“SOOCHOW."

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 8

“SOOCHOW."

A STORY PROM .CHINA. (“The Bulletin.”) Midnight on a Chinese river! Close-in to either bank, tier upon tier, are moored junks, lorchas, papicores, and many nameless small craft of fashion antique ere the building of the Pyramids. In the stream, abreast the small English concession of Ningpo, lie a feV/ foreign square-rigged vessels, their masthead lights casting pale silver blotches on the muddy flood. In the stream, to seaward of all and alone, deep rides the lercha Wanderer, waiting daylight and the ebb to put to sea. Her bleached! canvas, black-gasketed, shows ghostlike; the ebon of her sides is emphasised by •a broad gold line, upon which and the •polished trunnions of her guns, the' moonlight, v/atery and uncertain, fitfully and faintly glistens. A hush is cn land and water; the bestial din and gabble of a Chinese day are done. Ever and anon: comes the inconsiderable tinkle) of a ship's bell, or, drowsily, the cry “All's well!” or the yelp of an outcast deg dreaming of the agony cf scalding water on a mangy skin. These are the only voices of the night. , ****** item, under the curtained awning of the Wanderer, stretched on a bamboo chair, his feet on the taffrail, smoking and absorbed, is the owner and skipper —blithest man that night in that flowerless “Flowety Land'.' For ‘Gentleman George,” as the beachcombers call him, "after sweat of body and! soul for five years, each moment of which he has carried his life ini his hands', has “made his pile.” This day he has writtem his younger brother in Sydney—the love of David and Jonathan is between them—bidding him come out and take the ior•sha her assured trade as free gifts;

also to the woman he loves, telling of fortune won and future happiness. lie has accomplished his. life’s programme. Such triumph the Fates, weaving pitilessly, permit to few. The smoke of his Manila curls as the smoke of incense round his head. His thoughts are long thoughts.

* -* * *- -* * A sampan, narrow-gutted and low, sculled by two great ulloh, writhes swiftly in the deep shadow of the moored junks. Wad's of greased jute have been thrust over the iron tholes, and the oars churn noiselessly. Passing the mostseaward of the foreign ships, she is soon two cables’ lengths ahead, but inshore of, the' Wanderer, which, riding to single anchor, lies bow-on to the scurrying flood. Then thd sampan shoots into mid-stream and drops with the tide, until her bowman, with muffled boathook, grips the lorcha’s chain. A pause, and eight men dressed as Chinese, their feiet naked, swarm over the low bow, and, seeking the obscurity of every spar, mast and gun-carriage, win .aft until they crouch behind the unconscious skipper. Like a flash they throw a heavy rug over his head, lash his hands, and carry him, a revolver pressed against his temple, to, the sampan. Dropping him into the boat, they push off and go leisurely down with the tide. There is but one other witness to this drama, Idcshu, the skipper’s Chinese servant, who has shared the varying fortunes of his master for the past five years. He, coming sleepily up the companion, sees all, but, unarmed and opposed to such odds, shrewdly makes no sign. Yet when he hears the sampan weigh, he crawls to the bulwark and notes her course. Winding his queue tightly around his head and tucking the wide legs of his silk pyjamas into their waistband, he drops into the stream and swiftly follows the ’boat. At daybreak, Hoshu, bleeding, wet and shivering, looks out from the shore upon the river. The Wanderer is gone!

A hong, gloomy, vast and solitary, walled front and rear. At base of the front wall the murky river laps. In the long narrow-paved passage between the face of the Iwsg and its river-wall there paces the da A through, and every day —until at nightfall h&\is thrust into a filthy room—the captain-of the lorcha. And daily his step f° r he is undergoing ordeal by starvation. Chinese sailors cf villainous aspect, piratefy unmistakeably, squat on the stones, sunning their vermin, smoking foul tobacco, arid bandying obscene’ jests at the expense _of the prisoner. And every day a white man in Chinese dress, on whose handsome face strange vices 'and crimes have written large signatures, comes sneering : “Well—starved out yet, George ? Are you going to tell where those dollars of yours are planted ?” The other, pacing onwards, -a ns weirs nothing.

