THE OSAKA BABIES
THE OSAKA BABIES.
The Japanese set their hearts upon taking Port Arthur on the birthday of their Emperor, October 29th, and the fiercest assault of the siege took place that day. On the evening before, Captain Oshima rested with his company in a trench which paralleled the defences of one of the strongest of the Russian forts. Until late at night his men were busy cleaning themselves as best they could, and changing their linen. They were preparing for death. The Japanese must die spotless in body as well as soul, to inherit eternal happiness. Oshima sat under a "bomb-proof" prepared by placing timbers across the trench and covering them with earth. He talked calmly with his line officers, and explained the plan of the coming attack, as he had received it from headquarters.
At intervals came the sound of the heavy siege mortars, two miles away, firing over their heads into Port Arthur. These huge eleven-inch guns were affectionately dubbed "Osaka Babies," because they were built at the Osaka arsenal in Japan. There were eighteen of them distributed about Port Arthur. Each gun was emplaced on a concrete foundation eight feet deep, which requiredthree weeks to build. The shells used weighed a quarter of a ton and each discharge cost Japan $400. The expense of a six-hour bombardment was something over three hundred thousand dollars.
"The 'babies' are crying," observed Oshima drily, as he paused a moment in his instructions. "To-morrow night—who of us will hear them?"
"To-morrow night," exclaimed a young lieutenant with enthusiasm, "they will cry no more, unless it be for joy. The fortress will be ours!"
Oshima glanced at his junior officer from beneath his dark eyebrows, but said nothing.
The night passed, and the morning of the Mikado's birthday dawned upon the beleaguered city, upon the fair hill-tops and the rippling sea, upon the stern, bearded faces of the defenders and the eager brown hordes crouching in the trenches outside the fort.
Slowly the hours dragged past, the siege-guns dropping their shells into the sand-slopes and tearing open great craters. Then shrapnel was hurled at the parapets, a hundred shots a minute. Not a fort replied. As silently as the Continental troops at Bunker Hill, the Russians awaited the approach of their foe.
At last the signal was given. The little brown men swarmed out of their trenches and up the fatal slope. Then at last the answer came, in a blinding flash and stunning roar from the embrasures. Whenthe smoke cleared away not a living man was left in sight, save a few whose wounds were not immediately fatal, and who lay in the hot sun helplessly awaiting death.
Another onrush of the diminutive assailants, another crashing discharge of artillery and rifle fire. A few survived, this time, and sheltered themselves in the gaps made by bursting shells. Again a host of assailants springing upward over the bodies of the fallen. Among them were the men commanded by Oshima. The young lieutenant, escaping the first fire and forgetting all caution, sprang ahead of the line, waving his sword and shouting "Banzai!" He reached the ramparts and for an instant stood erect upon them, a brave young figure against the blue sky. Then he toppled over into the fort and was never seen again by his comrades. Once more those who had not fallen burrowed in the sand-holes until the final charge was ordered.
An Osaka shell had made a breach in the ramparts through which the Russian rifles barked viciously. Oshima's company sprang toward the opening, only to find it guarded by a bristling hedge of bayonets over which the rear ranks were firing as regularly as on parade.
"Forward!" ordered Oshima, pointing to the breach with his sword.
A clump of Japanese soldiers sprang in front ofthe entrance and dropped in their tracks, pierced by half a hundred bullets. Their places were instantly taken by another squad, who reached the line of bayonets. There was a fierce hand to hand fight for a minute. The opening was so narrow that only a few could occupy it at the same time. These few, overpowered, pierced by the lunging bayonets of the Russians, staggered backward and fell, heaping the pile of slain before the redoubt. There was an instant's hesitation—then a dozen brown mendropped their musketsand ran in directly upon the bayonets, which flashed in the sunshine as they were driven home. Before they could be withdrawn from the bodies of their voluntary victims the remainder of the Japanese company sprang in over the bodies of their comrades and the Russian defenders met the same fate. Five minutes later the flag of the sunrise floated from two corners of the fort, and the ambulance corps spread out over the outerglacis, succouring the few wounded who survived the awful carnage.
Who were the gallant twelve who, like Arnold von Winkelried, sheathed the bayonets in their breasts to disarm the foe and so afford an entrance for their comrades? Generations of schoolboys have told upon the platform how the brave Switzer fell:
"'Make way for Liberty!' he cried!Made way for Liberty,—and died";
"'Make way for Liberty!' he cried!Made way for Liberty,—and died";
"'Make way for Liberty!' he cried!Made way for Liberty,—and died";
"'Make way for Liberty!' he cried!
Made way for Liberty,—and died";
but few, save the keeper of the military archives of Japan, know the names of the twelve heroes of Fort Keekwan.
The end was not yet. No sooner was the fort occupied by the Japanese than the fire of two others was concentrated upon it. The victors were in turn forced to evacuate that deadly enclosure, and plying their spades busily, entrenched themselves just below the parapets.
So assault after assault was delivered, and the slain lay in heaps inside the fortifications and without, and still Port Arthur was not taken; but slowly and relentlessly the besiegers moved forward, a few feet, a single earthwork, a point here and a point there being occupied, always nearer the heart of the citadel.
The last stage of the defence began with the capture of 203-Metre Hill, on November 20th, by which the Japanese secured a position from which they could search out with their shells every nook and corner of the inner harbour, where the last hope of the defenders, the remnant of their proud "Port Arthur Squadron," had lain in comparative safety since the actions in the earlier part of the war. The patched-up hulk of theRetvizanwas sunk at her moorings. Again and again the other vessels in the harbour were struck. The great Keekwan Mountain fort was at last taken and held, and onDecember 30th the Japanese stormed the key of the inner defences, Ehrlung fort, and put its weakened garrison of five hundred men to the sword. The hospitals of the city were crowded and medicines lacking.
On the last day of the year General Stoessel ordered the remaining battle-ships and cruisers to be blown up, and the torpedo-boat destroyers, with a transport containing eight hundred wounded, to make a dash for Chefoo; all of which was successfully carried out.
January 1, 1905, dawned peacefully. The besiegers prepared themselves for a final rush, before the contemplated horrors of which the civilised world stood aghast. But it was not to be.
Early in the forenoon a man bearing a white flag was seen mounting the parapets and approaching the Japanese lines. He was courteously received and conducted to headquarters. An hour later cheers rent the air, through all the trenches around Port Arthur. The city had capitulated. General Stoessel had surrendered, to save his remaining half-starved, emaciated, faltering but gallant troops from sure destruction. What it cost that brave heart to speak the word, no one can tell. In the person of her general, Russia knelt before the despised islanders and sued for peace. It was a terrible humiliation to him, to the army, and to thehaughty Empire whose boast had been: "Russia never withdraws."
So ended the greatest siege, characterised by the highest art of warfare and the uttermost personal bravery of line, rank and file on both sides, that the world has ever known.
