A A CHINESE PRISON. [From "By Proxy." By JAMES PAYN.] MORE willing mind to save his friend than that of Arthur Conway, or a more loyal heart, did not exist in any man; but, if their circumstances had been reversed, it is no discredit to him to say, that Pennicuick would have been the better man to conduct the matter now in hand. With the fellow-creatures he had to deal with-which means, as it too often does at home, to contend against-three things were above all things necessary: audacity, unscrupulousness, and a profound belief in the vileness of human nature. In all three of these qualities Conway was wanting He was brave, and had once been reckless enough, but he had lost much of his "go" and vigour; though his morality was by no means of a milk-and-water type, he was a man of honour; and he entertained the erroneous idea that there was some sort of good in almost every man. Matters were therefore against him as a plenipotentiary about to transact business with Chinese officials; but, on the other hand, he felt that he had a personal well-wisher in Fu-chow. True, this man had betrayed his friend, and was indeed the immediate cause of his misfortune; but this was no reason why he should not make use of him to mitigate the mischief he himself had wrought. He had had his revenge, and might now prove susceptible of other passions. If help lay anywhere, it was to be obtained, Conway thought, through this man's agency; and it was to himthe last man in the world that Pennicuick would have looked to-that his thoughts turned upon leaving his unhappy friend. At the cell door he found the chief gaoler; a sycophantic smile sat on his evil face, the consequence probably of some recent private conversation with Kushan, and he rubbed his huge hands softly together to express conciliation. "My friend has been ill-treated," said Conway, coldly. "They have stretched him a bit, honourable sir, but he will come round with a little hog's lard, which shall be applied immediately. In the meantime, can I oblige you in any way?" "Yes, in many ways; and you will find it to your advantage-much to your advantage-so to do. In the first place, I must see Fu-chow, the prosecutor in this case, and immediately." 66 Good; there is a small fee There was no doubt that this gentleman understood. The characteristics of the wolf which had heretofore distinguished him disappeared from his cruel face at once, and were replaced by those of the fox; he looked keen, but in high good humour, like Reynard when he has a fat turkey slung on his shoulder, and is trotting homewards with the best of appetites. "There is nothing which is more agreeable to my feelings," he said, "than to see everything run smooth with honourable persons in my establishment; when things run otherwise, there is no one to blame but themselves. Mistakes," added he, with a sudden recollection of his treatment of Pennicuick, "will sometimes occur in the inferior departments, for the master's eye cannot be everywhere; but that is only to say we are human." It is one of the small aggravations of Chinese misrule that almost all officials of any rank are "literates;" they have gained their position by "cram" of the philosophic kind, which gives their conversation a touch of the Tartuffe or the Joseph Surface. To hear this half-naked villain excusing himself on the ground of humanity would have been grotesque if it had not been so outrageous. He placed a whistle to his lips, and blew a long shrill call, which produced the under gaoler, a facsimile of himself, except that he was of a slightly more brutal type, and had less clothes on; he wore nothing, in fact, but a pair of linen drawers reaching to his middle. "Sheer Singh, take this honourable person to see the commander, Fu-chow." The answer was delivered so rapidly that Conway could not catch it. The chief gaoler broke out into a grim smile. "Sheer Singh thinks the commander had better come to you unless you are in a great hurry." "I have no time to lose," observed Conway. The chief gaoler nodded, and walked away: but Sheer Singh, with a great key in his hand, stood with his face turned heavenward in serene abstraction. Conway knew by this time what was meant by this contemplative attitude, and at once produced some pieces of silver, which the other seized on greedily and transferred to his mouth, where they stuck out on one side like a nut in the cheek of a monkey. It was plain by the look of gratified greed in his small eyes that it was a bigger nut "You shall be paid in a lump sum for every- than he had expected, and Conway improved the occasion by telling him that he should have as warning him to stoop his head, made signs that much again if his conduct gave satisfaction. The next moment the gate in the grating was unlocked and he was ushered into the prison yard. This was full of people, all sitting or lying on the bare earth in various stages of despondency. Not one was either walking