"SOOCHOW."

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4289, 23 February 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

"SOOCHOW."

A STORY FROM 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, he a few foreign square-rigged vessels, their masthead lights easting pale silver blotches on the muddy flood. In the stream, to seaward of all and alone, deep rides tho 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 tho polished trunnions of her guns, the moonlight, watery 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 dog dreaming of the agony of . scalding water on a mangy skin. These are the only voices of the night.

Astern, under the curtained awning of the Wanderer, stretched on a bamooo chair, his feet' on the taffrail, smoking and absorbed, is the owner and skipper -—blithest man that night in that flowerless “Flowary Land’.’ For “Gentleman George,” as the beachcombers call mm, after sweat of body and soul for five years, each moment of which he has carried his life in his hands, has “made his pile.” This day lie has written his younger brother in Sydney—tho love of David and Jonathan is between them—bidding him come out and take the iorcha and her assured trade as free gifts; also to the woman he loves, telling of fortune won and future happiness. He has accomplished his life’s programme. Such triumph the Fates, weaving pitilessly, permit to few. The smoke of Ids Manila curls as the smoke of incense round his head. His thoughts are long thoughts.

A sampan, narrow-gritted . and low, sculled by two great ullob, wr:\..es swiftty in the deep shadow of the moored junks. Wads of greased jute have been thrust over the iron tholes, and the oars churn noiselessly. Passing the most

seaward 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 thet 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 feet naked, swarm over the low bow, md, seeking the obscurity of every spar, mast and gun-carriage, win aft until 1 hey * crouch behind the unconscious skipper. Like a flash they throw a heavy rug ever Ins head, lash his hands, and carry nim, a revolver pressed against his temple, to the sampan. Dropping him into the boat, they push off and go leisurely clown

with the tide. There is but one other witness to this drama, Hcshu, the skipper’s Chinese servant, who has snared 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, ho 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 tneir 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 hong and its river-wall there paces the day through, and every day —until at nightfall he is thrust into a filthy room—the captain of the lorcha! And daily his step weakens, for he is undergoing, ordeal by starvation. Chinese sailors cf villainous aspect, pirates unmis • takeably, squat on the stones, sunning their vermin, smoking foul tobacco, and 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?” ! Thp other, pacing onwards, answers 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 Ningpothe day yon 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.” Tin evil in the face 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 the, Chinese who watch. They lash the skipper, standing, to an iron ringbolt in the angle of the walls. The ruffian draws a revolver, slowly examines it, smiles blandly, and asks; “Where yill you have it, Gentleman George?” ‘

The 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. “ T am 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 up 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! Let 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 with, it as those in the dark grope, staggers towards the closed gate. The other laughs. '“The damn fool actually believed it,’’ he says, 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 compradors reports.” Thus the chief, morosely, to me.

It was in Ningpo in ’6l. The Taiping rebels had just captured the city from tho Imperial's. Ningpo city, on the left bank of £he Chentung, faces the European coijrceasicn, on the right. The ‘dong-hairedfinen,” 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, tho wealthier Chinese of Ningpo—before retiring to Shanghai, habited as mendicants, but with costly furs, priceless pearls and other collateral securities tucked beneath their malodorous rags—had arranged with miy chief (one having authority) to hoist the Union Jack over a certain block cl city hongs surrounding a temple of Sakymuni, thrice sacred as the nest of much-hidden treasure of Ningpo. A dozen white men had been hired to guard the entombed fastnesses, of which they were ignorant, or they would have looted them, even to tho ultimate tael.

Aline had been the task to rake from tho two unspeakable grog-shops pi the squalid settlement this unholy assortment of Shanghai-rangers—sweepings of California, Hell, and Australia, especially of the latter two—given over, each man of them, to rum, rapine, and unjustifiable homicide. At peril of body and soul, I had gathered than, and here was the chief repining because they were unintermittently crapulous, and made night grisly with blare of internecine free iig'ht that sanguinary old “Cockeye,” the Taiping Wang or king in command, cogitated as a specific within the region of practical politics.

“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 such, jiay them, in reason, what they ask.” I had luck. Schofield, Ningpo’s one European storekeeper, ivbose dingy linger was in every pic, said : “Got tho very men. Merchant-ship mates —chucked the sea; lookin’ for someone on the coast. Don’t rightly know the yarn —suit you down" 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 tho Chief to his (Schofield’s) next infringement of tho somewhat 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 wa lock,” explained Heneage; “I've uad three years at an Australian diggings, where society was largely unrepentant horse-thief, and I’ve been second-mate with Yankee-packet rats: while Chaiiic here is a Cornstalk, and has knocked round on this coast for near two venrs.”

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 no call to Ningpo those days.

I took them across in the house-hoat that evening to introduce them to the “lambs.’’ They were accompanied by Schofield, a case 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.

Now, “Black Douglas” was the only passably respectable cut-throat among the crowd—not guiltless of manslaughter, but incapable of treachery, 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 cud. 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, shook hands. “Old mate o’ rriinei at Yackandoolah Creek diggin’s, chaps, sab©?’’ The “chaps” expectorated. He looked at Clissold; “Fren' o’ yours?’’ Heneage nodded. “Fren’ o’ mine, fellers—sake?”

