Читать книгу The Vermilion Pencil - Homer Lea - Страница 7

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Hangchau, the capital of Che Kiang, rests haughtily upon its hills in full view of the ocean. Its granite walls, more than thirty miles in circumference, higher than a four-storied building and wide enough on top for four vehicles to drive abreast, extend north from the river Tsien toward a vast plain that stretches out an unending garden threaded with a thousand strands of silvery waterways. South of the city along the blue waters of the bay is another mighty garden spotted with clumps of trees, covered with luxuriant crops and villages nestling in groves of feathery bamboo; westward is the lake of Si Hu, and beyond, a wide amphitheatre of wooded hills and mountains.

Hangchau, like Che Kiang, has an antiquity of its own and though it stands to-day one of the world’s great cities, so it has stood for innumerable ages, more or less, in the manner Marco Polo saw it in the thirteenth century, “pre-eminent to all other cities in the world in point of grandeur and beauty as well as from its abundant delights.”

In that uncertain antique age when Babylon rested securely within its hundred-mile wall pierced by eighty brazen gates; when the massive town of Troy frowned down upon the troubled waters of the Xanthus, and Darius peered anxiously from Persepolis across the plains of Merdueth, even then was Hangchau a city. And now while Babylon is but a mud-mound on the willow-fringed banks of the Euphrates, Troy a myth, and jackals come forth when the moon is high to howl where once kings commanded—yet Hangchau lives, thrives, and is great.

Another wonder of Hangchau other than its antiquity and greatness is the Lake of Si Hu, a lake transparent as a diamond, its brilliant surface gleaming and fluttering amongst dark green hills for many miles in irregular circuit. On the north, west, and southwest rise picturesque mountains whose slopes along the lake’s edge are laid out in groves and gardens, beautiful though fantastic; having here and there temples, palaces and pagodas, while numbers of fanciful stone bridges are thrown across the arms that reach out among the hills. About over the waters great numbers of barges gaily decorated, sail to and fro, the passengers dining, smoking and enjoying the breezes which blow down from the higher mountains, as well as the gay scenes, the whimsical gardens, palaces, pagodas, and overhanging groves.

This lake, so like a jewel in its brilliancy, is studded with innumerable islands adorned with palaces and temples and on one of the larger islands, near the north shore, is a viceregal palace used as a suburban dwelling by the Viceroy of Chukiang.

One spring afternoon, when the pink petals lay strewn about, the Viceroy sat in the sun on a marble terrace thoughtfully munching his melon seeds, occasionally throwing one to the goldfish and turtles that crowded toward the terrace bank, snuffling, flopping but impatient to be fed. On a high ebony table beside his pipe and tea bowl lay a package of papers and at intervals the Viceroy re-perused some part of their contents, then placidly resumed his melon seeds, gazing over the lake to the hills bright in their spring foliage, to the slopes pink with blossoms, to the lake’s edge, fringed with the feathery bamboo. The shadow of a wutung tree slowly creeping across the terrace passed over the table and, hiding his bare grey head from the warm rays of the spring sun, aroused him from his meditation; again he looked over the papers then raised his hand.

In a moment Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, came from an adjoining pavilion and bowed before him.

“I have read these reports,” said the Viceroy gruffly, decisively tapping the package of papers. “They are guilty, and to-morrow shall die.”

The mandarin bowed.

“Justice,” continued the Viceroy, “is an excellent thing—when not delayed; to put off the punishment of the guilty is to destroy the dignity of the state—a procrastinating Justice is the buffoon of the populace. Do you understand?” And squinting his eyes, the Viceroy surveyed inquisitively the mandarin, who bowed repeatedly, uneasily.

“You were one day late.”

The mandarin continued bowing.

“Well!” demanded the Viceroy, impatiently tapping the papers that were spread upon his knees.

“I stopped——”

“Yes?” interrupted the Viceroy.

“I could not get——”

“Eh?”

The mandarin bowed fervidly.

“Where did you stop?”

“In the Heavenly Mountains,” he answered furtively.

“In the mountains?”

The Viceroy uttered these three words weighingly.

“That is—in a little valley—a very little valley.”

“Ah,” and for a moment the Viceroy looked at him in silence. “What valley?”

The mandarin became sallow. “My poor memory——”

“I will call your escort.”

