XVI
IN WHICH LEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON BY A JOSS, AND EXPERIENCES THE TERROROF A MAN WHO TOUCHES THE VEIL BEHIND WHICH THE IMMORTALS DWELL.
Of all the savage desires that riot in the hearts of men, the lust ofrevenge is probably the strongest. Civilization has done its best tocontrol and curb wild impulse; but as long as a cruel wrong rankles, ora fierce longing to square an old account remains, there will be handsthrust out to take the naked sword of the Lord into their own finitegrasp, and there will be men who will be content to pay the price sothat they may see the desire of their eyes.
The Oriental has above the white races an illimitable patience inawaiting his hour for retribution, for the heart of the East does notforget and can hold a purpose silently through the dust-blown, sunlityears, waiting for the dawn of the appointed day.
When Leh Shin set out towards the Joss House, he was repeating aprocedure that had become constant with him of late. He knew that a Josswas revengeful and terrible in matters of hate, therefore his prayerwould be understood in the strange region of power where the Great Onesdwelt. His religion was a mixture of the teachings of Buddha, Confucius,and Shinto, for long absence from his own country and constantassociation with the Burmese and Japanese had blended and confused theoriginal belief that he had learnt in far-away Canton. To this basis wasadded the grossest form of superstition, and the wildest fancies of abrain muddled with the fumes of opium, but the one thing clear to himwas, that a Joss, though an immortal being, was able to comprehendhatred.
The gods punished terribly, slaying with plague and pestilence,destroying life by flood and years of famine, and so Leh Shin knew thatthey were very like men, taking full advantage of their fearful powerand punishing the smallest neglect with the utmost rigour. He couldappeal to a great invisible cruel brain and demand assistance for hisown limited desire for revenge, knowing that it was an attribute ofthose whose help he sought, but he went in fear, with pricking nerves,because his belief was strong in the power of the monsters heworshipped.
The Joss House stood in a wide street near the river; a stone courtyardseparated it from the thoroughfare, and the building itself was raisedon a terrace, led up to by two shallow flights of steps. The roof was amarvel of sea-green mosaic, coiled over by dragons with flaming redtongues and staring glass eyes, each dragon a wonder of fretted fins andivory teeth and claws. Upon each of the three roofs was set reliefmosaic, of beautiful workmanship, representing houses and ships andbridges, with tiny men and women, and little trees, all as small as achild's plaything, but complete, proportioned and entire. Huge stonepillars covered with devils and crawling lizards supported the longportico that ran the full length of the building, and between eachpillar an immense paper lantern gleamed like a dim moon.
Leh Shin stood outside for a few moments and then plunged in, like a manwho is not sure of his nerve and cannot afford to wait too long lest hisdetermination to face what lay inside should fail him. On feast days theJoss House was a gay place, full of lights and people crowding in andout, and there was no room for fear, for even a Joss is not alarming incompany with many men, but when Leh Shin went in, the place wasdeserted, and it seemed to him that the unseen power was terribly nearin the darkness.
It was a vast, lofty building inside, supported by gold pillars andblack pillars, and in the centre near the door was a tank-shaped wellwhere pots of flowering plants and palms were set with no particular eyeto regularity or effect. As they shivered and rustled in the dark, theywere full of a suggestion of the fear that made Leh Shin's heart as coldas a stone in a deep pool. Raised on a jade plinth, a low round pillarstood directly in front of the rose-red curtains that were drawn acrossthe sanctuary space, and on the top of the pillar a bronze jar held onescented stick, that burned slowly, like a winking, drowsy eye, its slowspiral of incense creeping up into the air and losing itself in the higharches of the pointed roof. Between the pillar and the sanctuaryitself, was a small table covered with an embroidered shawl, worked inspangles that glittered and shone, and beneath the table were a numberof smooth stones.
Leh Shin locked his hands together and passed up the aisle, close towhere the palm trees rustled and stirred, and fear was upon him likethat of a hungry dog. He crossed a line of light cast by some candles,and it seemed to him that the curtains moved as he approached. The JossHouse was apparently empty, and yet it did not seem empty. Invisibleeyes watched behind the carved screens that shut out the priests' houseson either side, invisible ears might easily catch the lowest whisper ofhis prayer. Soundless impressions of moving things that had no shapehaunted his consciousness, and he started in panic as his own shadowfell before him when he stepped across the burning candles and slid intothe close alley between the table and the shrine.
