CHAPTER II
IN THE CAÑON
DOWN in the blackness of the ravine the thin thread that still persisted in the watercourse tinkled over the flinty stones. The walls of the cañon lifted clear and sheer five hundred feet, dark blots of purple. The narrow strip of sky above them, as seen from the floor of this valley, suddenly appearing in the sandy desert as if the granite precipices had thrust themselves up through the yielding soil, was studded with stars. There was no sound but the sharp voice of the waters emerging from the sands to lose themselves again where the ravine ended.
A perilous ledge led along the western cliff and passed the black gorge of a cave that slanted sharply upwards after a brief passage that ran back level for perhaps a hundred feet. At the mouth of the cave, rifle across his knee, sat Neill McNeill, craving for the smoke he might not permit himself.
Forty-eight hours had passed since they left the camp where he had caught Ling heliographing, and all his senses warned him that danger was very close at hand. He knew it from the attitude of Ling and his followers. Their surliness was lightened; they had seen, had heard, or smelled something that his over-civilized perceptions had missed. He knew the priests must have been misled at first but they were indubitably far better mounted than the Remsden party, and not all McNeill's skill had been able to obliterate trails.
Both nights he had bound the Mongols hand and foot. By day he herded them. They were utterly one with the pursuit; they were eating up the scant supply of food and at times tried to delay the march, until McNeill threatened to shoot the first recalcitrant, but, if he left them free, it would but be to augment and advise the enemy, and he had a plan in mind by which he could still use them, despite their wishes.
Both the camels he had killed as too slow, taking valuable time to bury them deep so that the clustering carrion birds should not act as guides. Only two of the horses were in any shape to travel. Remsden had ruined two already with his weight and clumsy riding. The detour had delayed them, and they were still thirty hours from the outskirts of Peking. And, until they reached the foreign quarter of that city, they could not reckon themselves safe.
"Possibly not then," meditated McNeill, watching the opposite sky-line.
There was no trail on the face of the other cliff, so he covered the ledge on their own side and was on guard against surprize. At the end of the straight tunnel Remsden and Helen lay resting, if not asleep. Ling and the rest were tucked in a niche, none too comfortably, and McNeill himself had tied the soaked hide-strips that fettered them.
"I wonder," he went on in thought, "just what the old boy did back there at the temple. He was hobnobbing with that sleek rat, Fung-Ti, who got beaten out for high-priest at the last Hoang Lung election. Remsden's got his own ambitions. He'd rather be head of the Museum of Philological Research than anything in this world, or the next for that matter. He'd barter all he has for that, his stepdaughter included. When it comes down to his own ends he's a devil of selfishness. A-ha!"
He cuddled up his rifle lightly, leaning forward from the ledge. There was more than a hint of moonrise across the ravine, and his ears had caught the clink of metal—not hoof on stone, since few horses were shod in that region, but blade or point against stirrup.
Then, silhouetted against the radiance of the eastern sky, back so far from the edge that only the upper parts of their bodies showed, there came a file of horsemen. The riders wore queer, pointed caps and flowing robes. He could see spears and guns aslant their shoulders. They rode fast, and he counted over fifty.
There was a slight shuffle beside him. Ling, bound as he was, had wriggled his way to the front of the cave. His clothes had caught on something, and the force he had summoned to break free had betrayed him, even as he raised his face and opened his mouth to shout to the dark riders across the cañon.
With a sidelong sweep McNeill brought the butt of his gun down on the base of the Mongol's skull, and the cry died in his throat. But it was a close call, and McNeill patrolled the cave to the niche where he inspected his prisoners and gagged them with dirty strips from their own clothes, threatening them with a knife if they made the tiniest sound. Then he went back to where he had left Ling.
The ledge was empty.
"Came to and rolled himself over," McNeill decided. "Now I wonder just why."
The answer came to him almost immediately. The riders were coming back again, and McNeill could see two of them dismount and peer down into the black gulf, evidently suspicious of the sound they had heard—the slump of Ling into the cañon. He could have picked them off easily, but to remain hidden was of paramount importance. They had but a small supply of water. Besieged in the cave, they must soon give in.