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

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

But observant Schofield kicked off the head of the gin-case, and each 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 them at the far end of a big hong, some 300 yards from tbe main guard. This detched hong, built with sloping roof against a wigh wall, was faced 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 whenever the door was opened. The narrow passage-way from the gate to the parallel wall at the far end was paved. “Clissold seems a hit tame for that job,” I hazarded to Schofield as w© 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,” ho replied, dryly, and turned the subject.

For the next month there was comparative peace at the hongs. The lambs i took to Heneage, who, though free-and- : easy, had the reputation of being “ugly” in the day of trouble. Anu Douglas, under responsibility, proved potent on the side of order. But the crowd couldn’t stomach Clissold, who neither dranir, 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 Jfhe Chief, ramping, spoke; jF “More troubleqbrewing over these cursed hongs. Tj&at scoundrel Soochow, who disappeared for two years or more, is in Ningpo Jfgain. Robbery and murder follow hiiS all the days of his life. With his knowledge of Chinese and of Chinese wajfS he’s sure to smell she treasure in the 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 davs had heard of Soochow, the' “*luto

renegade, educated, of unknown antecedents, and the most desperate and cold-blooded miscreant on that or any other coast. Owing to his unioue mastery of Chinese and various dialects, bo had been employed by the British cn “secret service,” had taken their money and promptly betrayed them to riie Chinese. Arrested by the English tor numerous murders, he claimed to be a Chinese subject. The Chinese acknowledged the claim, and promised to behead him. Instead, they employed nun as a spy upon the Taiping;;. lie 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 gunboats, 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 Chinese and not a few whites. Ho 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 nor justice touched him, and, though he had never kept faith with man or woman, the worst cut-throats would follow Him to death and out the other end. That night, in a heavy snow-storm, I slipped over the river to warn the leaders concerning Soochow. Schofield, however, had taken the news the previous evening. Clissold and Hoshu Had gone over to the settlement. Hencage and Douglas were exercised about another matter.

“These are pleasing quarters,” volunteered the former; “ a. ghost has been prancing round lately sit nights.” "A ghost You haven’t boon drinking Schofield's ginP” “Not quite. But something in European boots paces up and down outside—something invisible. We thought it might be an echo; but people don’t walk in heavy boots on a river. It don’t come in at the gate and it don’t go cut, because the bell never rings.’’ “Holy Sailor! there’s Boots now!” said Douglas, blue to the lips. And, though the belli was silent and the falling snow deadened all cthersound, heavy footsteps slowly paced towards us from the gate. We sat quaking. The boots approached, passed the window, reached the end wall, paused, turned, passed the window, sounded faintly, paused, turned, and again approached. Fear flamed into desperation; we dashed out with cooked revolvers.

Louder and louder, nearer and more: near, the footsteps! They were close; they were abreast; no living thing visible, no footprint cn the fast-falling snow. Something—spirit, shadow, or colder blast—passed. We emptied our revolvers, the bullets spattered on the snow-encrusted river-wail.

The footsteps went on, turned and passed, turned and passed again, men ceased. “When did you first hear it?” I asked. “Last night, just before Schofield told us about Soochow.” “Clissold scared ?”

“Don’t know —Charlie keeps his coat buttoned over his heart. Hoshu was, damnably.”

Here the bell rang; we challengel. Clissold answered and entered with Hoshu—the former calm, the latter wildly perturbed. “Well, what else?” said Clissold to his servant, as if continuing, a conversation.

“Wait; I catcheo light”—and Hoslm, trembling, lit a lantern. “Come now; looksee! Me show you I Mi too muchee fooloo. Mi no sabee tills place befo’. Mi sabee: he now —dam bud place. Come.” They went out; wondering, we followed. The Chinaman brushed swiftly through the snow-to the angle made by the river and end walls, held high ins lantern, groped for a moment in the angle, found an iron ring let into the wall and screamed:

“Hiyah! look! looksee! This place he tie Missie Geoge! This place he shoctee he! Close by gate Missie Geoge mauee die! ' Look!” 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 cold. “I see!” he said.

The footsteps sounded far av ay by the gate, coming faintly, but coming always. We listened, hut there was that in Charlie’s pale face more terrible than footsteps of living or dead. As the footsteps closed up Hoshu gasped : “Missie Geogei! Missie Geoge! cninchin you!” and dropped, a shapeless heap, at the foot of the wall. But his master turned and threw out his hand, saluting one, invisible to us, passing. The bell rang. Schofield called and we went in. But Schofield spoke aside to Douglas, who went out into the night. .