But a day comes when the prisoner halts. Famine has weakened his step ; his voice is very feeble, yet he answers clearly :

“Yes; the money’s safe now. It was aboard the P. and O. beat which left Shanghai yesterday. I sent it up by Schofield’s lorcha which left Ningpo the day you kidnapped* me.” “You lie!’’

“I do not. I knew you and pirate Apak were waiting to take the Wanderer, and I wasn’t fool enough to carry my money in her. You’re late this time.” Thd evil in the-Aace of the other becomes more evil.

“Is that God’s truth ?’’ “What have you to do with God —-pirate, murderer and renegade ? Nevertheless it is God’s truth.''

“Tie him to the wall!” the other says to thd Chinese who watch. They lash the skipper, standing, toi an iron ringbolt in the angle of the wails. The ruffian draws a revolver, slowly examines it, smiles blandly, and asks: “Where yill you have it, Gentleman Geoi’ge ?” Thd Chinese, comprehending, guffaw. This is merry play they can enjoy. George, his face deathly white, but set firm, says nothing. The other takes aim. The hammer of the pistol—rises—rises higher—higher. Then he lowers the muzzle.

“ ‘I a* the resurrection and the life' ; let’s see—how did it go when we were young, George ?” “Shoot, you cur, shoot!” God knows; save for those words the brute might have stayed his hand. But, stung by the tone of ineffable contempt, he brings the pistol np and fires. The bullet strikes George obliquely in the breast/ The blood spurts; yet the wound is not mortal.

He fires again, shattering his victim’s right arm. “Kill me! Kill me quick!'’ gasps the wounded man-

“Not much! Bet him go!” They loose him. “There’s the gate; you may go. liemember me to all at home in Sydney, George!” George feebly puts up his left hand, and, groping vrith it as those in the dark grope, staggers towards the closed gate. The other laughs. “The damn fool actually believed it/' he simply, and shoots him through the head, and looks and sees that he is dead. But he does not see the passion-riven face of Hoshu, who, from without, peers- through a chink in the gate.

Thirty months later. “Those ruffians whom you engaged, my young friend, to guard the hongs across the river have been playing up particular merry jehannum again, so the compradore reports.”

Thus the chief, morosely, to me. It was in Ningpo in ’6l. The Taiping rebels had just captured the city from the Imperialists. Ningpo city, on the left bank of . the Chentung, faces the European concession, on the right. The “long-haired men,” then well-disposed to Western civilisation, respected foreign treaty settlements to the extent even of refraining from plundering buildings m vanquished cities flying foreign flags. - Therefore, the wealthier Chinese of Ningpo—before retiring to Shanghai, habited as mendicants, but with costly furs, priceless other collateral securities tucke.y+Aeiieath their malodorous rags—had arranged with my chief (one having authority) to hoist thei Union Jack over a certain block cf city hongs surrounding a temple of Sakymuni, thrice sacred as the nest of much-hidden trea-

sure of Ningpo. A dozen white men had been hired to guard the entombed fastnesses, of which they were or would have looted them, even to the ultimate tael.

Mine had been the task to rake from the two unspeakable grog-shops of the squalid settlement this unholy assortment of Shanghai-rangers —sweepings of California, Hell, and Australia, especially of the latter two —given over, man of them, to rum, rapine, and uri* justifiable homicide. At peril of boas ; and soul, I had gathered them, and her,/ was the chief 'epining because they were uninterrnillenll y crapulous, and made night grisly with blare of internecine free: fight that sanguinary old “Cockeye,” the Taiping Wang or king in command, cogi - tated their decapitation as a specific within the region* of practical polities.