or standing, for this was the "poor" ward, every inmate of which had been "squeezed," and squeezed in vain, until they had very literally no leg to stand upon. Some had suffered, as Pennicuick had done, from "the frame of the flowering eyebrow," so called from its resemblance to a bird of that name, which in captivity is tied by a short string to its perch, to and from which it continually flies and returns; others had "grasped the peach," a cant term applied to suspension by the armpit ; and others had "stood in cage," a place just high enough to stand in with no support save from a slab under the chin, and the tips of the toes. These wretched creatures, bruised and nerveless as they were, gazed with interest at the barbarian stranger, and broke into a low droning chatter as the two passed by. Conway understood now the hesitation of his companion to admit him, for tortures of this kind, though always practised upon prisoners who cannot pay their footing, are, in fact, illegal. The chief gaoler, on the other hand, did not hold himself responsible for these outrages, though he benefited by them, and perhaps was not displeased that the Englishman should have the opportunity of seeing with his own eyes how unpleasant things might be made for his friend, unless good reasons were advanced for a more tonic treatment. To Conway, as we know, the existence of these horrors was not unknown; but from that very circumstance, since he understood them, or their consequences, at a glance, they filled him with the greater loathing. To leave not a stone standing of such a den of torment, and to sow the spot with gunpowder, became an appreciable aspiration, as he looked shudderingly around him; but the general wretchedness it was out of his power to assuage, and he felt that he should be fortunate indeed if even the particular object with which he had come to that hateful place could be attained. "It was necessary to bring you here," explained his guide, guessing his thoughts, or some of them, from the expression of his countenance, "because your business did not, it seems, admit of delay : and to bring the commander into your honourable presence would have taken time, since he has been put to bed." "Put to bed? why, it is still early morning." "Yes," grinned the other, "but Fu-chow was tired." They had reached a cell door at the end of the yard, which his companion now unlatched, and, he should enter. Conway did so, and found himself in a similar apartment-except that it was sunk a little lower, and therefore received still less light-to that in which he had just left his friend. An earthenware oil lamp which stood on the floor dispelled the dusk of the cell, and showed a bed apparently similar to that occupied by Pennicuick. Its occupant, who was undoubtedly Fu-chow, was lying on his back stiff and rigid as a corpse; nor did the entrance of his two visitors cause him to move a muscle, or breathe a word. "We give this gentleman a lamp, you see," explained Sheer Singh, with the air of a man apologising for a luxury, "because he informs us he is highly connected. His father, so he says, is a mandarin, and personally acquainted with his Excellency Twang-hi; and though we have no proof of this we are willing to take his honourable word. He gives us also to understand that his fees will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, as we have not seen the colour of his money, he is detained here-in rather close custody-until his friends can be communicated with." "And yet he is not accused of any crime," observed Conway. "Certainly not," answered the other coolly. "He has no right here, as you say, at all; and therefore it is all the more necessary that he should pay for his lodging. At present he is quite comfortable, but in an hour or two he will feel the desirability of a change of posture, and begin to wish his friends would discharge his debts." By this time Conway perceived that the unfortunate "commander," as Fu-chow was called, or called himself, was by no means lying at his ease. He was stretched on a level slab of wood through which little boards came up at right angles which confined his neck, wrists, and ankles. Thus pegged down-for they fitted very closely-he was of course unable to move a hair's-breadth, and became conscious of Conway's presence only when he had reached his bed and stood immediately beside him. "I am sorry to see you in so ill a plight, Fuchow," observed he, gravely, "though indeed you have deserved little pity at my hands." "You catch your fish, and throw away the net," said the prisoner, speaking slowly and with difficulty. "If you mean I have been ungrateful," returned Conway, "what shall be said of you, who have eaten your master's bread and have betrayed him? "He and I are now quits," resumed the other, sullenly; "but as for you, why are you free to come and go? Why are you not lying here, as I am, or being squeezed as he is? Would it not have