CHAPTER XIIA DARING PLAN
Ta-Lingthrew down the coat impatiently and glanced disdainfully at the other articles of apparel. He then took up Phil’s muddy trousers gingerly as if fearful of soiling his esthetic hands. The lad’s heart was in his throat while he watched the Chinaman guardedly, striving to appear unconcerned, and cudgeling his brain for something to say in order to turn the man’s attention from a search of the guilty garment.
“Why are you so bitter against my people?” Phil asked hoarsely. “Were you not educated in America?”
Ta-Ling dropped the tattered garment, glancing up quickly, a scowl on his yellow face.
“Why am I bitter against you?” he answered. “I despise everything American. Was I not put in a pen in San Francisco along with such cattle as coolies from Japan,Corea and my own country? Your stupid officials claimed not to be able to distinguish between us. I heard one say ‘All Chinks look alike to me.’ After the first experience, when I was washed and my clothes fumigated as if I had been a pauper immigrant, I got letters from college friends, but armed even with these I suffered indignities at the hands of these ignorant officials. When I left America with my graduation diploma in my pocket I took oath to my father’s spirit that I would consecrate my life to making foreigners respect the persons of the high class Chinese, and in starting this crusade I saw it was first necessary to drive all foreigners out of our sacred country.”
Both midshipmen were astonished at the earnestness in Ta-Ling’s voice. If the situation had been reversed, would they have acted differently? Had not this man ample reason to hate all foreigners?
“Even if some of our stupidly ignorant and irresponsible officials could not distinguish between ranks in your society,” Phil urged, “why should you revenge yourself against us? We are innocent of all blame.We came into your city under the sacred protection of a flag of truce, and in committing a crime against us you will only confirm foreigners in their belief that a Chinaman is not worthy of considerate treatment. Your cause will not be benefited, and your people will suffer; the allied fleet will avenge our deaths as was done in Peking.”
“What do I care how many of these low-caste dogs die?” Ta-Ling retorted scornfully; “there are over four hundred million of such animals. Your deaths will force the foreign governments to wage war on China, and once this war is begun, our people will rise up from one end of the empire to the other to drive the foreigner from the soil of China.”
“But the missionaries, who have at heart only the enlightenment of your people,” Phil urged, catching his clothes stealthily from the ground at Ta-Ling’s feet.
“They, of all the foreigners who come to China,” the Chinaman returned somewhat shamefacedly, “are working unselfishly, but they must suffer with the others; all foreigners must go for China’s good.
“I tell you these things,” he ended, turning to leave the midshipmen with their jailer, “because your death-warrants have already been signed by the viceroy. At the first hostile shot fired by the allies your heads will pay the forfeit and we shall attack the mission, guarded now by your sailors, and kill every foreigner within.”
As Ta-Ling left them, the jailer seized the lads roughly and dragged them toward their cell. As the door closed behind them Phil shuddered at the demoniacal laughs of derision from their fellow prisoners.
“Our cause has a bitter enemy in Ta-Ling,” Phil whispered, after the lads had been sitting on their hard wooden bench for several minutes and the noise from their prison mates had subsided; “but I believe he’ll fail. When Commander Hughes commences to throw his shells into the city, he’ll be one of the first, with all his vain show of patriotism, to cry enough and seek safety.”
Sydney did not reply; his thoughts were upon the coming night, when the two midshipmen were to make their dash for freedom.
After a few minutes he confided his fears to his friend.
“If Ta-Ling finds that we have talked with the Tartar general we’re as good as dead men,” he said in an awed whisper.
This terrible thought sent a shiver through Phil.
“Did you notice the look on the jailer’s face when Ta-Ling was talking to him?” he continued in an anxious voice; “it was one of cringing fear. If Ta-Ling even suspects that we had been out of our cell and questions that man he will tell all. The jailer probably is keen enough to know that Hang-Ki and Ta-Ling are enemies, and of the two he fears the latter most.”
