was now a crowd of two or three hundred. Friendly as the people appeared to be, Gregory and Tû-lai agreed that now the Princess, for whose reception such joyous preparations had been made six months before, had at last arrived, they would certainly not stand calmly by while she was taken down to the harbour and rowed away again to sea in one of the small boats.

The only course seemed to be to await events as though they had nothing to fear. Some comfort, at least, could be derived from the attitude of the crowd, as it was a guarantee that they could not be imprisoned for any length of time without trouble arising; and that no hole-in-the-corner method could be employed in dealing with them, as the people would expect the Princess to be received with honour, and would have to be given some explanation if she was not. For the rest, they could only pin their faith on their wits and weapons.

It was nearly five o'clock when they sighted a cavalcade approaching down the avenue of palms that led to the harbour. It consisted of a strong force of police, a great lacquered palanquin carried by twenty bearers, and a large
sedan-chair. At the bottom of the hill Kâo was helped out of the palanquin and eased his bulk into the sedan; then six of his bearers hoisted its poles on their shoulders, and, streaming with sweat, carried him up the steep path.

At the gate of the cage he alighted, waved back three police officers who were with him, and entered it alone. He did not bow to Josephine, or return the bows of the three men with her, but walked straight up to them. Then, his heavy face black as thunder, he said to Gregory:

‘You must be mad to have come back here!'

Feigning surprise, Gregory replied, ‘I cannot think why you say that, Sir. Surely you do not still believe that I killed that poor girl in Tung-kwan. In any case, whatever you believe, it should already be plain to you that I have since been employing myself most faithfully in the interests of the Island.'

‘You lying trickster!' Kâo snarled. ‘Of course you killed her! And since you have returned you shall be made to pay for it.'

‘In view of the service I have rendered to the Council, I had expected a better reception,' Gregory said with an injured air, ‘I can only suppose that your mind is embittered by jealousy, owing to Tû-lai and myself having succeeded where you failed. It was he who is mainly responsible for bringing Her Imperial Highness here. Be good enough to allow him to present you to her.'

For a moment Kâo stared at Josephine, his mouth working with anger; then he sneered, ‘She is no Princess! You know that well enough! You murdered the Princess yourself in Tung-kwan. As for your companions, I see you have with you the little rat who tried to kill me on the yacht, and Lin Tû-lai. His being in this party shows him to be as big a rogue as his father. It is clear that this girl is your tool, and you have brought her here in the hope of foisting her upon us as our ruler. How you expected such an ill-conceived plot to succeed, I cannot think.'

Breaking off for a second, Kâo cast a quick glance over
his shoulder at the silent, staring crowd; then he turned right round and cried loudly to them:

‘This woman is no Princess! She is an impostor! These people are a gang of criminals, and they will be brought before the Council tomorrow morning. Now that I have been appointed its President, you may be sure that they will be made to pay in full for this wicked deception they have attempted to practise upon you.'

Kâo had gone, leaving two police officers and half a dozen men at the guest house; so its inmates were now prisoners. However, they had not been deprived of their weapons, as no attempt had been made to search them. In fact, apart from locking the gate of the cage, placing a guard on it and installing themselves in the big common-room, the police had taken no steps to assert their authority.

Gregory took that as an indication that Kâo was not sufficiently sure of himself to order hands to be laid on them, at all events in the presence of the crowd. The greater part of it had received his announcement in puzzled silence. There was some hissing, but it had seemed to be directed as much at Kâo as at the ‘criminals' he had denounced. It was, anyhow, clear that he was by no means popular, and Gregory formed the impression that if only Josephine could have addressed the people they would have taken her word rather than his. But, unfortunately, that was out of the question; and for any of her friends to have done so on her behalf would not have had the same effect.

As it was, she waved to them from time to time, and many of them, obviously bewitched by her loveliness, waved back. Some of the men, too, who had known Gregory, shouted friendly greetings to him. That heartened them considerably, as the eager interest shown in them might prove a valuable asset in protecting them from violence; but in other respects it did not lessen the danger of their situation, for now that Kâo had got himself appointed President of the Council his new powers must make him a truly formidable enemy.

Soon after Kâo's departure, Gregory returned to the
galley. In the circumstances he thought it very unlikely that Kâo would attempt to poison them that night; but he did not mean to take any chances. Kâo had not even spoken to Chung, and Gregory believed the elderly guest-house cook to be entirely reliable, but there was just a possibility that one of the police might have been ordered to slip something into the food; so he remained there while their evening rice was cooked and supervised the serving of it.

On account of Josephine, Foo was naturally taking matters worse than the others, and was already almost in despair, but she had shown great courage, and Gregory and Tû-lai did their best to cheer him up by pretending a confidence in the outcome of events that they had small grounds for feeling. They all agreed that no one could have foreseen that Kâo would become such a power in the Island in so short a time; but they endeavoured to comfort one another with the thought that, as he could hardly yet have got firmly into the saddle, there must still be considerable opposition to him, and that with skill and determination it might be rallied to his undoing.

As darkness fell the crowd began to melt away, and when only a few people were left staring in through the gate of the cage the senior police officer came up and presented himself to the prisoners. Courteously, but firmly, he told them that he had orders to lock them into their cubicles, and, as nothing was to be gained by offering resistance, they agreed to his doing so. Their minds were filled with uneasy speculations about what fate might hold in store for them next day; but, putting on brave faces, they wished one another good night.

Gregory had taken for himself the cubicle into which he had been put after having been washed up as a cast-away, although it recalled for him most unhappy memories. It was there that it had been fully borne in upon him that he would never again behold his beloved Erika. The pain was gone now, and when he thought of her it was only to recall the many wonderful times they had had together, with thankfulness that they had been so blessed; yet deep down
he knew that he could never be completely consoled for her loss, and that if he found happiness again with A-lu-te it would be of an entirely different kind.