FOOTNOTE:[5]The Captain Oshima who figures in these pages must not be mistaken for Lieutenant-General Oshima, whose gallant services during the siege of Port Arthur have already been chronicled in the daily newspapers of America.
[5]The Captain Oshima who figures in these pages must not be mistaken for Lieutenant-General Oshima, whose gallant services during the siege of Port Arthur have already been chronicled in the daily newspapers of America.
[5]The Captain Oshima who figures in these pages must not be mistaken for Lieutenant-General Oshima, whose gallant services during the siege of Port Arthur have already been chronicled in the daily newspapers of America.
After the fall of Port Arthur came a lull in the operations of both sides, at sea and on land. The Russians were still busy entrenching themselves in and south of Mukden, the ancient Manchurian capital. Here Kouropatkin had made his stand after the disastrous defeat at Liaoyang. Immensely strong works were thrown up, the defensive front made apparently impregnable, and St. Petersburg breathed more freely, although various indications of internal disorders gave the court concern.
Oyama's men, meanwhile, prepared themselves as best they might for a winter campaign. They burrowed in the hillsides and lived in dug-outs and shanties almost within pistol shot of the Russian outposts. Supplies of food and heavy clothing reached the army by the Yalu River and from Newchwang over the railway to Liaoyang, whence they were forwarded in waggons to the front. Oshima shared a small mud hut with two other line officers. His men cheerily cooked their rations of rice overlittle fires in front of their dug-outs. The scene would have resembled Valley Forge, but that the troops were well clothed and under absolute discipline.
On October 2nd, Kouropatkin had issued a proclamation declaring that the period of retreats was over. "The army is now strong enough to advance and compel the Japanese to do our will." This was the last effort to relieve Port Arthur—a "forlorn hope" indeed. A battle ensued, the carnage and desperate valour of which even exceeded those of Liaoyang. The Russian losses alone were nearly seventy thousand, killed and wounded. After ten days of terrific fighting they were forced back to the Hun River, where they held their own and settled down for the winter, with the Japanese facing them.
The Baltic fleet, under Vice-Admiral Rojestvensky, after the Dogger Bank affair, resumed its voyage southward. It rounded the Cape of Good Hope safely and proceeded to Nossi Bé, a port at the northern end of Madagascar, where it was welcomed by the French with as much cordiality as they dared to show their natural allies, without open breach of neutrality. Here the vice-admiral spent many weeks, cleaning, provisioning, and coaling his ships and drilling his crews.
A second squadron of ships, meanwhile, startedfrom the Baltic for the East, by way of the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, followed by still a third division. No one, outside the inner circle of the Russian Admiralty and War Office, knew where these three squadrons were to unite. Their port of destination, after the capture of Port Arthur, could, of course, be no other than Vladivostock, where two powerful cruisers, disabled by Togo in August, had been repaired, and, with a few smaller craft, still formed the nucleus of a fleet.
Commander Oto Owari had hastened at once to Tokio, on his unexpected return from the North Sea, where his strategic attack upon the Baltic ships had so signally failed. He was acquitted of blame, by a court of enquiry, and was at once given the command of the torpedo-boat destroyerKushiro, then fitting for service in the Sasebo docks.
At this time O-Hana-San was a nurse in the military hospital at Hiroshima. She knew of Oto's appointment and, if the truth be told, dreaded the time when theKushiroshould be put in commission. One day early in March she wrote to her old playmate that she and another nurse were to have a few days' leave of absence, and that one of the hospital surgeons, with his wife, was to take them on an excursion to Sasebo to see the navy yard—a privilege not often accorded, save to those in the service. Oto was delighted with the prospect of seeing MissBlossom, and replied at once, inviting the whole party to inspect theKushiroand lunch with him on board; an invitation which was immediately accepted.
It was a bright, cool day when the little nurses, wearing the scarlet cross on their arms, traversed a great paved square in the navy yard under escort of the good surgeon and his wife (also a nurse), and enquired where theKushirowas lying. The marine who had been questioned pointed out the three black funnels of the destroyer, and the commander himself met the visitors at the gang-plank. The greetings between himself and Hana were full of courtesy and entirely free from any display of sentiment. When the two pairs of dark eyes met for an instant, however, Miss Blossom dropped hers immediately and her cheeks showed a warmer brown than usual. Oto led the way to his cabin and at once offered refreshments to his guests. It was a cosy little place, with its bunk, wardrobe, writing-table and book-case, and a tiny connecting bathroom about four feet square.
The party now went on deck and to their amazement found that the boat was moving swiftly through the harbour toward the sea.
"It is a little surprise I planned for you," explained the gallant commander. "We were to make a short trial cruise of eighteen or twenty miles atabout this time, and as the water is smooth to-day I thought you would enjoy the excursion."
It is needless to say that after the first sensation of fear the guests were delighted, and even the timid nurses soon stood on the quarter-deck, surveying the scene and drinking in the cool sea-breeze with quiet happiness.
On a platform just in front of them was a six-pounder rifle, fairly dazzling their eyes, so beautifully was it polished. Behind them was a screen, sheltering the "after steering position."
Farther forward were the great "nostrils" of the boat, the torpedo-tubes, and alongside them was a hatch which led to the chief petty-officers' mess-room—a very small apartment, clean and shining with constant scrubbing. No one can appreciate neatness better than a hospital nurse, and Hana and her friends were loud in their praises of the condition of these hidden niches in the vessel.
Going farther forward and looking down another hatch they saw the ship's cook in his galley, hard at work preparing dinner. Here also was a dynamo for supplying electricity for the search-light, which was placed between the engine-room hatches on deck.
"How many men are there on board, Captain?" asked the surgeon.
"Our complement is fifty-two," replied Oto.
"How can they ever find room to sleep!" exclaimed Hana.
"Well, there's not much room to spare," laughed the commander, who seemed very happy. "Some sling their hammocks and others sleep on the lockers. We shall seldom take a long cruise, like those of the larger ships. Here is a collapsible boat," he added. "We have two, you see, one each side. They are hoisted out by that derrick on the mast, and if we had to abandon ship they would take seventeen men each, as well as provisions and water."
"What is this deck covered with, sir?"
"A kind of linoleum. It is found to answer our purpose much better than wood, and is used also in regular torpedo boats. Here, by the way, are our two six-pounder guns: these and the twelve-pounder up there constitute our bow fire, to be used when we are in chase of an enemy."
O-Hana-San shuddered, but said nothing.
"How large is this ship?" enquired the medical man, who was bent on acquiring statistics.
"About two hundred feet long, and twenty feet beam. She draws about six. Here is our conning-tower, with half-inch steel armour on it. We can steer from here, and in bad weather we have to, as one would be washed off the bridge."
