The Yellow Snake (23 page)

    Spedwell dined with him at his hotel, and did his best to gloss over the coming ordeal. This thin-faced man with his shifty dark eyes was glib enough, but he could not wholly assuage the sensation of disgust which the thought of the ceremony aroused in Stephen Narth's mind. His was not a delicate gorge by any means, but he had behind him an ancestry with high traditions; and the more he thought of his position, when he allowed himself to think at all, the more he hated the thought of the work of that day and the night which was to follow.

    "There's nothing to be squeamish about," said Spedwell at last, as he lit a long black cheroot. "If anybody has a kick, it's me. You seem to forget, Narth, that I have commanded native infantry, and Indian infantry at that. Men of caste and refinement, men with European standards. You don't imagine that I like associating with the refuse of Asia, do you?"

    "You're different," snapped Stephen. "You're a soldier of fortune and you can adapt yourself to circumstances. What have they done with Joan?" he asked fretfully.

    "She's all right; she's being well taken care of. You needn't worry about her," said Spedwell easily. "I wouldn't allow anything to happen to the girl, you can be sure."

    They were dining in Stephen's private suite, and the hour that followed passed all too quickly for the troubled man. It was near midnight when they went out into Piccadilly together. Spedwell's car was waiting and reluctantly Stephen entered. All the way to South London he was plying the other with questions. What was Fing-Su's plan? Why were they anxious to enlist him? What would he be expected to do? ...

    Spedwell answered him with great patience, but was obviously relieved when the car turned into a side thoroughfare near the canal bridge in the Old Kent Road.

    "Here we are," he said, and they got down.

    They had to walk for five minutes before they came to the narrow opening of a lane which ran by the side of a high brick wall. The only light they had came from a street lamp planted squarely in the entrance of the lane. The lamp served the double purpose of preventing the ingress of wheeled traffic and forming an inadequate illumination for the long and muddy thoroughfare. The rain was pelting down, and Stephen Narth pulled up the collar of his coat with a grunt.

    "What is this place?" he asked querulously.

    "Our factory—at least, our warehouse," replied Spedwell.

    He stopped before a door and, stooping, inserted a key and opened it.

    Narth was full of trivial complaints.

    "Was it necessary I should come in evening dress?" he asked.

    "Very necessary," said the other. "Let me take your arm."

    So far as the initiate could see by the light which came from his conductor's lamp, he was being taken to a small shed built against the wall. It proved to be a bare apartment equipped with two old Windsor chairs.

    "It's dry, at any rate," said Spedwell as he switched on the light. "I shall have to leave you here; I must go along and tell Fing-Su you've come."

    Left alone, Narth occupied himself by pacing up and down the tiny chamber. He wondered if Leggat would be there, and whether the initiation would prove too grotesque for him to go through with. Presently he heard the key in the lock and Spedwell came in.

    "You can leave your coat here," he said. "There's only a little distance to walk."

    Mr Narth had arrayed himself, according to instructions, in a long-tailed evening coat and white tie, and now, at Spedwell's request, he took from his pocket a pair of white kid gloves and pulled them on.

    "Now!" said Spedwell, put out the light and led the way from the hut.

    They were on a gravelled path which ended with a flight of stairs which seemed to lead down into the ground. At the top of these stood two statuesque figures, and as they came near one challenged in a tongue which was unfamiliar to the novitiate.

    Spedwell lowered his voice and hissed something. With the other's hand on his arm, Narth descended the stairs and came to a second door, and again was challenged in the same language. Again Spedwell answered, and somebody rapped on a door. It was opened cautiously, there was a whispered interrogation, and then Spedwell's hand gripped the other's arm and he was led into a long, fantastically decorated hall. Was it imagination on his part, or did Spedwell's hand tremble?