“When I think of it,” put in the mandarin hastily and with trepidation, “the name comes to me—it is the Valley of a Fountain.”

“Why?”

“Great Sir,” answered the mandarin with an excited burst of confidence, “I am to marry the daughter of this valley.”

“Ah?” A sympathetic inquisitiveness was in the Viceroy’s voice. “I suppose you will now want a leave of absence?”

The mandarin’s face became suffused with joy. Nothing could have prevented him from bowing repeatedly.

“Well,” commanded the Viceroy impatiently, “this only daughter, is she well dowered?”

“Great Sir, I do not know; I do not care!” he cried excitedly.

“What!” demanded the Viceroy, peering at him in amazement.

“O Great Sir, if you could but see her you would understand that she is richer than wealth itself; it you could but hear her you would understand how my desires are as spring freshets surging against Time’s wintry constraint——”

“Ah?” The Viceroy uttered this with a great depth of feeling.

“Yes, yes,” went on the mandarin hurriedly, never lifting his eyes from the floor, “Fate, the Judge, decreed it, and Fate, the Jailor, pulled me into it. As I was passing along a mountain path, suddenly from out of the tea-shrubs came sweeter music than the song of the phœnix—the Song of Fate. My escort stopped and I was unable to make them amble onward. I can now understand how the flute of Liang Kiang stole away the courage of eight thousand men. My escort stood breathless while in vain I blustered and threatened. I was obliged to send a horseman to find out the source of the song and I found the phœnix-singer to be a girl living in the valley. My escort became mutinous, then like a gleam of sunlight shafted through a black rebellious storm flashed the thought of gain for Your Excellency—a musician rarer than any in the Middle Kingdom—and it determined me to go down in the glade.

“When the girl’s father learned that I was Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank, he told me confidentially—confidentially, that is the way it was—that his daughter lingered in the outer room tearful to see the hem of my robe. So I admitted her thinking that I might be of great service to Your Excellency. When she bowed down before me she trembled with delight——”

“What was her appearance?” demanded the Viceroy, interrupting the mandarin’s breathless monologue.

“O Great Sir, if I had all the wisdom of nine times the Nine Classics I could not describe her. She is not beautiful in the manner of the women of Hangchau. Her big eyes are round like those of oxen, but charged with most unoxen fires. She does not dainty along with golden lilied feet as the women here, but ankled as the kin deer and winged as the wild pheasant, she derides the very rocks and mountains. Her cheeks of almond flower the jealous sun has lacquered over with ruddy gold and her pouting lips are so pent full of ruby blood that they would turn the honestest man into a thief if he could but perform the subtle theft of gaining them.

“And yet, Great Sir, I do not know whether you would have called her beautiful or not before I conquered her, for she had somewhat of the devil in her.”

“You conquered her?” demanded the Viceroy, eying him doubtfully.

“Yes,” replied the mandarin, scowling proudly into the tree tops. “I conquered her, but not more by my personality than by stratagem for, as Your Excellency well knows, I am not unskilled in that contentious art.”

“So you captured her?” queried the Viceroy again, somewhat sarcastically.

“Yes, she came haughtily into my presence——”

“And kissed the hem of your robe?” interrupted the Viceroy.

“Exactly, exactly, a figure of speech; I have renamed her humility—haughtiness. But in continuation, when she beheld me and heard me speak in fluent familiarity the wisdom of the ancients, her rebellious, warring heart sent at once through every dainty vein its bold scouts that for themselves did redly dare the combat. Her eyes became a perfect arsenal and the arched bow of her lips shot from some inexhaustible quiver shafts divinely smeared with a poppy that would lull into dreams the most valorously inclined defence.

“Ah, it would have done Your Excellency a world of good if you could but have seen how her eyes, her lips, and even the shy little dimples, which hid in her cheeks and chin, contended as jealous allies, each first to make a breach in the hitherto impregnable fortress of my heart.

“But like a wise general, I simulated dismay, abandoned my outer works, and retreated to the keep. Straightway the jealous allies scaled the walls. I opened the inner gates and they, surcharged and petulant with fancied victory, rushed in. There was a momentary struggle, then she yielded, and now remains a willing captive in the very donjon of my heart.”

For some time the Viceroy eyed the mandarin in a manner unappreciative and in no way to his liking.

“Ho Ling!”

The mandarin started violently.

“You are still an ass.”