The diminutive Japanese ladies peered inside.There was just room for two people to stand up, in the tower, and it was fitted with a compass, steering-wheel, telegraph to the engine-room, and voice-pipes to the torpedo tubes and various other parts of the ship.
"Only half an inch thick?" queried the surgeon, examining the armour plates. "How thick, then, is the ship's side?"
"Oh," said Oto, with a smile, "about an eighth of an inch. It's just as good as a foot, unless a shell strikes it. Will you step down here?" he added, leading the way to a lower deck.
The surgeon and the ladies tiptoed daintily down the short ladder, and found themselves in a long, low-ceiled room, with a table running along the centre, fore-and-aft, and two rows of lockers along the sides.
"This is the mess-deck of the sailors—the 'Jackies,' Americans call them," explained the commander, who of course, like every one else on board, spoke only in Japanese. "We are now under the turtle-backed forecastle-deck, you see."
A few men were down here, one stitching canvas, another mending his clothes, one writing a letter, and one stretched out, fast asleep.
"About twenty men live down here," added Oto. "These are their hammocks, and that is the capstan engine." He pointed above his head as he spoke."There are storerooms under our feet," he continued, "where we keep the explosive war-heads for the torpedoes. We have two eighteen-inch torpedoes carried, without the heads, in the tubes themselves. Now, shall we go up to the fore-bridge?"
The surgeon, who had gazed with something of dismay at the deck which concealed such terrible munitions, mounted the ladder with alacrity, followed by his wife and her friends.
All five now stood beside the great twelve-pounder. TheKushirowas well out of the harbour and standing directly toward the Chinese coast. To the north-east the mountains of Korea could be dimly discerned, like blue shadows on the horizon. The ship was moving so smoothly through the water that it seemed impossible that she was slipping along at the rate of nearly twenty-four knots an hour, as the quartermaster stated, in reply to a question from Oto. The only indication of her speed was the fountain of spray rising at the sharp, straight stern, and sparkling with rainbow hues in the flashing sunshine.
At this moment a petty officer approached the commander, touched his cap, and said something which the others did not hear. Oto caught up a pair of binoculars and peered intently through them at a low line of smoke ahead and a little to thenorth of theKushiro'scourse. After a moment he put down the glasses.
"Port half a point" he said quietly.
"Port half a point, sir," repeated the quartermaster.
After a minute, "Steady!"
"Steady, sir."
"I think it is an American war-ship," remarked Oto pleasantly, turning to his guests. "We shall run down near her, that you may see how the foreigner looks. I—I am quite familiar with the American ships myself."
The commander and O-Hana-San exchanged a swift glance of understanding, but no further allusion was made to Oto Owari's former experience, of which the little Red-Cross nurse was well aware.
"Ah," exclaimed the surgeon, drawing a long breath of delight as he looked out over the sparkling waters of the Yellow Sea, "I could almost wish to change places with you, Captain! This is delicious, after the atmosphere of the hospital, the sound of groans, the odour of antiseptics and anæsthetics! I do not wonder that you chose the navy for your calling."
"Well, well," said Oto, with his gentle laugh, "it does seem pleasant now, especially [here he bowed gracefully] in such exalted society. But come out on a cold, wet night in January, when aheavy sea is running, and you have to hang on to the rails of the twelve-pounder, here, to prevent yourself being carried off your feet; when the waves come pouring over the turtle-back and flood the upper deck; when you're soaked to the skin, and shivering, and thinking of—of [he glanced at Blossom] thousands on shore, snug and warm and fast asleep; when the blinding spray and sleet are lashing your face like whipcord, so you can hardly open your eyes to see the lights of the vessel you are watching ahead; and when everything down below in the wardroom is sliding about on the deck—well, I think a comfortable, dry room in the hospital would seem rather more attractive than the bridge of theKushiro!"
The girls smiled at his eloquence, but O-Hana-San looked troubled, and her slim brown hand shook a little as she turned to accept her old friend's invitation to inspect the engine-room.
"I'm sorry," said Oto, "that we're going only two hundred and eighty revolutions now. You should see them at three hundred and fifty, with forced draft!"
The engine-room was hot and oily, and not even the fascinating sight of the bright steel rods flashing up and down and the cranks whirring at the rate of four revolutions a second—a mere mist of metal—could long detain the party. They were ratherglad, it must be confessed, when a hail from the deck sent the commander flying up the ladder and the rest could follow, holding their garments carefully aloof from the glistening metal work.
On their reaching the deck a glorious sight met their gaze. About half a mile away was a war-ship, white as snow, coming toward them. The beautiful stars and stripes blew out over her taffrail, and a string of flags fluttered from her yard-arm. The signalman was just sending up an answer on theKushiro.
"It is the United States gunboatOsprey," said Commander Oto, with unusual excitement in his voice, and a glow on his olive cheeks. "We have invited her commander to come on board, and he has graciously consented to do so, although his ship is of a larger class than mine, knowing that a Japanese officer is forbidden to leave his ship at sea, on any pretence, in war time. See, they are lowering a boat!"
TheKushirohad already stopped her engines, and theOsprey, which had slowed down several minutes before, now followed her example. The two vessels slowly approached each other until they were but a few hundred yards apart.
A boat was now seen leaving the American, and the destroyer's side was manned by jackies to receive the visitor with naval honours. In fiveminutes the boat was alongside, and Dave Rexdale sprang up the steps to the deck of theKushiro. Oto was awaiting him, and with a smile that showed the flash of his dark eyes and white teeth, held out his hand to the American officer.
"Welcome, sir," he said, in good English. "I am glad to see you again, and on the deck of my own ship."
Dave stared a moment, then darted forward and wrung the hand of the elegantly uniformed commander, in whom he recognised his former steward.
"Oto!" he exclaimed.
"Commander Oto Owari, of His Imperial Majesty's Navy," said the Japanese, returning the other's cordial grasp. "Permit me to present you to these ladies, who do not speak English, but for whom and yourself I shall be glad to act as interpreter."
Well, Commander Rexdale made his most gallant speeches to the blushing little nurses, who in turn murmured their earnest desire to break their bones and knock their heads abjectly in his august presence. Introduction to the surgeon and the officers of the ship followed.
"I had my suspicions, when you pointed that gun," laughed Dave, turning again to Oto. "And when the torpedo-boat carried you off so neatly——"
But here Oto interrupted with a significant glancetoward his subordinates, showing that he did not care to have all the events of that voyage made public.
With true Japanese hospitality he begged Rexdale to remain and join the party at luncheon; but Dave could not leave his own ship so long, and after a few minutes' conversation was obliged to leave. He explained that theOspreyhad been docked at Cavite during the winter; then detailed to her old station as guardship at Chemulpo, whence she was now on her way to Shanghai.
"I suppose you heard this morning's news?" he said carelessly, as he stepped to the gangway.
"What news?" asked Oto, with a keen look.
