Sons

XIX

THERE HAPPENED DURING THE next month a thing such as Wang the Tiger in his arrogance would not have believed true if he had been told. The fever of war spread over that whole region when it was known that great lords above waged a war and split the country into two parts. In that fever little war-like spirits arose everywhere, and men who were idle and without work or those who would not work and lovers of any adventure and sons who did not love their parents and gamesters who lost in their gambling and every little discontented man seized on this time to come out and make a showing of some sort.

In this very region where Wang the Tiger now ruled in the name of the old magistrate, these rebellious men joined themselves into bands and they gave themselves the name of The Yellow Turbans, because they wore strips of yellow about their heads, and they began to prey upon the country. At first they did it in small timid ways, exacting from some farmer food as they passed or they went into a village inn and ate and went on without paying or only partly paying for their meal, showing such fierce looks and raising their voices so high and quarrelsome that the innkeeper was afraid to make an ado and so swallowed his loss as best he could.

But these Yellow Turbans grew bolder as their numbers swelled, and they began to long for guns, for their only guns were the few that runaway soldiers among them had. They grew more bold, therefore, in their marauding among the common people, although they still did not come near any large towns or cities, but kept themselves to small villages and hamlets. At last some of the more courageous among the farmers came to Wang the Tiger and told him and they made report of how marauders grew bold because they were unchecked and they would come in the night to rob and if they did not find all they liked they would kill a household of farming folk and think nothing of the deed. But Wang the Tiger did not know whether to believe the tale or not, for when he sent spies out to ask other farmers, there were weak ones who were afraid to tell and they denied the whole matter, and so Wang the Tiger for a time did nothing, thinking lightly of it when his whole mind was set on the right moment to declare himself in the great war.

But the time of the great heat of summer came on and many armies marched through to the south and there were some of these soldiers who were lured away to the robber band and the robbers grew greatly in numbers and daring. At this season of the year also the sorghum cane grew very high in those parts and it made a very perfect hiding place for robbers and they grew so bold and it came to such a pass that people did not dare to travel off the highway except in a large number together.

Now whether Wang the Tiger would have believed how bad it was or not cannot be said, for he was somewhat at the mercy of his men and he must believe what his spies and his own trusty men thought and they overpraised him and made him think none would dare to stand before him. But one day there came in from the country to the west two brothers, two farmers, and they carried a hempen bag with them. They would not open this bag for anyone to see, and they said steadfastly to all questions asked them,

“This bag is for the general.”

And supposing they brought a gift to Wang the Tiger, the guards let them through the gates and they went to the hall of audience and there Wang the Tiger sat, for it was the hour when he often did so. When the two brothers came before him they made their obeisances, and then without a further word they opened the hempen bag and took from it two pairs of hands, one the hands of a very old woman, worn and hard with work and the dark skin cracked and dry, and the other the hands of an old man calloused in the palms with the holding of the handle of a plow. These hands the two brothers held up by the stumps where the blood now was black and dried. Then the elder of the brothers, a very earnest, angry man of middle age, his face square and honest, said,

“These are the hands of our old parents and they lie dead! Two days ago the robbers marauded in our hamlet and when my old father cried out that he had nothing they cut off his two hands, and when my old mother bravely cursed them they cut off hers also. We two brothers were in the fields but our wives escaped and came screaming to us and we ran back with our forks. But the robbers were gone, for there had been no great band of them, only eight or ten, and our parents were old. Yet not one in the village dared to lift his hand to help them lest they suffer at some later time. Sir, we let you have the revenues and we pay you a heavy tax over and above what we must pay the state, and we pay on land and on salt and on all we buy and sell and we do it to be protected from robbers. What will you do?”

And they held up the worn, stiff old hands of their parents.

Now Wang the Tiger did not, as many a man in his place would have done, grow angry at such bold speech. No, he was astounded at the tale, and he grew angry, not because the farmers had dared to tell him, but that such a thing could be in his regions. He shouted out for his captains and they came in, one by one as they were found here and there, until there were some fifty of them in the hall.