He bent down suddenly and, feeling on the cold marble of the floor, tookup two of the stones and beat them together with the loud clapping noisewhich proclaimed a suppliant. Bowed in the close space, he repeated hisprayer the requisite number of times, and it seemed to Leh Shin that theJoss heard and accepted: the Joss who took visible shape in his mind,with a face half-human and half-bestial, and who capered with a drawnsword in his hand.
Over his head the heavy curtains swayed again, and the tittering noisefrom a nest of bats sounded like ghostly laughter. His prayer had drawnpower to his aid, out of the unknown place where the gods live, andloosed it in response to his cry. He was only Leh Shin, a poor Chinamanwho kept a miserable shop in the native quarter and an opium den downwhere the river water choked and gurgled at night, but he felt that hehad touched something in the terrible shadows, and once more he beat thestones together, his face pouring with sweat. As the noise echoed upagain, the last candle fell dying into a yellow pool of melted wax, andwent out with an expiring flicker; and Leh Shin beat his hands againstthe darkness that shut upon him like a wall. He sprang to his feet andran, and as he went wings seemed to bear down behind him. There wasterror alive in the Joss House, and before that terror he fled pantingand trembling, fearful that hands would close upon his black garmentsand drag him back, holding him until he went mad. As he made for thedoor he fancied he saw a shadowy form move in the gloom and clear hispath, and it added the last touch of panic to his mind.
He leaned against an outer pillar for support, and gradually the noiseof the street drew him back again to reality and to the solid facts oflife once more. He had been badly scared, for in some cases when nothingthat can be expressed in words takes place, an infinitely greater thing,that no words can express, has occurred mentally. To Leh Shin'sbewildered mind it was clear that he had actually felt a Joss breatheupon him, and that he had heard its footsteps follow him across themarble floor; the Joss who had shaken the curtains and extinguished thecandles.
Still bewildered, Leh Shin crossed the courtyard and sat down on thekerb; his head swam and he felt along his legs with shaking hands. Abelated fruit seller went by, and he bought a handful of dates, stuck ona small rod and looking like immense beetles, and as he ate hisconfidence in life gradually returned. The Joss was at a safe distancein his house and there was the street to give courage to his heart; thestreet where men walked safe and secure, and where a worse fear than thefear of death did not prowl secretly.
After a little while, he got up from the stifling dust and walked slowlyon. The streets flared with lights and the gold letters painted large onsignboards in huge Chinese characters shone out, making a brave show.There were open restaurants where he could have gone in, and there werehouses of entertainment, hung with paper lanterns, that invited passerswith a sound of music, but Leh Shin continued his mechanical walk,having another purpose in his mind.
He turned out of the lighted glare of the shops and struck along a backalley, where one street lamp gave the sole illumination, and stopping ata low, arched door cut deep in a wall, he knocked and was admitted.Inside the entrance was another door heavily clamped with iron, whichgave admission down a long, narrow passage to a room beyond. It was asmall room, not unlike a prison, with h
eavy iron bars against thecorridors, and it was quite bare of furniture except for two dealtables, around which a crowd of men stood playing for money withimpassive faces and greedy, grasping hands. There was no mixture of raceamong the men who gambled; they were all Chinese, most of them clad inindigo-blue trousers and tight vests, though some of them wore whiteshirts and rakish straw hats. The young men had close-clipped hair andlooked like clever bull-terriers, but the older men wore long pigtailswound round their heads in black, rope-like coils. The noise of dominoesthrown out by the man who held the bank and the rattle of dice werealmost the only sounds in the room.
Under one table there was a small shrine, where a diminutive Josspresided over the fortunes of Chance, but Leh Shin did not go to it aswas his usual habit before he began to play. He even eyed it uneasilyand kept at the further end of the room.
He played with varying success for an hour, for two hours, and the thirdhour was running out before he shuffled off down the close passage, hisscanty winnings tied in the corner of a rag stuffed into his belt, andwas let out through the heavily barred doors into the street. Thealley-way was deserted, and Leh Shin went down the kennel into the openplace with the walk of a man who has something definite to do. A beggar,who had been sitting huddled under the wall of a house opposite, cranedhis neck out of the shadows, and followed him quickly.
Leh Shin had passed this last hour deliberately, so as to bring himselfto some appointed place neither earlier nor later than he desired toget there, and Coryndon woke to the excitement of the chase again as hefollowed along the Colonnade. It was easy to walk quickly under the roofthat ran from the entrance down to the turn that led into ParadiseStreet, and Leh Shin did not even pause as he passed his own doorway butmade on rapidly until he came out at the far end. The hour was verylate, and the street silent. A drop in the temperature had driven thesleepers who usually preferred the open to the closeness of walls,within, and the whole double row of houses slept with gaping windows andopen doors.
