Mortmain Part 12

"No," said Newbegin, "that would not be right."

"No," repeated the wife, "she had better go back."

"I will not go back," cried the girl, "unless you go, too! This is my home. Your work is my work. I cannot leave Om and Su and their babies."

"Good G.o.d!" muttered the boy hopelessly. "Don't you see you _must_ come?

You _can't_ stay here to be murdered by the rioters! I can't _let_ you!

On the other hand, I can only stay here an hour or two at the most. The _Dirigo_ is almost aground as it is and we shall have the dev--deuce of a time getting out of the lake."

"Well," said Newbegin calmly, "I have told you that we cannot accept your offer. We are very grateful, of course, but it's impossible. It would not do; no, it would not do. A missionary expects this kind of a thing. I wish Margaret would go, but what can I do, if she won't go? I can't make her go."

"I want to stay with you," said Margaret, taking his hand. "I will never leave you and Aunt Henrietta."

The boy swore roundly to himself. The crowd of Chinese had returned to the gate, and the air of the compound stank in his nostrils. He took out his watch.

"It's eleven o'clock," he said firmly. "At five I shall leave Chang-Yuan; till then you have to make up your minds. I will return in an hour or so."

Newbegin shook his head.

"Our answer will be the same. We are very grateful. I am sorry not to seem more hospitable. Have you seen the temple and the paG.o.da?"

"No," answered the boy. "I suppose I might as well do the town, now I'm here."

"I will show you the temple," said Margaret timidly. "They know me there, I nursed the child of the old priest. I will take you."

"Yes," said Newbegin, "they all like Margaret, and I seem to be unpopular now. Will you not take dinner with us?"

"Thank you," said the boy, "take dinner with _me_. Perhaps Mrs. Newbegin would like to see the gunboat, and I have some photographs of the new cruisers."

Margaret gazed beseechingly at her.

"Very well," said Newbegin, "if you will stop for us on your way back from the temple we shall be quite ready, but I must return at once after dinner in order to a.s.semble the members of the mission."

The girl led the way to the gate.

"I'm sure you will not need the soldiers," she said; "it is but a short distance." The crowd, observing that the bluejackets had remained inside the compound, crowded close at the boy's heels as they threaded the streets to the temple.

"I spend a good deal of time here," said the girl; "sometimes it is the only cool place."

The boy paid the small charge for admission and followed his guide up the dim, winding stairs. It was dank and quiet; the priest had remained at the gate. From the blue-green shadows of the recesses upon the landings a score of Buddhas stared at them with sightless eyes. Suddenly they emerged into the clear air upon the platform of the top story and the girl spoke for the first time since they had entered.

"There is Chang-Yuan," she said.

The boy gazed down curiously. Below them blazed thousands of highly finished roofs, picturesque enough from this height, while beyond the town the soup-colored waters of the lake stretched limitless to the horizon. He could see the embankment and the little _Dirigo_ at anchor, the _sampans_ still swarming around it. To the south lay a country of swamps and of paddy fields; to the north the line of hills and the smoke of the burning towns.

They sat down on a stone bench and gazed together at the uninviting prospect. He was beset with curiosity to ask her a thousand questions about herself, yet he did not know how to begin. She solved the problem for him, however.

"I have lived here since I was eight years old," she remarked, apparently being unable to think of anything else to say.

The boy whistled between his teeth.

"Do you enjoy it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied, "I don't know anything else. Sometimes it seems dull and one has to work very hard, but I think I like it."

"But what do you do," he inquired, "to amuse yourself?"

"I read," she said, "and play with Om and Su. I have taught them some American games. Do you know parchesi and the Mansion of Happiness?"

"Yes, I've played them," he admitted cautiously. "But do you never see any white people except your uncle and aunt?"

"Why, no," she said. "Two summers ago, after the cholera, we visited Dr.

Ferguson at Chang-Wing--that is over there. He is a medical missionary, but I did not like him because he asked me to marry him. He was sixty years old. Do you think it was right?"

"Right!" cried the boy. "It was a wicked sin."

"Well, he is the only white man I have met except you," said the girl.

"Of course, I can remember a little playing with boys and girls a long, long time ago. Where is your s.h.i.+p?"

"That little white one down there. Can you see?" said the boy, pointing.

"Oh, is that it?" she asked. "Where are its sails?"

"There aren't any," he answered; "it goes by steam."

"I have read the 'Voyage of the Sunbeam,'" she said, "it is a beautiful book. It came out last year in a box. I have nearly twenty books in all."

The boy bit his lips. He was getting angry--angry that an American girl should have been imprisoned in such a hole all her young life--such a girl, too! What right had an elderly man and woman, even though they enjoyed the privilege of consanguinity, to exile a beautiful child from her native country and bring her up for the glory of G.o.d in a stewing, stinking, cholera-infested, famine-ridden Chinese village?

"It is strange to find you here," he said finally. "I expected only some freckle-faced, jimmy-jawed, psalm-singing woman, who would tumble all over herself to get away."

She looked at him puzzled for a moment and then burst into a ripple of laughter.

"What funny things you say!" she cried. "I suppose it is strange to find me here, but why should I have freckles or a--what did you call it--a jimmy-jaw? I do sing psalms. But my being here is no stranger than that you should be here. I have often wished some young man would come. You are the first I have known. I am tired of only women."

For a moment he was almost shocked at the open implication, but her frank eyes and matter-of-fact tone told him that the girl could not flirt. It was out of her sphere of existence.

"Would you like to get married?" he hazarded.

"Oh, yes!" she cried. "To a young man!"

"But suppose you had to go away?"

She looked a little puzzled for a moment.

"Of course, I should not like to leave Om and Su, and I wouldn't leave uncle and aunt, but sometimes--sometimes I have wondered if one couldn't serve G.o.d in a pleasanter place and do just as much good."

"Are there any men converts?" he asked.