Sons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I can do it.”

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

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

  “Try me, my captain!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “What have you done to your thigh?”

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

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

  “I hope the Leopard did not claw it!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “The little monkey—the little pocked devil!”

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

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

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