Delabar shook his head. “Gray, I tell you, we are fools. The Chinese of Liangchowfu knew we were coming. Those priests were Buddhist followers. They are here for a purpose.”
“They seem harmless enough.”
Delabar laughed.
“Did you ever know a Mongol to warn you, before he struck? No, my friend. We are in a nice trap here, within the walls. We are the only Europeans in the place. Every move we make will be watched. Do you think we can get through the walls without the Chinese knowing it?”
“No,” admitted Gray. “But we had to come here for food and a new relay of mules.”
“We will never leave Liangchowfu—to the west. But we can still go back.”
“We can, but we won’t.”
Gray turned on the bed where he sat and tentatively scratched a clear space on the glazed paper which formed the one—closed—window of the room. Ventilation is unknown in China.
He found that he could look out in the street. The inn was built around three sides of a courtyard, and their room was at the end of one wing. He saw a steady throng of passersby—pockmarked beggars, flaccid faced coolies trundling women along in wheelbarrows, an astrologer who had taken up his stand in the middle of the street with the two tame sparrows which formed his stock-in-trade, and a few swaggering, sheepskin clad Kirghiz from the steppe.
As each individual passed the inn, Gray noticed that he shot a quick glance at it from slant eyes. An impressive palanquin came down the street. A fat porter in a silk tunic with a staff walked before the bearers. Coming abreast the astrologer, the man with the staff struck him contemptuously aside.
As this happened, Gray saw the curtain of the palanquin lifted, and the outline of a face peering at the inn.
“We seem to be the sight of the city,” he told Delabar, drawing on his shoes. “The rubberneck bus has just passed. Look here, Professor! No good in moping around here. You go out and rustle the food we need. I’ll inspect our baggage in the stable.”
When Delabar had departed on his mission, Gray left the inn leisurely. He wandered after the scientist, glancing curiously at a crowd which had gathered in what was evidently the center square of the town, being surrounded by an array of booths.
The crowd was too great for him to see what the attraction was, but he elbowed his way through without ceremony. Sure that something unusual must be in progress, he was surprised to see only a nondescript Chinese soldier in a jacket that had once been blue with a rusty sword belted to him. Beside the soldier was an old man with a wrinkled, brown face from which glinted a pair of keen eyes.
By his sheepskin coat, bandaged legs and soiled yak-skin boots Gray identified the elder of the two as a Kirghiz mountaineer. Both men were squatting on their haunches, the Kirghiz smoking a pipe.
“What is happening?” Gray asked a bystander, pointing to the two in the cleared space.
Readily, the accents of the border dialect came to his tongue. The other understood.
“It will happen soon,” he explained. “That is Mirai Khan, the hunter, who is smoking the pipe. When he is finished the Manchu soldier will cut off his head.”
Gray whistled softly. The crowd was staring at him now, intent on a new sight. Even Mirai Khan was watching him idly, apparently unconcerned about his coming demise.
“Why is he smoking the pipe?” Gray asked.
“Because he wants to. The soldier is letting him do it because Mirai Khan has promised to tell him where his long musket is, before he dies.”
“Why must he die?”
The man beside him coughed and spat apathetically. “I do not know. It was ordered. Perhaps he stole the value of ten taels.”
Gray knew enough of the peculiar law of China to understand that a theft of something valued at more than a certain sum was punishable by death. The sight of the tranquil Kirghiz stirred his interest.
“Ask the soldier what is the offense,” he persisted, exhibiting a coin at which the Chinaman stared eagerly.
Mirai Khan, Gray was informed, had been convicted of stealing a horse worth thirteen taels. The Kirghiz had claimed that the horse was his own, taken from him by the Liangchowfu officials who happened to be in need of beasts of burden. The case had been referred to the authorities at Honanfu, and no less a personage than Wu Fang Chien had ruled that since the hunter had denied the charge he had given the lie to the court. Wherefore, he must certainly be beheaded.
Gray sympathized with Mirai Khan. He had seen enough of Wu Fang Chien to guess that the Kirghiz’ case had not received much consideration. Something in the mountaineer’s shrewd face attracted Gray. He pushed into the cleared space.
“Tell the Manchu,” he said sharply to the Chinaman whom he had drawn with him, “that I know Wu Fang Chien. Tell him that I will pay the amount of the theft, if he will release the prisoner.”
“It may not be,” objected the other indifferently.
“Do as I say,” commanded Gray sharply.
The soldier, apparently tired of waiting, had risen and drawn his weapon. He bent over the Kirghiz who remained kneeling. The sight quickened Gray’s pulse—in spite of the danger he knew he ran from interfering with the Chinese authorities.
“Quick,” he added. His companion whispered to the soldier who glanced at the American in surprise and hesitated.
Gray counted out thirteen taels—about ten dollars—and added five more. “I have talked with Wu Fang Chien,” he explained, “and I will buy this man’s life. If the value of the horse is paid, the crime will be no more.”
The blue-coated Manchu said something, evidently an objection.
“He says,” interpreted the Chinaman, who was eyeing the money greedily, “that thirteen taels will not wipe out the insult to the judge.”
“Five more will,” Gray responded. “He can keep them if he likes. And here’s a tael for you.”
The volunteer interpreter clasped the coin in a claw-like hand. Gray thrust the rest of the money upon the hesitating executioner, and seized Mirai Khan by the arm.
Nodding to the Kirghiz, he led him through the crowd, which was muttering uneasily. He turned down an alley.
“Can you get out of Liangchowfu without being seen?” the American asked his new purchase. He was more confident now of the tribal speech.
Mirai Khan understood. Later, Gray came to know that the man was very keen witted. Also, he had a polyglot tongue.
“Aye, Excellency.” Mirai Khan fell on his knees and pressed his forehead to his rescuer’s shoes. “There is a hole in the western wall behind the temple where the caravan men water their oxen and camels.”
“Go, then, and quickly.”
“I will get me a horse,” promised Mirai Khan, “and the Chinese pigs will not see me go.”