"Rojestvensky's ships have been sighted, about half-way between Chagos and Singapore, steaming east at full speed," said Dave, in a lower tone. "It looks as if he were going to try the Strait of Malacca. Forty-two vessels reported, including transports and colliers. Good-bye!"
The blue-jackets of theKushiro, at the instigation of her executive, gave the departing visitors three cheers as the men let fall their oars. Sam Bolles and Dick Scupp, who happened to be in the boat's crew, stared, with open mouths, at the Japanese commander, who nodded to them in a friendly way. A few minutes later the foam gathered under theOsprey'sbows as she bore off toward China, and theKushiro, making a graceful turn, headed toward Nagasaki, both vessels dipping their colours in salute.
The news which he had heard affected Oto deeply, but he let no sign of his emotions appear to diminish his courteous hospitality to his guests. They dined in the officers' mess-room, the captain's cabin being too small for the purpose. Everything passed off happily and gaily.
"Going into the harbour, sir," reported a boatswain to the commander, as the repast was finished.
In a few minutes theKushiroapproached her dock and made a near landing. Oto bade the visitors farewell. O-Hana-San, drawn by something in his dark eyes, lingered just a moment, as he took her hand in his own.
"When you hear from me again," he whispered, "I shall have been in action. The Russian fleet is close at hand, and we may be ordered south before morning. Farewell, O-Hana-San!"
"Oto! Oto!Sayonara!"
A less energetic and determined individual than Mr. Frederic Larkin might well have felt discouraged when, successively fired upon by the Japanese and rejected by the Russians, he was thrust out of Port Arthur and landed in Chefoo. His pass from the War Office at Tokio had been taken from him when he first entered Port Arthur, and had not been returned. To present himself again at General Stoessel's headquarters was out of the question, even if the means were possible.
"The balloon route seems to be indefinitely suspended," mused Fred, as he rested on the hotel verandah in the Chinese city, "and without much doubt I should be definitely suspended—by the neck—if the Russians caught me a third time inside the fortress. No, there's no use in wasting time (and a good, serviceable neck) in trying to carry out home orders. I'll cable theBulletinand ask for instructions."
This he did at once, and the answer arrived before night, from the editor of that enterprising sheet: "Get new pass. Join Japanese army at front. Remain till ordered home. No more balloon!"
Fred laughed as he crumpled the dispatch and thrust it into his pocket. With characteristic energy he obtained passage on a vessel chartered for Nagasaki, and within a week was on his way back to Manchuria with brand-new credentials from Tokio. Landing at Antung, at the head of the Korean bay, he engaged a man and a couple of ponies to take him and his baggage to the Japanese advanced lines, north of Liaoyang. This was in late February, 1905, when the ground was frozen hard and snow lay deep in the valleys and over the ice-bound streams of Manchuria.
It will shortly be seen that for once the reporter's energy proved his undoing, so far as active service at the front was concerned.
It was a bright, cold morning when he mounted his pony, after many provoking delays and setbacks from the local military authorities, and rejoiced to feel that he was really on his way northward. Kanuka, the guide and porter, strode along the path in advance, leading the pack pony, while Fred followed on the other little beast, whose bad temper was out of all proportion to his size.
Kanuka appeared to be a Chinaman who spoke,besides his own language—a Manchurian dialect—a very broken sort of English and Japanese. Larkin had not liked his looks, but time was precious and he hoped to get rid of the man after three or four days at the utmost. Kanuka was under-sized, and had a droop of the head which gave his eyes a sort of malevolent expression as he peered upward, under his shaggy brows. He stooped slightly, was sallow-faced, and, oddly enough, had grizzled, curly hair and a full black beard, like a Russian. He was in reality, as Fred afterward learned, a native of Eastern Siberia, though he dressed like a Chinaman and spoke like a Manchurian.
For a while the little train proceeded in silence, broken only by the snorting, kicking ponies and the harsh, guttural expletives of the guide, who belaboured them with his cudgel until Fred checked him.
"These ponies must last four days, my friend," he sung out. "If you keep up your style of correction there won't be more than two hoofs and an ear left by the time we reach Liaoyang."
Kanuka muttered something Larkin could not understand, and pointed to a low line of clouds in the west.
"What does that mean—storm?"
The man nodded.
"H'm. What's the nearest large town?"
"Feng-Weng-Chang."
"That's too far. There must be something nearer than that!"
Kanuka nodded again and made a gesture toward the north. "Good place to stop, near Yalu."
"Near the Yalu? But that's off our route, old chap. I guess we'll push on toward Feng-Weng-Chang. There must be some villages along the road."
The guide stolidly turned and plodded on without another word save a native oath or two addressed to the pony, which responded with a squeal and a sidewise kick with one hind-foot.
The clouds rose rapidly, and the cold grew more intense. The sky was now entirely covered, and a biting wind swept down through the valley of the Yalu. At noon Fred called a halt in the shelter of a clump of trees, and a hasty meal was prepared over a small fire, while the horses were given food and drink. The guide remained sullen and taciturn, but performed his duties well. Fred had a belt around his waist filled with gold pieces, as well as a pocket full of change.
"Look here, Kanuka," he said, as the cavalcade resumed their march, "you bring me to a house where we can be decently comfortable for to-night, and I'll hand you ten yen, in addition to your regular pay. See?"
The man shrugged his shoulders under his shaggy sheepskin cloak and pointed up to the sky.
"Snow soon," he said gruffly. "House that way"; and again he indicated the north.
"Well, we may have to come to it, but I don't want to go a foot off the main trail if I can help it. There are too many loose characters floating about these regions to make the country healthy for foreigners, away from the military roads—eh, Kanuka?"
A gleam came into the guide's dark eye, but passed like a flash. He only shrugged his shoulders again, and resumed the weary tramp along the frozen path.
Now a snow-flake floated downward and alighted on Fred's coat-sleeve. He surveyed it with interest.
"Kanuka," he observed, "you're a genius. You'd be a valuable aid to General Greely, over in my country, forecasting weather. The snow has arrived—a 'local area' of it, anyway. How long do you suppose it will last?"
"Two days."
"Whew! It's a poor lookout for equestrian excursions to the rural districts! Here it comes, in dead earnest!"
A gust of wind rushed down from the mountains, and in a minute the air was full of fine drift which stung the faces of men and horses like needles.The ponies whirled round and it was only by the utmost efforts of the rider and his attendant that they were forced to go on.
The landscape was now almost entirely lost to view. All Fred took note of was the snowy mane of his pony and the bowed back of the guide, urging the pack-horse up the path, which had of late grown much rougher and steeper. Hour after hour passed. Fred, buffeted by the blast and half-frozen as he crouched on the saddle, suddenly realised that it was growing darker. Night was falling. The new snow was now over the horses' fetlocks, and in places the drifts were nearly to the stirrups.