Then Wang the Tiger himself picked up the dead hands from where they lay helplessly upon the tiled floor and he showed them to all and he said,

“These are the hands of good farming folk who were marauded and robbed in the daytime when their sons worked in the fields! Who goes first against these marauders?”

The captains stared and the sight roused them and they were roused to think that robbers dared to rob in lands belonging to them and they muttered together and said here and there,

“Shall we let this go on in a land where we have the first right?”—“Shall these accursed thieves grow great in our own lands?” and they cried out, “Let us go against them!”

Wang the Tiger turned then to the two brothers and he said, “Return to your homes in peace and confidence. Tomorrow these will go out and I shall not rest until I find out who the head of these robbers is and deal with him as I dealt with the Leopard!”

Then the younger brother spoke, and he said, “Most Gracious, we think there is no head yet and they wander in little bands separate from one another except as their name links them, and they look for one strong man to hold them together.”

“If this is so,” said Wang the Tiger, “it will be the easier to scatter them.”

“But not to stamp them out,” said the older brother bluntly.

Then the two farmer brothers waited on there as though they had more to say and did not know how to say it, and at last after being impatient for a while in himself because they did not go, Wang the Tiger perceived they mistrusted him and he grew somewhat angry and said,

“Do you doubt that I am strong enough who killed the Leopard, a mighty robber in his day and he lived on you more than twenty years?”

The two brothers looked at each other and the elder one swallowed his spittle and said slowly,

“Most Gracious, it is not that. But we have something to say to you in private.”

Wang the Tiger turned to the captains who still stood about and he shouted to them to be gone and prepare their men. When they were all gone except the one or two whom Wang the Tiger always kept about him, the elder brother fell on his face and he knocked his head three times upon the tiles and he said,

“Do not, Most Gracious, be very angry. We are poor men and when we ask a favor we can but ask it and we have no money to pay bribes to insure it.”

And Wang the Tiger said in surprise, “What is it? I do not ask for bribes if you ask a thing I can do.”

The man answered humbly, “When we came here today our village brothers tried to hold us back because they said if we brought the soldiers it would be worse than the robbers for they demand so much and we are poor men who must work if we eat. The robbers come and go, but the soldiers live on in our houses and look at our maids and eat what we keep for the winter and we dare not oppose them because they have weapons. Most Gracious, if your soldiers are to come like thus, then keep them, and we will suffer what we must.”

Now Wang the Tiger was a good man and he was furious when he heard this and he rose and shouted for his captains to come again, and when they came back in twos and threes he roared at them and made his face very black and he drew his brows down at them and he said,

“This region I rule over is small enough so that the men can go out and be back the third day and so they shall do! Every man of mine shall be away no more than three days and if any quarters himself upon the people I will have him killed! If they overcome the robbers and rout them I will reward them with silver and food and wine but I am no robber chief and I have no robber band!” And he glared at the captains in so fierce a way that they promised him hastily.

Thus Wang the Tiger did, and he sent the brothers away with his promise and they took the hands of their parents and put them reverently into the hempen bag again, so that the old pair might be buried whole and with all their parts, and they returned to their village full of the praises of Wang the Tiger.

But when Wang the Tiger had sent the brothers away and took time to think what he had promised, he was in some dismay to find where his kind heart had carried him, and he sat in his own room very sober, for he had no mind to lose his good men and his guns in a brawl with robbers. He knew, too, that there must be some in his army such as are in every army, who are idle and looking for a better place, and these might even be enticed away to the robbers and take their guns with them. So he sat there brooding and thinking he had been too hasty and too moved by the token the brothers brought.

And as he sat there, a messenger came with a letter and it was from his brother, Wang the Merchant. Wang the Tiger tore the end and took the letter out and read it and there in devious, winding words, his brother told him that the guns were come and would be left at a certain place on a certain day, and they were hidden in bags of grain brought for making flour in the great northern mills.

