Sons

XII

WHEN WANG THE TIGER struck his horse with the braided leathern whip he carried and he let the beast have its full way and the horse sped over the countryside as though it were winged. It was a day fit to start upon so high a venture as Wang the Tiger’s, for the sky was cloudless and the wind blew keen and cool and full of vigor and it turned the trees this way and that and wrenched at them and whipped the late leaves from their branches and it stirred the dust in the roadways and whirled itself over the shorn grain lands. In Wang the Tiger’s heart a recklessness rose like the very wind itself and he purposely took his way far from the earthen house and he made a wide circle from the place where Pear Blossom lived and he said to his own heart,

“All the past is finished and I look forward to my greatness and to my glory!”

So the day began and the sun rose full and enormous and glittering over the edge of the fields, but he looked at it unblinking, and it seemed to him that heaven itself set its seal upon him in such a day as this and he would achieve his greatness, for greatness was his destiny.

Early in the morning he came to the hamlets where his men were, and his trusty harelipped man came out to meet him and he said,

“It is very well, my captain, that you have come, for the men are rested and full of food and they are chafing to be on to more freedom.”

“Round them out, then, when they have had their morning meal,” shouted Wang the Tiger, “and let us be on our way and half way to our own lands by tomorrow.”

Now during these days that Wang the Tiger had been in the house of Wang the Second he had been thinking much of what lands he should take for his own rule and he had talked with his brother who was cautious and wise, and it seemed to them that the lands just over into the borders of the next province were very good lands for the purpose and the best to be had. These regions were far enough from Wang the Tiger’s home so that if dire need came he would not be taking from those who were his own people and yet near enough so that if he were vanquished in a war he could take refuge among his own. Moreover, it was near enough so that the silver he would need until he was established could be brought to him easily and without too great risk of robbers. As for the lands themselves, they were famous good lands where the famine did not strike too often, and some of the lands were high and some were low, and there were mountains to serve for retreat and hiding. There was besides all this a certain highway that was a passage between the north and south for travellers coming to and fro, and such travellers could very well be taxed for revenues and the right to pass that way. There were two or three large towns too, and a small city, so that Wang the Tiger need not be wholly dependent upon the people who filled the earth. These lands had another value also, and it was that they sent out the best grain to the markets for wine and the people were not very poor.

There was but one hindrance to all these goods, and it was that there was already a lord of war over that region and Wang the Tiger must first drive him out if he was to prosper to the utmost, for there is no region rich enough to maintain two lords of war. Now what this lord was or who he was or how strong he was were things Wang the Tiger did not know, for he could not find out anything sure from his brothers except that they had heard him called the Leopard, because he had such a strange slanting forehead sloping back into his head as leopards’ foreheads do, and he ruled the people harshly, so that they hated him.

Therefore Wang the Tiger knew he must go secretly to those lands and not in any bold array. No, he must go stealthily, separating his men into small bands so that they would not look more dangerous than bands of deserting soldiers, and he would seek out some retreat in a mountain and from that vantage he would search out the country with his trusty men and see what sort of a lord of war he had to fight and from whom he must take the lands he felt were already his by destiny.

As he planned, so he did. When his men were gathered out of the hamlets and when he had seen each man fed and warmed with good wine against the chill winds that contended with the heat of the mounting sun, when he had taken care that all was paid for and he had asked the villagers, “Did my men do anything in your houses they should not?” and had heard them answer volubly, “No, they did not, we wish all soldiers were like yours,” then Wang the Tiger was well pleased and he drew his men far out beyond the villages and he told them as they stood about him of the lands to which he would lead them and he said,

“There are the best lands anywhere and there is only one lord to fight against. There is such heady wine, too, in that land, as you have never tasted before!”

When the men heard this they shouted with joy and they clamored,

“Take us there, our captain — we have longed for such lands!”

Then Wang the Tiger answered them, smiling his grim smile,

“It is not so easy as this, for we must search out the strength of the lord who holds it. If his men are too many for us, we must seek ways of winning them away from him, and every man of you must be a spy to see and to hear. Nor must anyone know why we are come or we are undone. I will go myself first to see where we can make our camp, and my trusty harelipped man shall stay at the border at a hamlet there called the Valley of Peace. He will stay at an inn there that I have heard of, and it is the very last inn on the street and there is a wine flag hanging out of the door. He is to wait for you and give you the name of the place I shall set for us to gather. Now you are to break up into threes and fives and sevens and saunter as though you were runaways, and if any man asks you where you go, ask him where the Leopard is for you come to join him. To everyone I will give three pieces of silver for food until we meet. But there is one thing I say to every man. If it comes to my ears that any man has injured a humble man or looked at a woman not free to him I shall not ask what man it is but I will kill two men for every such man I hear about.”

Then one man called out, “But, my captain, are we never to be free to do the things soldiers may?”

And Wang the Tiger shouted at him, “When I give the command you are free! But you have not fought for me yet, and shall you have the rewards of battle when there has been no battle?”

The man was silent then and he was afraid, for Wang the Tiger was known to be very sudden in his tempers and swift with his sword and he was not a man whom one could move with a witty word or a merry saying fitly spoken. Yet he was known to be just, too, and these men who followed him were good enough and they knew what was fair. It was true they had not fought yet and they were willing to wait so long as they were fed and sheltered and paid.

