mammoth-like; he had enormous fists; and when he walked, his great shoulder-blades could be seen moving under his long blue silken robe. Ah Wu looked up at him, with the glint of fear in his little fox-like eyes.
"We were discussing the rice crop," said he.
"Liar!" roared Ling.
And he brought down his fist upon the table with such force that the opium bowls jumped, and one of the spirit-lamps went out.
"Liar!" he repeated. "Fetch me a pipe, as I bid you, and speak true talk. This is a human affair and concerns me as much as you. Were it a question of divine philosophy, I should be the last to intrude. Come, I propose to give you advice."
Thereupon, without the least warning, he seized Yung How by the scruff of his neck, and lifted him bodily out of his chair.
"This foreign devil's flunkey shall increase the wisdom of the mighty Ling," he shouted. "He shall tell me in his Hong-Kong jargon why he holds conference with one of Cheong-Chau's bandits, and one who has grown so old in wickedness, and so rich in ill-gotten gains, that his eyes are sunk in the wrinkled fat of his face."
He dumped Yung How back into his chair, and for once the habitual expression of serene dignity had departed from that gentleman's countenance. Indeed, he looked terribly frightened-but not more so than Ah Wu himself, who now came forward, holding in his trembling hand an opium pipe, which he offered politely to this gigantic Oriental swashbuckler.
Ling examined the pipe critically; and then, apparently satisfied with the appearance of it, proceeded to roll opium pills in his huge, flat-tipped fingers.
"I smoke," said he, "not like fools, to dream. I smoke to fight, to think, and to make fools of others."
As he said these words he flung off his long coat. Underneath he was wearing a thin vest of the finest Chifu silk. Around his waist was a belt, attached to which was a great knife-a Malay kris-the handle of which was studded lavishly with jewels.
CHAPTER III-OF THE TIGER AND THE FOXES
Ling was a Northerner. He hailed from the province of Honan, a land of rugged hills and dark, inhospitable valleys, through which flows the unnavigable Hoang-Ho, the turbulent Yellow River that thrashes its way into the Gulf of Pe-chili, over cataracts and rocks, through dark, precipitous ravines.
The Honanese are a warlike race. From this province the viceroys of the north were wont to recruit the majority of their soldiers-wild, raw-boned men who, in the old days, guarded the sacred presence of the Emperor.
The pirates of the West River may be compared to wolf-packs that roam the southern provinces in search of plunder. But Ling may be likened to a solitary beast of prey, a man-eating tiger, or a rogue elephant-than which there is no more dangerous beast in all the world. He lived by his wits, his great strength and cunning. He had established such a reputation for himself in the provinces of Kwang-si and Kwei-chau that he was feared alike by peasants, priests, and mandarins. He committed crime openly and gloried in it; for in China there are no police, and prefects and magistrates can be bought with silver taels.
And Ling was a man of great wealth. He employed bribery when that was likely to succeed. Otherwise he relied upon his Malay kris, or his great hands, with which he could strangle the life out of an ordinary man in no more time than it would take to wring the neck of a hen.
The wonder of this man was that he was a great scholar. He had passed several of the public examinations in which the candidates could be numbered by the thousand. He was learned in the classic books: Spring and Autumn, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, and the books of History, Rites and Music, and the Odes.
He was in the habit of quoting Confucius and the writings of the sages; and he could always, by twisting the meaning of the proverbs of antiquity, find excuses for his crimes.
"To the good I would be good," he would quote, adding: "As there are no good on this earth, there is no necessity to be other than I am."
In no other country in the world would such a man have been allowed to walk at large in the streets of a populous city. Everyone knew him, and everyone feared him; but no one had the courage to step across his path. He came and went at his pleasure, laughing in his loud, boisterous manner, quoting from the writings of Confucius, Mencius, and the learned Lao Tzu, the founder of the Taoist religion. It must be remembered that China is a country in which everyone minds his own affairs. The sages have taught the Chinese to believe that the destiny of every man is in his own hands, and that whether he lives foolishly or wisely, whether he does evil or good, is a question solely between that man himself and the Spirit of the Universe. No one has the right to interfere.
In this world there are those who talk and those who act. Ling did both. He bullied and threatened and stormed; he was childishly vain of his learning, and in seven dialects he scattered his knowledge broadcast. At the same time, he was a man of action; he was resolute and brave, and without scruples or a sense of pity.
But neither courage nor brute strength nor wisdom, nor a combination of the three, can accomplish all things. And in Ah Wu's opium den, the mighty Ling found himself in the presence of three subtle, smooth-tongued Cantonese; and the whole world across, from San Francisco to Yokohama by way of Port Said, there is no more capable and fluent liar than the lemon-skinned, almond-eyed Chinese who hails from the province of Kwang-si. It is difficult to say who could lie most gracefully, who was the greatest hypocrite-Ah Wu, Yung How, or Men-Ching, the brigand. Each in his own way was a past master in the craft of falsehood.
Moreover, they had no intention of taking Ling into their confidence. They may have been frightened of the man, but not even fear could make them behave like imbeciles. They knew that if Ling gained knowledge of the presence of Mr Hennessy K. Waldron upon the upper reaches of one of the rivers, there would be but little booty left for themselves. And so they lied-gracefully, easily, pleasantly, and with admirable consistency.
What that lie was is immaterial to the skein and texture of this story. It was a presentable and passable falsehood, you may be sure, but it was not good enough to deceive Ling, who, however, professed that he believed every word they had told him, whilst he complacently smoked pipe after pipe of opium-at Ah Wu's expense.
And then he left the opium den, paying for nothing, quoting from Mencius in regard to the virtue of hospitality. In the dark streets of the mammoth city his colossal figure became lost in the shadows; but he left behind him, in the opium den, in the little room beneath the stairs, an atmosphere of tension-a feeling that a great typhoon has passed, which by a miracle had caused but little damage. The three conspirators continued to discuss their plot, but they were no longer conscious of a sense of security. Once or twice Ah Wu, who was the most nervous of the three, glanced anxiously over his shoulder, whenever a heavy footstep was heard in the room beyond.
They had lied to Ling to the best of their ability-which was saying much. For all that, they had no reason to suppose that the gigantic Honanese had believed a single word of what they had told him. In consequence, they feared him all the more. The tiger was on the prowl, and the three foxes, their heads close together, whispered in the ears of one another and rolled their little pills.
They arranged matters to their satisfaction. Yung How was to attempt to discover the destination of Sir Thomas Armitage and the wealthy American. Men-Ching would lie in wait upon the river bank. Yung How would signal to him as the launch went by. If their destination was the North River, Yung How was to place his left hand upon the shaven fore-part of his head. If it was the West River, he was to raise his right hand. In either case, Men-Ching was to take horse and ride to Pinglo, where he would inform Cheong-Chau that the fish were swimming into his net. As for Ah Wu, at a later date, he was to play a certain