Now Wang the Tiger was in as great a puzzle as he ever had been for he had to fetch the guns somehow and yet his men were scattering over the countryside against robbers. He sat awhile and cursed the day to himself, and as he sat the woman he loved came in. She was unusually gentle and languid as she walked, for it was the middle day of the great heat of summer, and she wore only a white silk coat and trousers, and she had unbuttoned the collar of her coat at the throat, so that her neck showed out, very soft and full and paler than her face.

Now Wang the Tiger for all his cursing and trouble saw her and he was caught and held at the sight of her pretty throat and he held his trouble back for an instant and he longed to lay his fingers there upon her pale neck, and he waited until she came near. She did come near and leaned upon the table and she said to him, looking at the letter he still held,

“Is there anything wrong with you that you look so black and angry?” Then she waited and laughed a little, a small high laugh, and she said, “I hope it is not I, for I would be afraid you might kill me with such black looks as you have now!”

Wang the Tiger held the letter out to her saying nothing, but his eyes fixed upon her bare throat and upon the smoothness of the turn it made into her bosom. He had come to such a pass with this woman that even in this short time he told her everything. She took the letter and read it, and he could take thought to be proud that she could read and he deemed her beautiful beyond anything as she bent over the letter, her thin, sharply marked lips moving a little as she read. Her hair war smooth now and oiled and knotted at her neck into a little net of black silk thread, and in her ears were hung gold rings.

She read the letter and then put it into its envelope again, and laid it on the edge of the table, and Wang the Tiger watched her quick light hands, thin and quick, as she did this, and then he said,

“I do not know how to get those bags of grain. I must get them by some guile or force.”

“That is not hard,” said the woman smoothly. “Guile and force are easy. I have a plan already in my head, made as I read the letter. You need only to send a band of your men as though they were robbers, the robbers that men tell of now-a-days, and let them seem to rob the grain for themselves, and who will know you have anything to do with it?”

Now Wang the Tiger laughed his noiseless laugh when she said this because it seemed to him so wise a plan and he drew her to him, for he was alone in the room and the guards went outside the door whenever she came, and he satisfied himself with his hard hands on her soft flesh, and he said,

“There has never been a woman so wise as you! When I killed the Leopard that day how I blessed myself in that deed!”

And after he had satisfied himself he went out and called for the Hawk and he said,

“The guns we need are at a place about thirty miles from here, where the two railroads cross, and they are in bags of grain as though to be transshipped there to the northern mills. But take five hundred men and arm yourselves and dress yourselves like some breed of robbers and go there and seize those bags and seem to carry them away to a lair. But have carts and asses ready at a near place and bring the bags here, grain and all.”

Now the Hawk was a clever man and he trusted to his wits and to guile, whereas the Pig Butcher trusted to his two great fists that were as large as earthen bowls, and a wily deed like this pleased him, and so he bowed. Then Wang the Tiger said further,

“When all the guns are here, be sure I shall reward you and every soldier shall have a reward measured to what he has done.”

Then when this was done Wang the Tiger went back into his room. The woman was gone, but he sat back in his armchair of carved wood, which had a woven reed seat for coolness, and he unfastened his girdle and his coat at the throat, for the day grew to a monstrous heat, and he sat and rested himself and thought of her throat and the turn it made into her bosom and he marvelled that flesh could be so soft as hers, and how skin could be so smooth.

Not once did he note that the letter his brother had written was gone, for the woman had taken it and thrust it deep into the bosom of her robe, where not even his hands had reached it.

Now when the Hawk had been gone for a half a day Wang the Tiger walked alone in the cool of the night before he went in to sleep, and he walked in the court near a side gate that was open to the street, a small street where few people passed, and those only by day. And as he walked he heard a cricket cheep. At first he paid no heed to it, because he had so much to dream of. But the cricket cheeped on, and at last he heard it and it came to him that this was not the time of the year for a cricket and so out of idle curiosity he looked to see where it was hid. It came from the gate and as he looked out into the gathering dusk he saw someone crouched and shapeless by the gate. He put his hand to his sword and stepped forward and there in the gathering dusk he saw his nephew’s pocked face turned palely toward him and the lad whispered breathlessly,

“No sound, my uncle! Do not tell your lady I am here. But come into the street when you can and I will wait for you at the first forks. I have something to tell you and it must not wait.”

