The Complete Adventures of Hazard & Partridge (38 page)

But it was true that never a bullet came near us nor, after that first warning bullet, did one strike against the wall outside the mouth of the chamber in which we were. And, realizing this, I obeyed Hazard and stood quiet with my mind groping for a clue to the truth.

At least this was plain: Somehow Hazard was acting in conjunction with the defenders of the cave instead of against them; they knew our plans and Hazard knew theirs; and the ruse which Ko Tien Chung had planned for our joint downfall was to be turned against him. But how was I to understand it?

The firing mounted in violence exactly as it would have done if our appearance had been the surprize that Ko Tien Chung had intended it should be, only the bullets mainly struck the ceiling and never was one directed so that Hazard and I were endangered even by a ricochet.

Outside, above the mouth of the cave, Ko Tien Chung’s villainous-visaged crew were doubtless listening, reading in the sound of that fusillade the success of their leader’s plan and waiting his word to go in and finish whoever was left alive after the unequal fight.

Well, it had been a good plan; unquestionably Hazard and I would have given a good account of ourselves, would have much lessened the numbers of those who attacked us, would, in short, have given the battle to Ko Tien Chung.

And then, just before that anticipated rush from without, I saw that which at least partially explained why that well-conceived plan had failed. A familiar face lifted itself above one of the rocks from behind which that fusillade came and the bead-like eyes of Wang, our servant Wang who was supposed to be on his way to Yunnan-fu, stared across the interval toward us.

Then Hazard had sent him here. Hazard, while we were yet on board the junk, had realized Ko Tien Chung’s treachery and had planned to thwart it. In the simplest way, by furnishing the defenders of the cave with Ko Tien Chung’s complete scheme of attack, he had managed this entire situation. He had indeed manufactured it—a situation which was even yet beyond my comprehension.

“But how,” I began hoarsely, “how did you know—”

“Wait!” Hazard interrupted me. “I’ll tell you presently—it was the bullet-holes in the junk— But here they come! Back!”

He pressed me against the dark wall of the little chamber, with which our soiled khaki clothing blended not badly.

SURELY, here they did come through the mouth of the cave. Ko Tien Chung had timed the rush exactly; it was at the very moment when, if things had worked out well for him, the occupants of the cave, bent upon killing us, would have been at the pinnacle of confusion. But as it was, just as Ma Yola cleared the entrance a sharp order came from the leader of the defenders; their random fire instantly ceased and there was the snapping, rattling sound of rifle-bolts hastily opened and closed again on a fresh supply of cartridges.

That instantaneous trained obedience, that perfect discipline, that sound which could only come front the manipulation of modern firearms gave me my first clue as to the identity of the men with whom Hazard had chosen to ally himself. Some such clue Hazard must have had away back on the Yalung but I had no time to consider the mystery of it.

“
Shao! Shao!”
(Kill! Kill!)

The walls of the cave echoed the cries of Ko Tien Chung’s men as they poured in to the assault.

Such was the momentum of their rush and the force of the impulse behind, that the last man of them—and that last man was Ko Tien Chung—had passed the entrance before the stunning realization of plans gone somehow wrong brought the foremost to a hesitating halt.

The others piled up from behind and for a moment the mass of them writhed and turned, squinting everywhere, finding only a quiet cave where they’d expected to find a confused and helpless enemy. A bewildering moment indeed it must have been for them, with the evidence of their ears flatly contradicted by the evidence of their eyes—more bewildering for them even than for me.

Before the swiftest brains among them could possibly have interpreted the situation, before they could have realized even that the suddenly silenced riflemen must be lying somewhere invisible, holding them helpless under their guns, there was a rustle near the entrance of the cave. Four of its defenders darted into the mouth of it; they whirled and flung themselves down, well-concealed behind rocks placed there beforehand for the purpose, rifles flung forward in businesslike fashion, sealing the entrance with potential death. And the instant’s glimpse of them corroborated the opinion I’d already formed as to their identity.

They were soldiers, real soldiers—not the slovenly, unreliable troops of the provinces, but snappily moving, crisply uniformed, well-armed troops of the New Chinese army, men who were truly our allies in purpose, bulwarks of the republic for which we had so long been fighting against the lawless and revolutionary Ko Lao Hui.