We sat silent. Clissold cleaned and re-leaded' his two revolvers. Schofield smoked a' bad cigar thoughtfully, casting repeated-furtive glances at Clissold. Hoshu, squatting in a far corner, sought, with shaking hands, to- fill his long brass pipe. Once again the bell rang, and Douglas, entering quickly, said: “Sooehow’s in the guard-room and there’ll he hell to pay and no pitch hot. They’re' going for the temple to-night, boys! There’s only six of them and Soochow there -ust now. What’s to be done?” Before he had finished Charlie had gone out. Hoshu threw down his pipe, snatched a big Chinese knife and followed. “Where’s Charlie going?” said I. “To death—sudden death!” replied Schofield, with a gulp ; “going to tackle Soochow single-handed—Soochow that no dozen men tackled yet.” “Blit, why ?’’ I persisted. “Hell! Cease talk! Come on, boys!” “We’ll see this thing through,” said Heneage. ■ Arid, taking arms, we hurried’ down the long passage to the gate, hearing, not heeding, the pacing of “boots.” Charlie opened the guard-door and went in so swiftly that the “lambs” had scarce time to lift their eyes. We, grouned round the window, looked into the lighted room. The gang, in semicircle round the front of the stove, faced the door. Soochow sat at the back of the stove, and, consequently, with his back to the door. He sat bowed on a bench, his hands between his knees, cogitating. His pistol was lying on the bench. The other rascals regarded the greater scoundrel admiringly. Charlie walked straight up to Soochow, put a revolver to his head, and said coldly, “If yon move, William Clissold, I'll shoot!”

We pushed in. “Bail-up, the lot of you!” shouted Douglas, as we covered the crowd. They had “been there 1 ” before. They were unarmed. Their hands went up.

Soochow, smiling, slowly raised nis head. A cooler 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 weathertan, his jaw fell, his arms hung nerveless.

“What the—who, in the' devil’s name are you?’’

“I’m Charles Clissold. Get up ami come with me.”

“What—little brother Charlie—-you r ’ The other said only “Come!’ Soochow rose slowlv; but, iu the act, ducked beneath Clissofd’s arm and snatched tha revolver from the bench. The movement was quick as the dash ol an angry snake, hut not quick enoiign. Douglas fired and shattered ilic rentgade’s right wrist. "Well, chaps,” said Douglas, oil’d best see this deal out. Keep ’em covered” (this to Schofield. Hoshu and mysa!f). *

Ho went to each cot, tool: what armwere there, and brought them and tucked them in our belts. “Now, two and two, samo as you walked/in the chain-gang. Air Schofield, go first; Hoshu, you take the. flank; you and me, sir, rear-guard, and the firs: of ’em as scratches Jus nose’ll he dead meat. March, you gallows-birds, march!’

“Tie him to the wall!” said Charlie

And Hoshu tied thci renegade to the iron ring and stuck them in the iron sconces in tho verandah posts. They threw long black shadows ef the cowed loafers on the white snow, and made more pallid tho faces of Charlie ami Soochow. The former turned to Hoshu. “Tell them why I've brought tliis man here.” Hoshu lifted his right arm null pointed a quivering finger at Soochow. But before he could speak there was a sudden tumult at the gate, and in a moment tho long passage was ablaze with torchlights, resonant witn fierce shouts and the clash of arms, resplendent witn the sheen of many coloured silks. fi was the old Wang, “Cockeye.” and ills bodyguard. They came leaping, gesticulating. with ferocious cries, as was their wont. Their long, coarsu, 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 sillc pennons. They were old rebels who had swum in blood, survival of the idtest that had marched down the rugged Kwan-I ling hills long years before with tha student Hung, who later became rite “Heavenly King.” They opened their ranks and the Wang passed through, grim, tail and squinting, Ho signalled and there was silence. Ho strode up to Charlie Clissold and asked broken English, “What thing you do ?”

And Charlie spoke, a wild-eyed Taiping interpreting each sentence l into Chinese:

“Ho killed his brother, who was also my brother. My brother had much money, and this man took him Ircm his !orcha, 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 tie is now—and let him go, and came behind and shot him dead.’’ “Who saw these things?'’

Hoshu lifted his right, hand siverc a mighty Chinese oath. “Through the, gate, these things and more 1 saw!” “Cockeye” stalked on and jacked Soochow, who glared like a trapped wild beast, in the face, and Seochow spat at him.

Tliel old Wang calmly wiped his check with his long sleeve and spoke to a Taiping, who went and looked at Som-how earnestly. , “It. is the man,” said the soldier to the King. Then said “Cockeye,” in Chinese, taming atid walking a. little space; from the wall. “This man, this Seochow, is a Taiping. Hu has sworn the Taipmg oaths. Twice he has betrayed ns. He belongs to us. His life is ours, and we will take it—bub slowly.”

Then to his guard, “Talce the, white devil-’’ ■‘His life is mine.!” said Charlie Oils sold, 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 ue sank in death, both his arms went round Soochow’s n'eek, while, the left arm of the latter went feebly up to Charlie’s face and stroked .it.

And so embracing, as brothers', loving and innocent, might embrace, they died.

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

George Clissold, died June 24, 1859, aged 26. ■ Charles Clissold, died Dec. 24, 180 1, aged 21. William Clissold (“Soochow’’), died Deo. 24, 1861, aged 30.