Then Wang the Tiger watched them as they scattered into groups and when they were so scattered, he paid them from the store he had, and with the pocked lad on his ass and the harelipped trusty man upon a mule Wang the Tiger had bought for him at a hamlet, the three started alone toward the northwest.

When Wang the Tiger came to the border of that region of which he had heard he forced his red horse up a large, tall grave of some rich man’s that stood there, and from this vantage he looked out over the land. It was the fairest land he had ever seen and it spread itself out before him, rolling in little low hills and in wide shallow valleys that were already faintly green with the newly sprouted winter wheat. To the northwest the hills rose suddenly into jagged mountains full of cliffs cut clearly against the bright sky of the day. The houses of the people of that land were scattered in small villages and hamlets, good earthen houses not fallen into decay, and many had the roofs newly thatched with straw from that year’s harvest. There were even a few houses of brick and tile. In every dooryard near enough for him to see there were ricks of straw and he could hear the distant cackling of hens that had laid their eggs, and now and again the wind blew to him where he stood fragments of some song a farmer sang as he cultivated his fields. It was a very fair land and his heart leaped to see how fair it was. But he had no mind to go through clad as he was in a soldier’s garb and on his red horse and let a rumor of war loose too early upon the people. No, he looked and he planned out for himself a winding way to the mountains where he could hide himself and his men and seek out the strength of his enemy before any could even know he was come.

At the foot of the low hill upon which this tall grave and many other graves were, was a little village, the border village of which he had told his men. It stretched out its few furlongs of one street, and Wang the Tiger turned his horse there and he rode through it, with the pair behind him. It was at that time of the morning when farmers return to their own hamlets, and the village tea house was full of farmers drinking tea or supping up bowls of noodles made from wheaten flour or buckwheat. They had their baskets emptied from the markets piled on the ground beside them as they ate, and they looked up in wonder when they heard the clattering of hoofs upon the street and they stared with jaws ajar as Wang the Tiger passed. He looked back at them, too, to see what sort of men they were, and he was very pleased to see how goodly they were, how brawny and brown and hearty and how well fed and he said to himself freshly he had chosen his lands very well if it could breed such men as these. But, save that he looked at them, he went with unusual modesty and as one goes who passes through a place a guest and going on to some other far place.

At the end of the street there was the wine shop he had heard of and he told the pair to wait outside, and he halted his horse and dismounted and he pushed aside the curtain at the door and went into the shop. There was no one there for it was a very small place with but a table or so for guests, and Wang the Tiger sat down and slapped the table with his hand. A lad came running out then and seeing how fierce a man was there he ran back to his father, who was the keeper of the shop, and the man came out and wiped the table with his torn apron and he said, courteously,

“My lord guest, what will you have for wine?”

“What have you?” returned Wang the Tiger.

The shop keeper answered him, “We have the fresh sorghum wine made in these parts. It is the best wine and shipped over the whole earth, I suppose, even to the emperor in the capital.”

At this Wang the Tiger laughed in some scorn and he said,

“Have you not heard in this little village that we have no emperor these days?”

At this a great look of terror came over the man’s face and he said in a whisper,

“No, and I had not heard it! When did he die? Or was his throne taken by violence, and if it was, who is our new emperor?”

And Wang the Tiger marvelled that there could be a man so ignorant as this and he replied with some slight scorn,

“We have no new emperor these days at all.”

“Then who rules us?” said the man in consternation as at some new disaster newly fallen on him unawares.

“It is a time of striving,” said Wang the Tiger. “There are many rulers and it is not known which can seize the highest seat. It is such a time as any man may use to rise to glory.”

This he said, and the ambition that was the greatest part of him soared up suddenly and he cried to his own heart, “And why may not that one be I?” But he said nothing aloud; he only sat and waited for his wine beside the small unpainted table.

Then the man when he had fetched the jug of wine came back and it could be seen from his sober face that he was much troubled and he said to Wang the Tiger,

“It is a very evil thing to have no emperor, for this is to have a body without a head and this means wild movements everywhere and none to guide us all. It is an ill thing you have told me, my lord guest, and I wish you had not told me for now I shall not be able to forget it. Humble as I am, I shall not be able to forget it, and however peaceful our village is I shall be afraid every day for the next.”

And with downcast looks the man poured the warm wine into a bowl. But Wang the Tiger did not answer for he had his thoughts elsewhere than on this humble soul, and as for him he was glad it was such an hour as it was. He poured out the wine and drank it down quickly. It spread through his blood, hot and strong, and he felt it mount to his cheeks and fume through his head. He did not drink above a few bowls of it then, but he paid for it and for a bowl more and this he took out to his trusty harelipped man. The man was very grateful for it, too, and he took the bowl in both his hands and supped as best he could, lapping it somewhat as a dog does to taste it and then throwing his head back and pouring it down his throat because his upper lip was so little use to him, divided as it was.

Then Wang the Tiger went back into the shop and he said to the keeper,

“And who rules you here in this region?”

The man looked east and west at this but there was no one near and so he said in a low voice,

“It is a robber chief who is called the Leopard. He is the cruellest bitter fellow. Every one of us must pay a tax to him or he comes sweeping down on us with all his ne’er-do-wells, he and his men like a flock of evil crows to pick us clean. Well do we all wish we could be rid of him!”