    He stood looking down a long vista, and for a second he was inclined to laugh hysterically. Squatting on either side of this oblong apartment were line after line of Chinamen, and each man was in a shabby, ill-fitting evening dress. The white shirts were the veriest shams; he saw the end of one shirt-front sticking out, and round its edge he saw the curve of a brown body. On each shirt-front were two blazing stones. He had no need to be associated with the theatrical profession to realize that they were 'property' diamonds. Solemnly, awfully, they stared at him, these quaint apparitions in their shoddy social livery.

    He gazed open-mouthed from one side to the other. They all wore white bows, comically tied. Each man had white cotton gloves which rested on his knees. He had seen something like it before...that was the first impression Stephen Narth received. And then he recalled...a coloured minstrel troupe sitting solemnly in exactly that attitude...white gloves on knees. Only these men were yellow.

    In four great blue vases joss-sticks were burning. The room was blue with their fumes.

    And now he let his eyes stray along the centre aisle to the white altar, and, behind it, enthroned, Fing-Su himself. Over his evening dress—and no doubt his diamonds were real—he wore a robe of red silk. On his head was an immense gold crown which sparkled with precious stones. One white-gloved hand held a golden rod, the other a glittering orb that flashed in the light of the shaded candelabra. Suddenly his voice broke the silence:

    "Who is this who comes to speak with the Joyful Hands?"

    Narth became conscious of the golden hands suspended above Fing-Su's head, but before he could take them in, Spedwell replied:

    "O Son of Heaven, live for ever! This is one, thy meanest slave, who comes to worship at thy throne!"

    Instantly at these words, as though they were watching some invisible choirmaster who led their chorus, the yellow men chanted something in chorus.

    They stopped as abruptly as they had begun.

    "Let him come near," said Fing-Su.

    Spedwell had disappeared; probably he was behind him. Narth did not dare turn his head to look. Two of these slovenly fellows in evening dress conducted him slowly along the hall. In a dim way he realized that the man on his right was wearing a pair of trousers that were three inches too short for him. But there was nothing comical in this. He was too oppressed with a sense of terror, a premonition of a horror yet unimagined, to find food for laughter in any of the incongruities which met his eyes on either side.

    And then he saw the altar with its glittering edge, and the shrouded figure of a man lying upon it, covered by a white sheet. He looked at it numbly; saw a great red heart pinned to the sheet...He was trying hard to think sanely, his wide-staring eyes fixed upon the shape and the red heart...On the hem of the shroud was a sprawling Chinese character in scarlet.

    "It's symbolical...only a wax figure," hissed a voice in his ear.

    So Spedwell was there. He received an accession of courage from this knowledge.

    "Say after me"—Fing-Su's deep, solemn voice filled the room with sounds—"I will be faithful to the Joyful Hands..."

    Like a man in a dream, Narth repeated the words.

    "I will strike to the heart all its enemies."

    He repeated the words. Where was Leggat? He expected to find Leggat here. His eyes roved round the visible arc, but there was no sign of that stout, jovial man.

    "By this sign"—Fing-Su was speaking—"do I give proof of my loyalty, my faith and my brotherhood..."

    Somebody slipped a thing into his hand. It was a long, straight knife, razor-keen.

    "Hold it above the figure," said a voice in his ear, and mechanically Stephen Narth obeyed as he repeated, without realizing what the words meant, the oath that the man on the dais prescribed.

    "So let all the enemies of the Emperor die!" said Fing-Su.

    "Strike at the heart!" whispered Spedwell's voice, and with all his strength Stephen Narth struck down.

    Something yielded under the knife; he felt a quiver. And then the white sheet went suddenly red. With a scream he clawed at the cloth where the head was and drew it back...

    "Oh, my God!" he shrieked.

    He was looking into the dead face of Ferdinand Leggat!

    He had killed Leggat! With his hands he, who would not have slain a rabbit, had struck this man to his death! The red on the cloth was widening; his hands were dabbled with the horrible fluid, and he turned with an insane yell to grapple with the devil who had whispered the words in his ear.