“Well, the die is cast,” Phil answered, smiling with a great effort; “there’s no use crying over it. We are either going to escape to-night or we are going to have our heads chopped off out there in the courtyard. Nothing that we can do can alter our fate, so we might just as well look cheerful, even though we don’t feel that way,” and suiting his actions to his words he began to whistle the class march.
Sydney sat mournfully listening, while the Chinese criminals crowded around them, jabbering noisily.
The hours dragged wearily along. As the light through the barred door became dimmer, foretelling the end of the tedious day, the midshipmen’s hopes rose; so far Ta-Ling could not have learned of their visit to his enemy.
The midshipmen were taken out into the courtyard as usual for their evening meal and after the meagre fare had been eaten with great effort by the anxious and impatient lads, the jailer removed their irons and washed carefully the aching sore on Sydney’s wrist.
Phil was delighted to see that the man had recovered from his fear of a few hours ago, and that he lingered a much longer time than seemed necessary, for Sydney’s wrist had been securely bound with Phil’s handkerchief and appeared to be healing, auguring well for the success of the coming night.
It was quite dark when the jailer had finished his solicitous attentions, and replaced the irons on their feet and hands. Motioningthe midshipmen to follow him, he led them along the stone flagging of the courtyard, cautioning silence by raising his hand and shaking his head jerkily. Loaded down as they were with heavy chains, to move quietly was not an easy task, and was one calculated to fatigue the lads to an alarming extent after their two days of cruel torture in these steel bonds.
After traversing nearly half the length of the courtyard, the jailer suddenly threw open a door, and forcefully pushed them through it into darkness. The door closed quietly behind his retreating figure.
Their hearts beating fast, Phil and Sydney strained their ears to catch the first sound of alarm. Heavy footfalls approaching on the stone pavement soon told them the reason of the jailer’s haste and his sudden departure.
Holding their breath tightly, they heard the newcomer stop hesitatingly before the door of their cell, then after a second he moved farther along, and finally the opening and shutting of a door told them he had entered a room near or even next to the one in which the two midshipmen had been so suddenly thrust.
Sounds of a low-pitched voice came distinctly to their ears through the frail partition; the lads listened eagerly. Then the bold tones of Langdon’s voice sounded distinctly.
“For a man who was educated among white men,” he was saying in a scornful voice, “you seem to have a queer idea of our honesty. If you liberate all, I’ll take the letter to our captain, but I shall not tell him I believe the viceroy will play fair, for I don’t believe he will. I don’t trust him, nor you. Send the letter by one of your own people, and see what answer he’ll send back. The threat that at the first gun fired by the allies our heads will be chopped off will not affect his plans. What are two midshipmen, four sailors, and a pilot to a country like ours?”
“Commander Ignacio and two of the allied gunboats have accepted the viceroy’s word and are back at their old anchorage,” Ta-Ling’s voice urged. “That shows the viceroy’s good faith.”
“Don’t talk to me of that traitor,” Langdon exclaimed; “he isn’t white anyway; his skin is as yellow as yours.”
“Then you refuse your life?” Ta-Ling’s voice asked.
“You Chinese are a soft-brained lot,” Langdon said, ignoring the question; “your intrigue is as plain as children’s play. Men like Ignacio might be fooled. I don’t know what promises you’ve made to him. Probably offered to give his countrymen the railroad concession to Peking, which your viceroy has cheated the Americans out of by his underhand dealings; but you ought to know after four years at an American college that we are not that kind. Commander Hughes is in this river to see that Americans are left unmolested, in accordance with the treaties made between the two countries.”
“I suppose you know that when I was in your America I personally investigated nearly a score of murders of Chinese in what you call the West. Each case was as brutal and flagrant as any that has occurred in China,” Ta-Ling’s voice broke in triumphantly. “How then can you boast of the honesty of your people?—for in not a single instance were the murderers punished.”