“But is there no one to contend with him?” asked Wang the Tiger, and he sat down as though it were a small careless thing he said and of no importance to him. And to seem more careless he said, “Bring me a pot of mild green tea. The wine stays like fire in my throat.”

And as the man fetched the tea he answered Wang the Tiger, “Not one to contend, my lord guest. We would complain of him to those above if it were of use so to do. Once we did go to our county court and the highest magistrate in our region lives there. We told him our case and we asked him to send his soldiers out and to borrow soldiers from the one yet above him and see if together they could not drive out this fellow who oppresses us. But, sir, when those soldiers came they were such cruel men and they so lived in our houses and took our daughters and so ate their fill of what they would and did not pay us that they grew to be a burden we could not bear. No, and besides this they were such cowards that they ran at the very smell of a battle and the robbers grew all the more arrogant. So we went then and begged the magistrate to take his soldiers off from us again and he did at last. But it was a very bitter thing at best, for many of the soldiers went and took service under the robbers, giving as excuse that they had not been paid for long and they must eat, and we were worse off than before for a soldier has a gun to take with him where he goes. And as if it were not enough, that magistrate of ours who lives in the county seat there sent out his tax gatherers and put a heavy tax upon us all, on men on the lands and on keepers of shops, too, because he said the state had been put to such a cost to protect us that we must pay them for it. Well enough we knew he and his opium pipe were the state, and so since that time we have never asked for any help, choosing rather to pay so much and so much to the Leopard every feast day and so keep him in bounds. It is well enough while we have no famine and we have had so many good years now that heaven will surely send us a bad year soon, and there must be many bad years in store for us. Then I do not know how we shall do.”

To all of this long tale Wang the Tiger listened carefully as he drank his tea. Then he asked again,

“Where does this Leopard live?”

Then the wine shop keeper took Wang the Tiger by the sleeve and he led him to a small window at the east of the shop and he pointed with his crooked forefinger, stained with wines, and he said,

“There is a mountain yonder with two crests and it is called the Double Dragon Mountain. Between the two crests is a valley and in that valley is the robbers’ lair.”

Now this was what Wang the Tiger waited to hear and so he affected the more negligence of it and he said carelessly, smoothing his hard mouth with his hand,

“Well, I shall stay away from that mountain then. And now I must be on the way to my home northward. Here is the silver I owe you. As for the wine, it is as you say it is, a very good bright heady wine.”

Then Wang the Tiger went out and he mounted his horse again and with the two behind him he rode round about so as not to pass any more villages. He rode over the tops of circling hills and through lonely places although he was never far from men either, because that place was so well tilled and so full of hamlets and villages. But he kept his eyes fixed on that double-crested mountain and he guided his horse to the south of it to a certain other lower mountain he saw that was partly wooded with pine trees.

All through that day they rode in silence, for no one spoke to Wang the Tiger if he did not speak first, unless there were some very pressing thing to be said. Once the lad began to sing a little under his breath, because he was such an one as found silence wearisome, but Wang the Tiger hushed him sternly, for he was in no mood for any merry noise.

At the end of the afternoon but before the sun was set they came to the foot of that wooded mountain toward which they had been many hours riding, and Wang the Tiger dismounted from his weary horse and began to climb some rude stone steps that led upward. These he followed and the pair behind him also, their beasts stumbling over the stones, and as they went the mountain grew wilder and there were cliffs over which the road led and streams burst forth here and there between the rocks and the trees, and the grasses grew thick and deep. The mosses upon the stones also were soft and showed but little sign of the passage of human feet except in the very center, as though only one or two persons ever passed this way. When the sun was set they had reached the end of this mountain road and it ended at a temple built of rough stone and set with its back to the cliff so that indeed this cliff was its innermost wall. The temple was very nearly hidden by trees but it could be seen because its faded red walls gleamed out in the setting sun. It was but a small temple, old and ruinous, and its gates were closed.

Wang the Tiger went up to it and for a while he stood with his ear pressed against the closed gate. But he heard nothing and so he beat upon it with the handle of his leathern whip. No one came for a long time and then he beat very furiously and with anger. At last the door opened a little and the face of a shorn and shaven priest looked out, a very old and shriveled face. And Wang the Tiger said,

“We seek for shelter here tonight,” and as he spoke his voice rang out hard and sharp and clear in that quiet place.

But the priest opened the door a very little more and he answered in a little piping voice,

“Are there no inns and tea houses in the villages? We be but a scant handful of men who have left the world and have but the poorest of food without any meat and we drink only water.” And his old knees shook in his robes when he looked at Wang the Tiger.

But Wang the Tiger pushed his way in through the gates and past that old priest and he called to his lad and the trusty man,

“Here is the very place for which we seek!”

He went in then without any heed at all to the priests. He went into the temple through the main hall where the gods were, and they were like the temple, very aged and their gilt peeling from their clay bodies. But Wang the Tiger did not even look at them. He passed them and went into the inner side houses where the priests lived, and he chose out a small room for himself better than the others and cleaned not too many days ago. Here he ungirdled his sword, and the trusty man went hither and thither and found food and drink for him, although it was only a little rice and cabbage.