No other sound came from the fallen Ling who had sacrificed himself in vain to serve the fierce priests of Hoang Lung. The smashing drop of a quarter of a thousand feet had beaten the life out of him.
"They'll stay till morning," McNeill told himself, "and then they'll find him, unless"
He went back to the end of the tunnel where the natural rift narrowed and went up in a narrow, irregular ramp. Under this McNeill paused. Once he wetted his finger and held it up in the darkness. He thought he could detect a faint stirring of the air. From the pocket of the coat he wore, for the night air was chill, he fished out an electric torch and slipped the switch. The beam fell on the sleeping face of Helen Remsden, as she was styled, having adopted the name of her stepparent. McNeill's jaw hardened as he gazed at the beauty that even the cruel forcing of the last two days' flight could not eradicate. From an angle to the right where the tunnel side-pocketed came the faint stamping of horses and the reek of their bodies. Then he shifted the ray to Remsden's puffy countenance and, stooping, shook him by the shoulder.
"Eh, what?"
"Ssh!" cautioned McNeill. "Come with me to the cave mouth. I want a talk with you."
His tone was imperative and Remsden yielded to it without further grumbling. By this time the moon had topped the further wall and was whitening the ledge outside. By and by its light would steal down into the depths and, perhaps, reveal the body of Ling, sure sign that the white men were beleaguered near by.
McNeill thought of climbing down and either bringing back the body or hiding it beneath loose stones. But, in such darkness, he could not hope to eradicate all marks of the fall from the sharp eyes that would surely be seeking for them as soon as light permitted. There would be spatters of blood and, in the meantime, there were other things to do—hopes to work on. Remsden was one of these latter.
McNeill tackled his employer without formality.
"Remsden, we are in bad shape. They've got us cornered. The Hoang Lung crowd has just filed along the cliff across the way. They are suspicious of this place and they'll hang around till morning. There are only two horses fit to travel."
"How do you know they are the Hoang Lung crowd? They may be just a band of robbers with whom Ling was in league."
"I'll bet you know it is the Hoang Lung outfit better than I do, Remsden. In point of fact, it doesn't matter who they are, so long as they are hostile. If they get us—well what they do to us two men don't count so much. I'll take good care they don't get Miss Helen alive, but they are nasty devils and their sort of vengeance don't stop at death. Now I am pretty certain you've got us in this scrape—something you've done at the temple. If it was sacrilege we can't help it now. If you've stolen something, you and that sleek rat of a Fung-Ti, perhaps they'll make terms with us if you give it up. And it's up to you to do it."
Remsden's beefy face was rigid with obstinacy.
"I've done nothing that can be undone," he said. McNeill, keeping the ray shaded from without, suddenly threw the light on Remsden's face and surveyed him keenly. The pop-eyes showed only a sullen doggedness.
"It was all right for you to risk your own life for whatever you were after," went on McNeill, "but, though you told me and told your stepdaughter you only wanted to witness the ritual, I don't believe you. But now you are risking her life and mine for that matter. You've fooled both of us. It's two lives against yours and both of them younger ones. Ling somehow slid off this cliff a little while ago," he went on moodily. "You might do the same thing."
"You mean you would kill me?"
"If I were sure you had something on you that would save the girl's life by giving it up, I would, without compunction."
Remsden gulped.
"You can search me if you like, McNeill. I've got nothing on me. You can search my baggage, destroy it if you like. You'll find nothing. I wanted to see the ritual. I may have offended them, but you're on the wrong track. There must be some way out of this. It isn't just a question of money, McNeill. I told you I'd give you a bonus if the trip was satisfactory. I'll double that. I'll triple it if you get me safe into Peking. That was in the contract—to guard as well as guide. Get me safe into Peking, McNeill, and I'll give you a thousand dollars. I'll give you five."
"I wouldn't accept five cents for trying to save your skin," said McNeill. "I'll do the best I can for you as per contract. Now you get back to the end of the cave. I'll need you presently."
"You think we can get away?" asked Remsden persistently.
"I said for you to get inside," said McNeill so grimly that the stout man crept obediently away.
Presently McNeill followed him. The girl was still sleeping. He switched his ray into the rift above his head and clambered up the slanting way. It was some four feet wide and the sides were damp with moisture. It narrowed, but he wormed his way on and then backed down again.