The youth was off like a shadow then, but Wang the Tiger would not wait, since he was alone, and he went after the shadow, and came first to the spot. Then he saw his nephew come sliding along in the darkness of the walls, and he said in great astonishment,

“What ails you that you come creeping along like a beaten dog?”

And the youth whispered, “Hush — I have been sent to a place far from here — if your lady saw me here and she is such a clever one I do not know who she has watching me — she said she would kill me if I told, and it is not the first time she has threatened me!”

When Wang the Tiger heard this he was too astonished to speak. He lifted the lad half off his feet and dragged him into the darkness of an alley and he commanded him to speak. Then the lad put his mouth to Wang the Tiger’s ear and he said,

“Your woman sent me with this letter to someone, but I do not know to whom, for I have not torn it open. She asked me if I could read and I said no, how could I, being country bred, and she gave me this letter, then, and told me to give it to a certain man who would meet me at the tea house in the north suburb tonight and she gave me a piece of silver for it.”

He thrust his hand into his bosom and brought out a letter and Wang the Tiger seized it without a word. Without a word he strode through the alley to a small street where an old man opened a little solitary shop to sell hot water, and there, by the flickering light of the small bean oil lamp that was hung upon a nail on the wall, Wang the Tiger tore open the letter and read it. And as he read he saw plainly there was a plot. She — his woman — had told someone of his guns! Yes, he could see she had met someone and told him, and here in the letter she laid a last command. She wrote,

“When you have the guns and are gathered, I will come.”

Now when Wang the Tiger read this it was as though the earth he stood upon whirled out from under his feet, and as though the heavens came down to crush him. He had loved this woman so heartily and so well that he never dreamed she could betray him. He had forgot every warning his trusty harelipped man gave him, and he never saw the man’s downcast looks these days, and he loved the woman to such a point that he longed exceedingly for but one more thing, and it was that she would give him a son. Yes, he asked her again and again and with what ardor, every time, whether she had conceived or not. He had so loved her he did not dream she could withstand him in her heart. At this very hour he had been waiting, even, to go to his love; waiting for the night.

Now he saw she had never loved him. She could plot like this at the very hour when he waited for the turn of war and his own great step forward. She could plot like this and lie all night in his bed and pretend sorrow when he asked concerning his son. He was suddenly so angry he could not draw his breath. That old black anger of his rose in him blacker than he had ever known it to come. His heart beat and roared in his ears, his eyes blurred, and his brows knitted themselves until they pained him.

His nephew had followed him and stood in the shadow by the door. But Wang the Tiger flung him aside, without a word, and never seeing that in the strength of his anger he threw the lad down cruelly upon the sharp stones of the road.

He strode back to his courts on the wings of his anger, and as he went he took his sword out of its sheath, the Leopard’s fine steel sword, and he wiped it upon his thigh as he walked.

He went straight into the room where the woman lay in her bed, and she had not drawn the curtain because of the heat. There she lay, and the full moon of that night had risen over the wall of the court and its light fell upon her as she lay upon the bed. She lay naked for coolness and her hands were flung out and one lay curling and half open upon the edge of the bed.

But Wang the Tiger did not wait. Although he saw how fair she was and fair as an image of alabaster in the moonlight, and underneath his rage he knew there was a pain in him worse than death, he did not stay. For the moment he remembered willfully how she had tricked him and how she would have betrayed him, and in this strength he lifted up his sword and he drove it down smoothly and cleanly into her throat, upturned as her head hung over her pillow. He twisted it sharply once, and then he brought it out and wiped it on the silken coverlid.