But that night as Wang the Tiger laid himself down upon the bed in the room he had chosen he heard a deep, low wailing come out of the hall where the gods were and he rose and went out to see what it was. There the five old priests of the temple were and the two little acolytes they had who were farmers’ sons left there for some prayer answered. They all knelt and wailed to the Buddha who sat leaning on his fat belly in the center of the hall and as they wailed they prayed the god to save them. A torch burned there and the flame flew this way and that in the night winds and in the light of the flying flame these knelt and prayed aloud.

Now Wang the Tiger stood and looked at them and listened to them and he found that they prayed to be protected against him and they cried,

“Save us — save us from the robber!”

When he heard this Wang the Tiger shouted out heartily and the priests leaped to hear his sudden voice and they stumbled to their feet entangled in their robes with their haste, all except one old priest who was the abbot of that temple and he fell flat on his face, thinking his last hour was come. But Wang the Tiger shouted,

“I shall not hurt you, you old baldheads! Look, I have silver to spare, and why should you be afraid of me?” And as he spoke he opened his girdle purse and he showed them the silver he carried there and it was true there was more silver in it than they had ever seen and he said on, “Beyond this I have more silver and I want nothing of you except shelter for a little while such as any man may claim in his need from a temple.”

The sight of this silver did comfort the priests very much and they looked at one another and they said among themselves,

“He is some military captain or other who has killed a man he should not have killed, or who has lost his general’s favor and so he must hide for a little time. We have heard of such.”

As for Wang the Tiger he let them think what they would and he smiled his slight and mirthless smile, and he went back to his bed.

The next day at dawn Wang the Tiger rose and he went out to the gate of the temple. It was a morning of mists and the clouds filled the valleys and covered this mountain top from every other and he was alone and hid from the world. Nevertheless, the chill in the air reminded him that winter must soon come and he had much to do before snows set in, for his men depended on him for food and shelter and for clothing against the cold. So he went into the temple again and he went into a kitchen where his trusty man and the lad slept. They had covered themselves with straw and they still slept and the breath whistled through the man’s split lip. They slept fast enough, although already an acolyte was feeding straw carefully into the mouth of the brick oven and from under the wooden lid of the iron cauldron on the bricks a bubble of steam leaked out. When the acolyte saw Wang the Tiger he shrank back and hid himself.

But Wang the Tiger paid no heed to him. He shouted to his trusty man and seized him and shook him, and bade him rise and eat and get gone to the inn, lest some of the men pass that morning. Then did the trusty man stagger up out of his sleep rubbing his two hands over his face and yawning hideously. But he shuffled into his clothes and he dipped a bowl into the simmering cauldron and supped some of the scalding sorghum gruel the acolyte brewed there. Away he went down the mountain, then, a goodly enough man if one saw only his back and not his face, and Wang the Tiger watched him go and valued him for his faithfulness.

Then as Wang the Tiger waited that day for his men to gather to him in this lonely place, he planned what he would do and whom he would choose for his trusty men to be his helpers and take counsel with him. He portioned out certain labor to certain numbers of men also, to these to be spies, and to these to forage for food and to others to gather fuel and to others cooking and the mending and cleaning of weapons, to each man his share in their common life. And he thought that he must remember to keep a hard hand over them all, and to reward them only where reward was due and he would order all under his complete command. Life and death should be in his own hand.

Beyond this he planned how each day he would spend certain hours training his men in feints and postures of war so that when his times of struggle came they would be ready. He dared not waste his bullets for the guns at practice, seeing he had not many beyond his need yet. But he would teach them what he could.

So he waited restless in that still mountain top and before the day was ended there were fifty and more men who had found their way to him again and by the end of the next day nearly fifty more. The few left never came and it seemed they had deserted to some other cause. Wang the Tiger waited two more days but they did not come, and he grieved, not because of the men but because with each he had lost a good gun and a belt of bullets.

Now when the old priests saw this horde of men gathering into their peaceful temple they were beside themselves and they did not know what to do. But Wang the Tiger comforted them and he said over and over,

“You shall be paid for everything and you need not fear.”

But the old abbot answered in his feeble way, for he was very aged and the flesh upon his bones was dried and shriveled with his age,

“It is not only that we fear no return, but there are things for which silver makes no restoration. This has been a very quiet place and its very name is The Temple of Holy Peace. We few have lived out of the world these many years in this place. Now here are all your lusty hungry men and peace is gone with their coming. They crowd into the hall where the gods are and they spew their spittle everywhere and they stand anywhere, even before a god himself, and pass their water as they please and they are coarse and wild in all they do.”

Then Wang the Tiger said, “It is easier for you to move yourselves and your gods than for me to change such things in my men, for they are soldiers. Move your gods then into the innermost hall and I will tell them that to that one place they shall not go. So may you be at peace.”

Thus the old abbot did, then, seeing that there was no other way, and they moved every god on its pedestal, except the gilt Buddha who was too large and they feared if he fell he would burst into pieces and bring disaster upon them all. The soldiers lived in the hall with him then and the priests covered his face with a piece of cloth so that he might not see and be angered by what sins they could not avoid.