"It goes through," he said to himself. "And it's all soft earth, I'm fairly certain—just a landslide. There's a chance—for her. And, by the Eternal, we'll open it up if I work those Chinks' fingers to slivers of bone. He kicked up the drowsy Mongols, prodding them with a knife in one hand, threatening them with his pistol in the other, explaining to them what he wanted.
Soon they were at work with stirrup-irons, with pots and metal cups, with jagged cans, one above the other in a living ladder, digging at the soft soil, passing it down in improvised sacks and panniers from the pack animals, working desperately under McNeill's supervision. They labored in the dark, save for occasional spurts of the torch, but they made good progress. Remsden watched without speaking to McNeill who had no time to spare for him, and then the girl awoke and came feeling through the dusk of the cave to see what was happening. McNeill spared a minute or so to tell her.
"They'll locate us by morning," he said. "But they won't find us. I was sure I noted a current of air passing down this shaft that has filled up in some landslide during winter rains. It is not at all probable they know of its existence. Once we break through we can get the ponies up there and make a clean getaway while they are trying to rush the ledge or fooling about in the bottom of the ravine. We can hold them off from the cave-front indefinitely."
"As long as we have water," she corrected.
"There's moisture enough in that shaft to keep us going for a while," answered McNeill. "But I'll make shift to show them our Chinese friends we have with us and, as long as they think they have us trapped, they'll go leisurely about it. In the meantime you and Mr. Remsden will be streaking for Peking."
"And you, what are you going to do?"
"Me? I'm going to amuse myself giving a lesson in marksmanship to the Hoang Lung crowd until I've made them very shy of doing anything else but try and starve us out. You see they won't figure we have a back door and not use it. Then, when I've got them cautious, I'll come scooting hotfoot after you two. There's the Piukiang River ten miles east-by-north, and there are little villages here and there. You must buy a boat or steal one and take to the stream. Steal one if you can, it'll leave less trace."
"You keep on saying 'you' " she said. "You get a boat. We shall wait for you."
"No you won't," McNeill answered.
"I may have to strike quite another trail. Once out, we must scatter and join as best we can. You stick by your stepfather. I'll show up."
She was silent for a minute. Then she objected—
"There are only two horses that can travel."
"Three," lied McNeill. "The yellow pony is feeling fine again."
"Are you telling me the truth?" she asked.
"Ask Mr. Remsden," said McNeill.
"Father!" she appealed.
"Yes, my dear, Mr. McNeill knows what is best. There are three horses. We must rely upon his judgment. Those coolies are slacking up I think."
McNeill went after the Mongols, and the girl subsided. He did not dare to leave the workmen though he dreaded letting the body of Ling remain in plain sight in the ravine. Not that it much mattered, he thought, if they got through the tunnel all right. His own chance of getting away on the yellow pony was pretty slim, but his duty, as he saw it, was to see to the best chances of the girl and of the man who had indubitably employed him as guard as well as guide.
The current of air was steadily stronger. Now and then he climbed Up among the men, blinding them with his light, ignoring the murder in their faces, making them turn their backs while he inspected, whipping them with his will and the fear of death lest they strangle him in a sudden rush. It would not do to let them get too close to the ultimate opening. That he must clear himself, or they would give the alarm.
And, after hours of incredible toil, the thing was done. It was close to dawn and the moon had gone, with the stars paling, when McNeill broke through to the open and found a fortunate masking of bushes and scrub trees all about the hole. Once again he herded the bound Mongols to their niche and then, with Remsden struggling with blistering hands to help him, the two white men enlarged the mouth of the shaft until it was wide enough to allow the egress of the dwarf ponies. All this time the girl stood on watch where the horizontal tunnel opened on the ledge, above the crushed body of Ling, while the mists began to wisp out of the ravine and the sunrise was imminent.
MCNeill got the two horses up the incline and saddled them, while
Remsden gathered such provisions as they would need. Then McNeill fetched the girl.