been as easy to witness against both of you, as against one? Yet for my daughter's sake, and because you were kind to me, I remembered you for good when I remembered him for evil." "Well, so far as I am concerned, Fu-chow, I am obliged to you, and I hope to show it. And as for Mr. Pennicuick, since you say that you are quits with him, there is no need for further bitterness on either side. From henceforth let us help one another. What is the sum in which you are indebted to this man for fees?" "Two taels of silver," interposed the gaoler, laconically. Then seeing Conway putting his hand into his pocket, he added hastily, "and half a tael for the extra accommodation." offended by Pennicuick, but it was plain that it had been outraged infinitely more by his treatment at the hand of his fellow-countryman. "Look you, because I am poor," he continued, wetting his dry lips with his tongue, in a manner very suggestive of a serpent's flicker, "they have dared to treat me in this manner. They do not understand that, though my father has been discontented with my conduct, he has not disowned me. They do not believe a man who wears the three-eyed feather can have a son who is poor." "It is no longer necessary for him to be poor, if he will only be obliging," observed Conway, with significance. "I know one who will give five "Oh, for the bed! I see. Well, here's the thousand taels of silver for an act of good service, money; so unloose him." A few strokes of the huge key knocked out the wedges that confined Fu-chow to his pillowless couch; but though free, it was by no means an easy matter for him to rise. Even that hour or so of excessive constraint had stiffened every joint, and planted an ache in every bone. Yet, but for Conway's interference, he would have been doomed to lie upon that bare board, already become a rack of agony, for days and nights. "Perhaps, my friend, as I wish to have some private talk with Fu-chow," observed Conway to the gaoler, "you will leave us alone together." "It is not usual to grant such an indulgence," answered Sheer Singh, with a doubtful air; but the next moment he had left the cell, with a similar swelling in his left cheek to that which had interfered with the lines of beauty in his right. Conway had learnt by this time the one efficacious treatment for all Chinese scruples. "Well, Fu-chow, you feel better now?" “Yes, I feel better; but yonder fellow," pointing to the door which had just closed upon the gaoler, "will presently feel much worse. All the time I was lying there, I have been thinking of what will fit him best; and it shall be the shirt." "The shirt!" exclaimed Conway, wondering that the man should think of clothing his enemy, though indeed he stood much in need of garments. "Yes, the wire shirt; it fits quite closely, you see you pull it, and the skin comes through, and then a razor is run over the outside. That shall be Sheer Singh's suit, when my father, the mandarin, comes to hear of what has been done to his son." "" The expression of Fu-chow's face was absolutely fiendish in its fury; his words, too, were all the more malignant from the tardy and unctuous tone in which they were delivered. Above all, he had an air of insulted nobility beneath which Conway hardly recognised the prompt attendant, who had served him on board the boat, and showed no sign of pride save in his fancied proficiency in the English tongue. His sense of dignity had been and yet not think he has paid too much for it." "Five thousand taels!" repeated Fu-chow, slowly. "That tastes very nice.” "Yes, and you shall have it in your own mouth, Fu-chow, like that scoundrel yonder, if you will accomplish what I am about to ask of you." "I will do anything for you that lies in my power," answered Fu-chow, simply, "and that chop-chop, even without the five thousand taels." A childish smile had replaced the scowl upon. his pasty face, and Conway felt that he could believe him. "Well, my friend's interests are my interests. just now, Fu-chow, and in advancing them you will be obliging me." Fu-chow shook his head; the sentiment was too subtle for him; and as for its practical application, that was altogether outside his experience. Conway was compelled to put the case in a more material form. "If I were in my friend's position, you would do your best for me, would you not? Well; do it for him instead of me, and while he pays you with money, I will pay you with thanks from my very heart." Conway laid his hands upon that organ. If Pennicuick had been by, he would have said, "There is nothing like pantomime for your savages ;" and, indeed, gesture helped out the halting words. "Good master," said the Chinaman, but without a touch of softness, "all this care of yours is labour in vain. The decree for 'Ling-chih' will come to-morrow or next day, as sure as the sun. Not I, nor my father (though he wears the three-eyed feather), nor Twang-hi, nor the lord of the province, no, nor