There came a single sound from her lips but the blood choked it so he did not know what she said and she did not move except that the instant his sword was in her throat, her arms and legs flew up and her eyes burst open. Then she died.

But Wang the Tiger would not stop to think what he had done. No, he strode out into the court and he shouted, and his men came running, and he threw his commands at them harsh and sure in his anger. He had to go now without a moment’s delay to the succor of the Hawk and see if he could not reach the guns before the robbers did. All his men left he took with him except two hundred whom he left under the captaincy of his harelipped man and he led the others out himself.

As he passed through the gate he saw the old man who watched there come out of his bed yawning and dazed at all the sudden commotion and Wang the Tiger shouted at him as he rode by on his horse,

“There is something in my room where I sleep! Go and carry it out and fling it into a canal or some pond! See to it before I return!”

And Wang the Tiger rode on very high and proud and nursing his anger. But inside his breast it was as though his heart dripped blood secretly into his vitals and however he brooded and blew upon the flame of his anger, his heart dripped steadily and secretly within. And he groaned restlessly of a sudden, although none heard it in the dull thudding of horses’ feet upon the dusty road. Neither did Wang the Tiger himself know that he groaned over and over again.

All over that countryside did Wang the Tiger roam with his men that night and the next day, seeking the Hawk, and the sun beat down upon them for the day came windless. But Wang the Tiger would not let his men rest because he had that within himself which could not rest and toward the evening upon the highway that ran north and south he met the Hawk at the head of his band of walking soldiers. At first Wang the Tiger could not be sure if these were his own men for the Hawk had done what he had been told to do, and he had told his men to wear their ragged inner garments and tie a towel about their heads and Wang the Tiger had need to wait until they came near to see who they were.

But at last Wang the Tiger saw these were indeed his own men. He dismounted then from his red horse and sat down under a date tree that was there beside the road, for he was exceedingly spent from within, and he waited for the Hawk to come near. The more he waited the more afraid he grew that his anger might die down, and he forced himself to remember, with a furious pain, how he had been deceived. But the secret of his pain and anger was that although the woman was dead, yet he still loved her; although he was glad he had killed her, yet he longed for her with passion.

This angry pain made him very surly and when the Hawk was come Wang the Tiger growled at him, scarcely lifting his eyes, and his eyes nearly hidden under his brows,

“Well, I will swear you have not the guns!”

But the Hawk had a voluble good tongue of his own in that peaked face of his and he had a very ready and proud temper and this temper made him brave and he answered with heat, and without any courteous words,

“How did I know the robbers would have been told of the guns? They had been told by some spy or other and they went before us. How can I help it if they were told before you told me?” And as he spoke he threw his gun upon the ground and folded his arms on his bosom and he stared mutinously at his general, to show he would not be put down.

Then Wang the Tiger, seeing justice still, rose wearily from the grass where he sat and he stood under the date tree and leaned against its rough trunk, and he unbuckled his belt and drew it more tightly about him before he spoke. But at last he said wearily and with a great bitterness,

“I suppose all my good guns are gone, then. I shall have to fight the robbers for them. Well, if we must fight we will!” He shook himself impatiently and spat and roused himself and went on with more vigor, “Let us go and find them and press hard on them, and if half of you lie dead after the fray, why, then you are dead and I cannot help it! My guns I must have and if a gun costs me ten men or so, why, I will find ten men more for every gun and the gun is worth it!”

Then he mounted his horse again and held the beast hard when it danced to and fro with impatience that it was taken from the succulent grass that was there, and the Hawk stood there moodily watching and at last he said,

“I know well enough where the robbers are. They are gathering together in the old lair and I can swear they have the guns with them. Who their leader is I do not know, but they have been busy for a few days now, and have given the countryside peace while they gathered together, as though they were ready to choose a leader.”

Now Wang the Tiger knew well who their leader was to have been but he said no more except to give his men orders to march against that lair and he said,

“We will go there and you are to fire at them. When the firing is over, I will parley and every man who brings a gun may join my ranks. For every gun you see and pick up and bring to me you shall have a piece of silver.” And so saying, he mounted his horse once more.