Then Wang the Tiger chose out from his men the three he would have as his trusty men. First he took the harelipped man and after him two others, one nicknamed the Hawk, because he had a very curious hooked nose in the middle of his thin face and a narrow, down-drooping mouth, and one nicknamed the Pig Butcher. The Pig Butcher was a great thick fat red man, and his face was large and flat and his features smashed upon it as though a hand had smeared him in the making. But he was a lusty fellow, and it was true enough he had once been a pig butcher, but he had killed a neighbor in a brawl and he would often bemoan it and say, “If I had been eating my rice and had chopsticks in my hand I could never have killed him. But he quarreled with me when I had my chopping knife in my hand and the thing seemed to fly out of its own accord.” Nevertheless, the man having died of his bleeding, the Pig Butcher had need to run away to save himself from the court. He had one strange skill. Coarse and thick as he was, he had swift and delicate speed in his hand so that if he took a pair of chopsticks he could pluck the flies out of the air as they flew, one by one he plucked them, and many times his fellows would bid him to do this for them to see and they roared with laughter to see such skill. With this exactness he could prick a man as delicately and spill his blood out neatly and swiftly, too.

Now these three men were very canny men, although not one could read or write. But for such a life as theirs they needed no learning in books, nor did they dream such learning could be useful to them. Wang the Tiger called them to his room when he had chosen them and he said,

“I shall look to you as my three trusty men above the others to watch them and to see if any betrays me or fails in what I have commanded. Be sure you shall have a reward on the day when I rise to glory.”

Then he sent the Hawk out and the Pig Butcher too, and he kept only the harelipped trusty man and to him he said with great sternness,

“You I set above those other two and it is your duty to see if they, too, fail me in loyalty.”

Then he called the three together again and he said, “As for me, I shall kill anyone whose loyalty is even brought to question. I will kill him so swiftly that the next breath he had planned as a thing of course shall be left half taken and hanging in the air.”

Then his harelipped man answered peaceably, “You need not fear me, my captain. Your own right hand shall betray you before I do so.”

Then the other two swore eagerly also, and the Hawk said loudest of all,

“Shall I forget you took me as a common soldier and raised me up?” This he said, for he had his own hopes in him, too.

Then the three made their obeisances before Wang the Tiger to show their humility and their faithfulness, and when this was over Wang the Tiger chose out certain tricky clever men and he sent them out through the land everywhere to spy out what the news was about his enemy. He commanded,

“Make all haste and find out what you can so that we can establish ourselves before the great cold begins. Find out how many men follow the Leopard and if you come upon any of them talk to them and test their loyalty to him and see if they can be bribed away or not. I will bribe everyone I can because your lives are more precious to me than silver, and I shall not waste one life if I can buy a man instead.”

Then these men took off their soldiers’ garb and they wore their old ragged inner garments and Wang the Tiger gave them money to buy what they might need of common upper clothes. They went down the mountain then and into the villages and the pawnshops and bought the old worn clothes that farmers and common men pawn for a few pence and never redeem again they are so poor. Thus clad the men wandered all through that countryside. They idled at inns and at tables where men gamed to pass the time away and they stayed at wayside shops and everywhere they listened. Then they came back and told everything to Wang the Tiger.

Now what these men told was the same that Wang the Tiger had heard in the wine shop and it was that the people of these lands hated and feared this robber chief, the Leopard, because every year he demanded more of them if he was not to come and lay waste their houses and fields. His excuse was that each year he had a greater horde of men to feed and he beat off other robbers from the common people and for this he ought to be paid. It was true that his band grew very large and larger every year because every idler in that whole region who did not wish to work and all who had committed some crime fled to the lair in the Double Dragon Mountain and joined the Leopard’s banner. If they were good fellows and brave they were very welcome and if they were weak and cowards they were kept to serve the others. There were even some women who went there, bold women whose husbands were dead and who did not care for fame, good or ill, and some men when they went took their wives with them, and some women were captives and held for the men’s pleasure. And it was true, too, that the Leopard did hold off other robber thiefs from this whole region.

But in spite of this the people hated him and they were unwilling to give him anything. Yet whether they wished it or not they gave, for they had no weapons. In olden days they might have risen with forks and scythes and knives and such simple tools, but now that the robbers had foreign guns, these were of no avail; nor was any courage or anger of avail against so leaping a death as this.

When Wang the Tiger asked his spies how many men followed the Leopard he had strange answers, for some said they had heard five hundred and others said two or three thousand and others said more than ten thousand. He could not find out what the truth was and he only knew that it was more by many than the men he had. This gave him much to ponder upon and he saw that he must use guile and keep his guns until the last sharp battle and he must avoid even this if he could. So he pondered as he sat and listened to what his spies said, and he let them say on freely, knowing that an ignorant man tells most when he does not know it. And the man who loved to be merry, the same one who had named his captain the Black-browed Tiger, said, making his little weak voice high and boasting,