    Spedwell, his face distorted with horror, put out his hand to save himself, but the bloody hands gripped his throat and flung him down. And then something struck Narth and he tumbled over, first to his knees and then upon the tessellated pavement, a demented, screaming madman...

* * * * *

    The serried ranks of yellow men sat watching without movement, their shoddy diamonds glittering in their shirt-fronts, their white hands on their knees.

    An hour later Major Spedwell came into the apartment which was reserved for Fing-Su on his infrequent visits to the factory, and the Chinaman looked up over his book and flicked the ash of his cigarette into a silver tray.

    "Well?" he asked. "How is our squeamish friend?"

    Spedwell shook his head. He himself looked ten years older. His linen still bore the impress of a red hand.

    "Mad," he said laconically. "I think he's lost his reason."

    Fing-Su leaned back in his padded chair with a tut-tut of impatience.

    "That I did not bargain for," he said, in tones of gentle annoyance. "Who would have imagined that a full-grown man could have made such an exhibition of himself? Why, the fellow is a rank coward and outsider!"

    Spedwell did not reply. Perhaps he was wondering whether there would come a day when, for motives of expediency, he might himself lie drugged upon the marble altar whilst some initiate thrust down the fatal knife.

    "The idea was ingenious and should have had a better ending," said Fing-Su. "Leggat was a coward and a traitor, and deserved his death. Possibly our friend Narth will take a different view when he recovers, and realizes that he has so committed himself."

    Spedwell was eyeing him steadily.

    "You told me that the sacrifice was to be a Yun Nan man—the fellow who fell into the hands of Lynne. I hated the idea, but like a brute I agreed. God! When I saw Leggat's face!"

    He wiped his streaming brow; his breath came more quickly.

    Fing-Su said nothing, but waited.

    "How did you get Leggat?" asked Spedwell at last.

    "He just came. We gave him a drink—he knew nothing," said Fing-Su casually. "He had betrayed us—you know that. He's dead and there's an end of him. As to Narth, his life is in our hands.".

    Spedwell, who had dropped into a chair, looked up.

    "He will have to be really mad to believe that," he said. "As I told you before, Fing-Su, our lives are in his hands, not his in ours."

    Fing-Su carefully scooped out the end of his cigarette, inserted another in the ebony holder and lit it before he answered.

    "Where have you put him?"

    "In the stone hut. He won't shout any more; I've given him a shot of morphia. There's only one thing to do, Fing-Su, and that is to get this man out of the country as quickly as you can. The
Umveli
leaves tonight; put him on board——"

    "With the girl?"

    Spedwell's eyes narrowed.

    "What do you mean, 'with the girl'?" he asked. "You're keeping her in London until Cliff Lynne gives you the share you want."

    The Chinaman puffed thoughtfully, his low forehead creased in thought.

    "That was the original idea," he admitted. "But so many things have happened in the past few hours...I am inclined to change my plans. We could get her to the Chinese coast and up one of the rivers without attracting any attention." He sent a cloud of smoke to the ceiling and watched it dissolve. "She's rather delicious," he said.

    Major Spedwell rose, walked deliberately to the table and stood, his palms resting on its surface.

    "She'll stay in England, Fing-Su," he said, slowly and emphatically, and for a second their eyes met, and then the Chinaman smiled.

    "My dear Major Spedwell," he said, "there can only be one master in any such organization as this, and that master, I beg to emphasize, is myself. If it is my wish that she should stay in England, she stays; if I desire that she should go to the coast, she goes, Is that understood?"

    So quickly did Spedwell's hand move, that Fing-Su saw nothing but a blur of moving pink. In that fraction of a second something had appeared in Spedwell's hand. It lay flat on the table, its black muzzle pointing to Fing-Su's white waistcoat.

    "She stays," said Spedwell tensely.

    The Chinaman's face was creased and puckered for a moment with a fear which the white man had never seen before. Presently he recovered himself and forced a smile.

    "As you wish, she may stay. There is nothing to be gained by quarrelling," he said. "Where is she now? In the factory? Go and get her."