CHAPTER XIV

One night a great, sullen roar reached him through the open stable-doors in confused waves of sound which ebbed and flowed as though some monster were being tortured in fits and starts.

Full of awe he lay listening. On the cobblestones outside he could hear his mates stirring uneasily. They were talking to one another in low, guttural voices that were impossible to understand. In his drowsy state he only paid vague attention to them. Then, just as his sleepiness was conquering him, words reached him which shot him to his feet as if they had been a loud explosion.

"_Chao huo_,(Fire)" one of them had called.

Nothing can exceed the dread in which the fire-demon is held in the East. Whether it is merely a fear, natural enough in lands where destruction is always absolute and irreparable, is uncertain--but what is incontestable is that conflagrations inspire horror from one end of Asia to the other.

w.a.n.g the Ninth had rushed outside.

"Where is it?" he called in his shrill voice, stumbling forward in the dark.

But the man had already disappeared. As he halted there irresolutely, a glare on the dark horizon caught his attention.

Even as he looked the light grew magically. It spread in a fan of red and yellow across the skies, making mysterious effects on the dark night clouds which seemed to become living things like wrathful dragons. Now the distant cries swelled to a veritable storm which was borne to him like a call for help.

His quick mind instantly leaped to the conclusion that this was incendiarism; it could only be the torch that carried the flames to so many points at once, and then joined them together into such a vast circle of dancing light. He ran through the darkness to the gatehouse to seek companionship.

The Mohammedan gatekeeper was standing at the gates which had been thrown wide-open; and already a large company of his neighbours had collected there. They were women and babies, and weeping children--all dragged to the gatehouse of a foreigner because that seemed to promise protection. Awe-stricken stories pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth; there was enough to learn to keep the boy listening until dawn.

The Sword-Society--everybody said that they were at work. They had descended on the outer city in their thousands and were setting fire to the shops after they had looted to their fill. Far more awful things would soon occur. No one dared to stir. Every mind was only occupied with the question of personal safety.

"But the foreigners won't let them bring harm in here," protested w.a.n.g the Ninth at last. "They will shoot them down; if you do not hear firing very shortly it will be strange."

"Perhaps, perhaps," rejoined the refugees. "But they will look after themselves first and who knows how long they will remain to protect us.

Tonight is unimportant: it is only the beginning. We shall be left behind. What will be our lot then?"

A murmur of commiseration greeted this.

"I am not afraid," protested the boy defiantly. "I have eaten foreign rice and I shall remain. It will not be as you think. There will be new things--many foreign soldiers will come."

He asked a question of the gatekeeper.

"I go to the city wall too," he exclaimed, "to see what there is to see."

And now he started off at a run.

"There goes one who thinks that the foreigner can accomplish all things," grumbled the gatekeeper. "There is not a thing they do that he does not think excellent and yet he has been here but a very short while. Less than two years ago at the time of the winter festival he came seeking work; and when our master gave it to him he became for him as his father."

But the object of these remarks was far away. Like a dog following up some scent, and wholly absorbed, in what he was doing, the boy had run on.

The nearer he came to the city wall the brighter was the glare. It was indeed so bright that it was now possible to see every object around him. People were peering out of doorways and called to him repeatedly for information, but he ran on.

Up the broad ramp of the city wall he ran and then in the direction of the great tower which crowned the central entrance. He knew that there was where the foreigners would go because there it was possible to see most. Now as he came nearer to this point, the magnificence of the spectacle greatly impressed him.

"It is unbelievable," he murmured.

It was indeed unbelievable. From this vantage-point it seemed as if half the city were in flames--the flames now seemed to extend for miles.

Choking clouds of smoke were wafted up to him full of sparks. It became difficult to breathe; and it was clear that had it not been for the great moat and this ma.s.sive wall, the foreign quarter would already have been in flames like the rest. With his head down and his heart thumping hard the boy ran on until he came upon a large crowd of foreigners.

"I seek my master," he explained, using his Chinese name.

"Over there," they waved to him.

He recognized his master from his great bulk. He was standing before a knot of armed native soldiers. As he came up he caught the master's last words.

... "So long as the gates are kept shut no harm can come. But if they are opened even though it be for a tenth of a minute, you as well as every one else will suffer and lose your lives."

In a chorus the guards rejoined:

"We understand, your Excellency. It is as you say."

Then they broke off. For immediately beneath them came a fiendish yelling from countless throats.

"Open the gates, open the gates."

From out of the smoke and flames, the maddened desperadoes chorussed this dirge.

"Open the gates, open the gates," they cried ceaselessly and imperatively.

w.a.n.g the Ninth crept to the parapet, and thrusting his head through an embrasure gazed out.

Lit up by the flames, great dark patches of men could be seen standing there gesticulating and shouting madly to the accompaniment of the crackling flames. Sometimes as the rafters of some burning emporium fell in, an enormous cloud of sparks was wafted into the air and fell about them, sending up glints from their swords and spears which they shook and waved.

"Open the gates; open the gates."

So it went on for very long. The master's voice, sounding at his very elbow, brought him out of his absorption.

"Well--what do you think of it?"

"They are dogs," said the boy contemptuously. "It is best to shoot them all--Dogs," he cried in his shrill voice, displacing a small piece of brick and hurling it down.

His master shook his head.

"There is no one to deal with them, no one to shoot."

So they remained watching. At last exhausted by their efforts, the great mob gradually ceased their crying. Deep silence ensued, only occasionally interrupted by some loud explosion in the distance as a roof fell in.

CHAPTER XV