Читать книгу Held by Chinese Brigands - Gilson Charles - Страница 6

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Mr Waldron appreciated the journey up the West River even more than the sights of Canton. Stretched comfortably upon his deck-chair, he surveyed through his binoculars the rich, prosperous landscape of Southern China. He interested himself in the straw-hatted peasants at work in the tea-gardens and the ricefields. As the launch steamed upon its way, he inspected river-side villages, temples, gateways and pagodas.

The party arrived at Wu-chau, spent two or three days seeing the sights, and then proceeded up-river. A few days later, the launch arrived at the town of Pinglo--three days after Men-Ching, seated astride his little Mongolian pony, had ridden in from the East.

Since there was little or nothing to see in Pinglo, Sir Thomas Armitage, Frank and Mr Hennessy K. Waldron, accompanied by Yung How and one other personal servant, set out on a journey across country towards the north. They carried knapsacks upon their backs, and proceeded by way of the narrow paths separating the ricefields. The heat was excessive, but as they progressed, and reached higher altitudes, it became cooler, and at the end of three days' march the Nan-ling Mountains stood out before them like a great wall.

They found the Taoist temple, surrounded by trees, tucked away in the corner of a picturesque valley, where there were great numbers of birds of brilliant plumage.

Mr Waldron was delighted. The temple was deserted, and appeared to have been neglected for centuries. The plaster had crumbled from the walls and lay in heaps upon the floor. The place consisted of one huge hall, with several smaller rooms on either side. Everything of value had been stolen; but the architecture remained, solid and fantastic, and of the greatest antiquity.

Ranged around the walls were the figures of scores of gods and goddesses, chief amongst whom was Buddha. Sir Thomas was able to identify several of the images, one of whom he recognised as Mohammed, another as St Paul, and a third as Marco Polo. That Marco Polo should have risen in China to the dignity of a deity is conceivable, since this dauntless adventurer was the first European to reside in the ancient Tartar kingdom of Kublai Khan. But it was indeed remarkable that the fame of such great preachers as St Paul and the founder of the Mohammedan religion should have reached--across the whole of Asia--the heart of the Chinese Empire. This is no treatise on Chinese theology, else we could write much concerning the Taoist temple on the southern slopes of the Nan-ling Mountains, at the very back of the beyond. It is sufficient to say that the judge took copious notes, and Mr Hennessy K. Waldron was delighted. As a memento of the expedition he knocked off a stone gargoyle from above the porchway of the temple.

In many ways the expedition resembled a delightful picnic, in a country that was charming and romantic. The ruined temple was surrounded by flowering shrubs and queer-shaped deciduous trees, and there were moss-grown banks upon which one could lie at ease during the heat of the day or sleep tranquilly by night, when thousands of frogs were croaking in the valley below, and crickets were singing in the long kiao-liang that grew upon the mountain-side.

The place was a natural garden, scented with almond and mimosa. During the heat of the day there was shade in plenty; after sunset the temperature was cool and refreshing. Yung How and his assistant attended to their wants; gave them four-course luncheons and dinners, produced from a saucepan and a frying-pan by means of a small wood fire laid between two bricks. Neither Mr Waldron nor the judge himself showed the slightest inclination to return to the steaming valley of the river. As for Frank, he was happy all day long, exploring the neighbourhood, climbing to the crest-line of the hills, whence he could survey a vast panorama of terraced paddy-fields, winding rivers, scattered villages and towns, each with its joss-houses and its temples and its great horseshoe graveyards.

On the second day of their visit, whilst his uncle and the American were occupied in inspecting the temple, Frank Armitage ascended a steep bridle-path which crossed the mountains at a narrow pass. To the north he found his view obstructed by another and even more rugged range of mountains. Anxious to gain a more commanding position, the boy left the bridle-path and climbed, on hands and knees, the steep face of the adjacent peak.

It took him the greater part of an hour to gain the top, but there he found his efforts rewarded by a view that reminded him of many scenes pictured by Gustave Doré, illustrating Don Quixote or Paradise Lost--pictures that had fascinated and frightened him as a child.

Immediately before him was a second valley, at right angles to the one dividing the parallel ranges, resembling a huge, deep sword-cut in the barren, savage hills. This valley narrowed as it rose to a higher altitude, and finally became lost in mountain mist. There were few trees upon the steep, glistening slopes, and such as were to be seen were stunted and deformed. There were no roads or paths; no sign of life or civilisation. The sun itself appeared to have been shut out for ever from this stretch of desolation.

Frank turned and looked towards the south. In this direction were green trees, green fields--a plain, rich, fertile, well-watered and thickly populated. It was almost impossible to believe that a narrow watershed could divide landscapes so different that they might have been scenes from different planets. He glanced again at the dark sinister valley; and as he did so he caught a glimpse of something red, moving slowly across the spur that formed the angle of the two valleys immediately below.

He could not at first make out what this could be, for the moving object almost at once disappeared behind a hillock. When it appeared again, however, it was in mid-valley; and he recognised a party of men dressed in scarlet coats, who were marching in close formation, making in the direction of the pass across the range.

Frank knelt down behind a boulder and watched with interest, and not without apprehension, the approaching figures. A natural instinct warned him that it would not be wise to show himself. There was something in the forbidding nature of the valley itself that warned him that its sole occupants were not likely to be men whom one could trust.

They climbed the bridle-path, gaining at last the pass whence Frank himself had ascended to the hill-top. They were now easy to distinguish. The party numbered about thirty. They were brown-skinned Chinese, evidently mountain-born; all were armed with scythe-like spears or long, curved knives, and one or two carried pistols in their belts. All wore scarlet coats, some of which were bright and new, others being so faded that they were a kind of dirty pink. At the head of the party marched a little shrivelled man, whose scarlet coat was trimmed with gold. Frank Armitage did not know it--though within eight hours he was to learn the truth--but this was the redoubtable Cheong-Chau himself--the brigand chief who plundered the southern provinces from the Nan-ling Mountains to the sea.

As they passed, swinging on their way, these men sang a low, wailing chant that might have been a funeral dirge, but which was, in fact, a pirate song of blood and lust and murder. At the rear of the party was an old man, seated upon the back of a short-necked Mongolian pony. This was Men-Ching, who had ridden post-haste from the city of Canton, bringing greetings to Cheong-Chau from Ah Wu, who kept an opium den in the vicinity of the Mohammedan mosque.

Men-Ching had seen Yung How in the city of Wu-chau, and had there heard news of the ancient Taoist temple upon the southern slopes of the mountains. And Cheong-Chau had shaken off the sleep of opium and, gathering his men, had issued from the town of Pinglo, and had marched by night into the mountains, the sovereignty of which he shared with the eagles and the kites.