He pointed out to them the lay of the land that sloped toward the little river that, in its turn, would bring them out on the water-highway to Peking. He gave them brief instructions as to their course, handing them the maps and two rifles with ammunition. Remsden could use enough Chinese dialect to make his offers of money understood and, as long as they kept ahead of the fanatic priests and their influence, McNeill had little doubt that they could buy their safety to Peking. At the last moment, when McNeill had crawled off to the cliff edge on a reconnoitering expedition, the girl rebelled.
"We shall not go without McNeill," she declared. "At least I shall not. He is deliberately sacrificing himself for us."
"You are talking foolishly, my dear," answered Remsden nervously. "McNeill is not a fool. He is not throwing away his own life. I have promised to reward him munificiently when we are safe in Peking, and"
The girl looked at him scornfully.
"You think everything can be bought with gold," she said.
"Well," answered her stepfather with smug complacence, "there are few things that can not. By the way, you may give me back the wallet. It will be safe with me now. I was afraid of light fingers while the Chinese were with us. I sleep so much sounder than you."
Contempt still in her eyes, the girl took a leather wallet from her bosom and gave it to Remsden. The latter furtively fingered its bulk and slid it out of sight before McNeill came back through the brush.
"They are down in the ravine," he said. "They have found the body of Ling. Soon they will be coming along the ledge. I shall use our prisoners as a barrier until you have got well away. Then I shall come after you, but do not wait for me. I am sure you will get through all right, and there is no need to worry about me. I shall be at the Imperial Hotel within a few hours after you—perhaps before. Take the right-hand gully. Go slowly at first and be careful not to throw up any dust. If you find a boat get rid of the ponies. Don't give them away; turn them loose as soon as you see your way clear on the river. Now off with you; I have got to get back to the entrance."
He saw the rebellion in Helen's eyes.
"Au revoir, Miss Remsden," he said. "Let me help you mount. I assure you that I am in no more danger in remaining than you in going—probably less. On my word of honor!"
She looked deep into his eyes and slowly blushed.
"If you do not arrive when you say, within a few hours of us," she said, so low that Remsden, for all his straining ears, could not catch the words, "I shall come back after you."
McNeill saw them disappear into the gully, his hat off to the girl, and then hastened down again to the tunnel. He picked out one of the Mongols and pricked him ahead with his knife-blade until the latter showed himself reluctantly at the cave entrance.
Immediately there was a flash from the opposite cliff, the singing of a bullet, the spang of its lead on the rocky lintel of the cave and the echoing report. The Chinaman shrank back, and McNeill laughed.
"They meant that for me, Ba-ti," he said. "Presently I'll return the compliment."
He had no intention of firing where he was not sure of a target. Every moment gained helped Remsden and the girl and, when he did fire, he wanted to put the fear of his marksmanship into the priests. They thought they had him earthed. A good shot or so would make them cautious.
He tightened up the foot-ropes of the Mongol and put him back with the rest. Then he made a little barricade of loose stones and sat down to guard the ledge. He did not dare expose himself to harass those in the ravine but he hoped that they would attempt to rush the narrow path.
Two hours passed and then a fusillade of bullets smashed about the cave mouth and buzzed down the tunnel. The corners of McNeill's mouth turned up into a little grin. He squinted down the ledge, lying flat in a conduit he had made of the rocks, thrusting his rifle through a niche.
As he expected, a rush was on. A cluster of racing figures turned a shoulder of rock and McNeill began firing rapidly, but with definite aim. Two figures leaped up and plunged into the gulf; another sprawled out on the ledge; a fourth dragged back around the buttress.
"That will keep them thinking for a while," McNeill told himself. "I wonder how about the other direction?"
He turned over and, even as he turned, heard the soft pad of swiftly running feet. The priests of Hoang Lung had split and had meant to attack simultaneously. Some inequalities of the path had hindered their perfect junction, and once again McNeill's rifle took heavy toll. Two men, shot almost simultaneously, whirled, clutched at each other and went spinning down.
"That'll teach 'em not to be in too much of a hurry," muttered McNeill as he slid fresh cartridges into the chamber while stray bullets still sung and splashed above him. "I don't believe they've got more than a couple of rifles at that," he told himself. "Now for the next move. I don't believe they'll try another rush—try and starve us out. I don't fancy they are worrying much about those Chinks I've got corraled. Neither am I. I wonder how many miles are left in that yellow cayuse."