“As for me, I am so fearless I pushed my way in to the largest town which is the seat of this whole county and I listened there and they are afraid there, too. Every year this Leopard makes a demand at the feast days and the merchants must give him a vast heap of silver or he says he will attack the town itself. And I said to the fellow who told me, and he was a vendor of pork balls, the very best I ever did eat — they have rare pigs here, my captain, and they put garlic into their meats, and I am glad if we stay here — and I said, ‘But why does your magistrate not send his soldiers out to fight and do battle with this robber for the people’s sake?’ And that maker of pork balls — he was a good fellow too, and he gave a bit of a broken ball more than I paid for — and he said, ‘That magistrate of ours sits sunken in his opium and he is afraid of his own shadow and the general he keeps for his army has never been to war at all and he does not know how to hold a gun — a little fuming, fussy fellow he is who cares more how his soup is brewed than what happens to us! As for that magistrate you should see the guards he keeps about him and he pays them more and more lest they turn against him or be bribed by someone and he spends out money like one pours tea on the ground out of a cold pot. And with all this he is so afraid he shivers and shakes if the Leopard’s name is even mentioned and he moans to be free and yet does not make a stir of his hand and every year he pays out more to the Leopard to keep him off.’ So this vendor told me and when I had eaten the pork and saw he was in no mind to give me more even if I paid for one more, I went on and I talked with a beggar who sat picking the lice out of his garments in a sunny spot between two walls. He was a wise old man, too, who begged all his life in the streets of that town. He was the cleverest old man and he bit off the head of every louse he pinched and he crunched them. He was well fed, I swear, with all the lice he had! And he said when we had talked of many things that the magistrate this year seemed more of a mind to do something because those higher had heard how he let a robber rule in his regions and there were many who craved his place and they are bringing an accusation against him at the higher court that he does not do his duty and if he must come down there are a dozen who will strive for his place, because these regions are so good and full of revenue. And the people grieve over this, too, for they say, ‘Well, we have fed this old wolf and he is not so greedy as he was and if a new one comes in ravenous he must be fed from the very start again.’ ”

Thus Wang the Tiger let his men talk as they would and they did as ignorant men will, telling all they heard and guffawing and making merry, for they were full of high hopes and they had faith in their captain, and everyone was fed and pleased with the land and with the hamlets they had passed through. For although the people had to feed these two, the Leopard and the magistrate, still they had enough left to feed themselves well enough, too, for it was such a goodly land and much was left them. And Wang the Tiger let them talk, and if much they said was no worth, still they often let fall something he wanted to know and he could sift the wheat from the chaff, for he was much wiser than they.

As this fellow ceased his piping, Wang the Tiger laid hold on the last thing he had said, that the magistrate feared lest he lose his place and he thought deeply on this, and it seemed to him that here was the secret of the whole venture, and through this weak old man he might seize the power over these lands. The more he listened to his men the more sure he grew that the Leopard was not so strong as he had thought, and after a time he made up his mind that he would send a spy to the very strongholds of the robbers’ lair and see what men were there and all the Leopard had for strength.

He looked about his men as they sat that night at their evening meal, sitting on their haunches and every man with a roll of hard bread to gnaw and a bowl of grain gruel to sup, and for a time he could not decide which of them to send and none seemed clever and wise enough. Then his eye fell on his nephew, the lad he kept near him, and he was at this instant gorging himself, his cheeks puffed and full with food. Wang the Tiger did but walk away to his own room and the lad followed him instantly as it was his duty to do, and Wang the Tiger bade him close the door and stand to hear what he said, and he said,

“Are you brave enough for a certain thing I shall tell you?”

And the lad said sturdily, still chewing his great mouthful, “Try me, my uncle, and see!”

And Wang the Tiger said, “I will try you. You are to take a little sling such as lads use to kill birds and you are to go to that double-crested mountain and go about evening time and pretend you have lost your way and are afraid of the wild beasts on the mountain, and you are to go crying at the gates of the lair. When they let you in then say you are a farmer’s son from the valley beyond and you came up the mountain to look for birds and you did not see how swiftly the night came down and you are lost and beg a night’s shelter from this temple. If they will not let you stay then beg them at least for a guide to the pass and use your eyes — see everything and see how many men there are and how many guns and what the Leopard is like and tell me everything. Can you be so brave as this?”

Wang the Tiger fixed his two black eyes on the youth and he saw the lad’s ruddy face turn pale so that the pocks stood out like scars on the skin, but he spoke up well enough and he said, although somewhat breathless,

“I can do it.”

“I have never asked you anything,” said Wang the Tiger sternly, “but perhaps your clownishness can be of some use now. If you are lost and do not use your wits or if you betray yourself it is your own fault. But you have that merry, silly face and I know you look more simple than you are, and so I have chosen you. But play the part of a simple witless lad and you are safe enough. If you are caught — can you be brave enough to die and be silent?”

Then the good red came surging back into the boy’s face and he stood there sturdy and strong in his coarse clothes of blue cotton, and he said,

“Try me, my captain!”

Then Wang the Tiger was pleased with him and he said, “Brave lad! It is the test and if you do well you are worthy to move higher.” And he smiled a little as he stared at the boy and his heart that so seldom moved at anything except his gusts of anger now moved a little toward this boy, yet not for the boy’s sake either for he did not love him, but it moved with some vague yearning and he wished again he might have a son of his own; not like this lad, either, but a strong, true, grave son of his own.

So he bade the boy put on such clothes as a farmer’s son wears and girdle a towel about his waist and he had him put on old worn shoes on his bare feet, for he had a long way to go and rough rocks to clamber over. The lad made a little sling then such as all boys have and made out of the small forked branch of a tree and when it was made he ran lightly down the mountainside and he disappeared into the woods.