“Go,” said the Chief; “go through the settlement, and try to find two men who will captain your carbonari. They should be quick to shoot, and sober—-figs not gathered from the Ningpo thistle. Yet if, peradventure, you discover suc-h, pay them, in reason, what they ask.” I had luck. Schofield, Ningpo’s one European storekeeper, whose dingy finger was in every pie, said*: “Got the very men. Merchant-ship mates—chucked the sea; lookin’ for someone on the coast. Don’t rightly know the yarn—suit, you dowii to tjie ground—have ’em both here two o’clock!’’ Wherefore I said smooth sayings to Schofield, partook of his notorious square-faced gin from Java—Dutch, and damaged—and hinted the blindness of the Chief to his (Schofield’s) next infringement of the some'vvhat elastic laws of the settlement.

Dick Heneage and Charlie' Clissold were willing to skipper my desperadoes. The former, large, hairy and cool, looked fit; the latter, younger, sl'gnt, and rather ladylike as to expression and complexion, was not the ideal tigertamer. “We’re harder cases than wei lock,” explained Heneage; “I’ve had three years at an Australian diggings, where society was largely unrepentant horse-tliief, and I’ve been second-mate with Yankee-packet rats: while Chailie here is a Cornstalk, and has knocked, round on this coast for near two years.” It looked like franking two decent Britons to death and judgment, but the Chief was one to be obeyed, and, after all, gentleman-adventurers with any delicacy about being murdered had mo call to Ningpo those days. • I took them across in the house-boat that- evening to introduce them to the “lambs.” They were accompanied by Schofield, a easel of gin., a Chinese servant, and other impediments. “I’m just goin’ over to make ’em solid with Black Douglas—he’s a pal of mine,” said Schofield.

New, “Black Douglas” was the only passably respectable cut-throat among the crowd*—not guiltless of manslaughter, but incapable of trelachery, taking manfully all hazards of his iniquities.

The lambs, rather, but not immoderately, sober, camped in a big room, bare, save for much dirt, a few cots and a large charcoal’stove, around which they were seated, ruminating tobacco as cattle eud. They shot swift side-long glances at the new-comers, and spat, saluting Schofield with epithets, as forms of endearment, and demanding of him drink. The world is small. Heneage and Douglas, after mutual contemplation, shock hands. “Old mate o’ mine' at Yaekandoclah Creek diggin’s, chaps, sabeP'’ The “chaps” expectorated. He looked at Clissold: “Fren’ o’ yours ?'’

Heneage nodded. “Freju’ o’ mine, fellers—sake ?”

TL"S “fellers” spat acquiescently. “But who's the durned Chow, to come among us white gents ?” demanded a Yankee crimp whom the Vigilantes had run out of ’Frisco for shipping dead landsmen as dead-drunk seamen.

“He’s a friend of mine!” replied Clissold, and his tone and glance were so stringent that awkward silence befell.

But observant Schofield! kicked off the head of the gin-case, and ehch .of the

gang forthwith poured solemn libation to his god—each drank to himself. I stated the position.

Heneage and Clissold were to have supreme command, with Douglas for lieutenant. “Any gentleman,” objecting could have his money. Avid expectoration was their sole comment. Only Douglas observed, “Count me in,” and where Douglas went the crowd, generally followed. Heneage, Clissold and Douglas, attended by Hoshu, Clissold’s Chinese servant, took up quarters already prepared for thehi at the far end of a- big hong, seme 300 yards from the main guard. This detched hong, built with sloping roof against a wigh wall, was faceld by another high wall washed by the river. The only access was by a heavy gate 80 yards from the rooms selected. A wire, attached to the gate, rang a bell in one of the rooms when-* ever the door was opened. The narrow passage-way from the gate to + he parallel wall at the far end was paved. '‘Clissold seems a bit tame for that job,” I hazarded to Schofield as we were being sculled back to our own side of the river.

“Think so? Well, he don’t come of a tame family or a tame colony,” he replied, dryly, and turned the subject.

For the next month there was comparative peace at the hongs. The lambs took to Heneage, who, though free-and-easy, had the reputation of being “ugly” in tfie day of trouble. Ana Douglas, under responsibility, proved potent on the side cf order. But the crowd couldn’t stomach Clissold, who neither drams, swore, ncr conversed, except on points of duty. They nick-named him “Missie,” openly mimicked his soft voice and quiet manner, and were only restrained from more pronounced defiance by the accidental discovery that he was a dead-shot, and, perhaps, by a peculiar look which occasionally came into his usually cold, blue eyes. That there was some mystery about Clissold I early decided, also that Heneage, Douglas, Hoshu, and Schofield, knew it.

