"_Lai-la, lai-la_ (they have come)!" he screamed as he tumbled across the mud with the agility of a frog. He had seen a glint of red in the reeds on the opposite sh.o.r.e--just a glint--but that was enough.

The others, being less nimble, crawled out using the sail as a screen.

Then, trembling violently, all of them disappeared quickly enough into the reeds which grew rank and high. Distant voices shouting curses were audible as they went; but the rifles they feared did not speak. The soldiers were running along the opposite bank fairly mad with rage; it was evident that they knew the country and were holding their fire until they could be certain of their quarry.

The fugitives had not gone twenty yards before they discovered that the great clumps of reeds were no real protection; for the ground was so marshy that the only safe road was the tracking-path beside the river.

Already they were surrounded by mud and water. The soldiers counted on their certain reappearance when they would begin their shooting.

It was the big fellow with the iron-p.r.o.nged stick who explained this to them all in a guttural whisper, when they reached the end of the solid ground and stood in an irresolute group. Some wild-fowl rising almost from under their feet with a screech startled them all so badly that they turned deadly pale.

"A pretty dilemma!" exclaimed one of the wool-merchants in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "We cannot advance; we dare not retreat. And if we remain here too long, in the end the soldiers will find another boat to carry them across and exact vengeance, or perhaps fire chance shots, hoping to bring us down. Far better had we never moved."

But w.a.n.g the Ninth was not idle. He had stripped off his shoes and his trousers and had commenced wading in a new direction. Soon he was lost to sight, even his splashing becoming inaudible. But after a long wait he reappeared, forcing his way through the reeds from a different direction.

"I have found a bank of dry land. How far it extends I have not learnt, but if all follow it may be that we can reach safety."

There was nothing to do but to imitate his example, and soon all were splashing through the mud and water to where he awaited them. A half-submerged bank of earth, which may have been a forgotten d.y.k.e, stretched away through the reeds, and although it soon narrowed down to a path just broad enough to walk on, it led them far away from the river--straight to the south.

Their spirits rose so rapidly as they progressed that now they began to talk almost gaily.

"It is a reed-cutters' path, that is absolutely certain," a.s.serted w.a.n.g the Ninth. "Soon we must reach a village, for this is an important trade and I know well how this business is carried on."

"This boy is right," agreed the man with the iron-p.r.o.nged stick.

"Certainly he is right: there is already smoke from some chimney."

It was even as he said. Soon from out of the dense reeds they heard the sound of cries and a scurrying of feet.

"_Shui_--(who is that)?" a voice called threateningly.

"We are travellers--we require to be shown the road," they called, one after the other, keeping up a perpetual chorus for fear of what would happen if they remained silent.

Rounding the last clump of reeds they saw a village of mud huts. In front of a small open s.p.a.ce, on which were piled ma.s.ses of dried reeds, stood a big fellow stripped to the waist with a formidable jingal in his hand; and at his side were some barking dogs. He was evidently prepared for the worst.

His expression slowly changed as they came in view. The appearance of the wool-dealers, heavily laden with their saddlebags and greatly exhausted by their efforts, was certainly eminently peaceful; and now as their chorus of explanations redoubled, a new-found courage displayed itself in his roughness.

"What talk of seeking a road is this!" he exclaimed angrily. "This is a small poor village surrounded by water, where we risk starvation from year to year and where there is nothing for others."

They answered him in a storm of talk speaking so much of soldiers that fear returned to him.

"If they pursue you it is best for you to proceed quickly," he rejoined, not listening to them. "Here are women and children who cannot be imperilled."

"But the road, the road," they cried. "We cannot fail to pay you your stipulated price."

At the mention of money the reed-cutter rubbed his face with one h.o.r.n.y hand.

"Those who ask aid must make it worth while," he declared ambiguously.

"I was left here by our folk to protect the households. If I go who is there to insure safety?"

A long and animated argument commenced; and as it progressed, slowly and cautiously the denizens of the village approached--slatternly women in torn blue clothing with babies in their arms, and half-grown girls, and small boys, all the offspring of a mating carried on as in primeval forests, and now stricken with fear.

