have got to go round and strike the Old Silk Road to Sinkiang here,’ he pointed with his pencil.
‘Won’t this lead us through Hsien Lu’s province, Uncle?’ asked Derrick, studying the map.
‘Who has been telling you about Hsien Lu?’
‘I heard about him in the serai,’ replied Derrick. ‘He’s the bandit who rules over Liao-Meng, isn’t he?’
‘Well, in point of fact he is the Tu-chun appointed by the government – the war-lord or military governor or whatever you like to call him. But it’s as near as makes no difference to being a bandit. He is the sole ruler of Liao-Meng for all practical purposes, and what he says goes, whatever the central government may think. But we don’t have to worry about him. Mr Ross knew him fairly well at one time, and they say his country is quiet now. Anyhow, it will save three weeks going through Liao-Meng, and we haven’t all the time in the world.’
‘How did you come to know him, Mr Ross?’ asked Derrick.
‘If you question your elders,’ said Ross, ‘you will end on the gallows. But perhaps for once I will gratify your curiosity. I first had the pleasure of beholding Hsien Lu’s face in a bar in Cheringpitti, after I had picked two Malays and a Japanese off it.’
‘What were they doing on Hsien Lu’s face, sir?’
‘I did not think to ask them, but I suppose they were trying to improve it in some way. It was a very plain face, as I remember it.’
‘Please would you tell me about it from the beginning?’ Derrick saw that for once Ross was in a yarn-telling mood, and he was determined to profit by it – it was so rare that the opportunity was not to be lost.
Ross stretched, yawned and lit a long cheroot. ‘We had put the Wanderer into dry-dock,’ he began. ‘And if I remember rightly it was in the year after we had come through Sinkiang with – well, anyhow, it was when your worthy uncle was off on one of his characteristic wild-goose chases, and I was left alone to do all the donkey-work. We were having her copper-bottomed, and it was hot in this perishing mangrove swamp where we were berthed. So one day I walked into Cheringpitti with the intention of taking a little light refreshment in Silva’s bar, the only decent place in the town. As I approached, I heard a violent shindy going on inside; and when I went in I saw that everyone was hiding behind the bar or under the tables. The reason for this, I soon discovered – for I have a very logical mind – was that four men were skirmishing about in the far end of the room, throwing bottles about and shrieking in a very tiresome way. There was no service to be had: I was thirsty, and this vexed me. I thought for a while, and I decided that the only way to be served was to restore order. I got up, and carrying my table by way of a shield I approached the men at the far end. Before I reached them, three of them had got the fourth down in the corner. Well, to cut a long story short, I induced them to leave. The two Malays were easily persuaded: one went through the door – which was closed, by-the-bye – and the other, after I had broken his knife arm, went through the window. But the third one, a little Japanese, had a ju-jitsu hold on the fellow underneath, and although I reasoned with him until my table came to pieces, he would not let go. He was slowly killing the man on the floor, and he was chewing his ear at the same time: I am afraid I had to take him to pieces, more or less, before I could make him stop. Then, when I had finally picked him off and tossed the remains through the window, I saw Hsien Lu’s face for the first time. I raised him gently to his feet by his unchewed ear and asked him whether he wanted any trouble; but he did not. On the contrary, he seemed quite pleased to have got rid of his friends, and after he had had his ear attended to he came and shared a drink with me. I saw a good deal of him while he remained in those parts, and I often heard from him afterwards. When he was chief of the Black Flag bandits in Ho-nan he sent me that pair of chronometers: but now he is Tu-chun of Liao-Meng, a reformed character and a very respectable citizen.’
‘From what I have heard,’ said Sullivan, ‘he’s still a bandit under the skin.’
‘What war-lord is not? But Hsien Lu was always a clean fighter after his own lights, and he always kept his word to me whenever we had any dealings, so I do not feel called upon to judge him too harshly.’
‘But why –’ began Derrick.
‘You’ll certainly end on the gallows,’ said Ross. ‘Now it is past midnight, and if you are going out after partridge with Chingiz at dawn you had better turn in.’
‘And if you see Li Han before we are up in the morning,’ added Sullivan, ‘tell him that if he serves up boiled badger again for breakfast I’ll rub it in his hair. He bought seven of them cheap in Peking, and I know there are still three more uneaten. I can’t bear it any longer. Do your best with the partridges, Derrick. There is nothing so good as a cold roast bird – and after these eternal badgers …’
It seemed to Derrick that he had only just closed his eyes when Chingiz was beside him, shaking him awake: the first white streak showed in the eastern sky, and there was hoarfrost on the ground. Their ponies danced in the cold, and Derrick’s chestnut, always a handful, came near to unseating him before he had sent his feet home in the deep, shoe-like Mongol stirrups. He clutched the pommel, felt Chingiz’s eye upon him, and gave the pony a cut with his whip. Away they went, at a full stretching gallop over the smooth, rolling plain, and there was no sound anywhere under the sky but the drumming of hooves. Derrick turned in his saddle and saw Chingiz just behind him, sitting his pony as if he were in an armchair, with his falcon on his wrist. They reined in to a canter, and rode side by side until they flushed a covey of partridges. They stopped and listened: over to the right another covey was calling. Derrick dismounted, slung his weighted reins over his pony’s head, and loaded his gun, a beautifully balanced sixteen-bore that Sullivan had given him.
‘Let’s walk them up,’ he said.
Chingiz looked puzzled; he shook his head and said, ‘You go. I have another way.’
Derrick nodded and began to walk over the thin grass towards the sound; presently he caught sight of the covey, walking about slowly and feeding. They saw him and started to run; he walked more quickly, and flushed them at about fifty yards. He picked two birds on the outside of the covey and cracked right and left at them. He could have sworn that he had hit one at least, but they flew on untouched. On the way back to the ponies he put up another covey. ‘This time I’ll make sure,’ he thought, firing into the brown. A single feather floated down, but the birds whirred on. He was not in the best of tempers when he rejoined Chingiz, and he thought he detected a smile on the Mongol’s face.
‘You should shoot them on the ground,’ said Chingiz. Derrick did not reply, except by a grunt. He thought, as he remounted, that Chingiz meant it as a joke, and he did not think that it was very funny.
They rode for some time, and then, when they sighted another covey Chingiz said, ‘I will show you our way.’ He unhooded his falcon: it stretched its wings and blinked in the sudden light. Chingiz waited a minute, then he raised his arm, untied the jesses, and the falcon took to the air. It flapped once, then rose with outstretched wings on the wind, higher and higher. Chingiz galloped forward to flush the partridges: they rose with a whirr, so close that Derrick could see the red of their tails. The falcon shot forward, high over the partridges, rose still higher, and then closed its wings and stooped in a great downward curve, faster and faster, with a sound like a rocket. The partridges were gliding ten feet above the ground on stiff, decurved wings: suddenly they were aware of their danger, and they scattered as if the covey had exploded. The falcon, aiming its dive on one bird, altered its direction but a half-stroke of one wing: it was moving so fast that it was a blur in the air. Then there was a burst of feathers from the partridge’s back: the bird hit the ground and bounced as if it had been hurled from