One morning the Chief, ramping, spoke : “More trouble brewing over these cursed hongs. That scoundrel Soochow, who disappeared for two years or more, is in Ningpo again. Robbery and murder follow him all the days of his life. With his knowledge of Chinese and of Chinese ways he’s sure to smell ’.he treasure in the temple, and equally sure to stir up those other thieves over there to steal it. And I’ve no gunboat here and not six white men I can trust!” Everyone in Northern China in those clays had heard cf Soochow, the white renegade, educated, of unknown antecedents, and the most despex*ate and cold-blooded miscreant on that or any other coast. Owing to his miicrae mastery of Chinese and various dialects, be had been employed by the British cn “secret had taken* tkeiir money and promptly betrayed them ' r.e Chinese. Arrested by the English far numerous murders, he claimed to be> a Chinese subject. The Chinese acknowledged the claim, and promised to behead him. Instead, they employed firm as a spy upon the Taipings. He sold the Imperialists to the Taipings and vice versa. The Chinese next used him against the great pirate chief, Apak, who terrorised the northern seaboard' and derided even British gunboatSj and had agents in every port. He assisted Apak in innumerable piracies, and then tried to kill him in order to sell his head to the authorities. Sell! He would have sold the mother that suckled him,! He had kidnapped, tortured and killed' numberless Chinetee and not a fev T whites. He had sat high mandarins on live charcoal to squeeze their treasure from them, shot one English comrade slowly to death while the latter was bathing, and had crucified another to the mast of his lorcha. Armed parties of Europeans and Americans—there was little conventional law in the North then—had gone out gaily to lynch him, and had come to grief. Neither vengeance noi* justice touched him, and, though he had never kept faith with man or woman, the worst cut-throats would follow nim to death and out the other end.

That night, in a heavy snow-storm, I slipped ever the river to warn the leaders concerning Soochow. Schofield, however, had taken the news the previous evening. Clissold' and Hoshu Pad gone over to the settlement. Heneage and Douglas were exercised about another m £}ll “These are pleasing quarters.’ volunteered the former; “ a ghost xias been prancing round lately at nights. _ ‘ A ghost You haven't been drinking Schofield’s gin ?” . "Not quite. But something m European boots paces up and down outsidesomething invisible. We thought it might be an echo ; but people don't walk in heavy boots on a rive^,. s fT# ; don’t com© in at the gate go out, because the ;-beiF'never rings/’

‘‘Holy Sailor! there's Boots now!” said Douglas, blue to the lips. And, though, tbevbedl was silent and thei falling selqw deadened all'other sound, heavy footsteps slo-why paced towards us from’ the gate.' We>t; quaking. The ■boots' approached, -passes the wmctow, reached' the e&d wall, paused, turned, passed, the window,, sounded faintly, paused, turned, and again approached. Fear flamed into' desperation; we dashed out with cocked revolvers. Louder ’. and- louder, . nearer and more ' near, the. footsteps! . They were ''close; “they were, abreast, no living .thing visible,- no footprint on the fast-falling snow.' Something—-sprint, shadow," or coldefr 'blast passed;. VV© emptied 'bur. revolvers, the bullets splattered on the snow-encrusted river-wail. 'The. footsteps went- on, turned ana passed, turned and passed again,, then ybd. first hear 'it'?' ,,: I hsked '“Last night,'-just before' SthOfield told us about So-o-chow.” “OUssold .scared? 7 ! . • ... ..... VV" know—Charlie tseeps ■ nis coay buttoned over bis heart. Hosliu damnably.” Here'.the bell rang 5' we challenged. Cliasold answered, and entered with Hosjhu.—the former calm, the latter- wildly perturbed. ' V 1 . “Well; what.dl.ser said Lussoid to his servant, as if; continuing a jconyersa-tic-a-. . , , . ,■ T - “Wait ; I catchee light' —ana Hoslm, trembling, lit a. lantern. ■ . “Come now; l-ookseoi Me show you; Mi too muchee. f o-o-100. . Mi ao sabee tin’s, place befo’v Mi sabee he now —dam bad place. Come.” They went out,;., wondering, weylollcwed, .The .Chinaman brushed swiftly through the snew to the angle made by the river and end Walls, held, high his lantern, groped for a moment in the angle, found an iron ring let into the wall and screamed: ... f ‘Hiyah.! look! looksee! This place lie tie Missie Geoge! This place he shoe-tee he! Close by gate Missie Geoge makee die! Loot!”