Then the gold, the Ming gold, had all the time been in their custody and Hazard and I had nearly been duped by a traitorous mandarin into helping outlaws to possess themselves of it. But where was it—this more than princely bequest of Li Tzu Ching, emperor for a day?

In that moment’s pause, while the soldiers waited the command of their leader and the pirates glared stupidly around the cave, I looked for that long-buried gold, part of which Ko Tien Chung had claimed to have recovered. Without stirring from my position I could see almost the entire floor of the cave, but nowhere was there even a sign of excavation.

At the inner end there was, however, a great pile of bundles and bales of goods wrapped in canvas and variously colored cloths, an accumulation which, whatever its nature, had evidently never been buried and was plainly of recent collection.

Mine was long delayed discernment and I take no credit that at that sight a glimmering of the whole truth of the matter came to me. Ko Tien Chung allied with Ma Yola—a Chinese magistrate in collusion with pirates—well, it was a condition that had plenty of precedents in Chinese history.

Just how exposure had come to the mandarin, just how he had been forced into the open and into his present situation wasn’t yet clear, but of a sudden his whole story, which had from the first possessed a touch of unreality, became more unreal still, a tissue of falsehood spun around a core of fact, all cleverly contrived to enlist our aid.

“Hazard,” I whispered faintly, “there’s no gold. From the beginning it was all—”

It was a mistake. I realized it on the instant, for, light as had been my whisper, Ma Yola had heard it. He whirled and saw us, mere shadows against the darker rock. The fact that we were living was enough to tell him how he had been betrayed and he lifted his revolver with a cry of rage and fired at us. His bullet dusted my shoulder and fragments of flying rock bruised my head.

But he lived to fire only that one shot. Simultaneously with the report of it there came a sharp command from the other side of the chamber, followed instantly by a volleying crash of rifles. As we afterward discovered, two bullets penetrated Ma Yola’s head, but he reeled half-way around and died as the hard-bitten pirate would have probably wished to die, lunging toward his enemies.

Three of his followers fell with him. It was the beginning of the fight, and it was very nearly the end of it. The pirates, huddled together in the open and confused and disheartened by the complete reversal of their plan, had no chance against the soldiers, even though the volume of their fire indicated that the latter were greatly outnumbered. Hazard and I hugged the floor for the next minute or two, taking no part in the firing. Indeed we were in considerable danger from flying bullets and were lucky to escape untouched.

But presently we heard a clattering of guns on the floor and a great howling for mercy on the part of the remaining pirates, who had dropped to their knees and were holding up beseeching hands. Immediately the soldiers held their fire, but, considering the nature of Chinese punishments, I felt it was hardly mercy that was granted the pirates in taking them alive.

Probably that was also the view of Ko Tien Chung. Anyway, after the firing had altogether ceased, he suddenly made a wild dash for the exit to the cave. It was an adventure that of course could have but one ending; it was his way of putting aside the burden of his many crimes.

A moment later I was bending over him as he lay face upward, his arms outflung. I do not know why I had run to him, save that after all there had been something admirable in that last resolution of his. To me death seals all enmities and I may have had an unreasoning thought that I might ease his passing. However it was, I was rewarded in an unexpected fashion, for his eyes opened as I touched him. He thrust his head up at me and spat out with his last breath, viciously and challengingly, three revealing sentences:

“Exalt the Ko Lao Hui! Down with the Republic! Death to you foreign devils! Exalt Koshinga, who will rule the world!”

IT WAS an hour later before I had a chance to quote these words to Hazard. During that hour the young officer in charge of the handful of troops, two broken squads in all, had proved his appreciation of our help by explaining all he could, which was indeed pretty nearly everything that needed explanation. Then we had all sought what little rest was to be had before morning and Hazard and I were lying on the floor of the cave with sleeping soldiers and well-trussed-up pirates all around us, the dim candlelight flickering over all.