"Where are we, Kanuka?"
"Not far from Yalu. See—good house ahead!"
Fred wiped the frozen snow from his eyelashes and peered over the horse's head. Sure enough, there was the welcome sight of a light, gleaming hospitably through the gathering darkness.
"Good!" he ejaculated with stiff lips, under his icy moustache. "I thought we should find somebody living on this old Feng-Weng turnpike."
"This Yalu road," said the guide.
"What, have we left the main trail?"
"Two hours ago. No good to keep same road. All go sleep there—no wake up." The man had to shout to make himself heard above the roar of the storm.
Fred did not like this independent change of route, but going back was out of the question, and he was too cold to argue, with fire, shelter, and food close at hand.
"All right," he said briefly. "Keep on. We'll talk it over afterward."
Ten minutes later Kanuka halted before the door of a rude hut, which communicated with two or three small wings or out-houses. It was built of mud and rough stones and thatched with straw. There were several houses similar in character farther down the road. The little settlement was in a sheltered nook between two high hills, which, as the valley ran east and west, protected the huts, or hovels as they might well be called, from the full force of the gale.
Kanuka knocked at the door with his club, but it was some time before it was opened, although the light burning within, shining through the small window, showed that the occupants were awake. The guide was redoubling his blows and shouting in his own language, when the door swung inward, and an old woman appeared in the opening. A low colloquy ensued, and then Kanuka turned to his employer.
"She says we may spend the night here," he said, in better English than he had yet used. "Go you in and get warm, sir. I will care for horses."
With some difficulty Fred dismounted and stumbled in at the open doorway. He found himself in a small low-browed room, so filled with smoke that his eyes tingled, and so dirty that, hardened traveller as he was, he hesitated for a moment before removing his heavy coat.
The aged crone paid no further attention to her visitor, but resumed her preparations for the evening meal, which had been interrupted by Fred's appearance on the scene. There was a broad, irregular fireplace on one side of the room, and here a fire was blazing, with a black pot, from which rose a not unsavoury steam, suspended over the flames. Mumbling to herself, the mistress of the hut—for such she seemed to be—occupied herself in stirring the contents of the pot, and in dragging a small wooden table to the centre of the floor, which, like the table, the chairs, the walls, and the old woman herself, was grimy and redolent of filth.
Accustomed to adapt himself to all sorts of strange surroundings the reporter now removed his outer garments, and approached the fire with a propitiatory word to the woman; but she responded merely by pointing impatiently to a bench, and turning her back upon him. Nothing daunted Fred drew the bench nearer the fireplace and proceeded to thaw out his benumbed fingers with every outward appearance of content and satisfaction. Toplease himself rather than his hostess, who he knew could not understand a word he spoke, he continued to soliloquise aloud.
"You are not very sociable, ma'am," he said cheerfully, spreading out his hands to the blaze, "but actions speak louder than words, and the prospect of that 'boiled dinner' in the kettle fully compensates me for the lack of conventional attentions. Permit me!"
He saw that she was about to lift the pot from the fire, and stepping in front of her he proceeded to relieve her of the task, to which, in truth, with her bent and aged form, she hardly seemed equal.
A minute later the contents of the pot were heaped in a large wooden platter on the table. At this interesting point Kanuka entered from a rear door, stamping off the snow, and took his place on the bench beside Fred.
"Don't apologise, brother," said the latter, with perfect good-humour. "In great emergencies all men are free and equal—as they were born. See Constitution of the United States of America, line 3. Suppose we draw this seat up to the board, which groans with the delicacies of the season?"
Kanuka assented with a grunt, and, their hostess having supplied each with a large wooden spoon, they proceeded to eat from the dish; the"delicacies" being found to consist of rice, with some other unknown vegetables and bits of boiled beef.
There was but little said during the meal. The two natives ate in silence, and Fred was too much occupied in avoiding doubtful ingredients, in his own share of the common mess of reeking food, to put any unusual strain upon his conversational powers. The withered crone now produced a flask of vodka, which Fred at first refused, but of which the others partook freely. The effect of the liquor was to loosen their tongues somewhat, and they conversed with each other in low gutturals. Presently the woman took the vodka flask and left the room, returning shortly with a mug full of liquor, which she again proffered her guest.
"She has mixed it with snow," interpreted Kanuka, as she urged it upon him. "It is weak and will not hurt you."
Not to seem discourteous Fred drank a little, but soon drew back from the table.
"I'm not thirsty, Kanuka," said he, "but I am tired and sleepy. Are the animals provided for?"
Kanuka nodded. "Warm, and supplied with food."
"And my packs?"
"They are in the out-house."
"Very well; I'll go to sleep, if the lady of the house will point out my bedroom."
Kanuka spoke to the woman, who withdrew for a moment. She came back with two skins, one of a reindeer and the other a shaggy pelt which Fred did not recognise. She threw these down in a corner of the room, opposite the fire.
"There is your bed," said the guide. "Sleep well."
"Same to you," said Fred, yawning. "Good-night, ma'am!"
Neither of the Manchurians paid the slightest attention to him as he spread the rugs and stretched himself at full length between them. The wind roared around the little hut, and he could hear the snow beating against its sides. Before long Kanuka and the woman left him alone, having carefully covered the coals of fire with ashes, just as he had often seen his grandmother cover them in his New England home. Thinking about that home, and listening to the storm, he was soon sound asleep.
The travel-worn correspondent had a curious dream. He thought he was back on the old farm in Brookfield hoeing corn. There was snow between the hills, and instead of drawing up warm, brown earth around the six-inch blades of corn, he packed them nicely in snow, shivering as he did so. There were icicles on his hoe and he could hardly have kept at work had he not been aided by two Manchurian ponies who pawed the snow toward thehills, and asked him to hurry, for a balloon was coming for them at precisely four o'clock. He was by no means surprised to hear them speak, especially as one of them was dressed in a ragged gown and the other in a sheepskin cloak.
"What time is it?" asked the old-woman pony sharply. He was too cold to look, and both ponies started to fumble at his watch-guard with their hoofs. Their eyes flashed fire. He began to be afraid, and made a tremendous effort to push them back, but he could not move a finger. With a cry of terror he awoke.
Awoke to find himself bound, hand and foot, with the light of the greasy lamp shining in his face. The old hag was stooping over him and drawing his watch from his pocket. By the dim light in the room he saw half a dozen wild-looking men standing around him. All were armed and their bearded faces were wolfish. Kanuka knelt beside him tying the last knot in the rope that bound his ankles together. As he caught sight of Fred's wide-open eyes fixed upon him he uttered an exclamation and drew a long knife from his belt.