Once more Wang the Tiger rode over the winding valley paths and over the low foothills until he came to the double-crested mountain, and his men came raggedly behind him. The farming folk looked up from their fields and wondered and the soldiers shouted,

“We go against the robbers!”

To this sometimes farmers made answer back heartily, “A good deed!” But more there were who said nothing and they looked sourly at the soldiers as they tramped into their fields of grain and cabbages and melons, because they did not believe that any good could come of soldiers, they were so weary of them.

Once more did Wang the Tiger ascend the foothills and at the base of the double-crested mountain where the pass wound up between cliffs, he dismounted and led his horse and so did all his men who rode. But he paid no heed to them. He walked along as though he were alone, his body bent to the mountain, and he thought of the woman and how strangely he had come to love her and he loved her still so that he was weeping in himself and he could scarcely see the mosses of the steps. But he would not repent that he had killed her. No, in spite of his love he understood in some dim part of him that such a woman who could deceive him so perfectly as she had when she accepted with smile and with frankness his passion, such a woman could only be true if she were dead, and he muttered to himself,

“She was a fox, after all.”

So he led his men steadfastly up that mountain and when he was near to the head of the pass he sent the Hawk and fifty men ahead to see what was in the lair, and he waited in the shade of a cluster of pine trees, for the sun beat down exceedingly hot. In less than an hour the Hawk came back and he said he had circled about the place and he gave report: “They are all unready for they are building up the lair again.”

“Did you see anyone above another?” said Wang the Tiger.

“No, I did not,” answered the Hawk. “I crept so close I could even hear what they said. They are very ignorant and unlearned in robbery for the pass is not guarded, and there they are quarreling among themselves for the houses least ruined.”

This was good news, and Wang the Tiger shouted to his men and at their head he ran swiftly up the pass and as he ran he gave great shouts and he commanded his men to rush into the lair and kill at least a robber apiece, and then stop so that he could parley.

So they did, and Wang the Tiger stood to one side and his men rushed in and shot off a round and everywhere the robbers dropped dead and writhing and crying bitterness as they died or lay dying. It was true they were all unprepared and thinking only of their houses and of how they would establish themselves, and there must have been three or five thousand of them gathered in that lair, like ants in a mound, all piling earthen walls and carrying timbers and straw for roofs and planning for future greatness. When they were surprised like this every man dropped what he did and ran hither and thither and Wang the Tiger saw there was not one to tell them what to do and that they had no certain leader. For the first time some slight weak ray of solace came into Wang the Tiger’s heart, for well he knew who would have marshalled them, and it came to him that sooner or later he would have had to fight against the woman he loved and better to kill her as he did.

When he thought of this his old belief in his destiny rose in him once more and he shouted to his men in his lordly way and commanded them to stand and he cried out to the robbers who were not shot,

“I am Wang the Tiger who rules this region, and I will not brook robbers! I am not afraid to kill and not afraid to die. I will kill every one of you if you think to join others against me! Yet I am a merciful man too, and I will make a way out for those of you who are honorable men. I return to my encampment now in the county seat. Within the next three days I will accept into my ranks any man of you who comes with a gun, and if he brings two guns he shall have a free gift of silver for the extra gun he has.”

When he had shouted this out, Wang the Tiger called to his men sharply and they all went clattering down the pass again. Only he made certain of this, that some of his men went down backward and that they kept their guns upon the pass, lest there come a shot or two from some bolder robber. But the truth was those robbers were very ignorant men. They had fallen in with the plot of the woman who had been the Leopard’s, and they went eagerly to fetch the guns, yet few of them knew how to hold a gun, and those few only runaway soldiers, and they did not dare to fire upon Wang the Tiger lest it be nothing but twisting a tiger’s whiskers and he come rushing back upon them, and destroy them all.