At length the price was settled, and the reed-cutter led them to where a small flat-bottomed boat was concealed in the reeds. This it was necessary to carry a considerable distance; but finally it was launched where there was a clear water-pa.s.sage. It was just big enough to embark them all; and with the reed-cutter poling them, they slowly travelled away from the scene of the day's adventure.

The sun was already low when the man stopped and pointed to a spot a few hundred yards away.

"There will I take you," he said. "Farther I cannot go. From there a good road leads to the seaport which is distant some eighty _li_."

"Eighty _li_," they cried in alarm. "This morning when we started we were but sixty _li_ off."

"But you have travelled far to the southeast. This is the southeastern road. In any case it is eighty _li_."

They paid the price agreed upon and started off without further discussion. Although w.a.n.g the Ninth had chattered all the way in the boat now he had nothing to say.

He was thinking--thinking of what the villagers had said two days ago about the country to the southeast. This was the robber country. He did not dare to give voice to his suspicions because that might bring the whole party to a halt.

A mile or two further on a small green snake slid across the road and disappeared into the undergrowth.

"A snake crosses the road," he cried. "There will be heavy weather soon."

A few hundred yards farther on a second snake crossed the road going so rapidly and viciously that it was almost impossible to follow with the eyes.

The boy opened his mouth but closed it without speaking. Two snakes--what did two snakes mean? It was something unlucky he had once heard; but he never thought that it might simply come from the undergrowth being disturbed by hidden feet. He was trying to think of the explanation--he knew there was an explanation--when the warning was made clear. A half-a-dozen men, with hideous painted masks over their faces, leaped out of the growing grain and fired from their hips. Crack, crack, crack went the shots. w.a.n.g the Ninth, stricken with alarm, threw himself instinctively on the ground, and wriggled into the _kaoliang_ amidst the cries and groans of the others who never left the road.

He was alone once more--in the growing grain--perhaps twenty miles from his destination.

CHAPTER XXV

He spent a horrible night. Fear gained him completely, and he sobbed to himself for many hours as he wandered in the blackness of the fields.

He did not know whether his companions had been killed or whether they had been merely robbed and left on the roadside; but their despairing cries sounded in his ears unendingly, and he seemed to hear the vicious whistle of the bullets and to feel their wounds. A great compa.s.sion for the old wool-dealer who had been kind to him wrung his heart so acutely that several times he cried aloud. He sat down only to start up again--expecting to see phantom shapes, tormented with the fear that the wool-dealers' distressed spirits would for ever haunt him. Not until day was dawning did he care to lie down and even then he knew no sleep.

He tried to calculate how many days had pa.s.sed since he had left the capital--was it six, seven or eight? And he was still wrestling with the problem, still attempting to thrust himself through obstacles which he did not understand. Sometimes he wondered why he had attempted this task. It was too big for a boy; yet he had been told that that was just the reason why he might succeed. He wondered why he did not give it up: he was not bound to go on. No one could possibly know what he did. Now he remembered how the inn-servant, when he was paid for a certain service, merely went and sat down in a lonely spot. Then, when he thought that thought anger gained him. His doggedness and his loyalty were aroused. He was not a mean fellow like that inn-servant. He would not turn back or surrender.

He must have dozed during these hours of dawn; for he awoke to find himself shivering under a fine rain which dripped through the grain and covered his face with dew. Rousing himself, he sat up and began munching some flour-cakes he still had with him. Now he made a vow that that very day he would push through and encounter his destiny cost what it might.

Tightening his belt he started off.

As he scrambled through the fields he became gradually aware of a low thunder on the horizon. The sound puzzled him for the rain had stopped and the sun had come out from behind the clouds and it was fair weather and very hot. And yet as he walked this thunder increased--not slowly but very rapidly. At length he paused to listen.

"_Shen-mo_(what is it)," he exclaimed aloud in his perplexity, impelled to talk to relieve himself, and wondering whether the tiny paper wad in one ear was spoiling his hearing.

Then at last he struck his hands together and babbled madly in his excitement.

"_Ta-p'ao_(big guns)," he shouted. "They are coming, they are coming!"

He ran now until he was completely out of breath, changing his run to a fast walk and then back to a trot as soon as he could.