up in Chien Wu, and he welcomed the idea of going out, even if it would only be to see archaeological remains. The Professor needed only the smallest encouragement, so before lunch they left for the village with a monk to guide them and Li Han to prepare their rice.
The ride was delightful: for mile after mile the road led through neat, intensely cultivated fields. Tall trees on either hand gave them shade, and there was enough breeze to diminish the strong heat of the sun, but not enough to raise the dust.
‘I am afraid your uncle has been over-anxious,’ said the Professor. ‘What could be more peaceful than this?’
They came to the village, and the monk led them to a small temple, built on the site of a much larger and more ancient building. He showed the Professor several great slabs of stone, some upright and some fallen, but all carved and covered with half-erased inscriptions. Professor Ayrton was entranced: he took innumerable photographs and rubbings, eagerly explaining the dismal objects to Derrick, who listened dutifully for half an hour, with as much show of interest as he could manage. Fortunately lunch came quite soon: it was perhaps the worst meal that Li Han had ever cooked, for he had been trying to hear the Professor and attend to his work at the same time. But they were hungry after their ride, and the soggy rice vanished from their bowls: by the time they were sitting in the shade and sipping their tea it was no more than an unpleasant memory. The Professor was in fine form, and Li Han listened spell-bound to his remarks on the stelae and on archaeology in general: once, as the afternoon wore on, Derrick suggested that they ought to be going back; he whispered it to Li Han, but the sea-cook turned upon him with such a venomous ‘Shshsh’ that he abandoned the idea and dozed against the wall.
They were at last preparing to return to the monastery when there was a trampling of feet, and a company of soldiers marched into the courtyard. Some were dressed in a ragged blue uniform, and some still had their peasants’ clothes upon their backs; most carried rifles of various kinds, and at their head was an officer who wore the tattered remnants of a Western uniform and carried two revolvers, as well as a sword. He stared hard at them for a moment, and then came forward to demand, in a loud, hectoring voice, what their business was and who they were. The Professor answered him mildly, and the officer at once assumed a more bullying tone. Professor Ayrton showed his passport, his permit from the Central Government and several letters of recommendation. The officer pretended to be able to read them – Derrick noticed that he held them upside down – and snapped, ‘Come with me. You are under arrest.’
‘But my good man,’ said Professor Ayrton, ‘why? For what reason? What is your authority?’
The officer glowered at him, fingered his revolvers, changed his mind, and shouted an order. The soldiers rushed forward and seized the Professor and Derrick. The monk and Li Han had already disappeared: they might have melted into the thin air, for Derrick had never seen them go.
It was useless to resist, so they allowed themselves to be hustled along to a closed Peking cart: their captors threw them in and mounted guard outside.
The Professor put on his spectacles and rummaged through his notes. ‘How very annoying,’ he exclaimed, when he had looked through them. ‘I have left several pages under a stone in the temple. I will just go and …’ Still speaking, he put his head out of the cart: the guard instantly hit him with the butt of his rifle, and he fell back unconscious. Derrick pulled him into a more comfortable position, and held his head on his knees. A few minutes later there was a shouting outside; the cart lurched into motion, and the troops moved off.
Derrick was worried, far more worried than he had ever been before. He did not know what to do, or where they were going, or whether the soldiers were bandits. He listened to the voices of the troops through the creaking and rumble of the cart, but those who were nearest to him were peasants from a province whose dialect was incomprehensible to him.
They went on and on. It was horribly stuffy inside the closed cart, and Derrick began to feel very thirsty. The Professor was still knocked out, but his breathing and his pulse were steady: that was the one comfort Derrick could find in the whole situation.
Hour followed hour, and Derrick had ample time to reflect upon all the disagreeable possibilities that might await him. Whether the soldiers were bandits or not, it was almost certain that they would hold their prisoners to ransom, for the war-lords were utterly lawless in these remote provinces, and they obeyed the governments orders or defied them as they pleased. And Derrick knew what happened if the ransom were not paid.
Then another thought seized him, and a worse one: there were several war-lords who hated all foreigners, and would even forgo a ransom for the pleasure of killing them – killing them in the Chinese manner. And the worst of all these was the rebel leader Shun Chi: it was he who had raised the cry ‘All foreign devils to the sea,’ and it was he who had so recently killed the three completely inoffensive European priests.
Derrick shuddered as he remembered what he had heard in the serai of the fashion of their death. If these men who were marching outside the cart belonged to Shun Chi, then there was very little hope: and these men had been bitterly hostile from the first – if they belonged to Shun Chi, of course they would hate foreigners at sight.
Once the cart stopped. It sounded as though they were in a village or a town, and from the shouting Derrick thought they were changing the horse. He cautiously put his head out to ask for water; he half-expected a blow, and when it came he dodged it by an inch.
After that he sat for hours and hours in the bottom of the cart, holding the Professor’s head. When the cart stopped next he was grasped by two men and dragged out. It was dark: he could not tell where they were, but as he was pushed into the camp he saw the outline of steep hills against the western sky.
Two men held his arms, hurried him over the rough ground, and thrust him into a tent: there was a man there, sitting at a table, writing. He was obviously their leader, and several officers stood behind him. Derrick staggered forward, blinking in the light. The man at the table glared at him, and Derrick glared back.
He was a short man, thick and middle-aged, but he was the toughest-looking man Derrick had ever seen, and there was a very dangerous expression in his eyes.
For a moment Derrick almost lost his courage: but then he saw that the man’s left ear was hardly there at all; at some time it had been chewed off. He felt a violent thrill of relief, and he cried, ‘You are Hsien Lu!’
‘So what?’ snapped Hsien Lu.
‘Is Mr Ross here?’ asked Derrick. ‘My uncle and Mr Ross have been looking for you.’
‘What you mean?’ said Hsien Lu, narrowing his eyes.
‘Mr Ross –’ began Derrick.
‘Sandy Loss? You know Sandy Loss?’ cried Hsien Lu. ‘You say Loss? The pilate, live Canton-side one time?’
Why is he talking pidgin-English? wondered Derrick. Then he remembered that he himself had cried out in that language first. ‘Yes, I know Mr Ross – Sandy Ross –’ he replied, in Chinese, ‘he is my uncle’s partner. But he is not a pirate.’
Hsien Lu stood up and came round the table. He was still appallingly ugly, but the wicked look had gone out of his face. He pulled up a chair and sat staring in Derrick’s face. ‘You are Sullivan’s nephew,’ he said at last, searching in his memory. ‘What is your name?’
‘Derrick.’