Then during the two days he was gone Wang the Tiger ordered his men as he planned he would and he apportioned out the work to them all so that none could be idle and mischievous. He sent his trusty men out into the countryside to buy food and he sent them separately and they bought meat and grains in small quantities so that none might suspect they bought for a hundred men.

When the evening of the second day was come Wang the Tiger went out and he looked down the rocky steps to see if the lad was come. Deep in his heart he feared for the lad and when he thought of him perhaps cruelly dead he found some strange, compassion and remorse in his heart and as night came on and the new moon rose he looked toward the Double Dragon Mountain and he thought to himself,

“I should have sent a man I could spare, perhaps, and not my own brother’s son. If he is cruelly dead, how shall I meet my brother? Yet I could only trust my own blood, too.”

He watched on after his men slept and the moon came clear of the mountains and swung high in the heavens, but still the lad did not come. At last the night wind grew very chill and Wang the Tiger went in and his heart was heavy because he found what he had not known before, that he would miss the lad a little if he never came back, because he had such merry tricky ways and he could not be angered.

But in the small late hours of the night as he lay awake he heard a little beating on the gate and he rose himself and in haste and he went out. There the lad was when Wang the Tiger had drawn away the wooden bar, and he looked very weary and spent but still good humored. He came limping in and his trousers were torn from his thigh and blood had streamed down his leg and dried. But he was still in high humor.

“I am back, Uncle,” he cried in a spent small voice, and Wang the Tiger laughed suddenly and silently in the way he had if he were truly pleased and he said roughly,

“What have you done to your thigh?”

But the lad answered lightly, “It is nothing.”

Then Wang the Tiger made one of the few jokes he ever made in his life, because he was so pleased, and he said,

“I hope the Leopard did not claw it!”

The lad laughed aloud at this for he knew his uncle meant it for laughter, and he sat down on the step into the temple and he said,

“No, he did not. I fell upon a briary tree, for the moss is damp with dew and slippery, and the tree scratched me like this. I am starving, Uncle!”

“Come and eat then,” said Wang the Tiger, “eat and drink and sleep before I hear your tale.”

And he told the lad to come into the hall and sit down and he roared out for a soldier to bring food and drink for the once to serve this lad. But the noise of it woke this man and that and one after the other waked and they came crowding into the court lit by the light of the high moon and they all wanted to hear what the lad had seen. Then Wang the Tiger, seeing how after the lad had eaten and drunk, that he was so important and excited with the success of his venture that he was far from sleep, and seeing that dawn was now near, he said,

“Tell it all now, then, and afterwards go to your sleep.”

So the boy sat on the altar before the Buddha whose face was covered and he said,

“Well, and I went and I went, and that mountain is twice as high as this one, Uncle, and the lair is in a valley round as a bowl at the top, and I wish we could have it for ours when we take the region. They have houses and everything there like a little village. And I did what you said, Uncle. I went crying and limping to the gates at night with my dead birds in my bosom, and some of the birds on that mountain are the strangest, brightest hue. One I struck was bright yellow all over like gold and I have it yet, it was so pretty—” and as he spoke he drew out of his bosom a yellow bird and it hung in his hand soft and dead and like a handful of limp gold there. Wang the Tiger was in all haste to hear the lad’s tale and he chafed at this childishness of a dead bird, but he restrained himself and let the lad tell his tale in his own way, and so the lad went on and he laid his bird carefully on the altar beside him and he looked from one face to another of the men who listened to him, and beside him flared the torch Wang the Tiger had caused to be lit and thrust into the ashes of the incense urn on that altar, and the lad said,

“Well, and when they heard the beating on the gate they came from within and first they opened a very narrow crack and peered to see who it was. And I cried piteously and said, ‘I am far from my home — I have wandered too far and the night has come down on me and I am afraid of the beasts of the wood and let me come into this temple!’ Then the one who opened shut the gate again and he ran and asked someone and I cried on and moaned as piteously as I could,” and here the lad moaned to show them all what he did and all the men roared with laughter and admired him and here and there one called out,

“The little monkey — the little pocked devil!”

The lad grinned all over his pocked face with delight and he told on and he said,

“They let me in at last and I was so simple as I could be and after I had eaten wheaten bread and a bowl of gruel I pretended to be frightened and to know where I was and I began to cry, ‘I want to go to my home. I am afraid here because you are the robbers and I am afraid of the Leopard!’ and I ran to the gate and wanted to be let out and I said, ‘I would liefer be among wild beasts after all!’

“Then they all laughed because I was so simple and they comforted me and said, ‘Do you think we will hurt a lad? Wait until morning and you may go your way in peace.’ So I ceased my shivering and crying after a while and I pretended to be more at ease and they asked me where I had come from and I told them the name of a village I had heard was on the other side of the mountain. Then they asked me what I had heard about them and I said I had heard they were very heroic, fearless men and their leader not a man, but a man’s body with a leopard’s head on it, and I said, ‘I would like to see him, but I would be afraid, too, to see such a sight.’ They all laughed at me, then, and one said, ‘Come and I will show you him,’ and he led me to a window and I looked in out of the darkness and there were torches burning inside, and there the chief sat. He is truly a curious and monstrous fellow, Uncle, and his head is wide at the top and slopes at the brow so that he does look like a leopard, and he sat drinking with a young woman. She was very fierce, too, and still she was pretty, but fierce, and they drank together from a jug of wine. First he drank and then she drank.”