Although the correspondent of theBulletinwas not aware of the fact when he started on his eventful journey northward, active hostilities had already begun at the front. The two immense armies, as we have seen, lay entrenched, facing each other, in lines extending, nearly one hundred miles from east to west, across the railroad south of Moukden, the ancient capital of the Manchus. While the Japanese had thrown up temporary earthworks here and there, and of course had taken advantage of the configuration of the ground to secure their positions against surprise, as well as to afford shelter for their troops against the inclemency of the Manchurian winter, the Russians were far more strongly fortified and were determined to hold their ground. Railroad trains, running between Moukden and Harbin, their great military base, supplied them with constantly renewed stores of ammunition, food, and clothing, and, moreover, removed the sick and wounded from the front andfilled their places with fresh recruits as fast as they arrived from the west over the Trans-Siberian route.
Such was the situation when Field Marshal Oyama, having kept his vast armies under perfect discipline all winter, and replaced the losses incurred at Liaoyang, determined to move on the enemy, who, refreshed and confident, awaited behind their ramparts the advance of the Japanese.
Exactly the same tactics were employed as at Liaoyang. The ends of the hundred-mile frontal line struck heavily, and bent the Russian bar of steel inward at both extremities. The attack began on February 20th, and four days later the Japanese were in possession of a strong Russian position at the village of Tsinketchen, far to the east of Moukden. At the same time the Japanese left wing began its march on Sinmintin, at the western end of the line. The Russians, out-flanked, fell back. The extremities of the two wings would doubtless have been effectively reinforced had not the crafty Oyama delivered a simultaneous assault upon the very centre at Putiloff, or "Lone-Tree Hill," to use the name that soon became familiar to newspaper readers all over the globe. A furious artillery fire was opened upon this hill by the Japanese. It was taken and retaken. The scenes that had horrified the world at Port Arthur and Liaoyang wererepeated. Assault after assault was delivered, but for a week the devoted band of Muscovites held that little acre of ground on the hill-top, while regiment after regiment of the soldiers of Nippon melted away before the terrific fire from the fortress. It was like wading up streams of molten lava, to fight a volcano in full eruption. The Russians were never driven from the hill by direct assault; but Kouropatkin, seeing his wings bent inward and backward farther and farther, and his front once more assuming the terrible horse-shoe shape, reluctantly gave orders to his brave men to withdraw from Putiloff and fall back on the line of the railroad.
In the division of the Japanese troops to whom the capture of this hill—the keystone of Kouropatkin's arch—was assigned was the regiment in which Oshima served. Thus far Oto's old friend had seemed to bear a charmed life. He had fought in battle after battle, but had received no wound of any moment. His company had been decimated again and again, but the ranks had been filled and the stern young captain still held his place in front, as it wheeled into line when the regiment was called upon for new duties.
Upon hearing the order to move upon Lone-Tree Hill, the men set up a cheer. The officers burnished their swords and stepped alertly to and fro,aligning the ranks and glancing along the files to see that every equipment was in order and every man ready. This was in the early afternoon. It was understood that the artillery would open upon the hill batteries at sundown, and two hours later the assault would be made.
Impatiently the compact mass of small brown men waited for the word. The great siege guns, brought with infinite labour from Port Arthur, roared and thundered. Putiloff answered, and shrapnel burst over the Japanese troops, who burrowed as best they might in trenches and holes and behind every hillock, while they hastily devoured their scant field rations. The night came on, dark and heavy. At last the welcome word was received.
"Forward!" cried Oshima, brandishing his sword so that it glittered in the flashes of the cannon.
The regiment hurled itself upon the slopes of the hill, solid shot ploughing awful furrows through their ranks. The survivors kept on, undaunted. That night meant for them victory or a glorious death. No one thought of retreat.
As he saw his men swept downward by the pitiless hail of steel, Oshima lost all sense of danger, and the old spirit of his Samurai ancestors blazed out. "Strike! Strike!" he shouted to his men, springing in front of them as the broken line faltered fora moment. "Up the hill! It is ours!Banzai dai Nippon!"
With the wild cheer of Japan upon his lips he suddenly threw his arms aloft and fell headlong to the ground. The column swept by and over him in the darkness. Then two slightly wounded men raised their captain, his hand still grasping his sword, and tottered down the hill with him, stumbling over the bodies of the fallen.
Not far in the rear were Red-Cross workers, and the silent figure of the brave officer was borne swiftly to a hospital tent, where he partly regained consciousness. He was shot through the body, and the surgeons shook their heads as they examined the wound. Still, there was a chance for his life, and Oshima was despatched to the coast, the first part of the way in an ambulance, then by railway. At Antung he remained until the hospital ship was ready to sail with its sad freight of torn, pierced, and mangled soldiers. The staunch vessel—painted white, with a broad green stripe along its hull, like the sash of a military surgeon—conveyed him safely to Hiroshima, where he was placed in a cot near an eastern window. Kind hands ministered to him, and gentle faces bent over him. As he recovered full possession of his senses he saw one sweet face that was familiar to him.
"Hana!" he whispered. "O-Hana-San, is it you?"
Day after day the battle raged in Manchuria. Shells began to fall in Moukden, and in an hour the city was a scene of ghastly confusion and panic. Hospital trains, loaded to the doors with wounded and dying, pulled out of the station, the groans and shrieks of the sufferers mingling with the clank and clatter of the iron wheels. Men and women rushed to and fro in the muddy streets—for this was the first week in March, and a few warm days had turned snow and ice to mire, ankle deep—and fought each other in a frenzied fear as they struggled for places in carts and railway cars, with such of their personal effects as they could carry in their arms. Thieves and drunken soldiery looted shops and private houses boldly.
It was rumoured that the awful Japanese line was closing in on the north, and that the railroad would be cut. This added to the panic. Dazed, mud-stained, deafened with the roar of battle, half senseless with intoxication, thousands of stragglers and camp-followers staggered through the city, joining the mad rush. "To the north! To the north!" was the one thought, the one wild cry. Emerging from the densely populated town, the throng of refugees fled up the valley. Wherever the defile narrowed, the crowd crushed together, screaming, pushing, fighting their way on; through back alleys of little villages on the route; along the railroadtrack, separating to allow a train to roar through their midst, shaking frenzied fists at it as it passed and left them behind; flinging away food, clothing, household treasures to which they had thus far clung mechanically; shouted at by retreating battalions whose progress they blocked, and cursed by artillery-men as the horses sprang forward over the clogged and miry road, or crashed through the low willows and over mud-walls surrounding the hovels of the natives; still on and on, through the black night and the chill grey dawn, the frantic multitude streamed northward toward Harbin and safety.
At Tie Pass there was a halt. Here Kouropatkin made a desperate attempt to stand, and did succeed in checking the enemy until the shattered Russian forces could reunite in the semblance of a disciplined army, while the wounded, and such stores and guns as had been saved from the disastrous defeat, were sent northward. Then the army fell sullenly back, a few versts each day, repulsing the attacks of the exhausted Japanese. These attacks diminished in number and force, until Kouropatkin could breathe more freely and even consider establishing a new line of permanent defence. Before, however, he could reorganise his troops or lay out a single line of fortifications a despatch flashed over the wires from St. Petersburg removing him from thesupreme command of the army and appointing General Linevitch, his former subordinate, in his place.