Charlie bent forward. _ The lantern shone upon his face, and it, save for the; lurid. light, in his eyes, was .the face of the dead and co-id, “1 see! 77 he said.

The footsteps'sounded far away by tliegate, coming faintly, but' coming always. We listen e/d, but. there was that in Charlie's pale face'.there terrible than footsteps of' living' hr dead'.". As the footsteps closed up Hosliu gasped : ' “Missie Geoge!! Missie 'Geoge!' ' chinchin. you!”, and dropped, a shapeless heap, at the.foot of .the' wall, 9 But his' master "turned' and threw out his hand, saluting one, invisible to us, pausing. The bell rang. Schofield called and we went in. But Schofield spoke aside to Douglas, who went cut into the night. .. *. * * We sat silent. Oiissold cleaned and re-loaded his two -revolvers, ■smoked a bad cigar thoughtfully, _ casting repeated furtive glances at Giissold. Hoshu, squatting in 'a far corner, sougnt, with shaking hands, to' fill Ms' long brass pipe. Once again the bell rang, and Douglas, entering quickly, said : "“Soochow’s in the guard-room and thereTl be“_ hell to pay-and no pitch hot. They're' going for the temple to-night, boys! There’s only six--of them and-So-ochow there *ust. now. 'What’s bo be done?' 7 • Before he had finished Charlie had gone out. Hoshu threw ddwn his pipe, snatched a big Chinese knife and followed:. '- - . ..' " , “Where’s Charlie going?” said I. “To death —sudden death!’ 7 ' replied Schofield, with’-a- gulp “going to tackle So-ochow single--handeld—Soochc.w- that no doseni men tackled-yet, 7 ' “Bub, why?’ 7 1 persisted. - “Hell!■ Cease talk! Come on, boys!’ 7 '‘Well see this - thing -through,”. said Heneage. " '■ ■•' '' ' s And, taking arms, we hurried down the tong passage to the -gate, hearing, not heeding, the pacing of ‘hoots. 7 ’ . Charlie- opened the ' guard-door - and went in -so-swiftly that the “lambs” had ' scarce time to lift their eyes. We, grouped round the window, looked into the lighted, room. The gang, in semicircle round: the front'of the stove, faced the do-dr. So-o chow sat at the back' of the stove 5 ; and.,,: consequently, with his back to the; dopr.-MTe sat bowed on a bench, hi§ hand^. -between, his knees, cogitating... . His pis-tcT was lying; con r..the b each.v; 'Thee- other.rascals.; regarded the; great eft 1 'Scoundrel.-- admiringly. h ; c Charlie walked straight up to Soochow, put -arevolver to his--.head, and said .c-oldly, “If you move, William- Qlissold;. Til shoot!” .- - T

We pushed in. . ’ r “Bad-up, the lot- of • youshouted Douglas, as wa covered the crowd. . They had “been. there” before. They were unarmed,. Their hands went up.

Sooohow, smiLLng, slowly, raised his head. A copier man never looked at death down the barrel of a pistol. “What’s the) .trouble?” he said, then raising his eyes he saw; Charlie for the first time. His face bleached beneath, its. weathertarn, his jaw fell, his arras hung nervelees .