Mhtoon Pah's curio shop was entirely closed. Every window had outershutters fastened, and no gleam of light showed anywhere, up or down thehigh narrow front. When Leh Shin stopped in front of the doorway thebeggar sat down opposite to him a little further down the street, hishead bowed on his bosom. He watched Leh Shin prowl carefully round andclimb with monkey-like agility from the rails to the window-ledge, wherehe peered in through the shutters, raising a broken lath to see into theinterior.
Coryndon watched him with intent interest. The night was moonless, heknew that if a match were struck in the interior of the shop it wouldshine through the raised lath, and it was for that sight that his eyesstrained and ached with intense concentration. The patience of theChinaman made Coryndon feel that he was watching for something definiteto happen, and at length a yellow bar cut suddenly across the dark.Coryndon's heart beat so loud that he feared its sound might be heardacross the narrow street, and he gripped his hands together. The curioshop was no longer dark, for someone had come in with a lamp; Coryndoncrept forward, his eyes on the Chinaman, who had slipped back on to theground and had raced up the steps, beating against the door violently.
"Come out, father of lies, come out and speak with me. I have news ofthy Absalom."
The beggar was at the foot of the steps now, close beside the dancingimage, who smiled and called his attention to the rigid figure of LehShin.
"So thou hast news for me, unclean one? Of this shall the police hearfull knowledge two hours after dawn. Where hast thou hidden the body ofthe boy who was the light of mine eyes, who was ever eager and honest inbusiness?"
"Thou knowest, traitor," said the Chinaman, his voice hoarse withpassion, "what is dark unto others is clear unto me. Have I not the taleof thy years written in the book of my mind?"
For a moment there was dead silence, and then a voice full of smoothmalice and cruelty made answer to Leh Shin.
"Get thee to thy bed, fool."
"I wait," Leh Shin's voice cracked and trembled, "and when the hour thatis already written for thy destruction comes like the night-bat, it is_I_ who shall proclaim it to thee; thus I have demanded, and thus itshall fall out."
"O fruitful boaster, O friend of many years, thy words cause me greatmirth. Get thee to thy kennel, lest I do indeed come forth and twist thyvulture's neck."
A laugh of scorn was the only response to Mhtoon Pah's threat, and theChinaman turned and came down the steps.
"Alms, alms," whined a sleepy voice. "The poor are the children of theHoly One. I am blind and I know not the faces of men. Alms, alms, thatthy merit may be written in the book."
"Ask of him that is in that house," said Leh Shin, pointing to the curioshop. "Strike him with thy pestilence that his fatness fall from him andhis bones melt, and I will give thee golden rewards."
The secret passion of the words was so intense that the beggar wassilenced, and Leh Shin passed on. He went from Paradise Street to asmall burrow near the Colonnade, and turned into a mean house where thepaper lantern still burned in token that the owners were awake. It wasquite clean inside, and divided into large cubicles. In each cubicle wasa table, covered with oilcloth, at the head of which was placed a redlacquer pillow and a little glass lamp that gave the only light neededin the long, low room. On the tables lay Burmen and Chinamen, some rigidin drugged sleep, and some smoking immense pipes with small, cup-likereceptacles that held the opium. The proprietor was alert and wakeful ashe flitted about, an American cigarette between his lips, in thisstrange garden of sleep.
"I am weary," said Leh Shin. "Let me rest here."
"It is great honour," replied the small, wizened old man, with thelaugh. "What of thine own house by the river?"
"My limbs fail me. To-night my assistant supplies the needs of those whoask, for I had a business."
"And I trust thy business hath prospered with thee?"
Leh Shin stretched himself out on a table near the door.
"I await the hour of prosperity,"--he twisted a needle in the brown massthat was offered to him and held it over the lamp. "Evil are the days ofa life whilst an old grudge burns like hot charcoal in the heart."
"It is even so," agreed the proprietor, and he hurried away from thenoose of talk that Leh Shin would have cast around him.
The beggar, having followed Leh Shin as far as the opium den, returnedalong the Colonnade and knocked at the door of the house where Shirazwaited anxiously for his master.
"Is my bath prepared, Shiraz? I must wash before I sleep, and I shallsleep late."
Coryndon was weary. No one who has not watched through hours of strainand suspense knows the utter weariness of mind and body that followsupon the long effort of close attention, and he fell upon his bed in ahuddled heap and slept for hour after hour, worn out in brain and body.