His half-formed plan crystallized as he went back into the tunnel and flashed his torch over the bunch of bound Mongols. One man he selected as close to his own build, though lacking in height. This man he shuffled back to where the rest of the horses were stalled and, at the muzzle of his automatic, ordered him to strip. The man demurred, and McNeill clipped him on the jaw with his pistol, putting him out. Then he deftly peeled off the dirty, unsavory clothes and reluctantly put these on over his own underwear, after investing the Chinaman with the outer garb of Neill McNeill.
The battery of his torch was dimming, fast as he had worked, and it nickered entirely out before he had finished. But he got the limping pony to the top of the shaft and the Chinaman with it. He had collected the few things he meant to take with him, and now, with the wondering, hating eyes of the Mongol watching him, he crawled through the bushes for a last survey of the enemy, crawled back and, with almost the last of his water supply, unflinchingly scraped off with a dull blade all the sprouting red growth on his jaws.
Then he surveyed the lay of the land. To one side, where, almost three hours before, Remsden and his daughter had made for the river, the fissures offered him ample cover. To the other the land opened to a flat plateau sparsely set with dwarf growths.
McNeill forced the Mongol to mount the tethered yellow pony that was in no way anxious to move, tied his feet under the animal's belly and his wrists to the saddle-horn. Once again he slid through the bushes and fired a random shot across the cañon. The echoes crashed as answering bullets came wildly back. He cut the tether, headed the pony for the plateau, pricked it sharply on the flank and fired a couple of shots beneath it that sent it flying fearfully through the scrub bearing a figure in European costume on its back, crouching to avoid the missiles that sped toward it at long range, and then McNeill dived swiftly into the nearest depression and, making the most of his start, fled for the Chang-Li stream.
At nightfall McNeill squatted by the wall of a hut. Outside its door the Chinese were gabbling the local gossip. The boat of Duk Sing had been stolen. Sing had found it gone when he started for the evening fishing. The boat had vanished, but a gold piece was lying by the tether picket, wrapped in a scrap of cloth. So Sing was lucky, for the boat was old. And Chee Foy had found two ponies with their saddles. It had been a great day, said Wong Lee, the headman. It was good to talk but he must be going, for the tide was right and they were waiting for his cargo in Peking. He envied Sing his luck; money was scarce.
As Wong Lee started to go aboard his cargo-boat where the polers only awaited his coming, a figure came out of the darkness and asked in the dialect of the district for a trip passage.
"Not free, oh Wong Lee," said the pleader as the headman scowled. "For, by the favor of my aunt, I have some small matter of money with me, and the trip is urgent. I am sick."
There was a fire burning on an iron plate amidships of the long craft with its thatched cabin and high prow. By the uncertain light Wong Lee looked doubtfully at the stranger. The man's head was bound up in filthy cloths that concealed all but a strip showing nose and cheek-bones. The brow bandage came so low as to hide the eyes.
"What is thy sickness?" asked Wong Lee. "And where is thy money?"
"It is not catching. Lo, I have been suffering long from decayed teeth and the night air brings on the pain, so I journey to Peking to seek a doctor. Here is half of what I possess."
Out of the waistcloth in which his automatic was tucked away handily, McNeill produced some copper cash and two small pieces of gold. He held these out on a palm blackened with dirt. Wong Lee swept all of it into his own paw.
"Get aboard," he said magnanimously. "I will send thee to a cousin of mine who is a mighty doctor in Peking. Pole, pole swiftly, ye doghearts, the tide runs."
As the cargo boat shot out into the stream, McNeill, glancing back, saw torches suddenly break out in the village and heard the racket of voices that betokened the sudden arrival of some cavalcade. Some one ran down toward the river-landing swinging a flare and shouted, but Wong Lee, with an oath, took no notice and the craft shot swiftly down the broad stream. None but the boatmen had seen McNeill and that at the last moment. If the new arrivals were the priests of the Hoang-Lung they had no reason to suspect the entirely regular departure of Wong Lee. There came a bend in the stream and the shouts and lights died out, and McNeill cuddled down on some mats in the cabin, groaning a little from time to time about the decayed teeth that he was forced to protect against the night air.