Like a brave and generous soldier he not only laid down his command without a word of protest, but at once petitioned for and obtained permission to serve under Linevitch. Truly, the "Little Father" had reason to be proud of his children!
But the Czar of all the Russias, in his white palace on the Neva, had cares beyond even those which gathered, bat-winged, around the prospects of his army in the Far East. Throughout his vast realm, from the Caucasus to the Baltic, from Sebastopol to the Arctic Seas, in the remote provinces and at the very gates of his palace, signs multiplied that a long-dreaded event was coming to pass: the Russian peasant was awakening! Aroused by proclamations of Nihilists, by sermons and appeals from religious leaders, by stinging words from such patriots as Tolstoi and Gorky, the peasant stirred in his long sleep, he smiled in his stupid, good-humoured, harmless way; he grew graver as the import of the fiery words that were borne on every breeze penetrated his dull brain. Cruelty—oppression—injustice—could it be true? Nay, the Little Father would put it all right. They would tell him about it; they would go to him with thesewrongs as a little child kneels at his bedside and prays sleepily and trustfully, to his Father in Heaven; and he, the Ruler of all the Russias, the White Czar, the father of his people, would listen and would hear their prayer and grant relief, if relief were needed.
A great throng of such peasants, headed by a priest, flocked to the city, asking, poor, bewildered souls, to see the Czar, and to be allowed to pray to him. They were rebuffed and roughly ordered back by men with glistening bayonets. Then, still childlike and foolish, they actually tried to force their way to their father's house, believing that although his minions might use them rudely, he, whom they loved with all their big, ignorant, devoted hearts, would suffer them to come unto him, and forbid them not.
Another surge forward, over the paved street, to the fatal bridge. "Halt! Disperse!"
They would not. Their priest leader held his cross aloft and waved them on.
Then it came—a rattling crash like the near thunder close upon the lightning. Shrieks and moans of dying men and children. Another volley, and another. And the Little Father was so near—could he not hear them?
The people fled from the cruel streets, the red pavement, the hoofs of the war-horses and theflashing sabres of their riders. Back, in a helpless, frightened throng, to the open country, as the fugitives fled from Moukden. But the fierce enemy that was behind them was no foreign foe, thirsting for their lives. It was their Little Father!
Did the young, black-bearded Czar think of all this, as he sat in his gorgeously draped throne room in the palace? Did his cheeks blanch and his lips quiver at the distant sound of musketry in the streets of St. Petersburg? Who can tell? Only He who knoweth all hearts and whose love holds both Czar and peasant.
While Russia was thus torn with internal troubles, the situation in the East grew daily more threatening. The danger was now apparent to all. At Harbin the great railway forks, one branch going southward to Port Arthur, and the other continuing eastward to Vladivostock. If the Japanese, pushing northward with their victorious hosts, could cut the line east of Harbin Junction, Russia's one port, her last hope of sea power on the North Pacific, would be at the mercy of the Japanese.
Despatches were sent to Rojestvensky to hurry his ships to the scene of war. Two squadrons were already united under his command. A third was on its way through the Mediterranean, and shortly afterward rendezvoused at Jiboutil, near Aden, at the southern end of the Red Sea. This thirdsquadron was also ordered to proceed eastward across the Indian Ocean at full speed, and overtake the Baltic fleet if possible. Early in April Rojestvensky's ships were sighted off Acheen, at the extreme north-western point of Sumatra.
When Fred Larkin grasped the full significance of the situation in which he found himself, on awaking in the Manchurian hut, he felt that he was nearer death than ever before in all his hardy, adventurous life. At Santiago, indeed, he had thought himself led out to execution, but this had proved to be a mistake. The Spaniards were but conducting him, under a flag of truce, to the American lines, where he was exchanged for a prisoner of war, one of their own countrymen. In this lonely hovel, in one of the remotest and dreariest districts of Manchuria, cut off from all hope of help, not only by the leagues that lay between him and the travelled road to Feng-Weng-Chang, but by the storm which now shook the hut with its fierce blasts; surrounded by lawless men who thirsted for gold and cared not a whiff from their pipes for a human life; trapped by the cunning guide, and completely at the mercy of his wolfish captors as he lay before them pinioned hand andfoot; he realised in a swift flash of thought that he could be saved by little short of a miracle. Still he would try. He was not a man to give up while the faintest shred of hope remained.
"What do you want, Kanuka?" he asked quietly, looking his treacherous guide straight in the eye.
The villain hesitated, and Fred knew his life hung by a hair. The blade did not fall.
"We want everything you have, everything!" said Kanuka. "If you resist we kill you."
"You would gain nothing by that," said the prisoner. "I am perfectly helpless. Who are—your friends?"
"They are not my friends; they are my men. If I lift my finger to them, you are dead. Is it not so?" he added, turning to the motley crew and speaking in his own tongue.
A low snarl went round the circle, and they showed their teeth. They drew still nearer, and fingered the hafts of their knives, which Fred could see sticking in their girdles. Two of the men carried guns. One of the band, younger than the rest, seemed to have no weapons, and remained in the background. The old woman had succeeded in getting possession of the watch and dangled it so that the light shone upon it.
"I don't doubt your word, Kanuka," observed Fred in the same calm, even tones. "Thosefollowers of yours seem quite willing to finish up the job. But you know better than that.Youare an intelligent man."
The guide could not conceal a gratified expression, and drew himself up a little.
"Youknow," continued the reporter, "that if I should be killed there would be a hue and cry after the American war correspondent. The newspaper I represent would spend a fortune in hunting down every man that took part in the murder. Very likely the United States Government would take the matter up, and you would be caught and executed, every man of you, at Pekin, if it took ten years. Probably you remember what happened to the men that put two or three American missionaries to death, a few years ago? Yes, I thought so. And the Chinese method of execution is so very unpleasant, in such cases!"
Kanuka stood erect, motioned back his men, and gnawed his moustache, frowning irresolutely.
"You joke!" said he, with a meaning gesture of his knife.
"Joke? Not a bit of it. I never felt less like joking," said Fred honestly. "I want to get out of this scrape alive, and to do that, I must save you. If I die, you die, and the old lady and your hopeful crowd there, as sure as fate. Pekin never lets an international offence go; and if Pekin would,Washington wouldn't. You know that as well as I do."
"What you propose?" asked the chief.