“How many men were there in that place and what their guns?” asked Wang the Tiger.

“Oh, many men, Uncle,” said the lad earnestly. “Three times our number of fighting men and many serving men and there are women and there are little children running everywhere and some lads like me. I asked one of them who his father was and he said he did not know because they had no separate fathers there and they only knew their mothers but not their fathers. And that is a strange thing, too. All the fighting men have guns but the serving men have only sickles and knives and such homely things. But at the head of the cliffs about the lair they have great heaps of round rocks piled to roll down upon any who attack them, and there is only one pass into that lair, for there are cliffs everywhere about it and guards always at the pass. Only the guard slept when I came by and I crept past him. He slept so that I might have taken his gun for it lay there on the rock beside him and he snored so that I might have taken it. But I did not, though I was tempted, for they might have thought I was not what I seemed.”

“Did the fighting men seem large and brave?” asked Wang the Tiger again.

“Brave enough,” replied the lad. “Some are big and some small, but they talked among themselves after they had eaten and they paid no heed to me for I stayed with the lads after a while, and I heard them complain against the Leopard because he would not divide the spoils according to their law, and he kept so much for himself and he was greedy with all the pretty women and he would not let the other men have them until he was tired of them. He did not share as brothers should share, they said, and he held himself too high, although he was born a common fellow, and he cannot read and write, and they are weary of his highness.”

Now this pleased Wang the Tiger greatly when he heard it and he mused on as the lad told his story of this and that and what he had to eat and how clever he was and Wang the Tiger mused and planned, and after a while he saw that the lad had told all and only repeated his words and searched his brain for a last thing so that he might keep the attention and the admiration of the men as long as he could. Then Wang the Tiger rose and he commended the lad and bade him go to sleep now and he told the men to be at their tasks for it was dawn, and the torch was burned down and its flickering flame pale in the light of the rising sun.

He went into his room, then, and he called his trusty men to him and he said,

“I have mused and planned and I believe I can do this thing without losing a life or a gun, and we must avoid battle, since they are so many more than we are in that lair. The thing to do when one kills a centipede is to crush its head and then its hundred legs are in confusion and they run hither and thither against each other and they are harmless. We will kill the poisonous head of this robber band thus.”

The men stared astounded at such boldness and the Pig Butcher said in his loud coarse way,

“Captain, it sounds well, but you must first catch the centipede before you can cut off his head!”

“So shall I,” returned Wang the Tiger, “and here is my plan. You are to help me. We are to garb ourselves very fine and bravely as heroes do, and we will go to the magistrate of this region and say we are braves and wandering soldiers and that we seek for service under him, secret service as a private guard, and we will give as our pledge that we will kill the Leopard for him. He is anxious now for his seat and he will be eager for our help. Here is the plan. I will tell him he is to pretend truce with the robber and invite the Leopard and the next to him to a mighty feast. Then when the moment comes, and he can mark it by a wine cup dropped from his hand and shattered, you and I will rush from where we are hidden and fall upon the robbers and kill them. I will have our men scattered through the town secretly everywhere and they shall fall upon such of the smaller robbers as will not come to my banner. So we will kill this centipede’s head and it is not a thing hard to do.”

Now all of them saw this thing was feasible and they were struck with admiration and they agreed heartily to it. After they had talked a little more of how it would be managed, Wang the Tiger dismissed them and he called his men into the temple hall. He sent his trusty men to see that the priests were not near where they could hear him and then he told his gathered men what his plan was. When they heard it they shouted loudly,

“Good! Good! Ha, the Black-browed Tiger!”

And Wang the Tiger heard them as he stood there beneath the veiled god and although he said nothing and he was very proud and silent and aloof, yet there surged up in him such a deep pleasure in his power that he lowered his eyes and stood there grave among his men. When they were still once more and waited to hear what else he might tell them, he said,

“You are to eat and drink well, and then garb yourselves as commonly as you can, but still as soldiers, and take your guns and scatter yourselves through the city only not too far from the magistrate’s court. When I send out my shrill whistle you are to come. But wait the number of days until I call.” And he turned to his trusty harelipped man and he said, “Pay every man five pieces of silver for wine and lodging and the food he needs.”

This was done and every man was content. Then Wang the Tiger called his three trusty men to him and they dressed themselves bravely and concealed short swords in their garments and they took up their guns and they all went away together.

As for the priests, they rejoiced very much to see these wild fellows go. But when Wang the Tiger saw them rejoicing he said,

“Do not rejoice too soon, for we may come back. But if we can find a better place we will not.” He paid them well, nevertheless, and above what he owed he gave them a sum and he said to the abbot, “Mend your roofs and repair your house and buy yourselves each a new robe.”

The priests were overjoyed at such generosity and the old abbot was somewhat ashamed and he said,

“You are a good man after all, and I shall pray before the gods for you and how else can I reward you?”

To this Wang the Tiger answered, “No, do not trouble yourself with gods, for I have never had faith in them very much. But if in after days you hear of one called the Tiger, men speak well of him and say the Tiger treated you well.”

The old abbot stared and stammered in a daze and he said he would, he would! And he held the silver clasped preciously against his bosom in his two hands.