Читать книгу Wang the Ninth - B. L. Putnam Weale - Страница 8

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The circumstances surrounding his first meeting with foreigners—those white-faced men and women of western race who had been nicknamed by the common people "foreign devils"—had a tremendous influence on him.

From his earliest years he could remember being half-frightened, half-fascinated by the awesome tales which were current regarding their strength and their violence—and of the dread things they did to children if they fell into their clutches. No mad whisperings among illiterate Russian peasants leading to pogroms of the Jews could surpass these insiduous stories. Foreigners, it was said, when they wished powerful medicines, took the eyes of Chinese children and boiled them. They were also reported to cut up dead bodies, besides being willing to use their knives on the living whom they put to sleep with drugs and who woke up to find legs and arms missing....

In this way was the work of hospitals discredited—only the very poor and wretched dared to go near them. The "devils" represented a hideous force which so exercised the public mind that it had been always easy in the past to raise a riot against them on the slightest provocation. Parents never failed to threaten children who plagued them with the declaration that they would be handed over to the tender mercies of the first devil who was met with. This threat was worse than any possible chastisement. It instantly brought submission.

Little Wang had caught a distant glimpse of them several times passing in and out of the city gate; but like the other children he had immediately run away and hid himself until the coast was clear. Once, when there was no time to escape, a friendly cake-seller had taken hold of him and covered his eyes tightly with his hands so that "the malign influence" should not be transmitted to him through his vision. That action had so fascinated him that he had talked about nothing else for days. He even invented a game, in which he played the part of the foreigner, and all the children had to protect one another as the cake-seller had done from his influence when he approached.

Then had come the amazing adventure.

It was on a summer's afternoon, very late in the day when the August sun is still baking hot although it is about to set. All the world was drowsy and few were up and about. Stark-naked and supremely happy, he had wandered along the dusty highway into the country until he had come to a long irregular pond, full of stagnant water, with lilies growing in it, and frogs croaking their everlasting summer chorus. With the aid of a broken tool taken from his father's forge he had fashioned rudimentary boats and filled them with insects which tumbled in and out and fought one another and ended by dying the water-death.

Then, when he had tired of this sport, he had chased the slow and stupid dragon-flies with a stick on which was smeared bird-line borrowed from a neighbour, catching more than one by his surprising quickness. The diaphanous wings and the long shapely bodies provided him with new ideas: and with the aid of some strands of straw he had made for himself a crown of iridescent beauty—all shaking and moving with these creatures which he placed on his head, and which he thought entrancing.

As the sun sank lower and lower, the other children had wandered home, shrieked for by their mothers from the far distance who waved to them and threatened them to secure obedience. And because he had no mother to call him, he had mocked the others and settled down to play alone.

He was sitting in the dust of the highway, drawing patterns on the ground, with his dragonfly crown still about his ears, when the sound of strange voices and the stamp of hoofs in the great silence made him glance up. As he understood what it was he gasped aloud in his horror. For there almost on top of him—not more than twenty feet away—was a huge foreign-devil, with a yellow beard and a great whip in his hand riding on a big horse; and beside him on another horse was a woman-devil, all in white save for her hat, and a veil which fell around her neck.

For once in his life his nimble wits entirely deserted him. He was so stricken that he could neither think nor act. They had caught him out in the country—completely alone; there was not a soul to succour him.

Overcome and already feeling the malign influence striking down his spine, by a supreme effort he managed to wriggle away until he was out of their immediate way. But they had seen him: that was enough! They were making merry at his discomfiture, before they did something worse. The man was pointing at him, the woman was laughing.

As he cowered in the dust unable to move any further, he saw out of the corners of his eyes the foreign-devil drop his hand, put it into his pocket, pull it out quickly, and swing it fiercely towards him. There was a flash in the golden sunlight—a blinding flash. He closed his eyes and covered his head completely with his arms to meet the shock crushing the wriggling dragon-flies by this action. When he opened them, he was surprised to find himself alone and alive. The man and the woman were trotting their horses very fast and were rapidly becoming smaller in the distance. But there on the ground, almost at his knees, was a bright object. With one leap he was on it and had clutched it in his hand.

It was a piece of silver, quite an immense piece, very bright and new, worth he did not know how many score of the copper-cash.

Miracle of miracles!

For a moment he stood like that turning the coin over and over in his hand, not willing to believe his good-fortune, doubting whether it was really his, biting it to prove its worth. Then, as he saw the figures on horse-back fade away, a fever of excitement possessed him and he dashed madly home. To every one he met he shouted the miracle which had come to him, the silver coin. A foreign-devil had thrown it to him, with one sweep of the hand, like that! He gave an elaborate pantomime so that they should precisely understand the setting and the manner it all had come to pass. He let every person feel the coin and ring it and bite it. It was genuine beyond doubt; a dozen told him that; but regarding its precise value opinions differed.

At last he reached the doorway of the parental hut. His father was sitting there, still stripped to the waist, cooling himself after his arduous labours, at the forge. To him also in excited accents he told exactly what had happened—not once but many times, showing how he had crouched in the dust, how the coin had been thrown, how he had picked it up and his immense surprise.

A wondering crowd gathered. He was a hero, the head and front of all local interest. Nobody had ever heard of a story like that. The coin passed from hand to hand, was felt and appraised as it had never been appraised before. It was a dollar, a silver dollar. Then some one offered to exchange it—to give full value in copper cash.

The boy accepted the offer. His father, never saying a word, sat there puffing at his pipe, watching silently all the by-play. The boy was finally handed a double-string of cash; over a thousand coins, a veritable weight of wealth such as he had never felt before.

All evening he sat playing with the double-string, counting the coins to see that he had not been defrauded. He went to sleep with the money clutched across his chest, dreaming impossible dreams in which wealth rained on him in form of silver dollars.