By the officer’s courtesy we had in our mind these added facts concerning the episode which had just ended:

Ko Tien Chung had really been a mandarin, a magistrate of the nearby town of Ku-Siang. Evidence had somehow come to the government that he was in collusion with the river-pirates under Ma Yola and that he had even furnished these pirates with uniforms of the provincial soldiery in which they could disguise themselves whenever they were in danger of capture.

But Ko Tien Chung, discovering he was about to be arrested, had fled and joined his confederates and naturally they had made for the place where they had hidden the most valuable portion of their loot. This had also been revealed to the government and these soldiers happened to be just ahead of them.

There had followed a short fight on the river bank. Ko Tien Chung’s party had been driven off and the soldiers, in obedience to their orders, had gone on to the cave, which they had proceeded to guard, as Ko Tien Chung had anticipated they would, until the arrival of help to carry off the pirates’ booty, which included much money and precious metal and was really worth many Chinese-sized fortunes. Ko Tien Chung, having learned in his official capacity of our movements, had evidently stationed himself so as to intercept us and then had followed the events that have been told.

But all through these explanations Hazard seemed ill-content, as if there was still something about the matter that puzzled him. It was not until I told him of Ko Tien Chung’s last words that he seemed fully satisfied.

“Then that was Ko Tien Chung’s second motive,” he said rather eagerly. “He was really a Ko Lao Hui, though probably only in the initiatory stage. But, being outlawed, there was only one way for his ambition to point—to a seat in the inner councils of the order. And of course he could bring no better recommendations with him than the news of our death at his hands.

“I’m glad we discovered that. It clears up the one phase of the matter that has troubled me all along. Though certainly our assistance in overcoming the soldiers and regaining the loot wasn’t to be despised, still it seemed to me—well, hardly strong enough a motive to stimulate such a wonderful tale as that of the projection of Li Tzu Ching’s will and wealth over three centuries.”

I smiled appreciatively in the semi-darkness.

“A magnificent lie it was and it would seem good evidence that the easy duplicity of the Chinese, when they once turn crooked, isn’t overestimated. Lucky for the rest of us that in the main they’re an honest race. But there’s one thing I don’t understand yet, Hazard. How in the name of second sight did you manage to see through that story and to guess—”

“Second sight, fiddlesticks!” replied Hazard. “And I never guess. It was merely another illustration of the truth that every lie carries either within itself or in its attendant circumstances the element of self-betrayal. Now this one—”

He paused.

“Yes, this one?”

“Was exceptionally easy to detect because, from its very nature, it made one doubt it. I suspected its falsity from the first and so did you—I could see that. But, until I found the bullet-holes in the hull of the junk—fresh bullet-holes undoubtedly made that morning—I was merely suspicious. Then I knew, for of course—”

“Of course,” I put in hurriedly, feeling suddenly rather foolish that I’d overlooked so obvious a point, “that proved Ko Tien Chung’s story of the fight, at least, to be fiction, for he had described it as having taken place here at the cave. And from that it naturally followed—”

“It was naturally to be presumed,” corrected Hazard, “that his whole story was untrue. But, presuming that, there remained the problem of fixing the identity of his antagonists. That was really the vital point, for if they were law-breakers his intentions might after all be honest, while if they were within the law he was undoubtedly outside it. It was, however, hard to conceive of a band of outlaws, even in these parts, attacking a junk as well-manned and armed as was Ko Tien Chung’s, particularly when there was nothing on board worth stealing.

“But that might have been imagined and I was still in doubt until I noticed that the bullet-holes in the junk were absolutely uniform—all of them plainly made by the same caliber of bullet. That was evidence—mind, I don’t say it was proof—of a uniformity of weapon that we both know is to be found only in government troops. It was enough to go on, and fortunately I felt I could place some dependence upon Wang.”

“I see,” I replied. “If the defenders of the cave had really been Ko Lao Hui instead of government troops, I suppose he was to say nothing and go his way, which he’d probably have been permitted to do, being a harmless coolie.”

“That was it,” said Hazard. “But I was quite sure what he’d find. Good, brave, scared little Wang! That fear he showed at my orders back there on the junk wasn’t all pretense. It’s worth while thinking how often these non-fighting Chinese, being very much afraid, will nevertheless walk the way of courage.”