“That’s because you Chinese are a weakrace, and haven’t the back-bone to stand up for your rights,” Langdon replied, “while we are men enough to insist on fair treatment for our citizens abroad. That’s where you are lacking in national character.”
A rattle of chains and harsh cries of rage and pain followed the sally of Langdon, causing the listeners to hold themselves rigid with suppressed excitement.
“That beast!” Phil whispered. “I wish I had let him drown.”
“I’ll go to your midshipmen friends,” Ta-Ling said sullenly. “I believe they are frightened enough to be bought by the price you refuse. Remember, I’ve given you the last chance you’ll get.”
Langdon was apparently too angry to speak. The lads could hear distinctly his heavy breathing, caused by some torture administered by this cruel Chinaman.
“You’re trying to hedge, is that it?” the thick voice of the pilot was heard to say; “or do you count upon catching the gunboats unawares as they steam by the forts flying flags of truce?”
The Chinaman administered a vicious kickin answer, and the lads held their breath in almost a panic as they heard the door of Langdon’s cell close and Ta-Ling’s footsteps die slowly away down the courtyard.
“It’s all up with us,” Sydney breathed hopelessly. “He’ll soon find we are not in our prison, and then——” he ended with a shiver as his thoughts dwelt upon the terrible death by decapitation.
A loud clank made the overwrought midshipmen start terrified; then Phil fairly gasped with surprise and joy; his arm manacles had fallen to the ground.
In the darkness he quickly reached out and grasped Sydney’s hand, fingering nervously the cruel iron bracelets. The metal rings were clamped but unlocked, and he readily removed the irons from his companion’s hands. In but a moment more they both stood free of their retaining bonds.
“Ta-Ling and the jailer,” Phil whispered as a sound of approaching footsteps became audible. “If they enter here we must overpower them. It’s our one chance now.”
Sydney moved closer to Phil, taking his hand in silence, and pressing it in signof his readiness to follow his friend’s lead.
“They must make no outcry,” Phil continued. “I’ll take the one nearest me.”
The Chinamen stopped at the cell door, and the voice of Ta-Ling was raised angrily, storming in Chinese at the jailer, apparently for daring to remove the prisoners from their former cell.
The midshipmen retreated until their backs touched the wall of the narrow cell, having replaced their hand irons to appear to be still in chains.
A dim light shone into their cell as the door swung loudly open, and the scowling face of Ta-Ling appeared, with the jailer behind him, timidly holding up an oil lantern.
“So you didn’t like to be kept with the rest of the cattle?” Ta-Ling’s cruel voice began. Then he stopped suddenly, and threw up his head with a wicked laugh. “You’ve heard Langdon’s answer, then?” he continued, signing to the terrified and trembling jailer to put down the lantern on the solitary wooden bench. The man entered the cell to obey, leaving the door open.
Phil saw the time had come for action. He sought Sydney’s eye, then stealthily moved his foot, quietly throwing the door off its balance, allowing it to swing slowly closed. He had purposely moved so that Ta-Ling in addressing him must turn his back upon Sydney and the jailer. Burning with excitement he watched Sydney grasp his hand irons firmly. The great bulk of the jailer loomed almost grotesquely in the light of the flickering lantern. Fearing that Ta-Ling might be attracted by the eagerness which he was powerless to hide, Phil lowered his gaze, but out of the tail of his eye he was conscious that the iron flashed in the lamplight as the click of the shutting door caused the interpreter to glance toward it suspiciously.
Then a rattle of chain and a dull sound behind him made Ta-Ling swing suddenly around. Phil’s opportunity had arrived. With fingers itching for this cruel Chinaman’s throat he sprang upon him, smothering the cry that was ready to give the alarm to the yamen guard, and bore him heavily to the ground. In the flickering light he sawthe man’s face turn livid, then purple, while his muscles relaxed. Glancing up, he saw Sydney removing a great bunch of keys from the prostrate body of the jailer.