the Emperor, the Son of Heaven himself, could save this man, since he has committed sacrilege. Though, indeed," he added, dropping his voice, " money can do something." "That is what I want to come to," said Conway, eagerly. "What can it do, and how can it be applied?" first blow, and kill your friend at once; he will be put out of his misery on the instant, instead of being cut to pieces alive. If he had been a warrior, like yourself, his gall-bladder would have been afterwards sold for a charm, for it gives courage; but being what he is, why, that operation will be dispensed with." It was plain by the unctuous manner in which he lingered over these details, that Pennicuick's impending fate was even yet by no means dis In this country, I know, it is not difficult to buy it, if the temptation is great enough. In short" (and here Conway felt the colour rising in his cheek in spite of himself), "the proposition of my friend is, that he should purchase a substitute." "The punishment of 'Ling-chih' is no ordinary death," observed the Chinaman, immediately. "Nor would the bribe be an ordinary one," put in Conway; "the executioner would of course be fee'd in the manner you suggested. When I tressing to him to contemplate, and it was with difficulty that Conway could restrain his disgust. What pained him, however, still more, was the confidence with which Fu-chow spoke of the sentence being carried out, and of the impossibility of its being interfered with. He could not but remember that the mandarin Twang-hi had expressed himself to the same effect, and almost in the same words. As for the mitigation hinted at, the victim would have a better resource in the bottle of laudanum than in the humanity of the executioner. "My friend is as brave a man as ever drew breath, Fu-chow," said he gravely, "though he does not chance to wear a sword. But life is dearer to us Englishmen, than it is held in China. mentioned five thousand taels, that would be your reward alone for bringing this matter to a satisfactory issue. There would be more money forthcoming for other services." "It is an offer that makes one's mouth water," said Fu-chow, with a tender sigh. "But, unhappily, it can benefit nobody." "Do you mean to say that no substitute could be found? "Not at all; I could get you fifty for a few taels a head, without looking beyond these walls. But then they would be all Chinese. The execution must take place in public. Do you suppose that any fellow-countryman of mine could be made to look like an Englishman! Even if you could bribe everybody all round, from the lord of the province downwards, which in truth would not be impossible, you could not deceive 20,000 spectators. No one would run the risk of trying to do it. If there was an Englishman in gaol here, why, then everything could be managed nicely; even if he did not voluntarily consent to it, he could be gagged and 'Ling-chihed' in the place of your friend, and the public would be none the wiser. But as it is, the plan is valueless. By this time every worshipper in the temple has heard of the sacrilege that has been committed, and has resolved to witness its expiation. When one is in the oven, it is useless to kick; there is nothing left for your friend, I do assure you, but resignation. When all is over, Twang-hi will no doubt permit you to put up some memorial to him, which will be a comfort to his family.". Aloft the purple pennons wave, As, parting gay from Crinan's shore, From Morven's wars the seamen brave Their gallant chieftain homeward bore. In youth's gay bloom, the brave Macphail Still blamed the lingering barque's delay: For her he chid the flagging sail, The lovely maid of Colonsay. "And raise," he cried, "the song of love ""When on this ring of ruby red Now, lightly poised, the rising oar Disperses wide the foamy spray, And echoing far o'er Crinan's shore, Resounds the song of Colonsay. "Softly blow, thou western breeze, Softly rustle through the sail ! Soothe to rest the furrowy seas, Before my love, sweet western gale! "Where the wave is tinged with red, And the russet sea-leaves grow, Mariners with prudent dread Shun the shelving reefs below. "As you pass through Jura's sound, Bend your course by Scarba's shore; Shun, oh, shun, the gulf profound, Where Corrievreckin's surges roar! "Softly blow, thou western breeze, Softly rustle through the sail! Soothe to rest the furrowed seas, Before my love, sweet western gale !" Thus, all to soothe the chieftain's woe, Far from the maid he loved so dear, The song arose so soft and slow, He seemed her parting sigh to hear. The lonely deck he paces o'er, Impatient for the rising day, And still from Crinan's moonlit shore, He turns his eyes to Colonsay. The moonbeams crisp the curling surge, Their course, a female form was seen. That sea-maid's form of pearly light, Was whiter than the downy spray, And round her bosom, heaving bright, Her glossy yellow ringlets play. |