"Well, as I said, I can't help your taking all my worldly goods," said the reporter. "The next thing is to get rid of me without imperilling your own head—or limbs," he added significantly. The bandit shuddered in spite of himself. He had witnessed the execution of a Boxer murderer, near Pekin. Fred went on: "I would suggest that as soon as the storm will permit you to move—I assure you I am ready to take considerable risk on the road—you take me, blindfolded if you wish, to some point from which I can strike out for the settlements. You, meanwhile, with your men, could make tracks for parts unknown—of which there happens to be a good supply within easy reach of this forsaken hole."
"You would inform on us," growled the ex-guide. "We should have Japanese police on our trail in twenty-four hours."
"I would give you my word of honour——"
The rascal shrugged his shoulders. "I would not trust you. You newspaper men tell what stories you like."
Fred flushed, and felt an overpowering desire to plant one good blow between the man's sulky, sneering eyes.
"Oh, well," he said, "settle it yourself. You asked my advice and I've given it. When the Chinese authorities are getting ready to deal with you, don't blameme, that's all."
Kanuka turned to his men and talked to them rapidly and in low tones. So far as Fred could judge, the old crone and the youngest of the bandits, who, he afterward learned, was her son, were advocating his liberation. The rest clamoured for blood. The chief seemed undecided, and fingered his knife nervously. At last he spoke to his followers sharply, with an abrupt gesture of dismissal. To Fred's relief they all filed out, leaving him alone with the chief.
"They think it would be foolish to let you go," said the latter. "Dead men tell no tales. But they are beasts—pooh! As you say, I am an intelligent man. You shall not die to-night. In the morning we shall see."
He knelt again beside his prisoner and rummaged his pockets thoroughly, drawing out their contents and surveying them by the light of the lamp. The papers he threw contemptuously into the fireplace; the silver change and small articles he thrust into his own pouch. Fortunately Fred had taken a purse containing about fifty dollars worth of gold pieces, to use on his trip. To the Manchurian this was an enormous sum of money, and it did notoccur to him to examine his captive's belt, which contained a much larger amount.
"Look here, old chap," said Fred, as Kanuka rose to his feet with his plunder, "ease up these ropes a little, will you? They cut me, and I want to sleep."
The man gave a contemptuous grunt, and, bestowing a kick on the helpless prisoner, retired without a word. Again Fred's blood boiled, but he realised his utter helplessness, and lay quietly, trying to concoct some plan for escape, or for action, on the following day.
It was evident that he had fallen into the hands of that dangerous and as yet only partly understood power, the Boxer element of north-eastern China. In 1901 these bandits, or highwaymen,—for such they really were, and are—terrorised a district extending from Newchwang to Kirin. Their operations were so systematic and successful that Chinese as well as foreign merchants finally had come to recognise their authority, and it is said that an office was actually established in the port of Newchwang where persons desiring to import goods might secure insurance against molestation from the robbers. When the insurance was paid for, the bandit agent gave the merchant a document and a little flag, and with this document in his possession, and the flag nailed to his cart or boat, he travelled in safety.
As soon as the real Boxer movement was disposed of by the Powers, and by China herself, the Russians undertook the suppression of this systematic brigandage, by which some thousands of outlaws were living in insolent security. Moukden was garrisoned with twelve thousand soldiers, and troops took the field against the robbers. In less than six weeks three thousand bandits were killed and nearly as many captured. The remainder scattered and fled to the fastnesses of the mountains, where they were hunted like wild beasts. As an organised force, they were, indeed, "suppressed"; but strong gangs of criminals escaped, and during the early months of the Japanese war they gained courage and assumed their unlawful calling with something of their former boldness.
Fred knew all this—he had followed the recent history of China carefully—and he had no doubt whatever that he had fallen into the hands of one of the scattered bands of this still powerful organisation. He knew, moreover, that a more daring and remorseless set of men never gained their living by highway robbery than these same bandits, through whose agent, Kanuka, they had so cleverly entrapped him.
Revolving these things in his mind and trying to concoct some sort of plan for escape, the reporter at last fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, in spite ofthe pain caused by his bonds, and the presence of two bandits who had remained to watch the prisoner.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. The mistress of the hut was occupied in preparing another seething mess over the fire, exactly as she had been when he entered the hut. Fred felt lame and sore from head to foot, and soon discovered, moreover, that he had taken a severe cold. He was hot and feverish, and had a weak longing for his mother's cool, soft hands upon his burning forehead.
The old hag presently lifted the pot from the fire, groaning as she did so.
"I wish I could help you, ma'am," said Fred, trying to assume a cheerful tone, "but 'circumstances over which I have no control,' you know!"
She seemed to gather the import of his words—perhaps remembering his courteous assistance on the preceding night—and dishing out a portion of the nauseous mess offered it to him. When she saw that he was so tightly bound that he could not help himself to food she uttered an exclamation in which he recognised the first hint of pity among his captors. Looking over her shoulder with evident apprehension, she freed his right arm, and when he indicated with a feeble smile and shake of his head that it was benumbed, she rubbed it with a not unwomanly touch until he could use it and feed himself. Having forced down a little of the distastefulfood, to avoid hurting her feelings, he lay back on his couch and motioned to her to lay the rope lightly over his arm, giving it its former appearance of confinement. This she did at once, and not too soon, for the whole gang of seven men, including Kanuka, trooped in for their breakfast a minute later.
The storm continued through the day, and Fred found his condition unchanged, save that he was allowed to walk about the room a little, under guard of three of the ugliest-looking of the bandits. As night came on once more, his feverishness increased. He felt faint and giddy. He had no doubt that his drink was drugged the day before, and it was quite possible that the process—though for what purpose he could not guess—was being kept up. He was too feeble to care much what he ate or drank. All he wanted was to be left alone.
At about midnight on the second night in the hut, as the sick man was tossing on his filthy bed, the inner door of the room opened softly, and the woman appeared, shading the flame of the lamp with her hand. Her son, who had been left on guard, was standing silently by the window, gun in hand. The aged crone now knelt beside Fred, and noiselessly cast off the ropes, which had been tied with less caution than at first, it being deemed impossible that the captive, weakened as he was, could make his escape. Fred managed to gain his feet,and stood stiffly, half supported by the woman. She led him to the outer door, which she opened. The stars were shining, and it was bitter cold. The young bandit now slipped around the corner of the house and presently reappeared with one of the ponies, upon which Fred managed to scramble. The old woman gave the reporter a soft pat on the back and whispered something to her son, who stooped and kissed her! Then she went into the house, wiping her eyes on her ragged skirt, and leaving the two men outside, free.
Fred soon found that he could not sit upright in the saddle without help, and the bandit, slinging his gun over his back, put his arm around the rider and so held him on, while the pony picked his way down the mountain trail. In places the drifts made the path almost impassable. The wind still swept fiercely through the defile, although the night was clear. Once the young robber stopped suddenly and unslung his rifle; but the noise he had heard was but that of a falling tree, and he resumed his steady walk beside the pony.