“ Whafc the—who l , in the' devil’s name, fere -yob ? ’ “I’m Charles Ciissold. Get up- and come with me.” “What—little brother Charlie—you ?*’ The other said only “Come!” Sooohow rose slowly-but,, in the- act, ducked beneath Glissold’s arm and snatched the revolver from the bench. The

movement was quick as the dash of an angry snake, but not quick enough. Douglas fired and shattered the renegade's right wrist. - “Well, chaps, 77 said Douglas, “you’d' best see this deal out. Keep ’em covered' 7 (this to Schofield, Hoshu "and myseilf).

-He went to'each cot, took what arms were there, and brought them and tucked them in our belts.

“Now, two and two, same as you walked'in the chain-gang. Mr Schofield, go first; Hoshu, you take the iiank; you and me, sir, rear-guard, and the first of ’em as scratches 1113 hose’ll be- dead meat. March, you gallows-birds, march!"'." “Tie him to the wall!” said Charlie. And Hoshu tied the renegade to the iron ring and stuck them, hi the iron sconces in the verandah posts./ They threw" long black shadows of the cowed loafers on the white snow, and made •more pallid the faces of Charlie and Soochow. The' former turned to Hoshu.

■-“Tell them why I’ve' brought' this man 'here.” Hoshu lifted his right arm. and. ''-pointed a . quivering huger at- Soochow. But before he- could speak there was a sudden tumult at the gate, and in a momefnt- the long passage was ablaze with torchlights, resonant with' fierce shouts and the clash of arms, resplendent with the sheen of many coloured silks. It was the old Wang, “Cockeye; ’ and his bodyguard. They came leaping, gesticulating, with ferocious cries, as-was their wont-.. Their long, coarse, dull, .black hair streamed to their knees. They wore costly body furs, satin-lined, the loot of many cities, but their legs and feet were bare; their broad spears had silk pennons. They were old rebels who had swum in blood, survival of the fittest that had marched down the rugged Kwan-tung hills long years before with the student Hung, who later became the “Heavenly King.” I -They opened their rafiks and the Wang passed through, grim, tall and squinting. He signalled and there was silence. He strode up to Charlie Giissold- and asked broken English, “What thing you do?” - -

And Charlie .spoke, a- wild-eyed Tapping interpreting each sentence- into Chinese:.

“He killed his brother*, who was also my brother. My brother had much money, and .this man took him from his iorcha, and kept him- here in this place many days—starving; and mocked him and shot him, but- did not kill at once —-shot him, here, tied to this iron, as he is ; now—-and let- him go, and came behind and shot him dead.” ... “Who saw these things?”.

Hoshu lifted his right hand swore a mighty Ohindse oath.. “Through the gate, these things and more I saw!” “Cockeye” stalked on and looked So-o-chow, who glared like a trapped wild beast, in the face, and Soochow spat at - him.

The/ old Wang calmly wiped his. cheek with his long sleeve and spoke to a Tapping, who went and looked at Soochow earnestly.

‘‘lt is the man,” said the soldier to the King. .Then said “Cockeye,;’ in Chinese, turning and walking a little space from the. wall. “This man, this Soochow, is a Taiping. He has sworn the Taiping oaths. Twice. he has betrayed us. lie belongs to us. His life is ours, 'and we will take it— -slowly.” Then to his guard, “Take the white devil-’’ /‘His life .is mined” said Charlie Clisscld, and he shot the renegade through the head. Then cut his bonds.

But, even as Soochow fell, Charlie slipped on his knees, supporting the prone head with his left arm, and put his pistol to his own temple and fired, and, as ne sank in death, both his arms went round Soochow’s neck, while the left arm of the. latter went feebly up to' Charlie’s face and stroked it. And so embracing child brothers, loving and innocent, might embrace, they died.

The iron ringbolt was taken from the wall. In its place we put a. small .white stone, on which, deep-cut, was . this inscription : —-

George Clissold, died June 24, 1859, aged 26.

Charles Clissold, died Dec. 24. 1861 V aged 24. 7 , '.y . . • V; William Clissold (“Soochow”), died Dec. 7: " 24, 1861. aged 30. ’ . -7.