There was complete silence in that mountain and not a sound came from the lair, and as Wang the Tiger went on his way there was only the slight rise and fall of the winds in the pines and a bird calling in a tree. And he led his men down the pass. Back through the fields he led them and as he went the soldiers said everywhere in exultation to the farming folk,

“Three days and the robbers will be gone, we swear!”

Some of the folk were glad and thankful, but most of them were guarded in their looks and words and waited to see what Wang the Tiger would want of them, for they had never heard of a lord of war who did anything for a countryside without asking much in return for all he did.

Then Wang the Tiger went back to his own courts and he gave his soldiers each a fee of silver coins and he ordered wine of a good enough quality to be given to every man, enough to comfort him but not to make him drunken. And he had a few kinds of special meats for them. Then he waited for the three days to pass.

One by one or in pairs or in fives and eights and tens the robbers began to come straggling into that city from everywhere, bringing guns with them. Seldom did any man bring two guns, for if he had laid his hand on more than one gun he brought with him a younger friend or a brother or some other one, for truly many of these men were in need and without food enough to eat and they were glad to seek sure service under a leader somewhere.

Wang the Tiger commanded that every sound man not too old be received into his army, and from such as he did not want he took the guns and paid them something. But to such men as he received he gave food and good clothing.

When the three days were over he allowed three more days of mercy and after these three more, and men came in day after day until the courts and the soldiers’ camps were bursting and Wang the Tiger was forced to quarter his men into the houses of that town. Sometimes a man who was the father of a family would come to complain that his house was crowded and his family squeezed into a room or two. But if he came and Wang the Tiger saw he was young or that he was bumptious in his complaining, then Wang the Tiger threatened him and said,

“Can you help it? Bear it then! Or would you rather have robbers in the region to despoil you?”

But if the one who complained were an old man or if he came courteously and spoke gently, then Wang the Tiger was courteous, too, and he gave him some silver or a gift of some sort, and said courteously,

“It is only for a short time, for I shall march to the war soon. I shall not rest content always with so small a county seat for my capital.”

And he said everywhere to all, and he said with some savage bitterness because he had no woman of his own any more and it galled him in some secret unknown way to think of any man with any woman,

“If any soldier of mine looks on a woman forbidden, tell me, and he is dead!” And he quartered the new soldiers in the houses nearest him, and he threatened them heartily if they did so much as look at a good woman.

To every soldier also Wang the Tiger paid what he promised him. Yes, although he was now hard pressed for silver, since nearly four thousand new men had joined him from the robbers and he had only two thousand and odd out of the three thousand guns he had his brother buy for him, yet he paid every man and kept them all content. But he knew he could not always do this unless he could think of some new tax, for he was now drawing upon his own secret stores, and this was a dangerous thing for a lord of war to do, lest if he be suddenly put down, and must retreat somewhere for a time, he has nothing then to feed to his men. And Wang the Tiger set himself to think of some new tax.

Now the spies that Wang the Tiger had sent out began to gather in again at this time, for the summer was coming to an end, and they all brought the same news, and it was that the southern generals were repulsed once more and again the north was victorious. This Wang the Tiger believed the more readily because during the last few weeks he had not been hard pressed as he had been before by the provincial general to send his forces out to battle for him.

So Wang the Tiger made haste, then, and he sent his nephew and his trusty harelipped man and they took his letter to the capital of the province and he wrote a courteous letter regretting he had been so long putting down the robbers in that land, but now he was ready to join his forces to the north against the south, and he sent gifts.

But his destiny helped him very cleverly again, for on that very day when the pair reached the capital with this letter, truce was sworn and the rebels went south to recover themselves, and the northern armies were given their days of looting for booty as a reward of their victory. So when the general of that province received Wang the Tiger’s allegiance he sent back a courteous acceptance, but he said that this war was over and the autumn come. Yet doubtless there would be other wars and spring would come again, and Wang the Tiger was to hold himself ready for such a time.

This was the answer the pair took back to Wang the Tiger and he received it and was well content, for his name he knew would be among those of the victorious generals, and he had not lost a man and not a gun, and he had his great army whole.