Jules Verne (29 page)

The Chinese town forms, a rectangular parallelogram, divided north and
south by the Grand Avenue leading from the Houn Ting gate to the Tien
gate, and crossed east and west by the Avenue Cha-Coua, which runs from
the gate of that name to the Cpuan-Tsa gate. With this indication
nothing could be easier than to find the dwelling of Mademoiselle Zinca
Klork, but nothing more difficult to reach, considering the block in
the roads in this outer ring.

A little before twelve I arrived at my destination. My vehicle had
stopped before a house of modest appearance, occupied by artisans as
lodgings, and as the signboard said more particularly by strangers.

It was on the first floor, the window of which opened on to the avenue,
that the young Roumanian lived, and where, having learned her trade as
a milliner in Paris, she was engaged in it at Pekin.

I go up to the first floor. I read the name of Madame Zinca Klork on a
door. I knock. The door is opened.

I am in the presence of a young lady who is perfectly charming, as
Kinko said. She is a blonde of from twenty-two to twenty-three years
old, with the black eyes of the Roumanian type, an agreeable figure, a
pleasant, smiling face. In fact, has she not been informed that the
Grand Transasiatic train has been in the station ever since last
evening, in spite of the circumstances of the journey, and is she not
awaiting her betrothed from one moment to another?

And I, with a word, am about to extinguish this joy. I am to wither
that smile.

Mademoiselle Klork is evidently much surprised at seeing a stranger in
her doorway. As she has lived several years in France, she does not
hesitate to recognize me as a Frenchman, and asks to what she is
indebted for my visit.

I must take care of my words, for I may kill her, poor child.

"Mademoiselle Zinca—" I say.

"You know my name?" she exclaims.

"Yes, mademoiselle. I arrived yesterday by the Grand Transasiatic."

The girl turned pale; her eyes became troubled. It was evident that she
feared something. Had Kinko been found in his box? Had the fraud been
discovered? Was he arrested? Was he in prison?

I hastened to add:

"Mademoiselle Zinca—certain circumstances have brought to my
knowledge—the journey of a young Roumanian—"

"Kinko—my poor Kinko—they have found him?" she asks in a trembling
voice.

"No—no—" say I, hesitating. "No one knows—except myself. I often
visited him in the luggage-van at night; we were companions, friends. I
took him a few provisions—"

"Oh! thank you, sir!" says the lady, taking me by the hands. "With a
Frenchman Kinko was sure of not being betrayed, and even of receiving
help! Thank you, thank you!"

I am more than ever afraid of the mission on which I have come.

"And no one suspected the presence of my dear Kinko?" she asks.

"No one."

"What would you have had us do, sir? We are not rich. Kinko was without
money over there at Tiflis, and I had not enough to send him his fare.
But he is here at last. He will get work, for he is a good workman, and
as soon as we can we will pay the company—"

"Yes; I know, I know."

"And then we are going to get married, monsieur. He loves me so much,
and I love him. We met one another in Paris. He was so kind to me. Then
when he went back to Tiflis I asked him to come to me in that box. Is
the poor fellow ill?"

"No, Mademoiselle Zinca, no."

"Ah! I shall be happy to pay the carriage of my dear Kinko."

"Yes—pay the carriage—"

"It will not be long now?"

"No; this afternoon probably."

I do not know what to say.

"Monsieur," says mademoiselle, "we are going to get married as soon as
the formalities are complied with; and if it is not abusing your
confidence, will you do us the honor and pleasure of being present?"

"At your marriage—certainly. I promised my friend Kinko I would."

Poor girl! I cannot leave her like this. I must tell her everything.

"Mademoiselle Zinca—Kinko—"

"He asked you to come and tell me he had arrived?"

"Yes—but—you understand—he is very tired after so long a
journey—"

"Tired?"

"Oh! do not be alarmed—"

"Is he ill?"

"Yes—rather—rather ill—"

"Then I will go—I must see him—I pray you, sir, come with me to the
station—"

"No; that would be an imprudence—remain here—remain—"

Zinca Klork looked at me fixedly.

"The truth, monsieur, the truth! Hide nothing from me—Kinko—"

"Yes—I have sad news—to give you." She is fainting. Her lips tremble.
She can hardly speak.

"He has been discovered!" she says. "His fraud is known—they have
arrested him—"

"Would to heaven it was no worse. We have had accidents on the road.
The train was nearly annihilated—a frightful catastrophe—"

"He is dead! Kinko is dead!"

The unhappy Zinca falls on to a chair—and to employ the imaginative
phraseology of the Chinese—her tears roll down like rain on an autumn
night. Never have I seen anything so lamentable. But it will not do to
leave her in this state, poor girl! She is becoming unconscious. I do
not know where I am. I take her hands. I repeat:

"Mademoiselle Zinca! Mademoiselle Zinca!"

Suddenly there is a great noise in front of the house. Shouts are
heard. There is a tremendous to do, and amid the tumult I hear a voice.

Good Heavens! I cannot be mistaken. That is Kinko's voice!

I recognize it. Am I in my right senses?

Zinca jumps up, springs to the window, opens it, and we look out.

There is a cart at the door. There is the case, with all its
inscriptions:
This side up, this side down, fragile, glass, beware of
damp
, etc., etc. It is there—half smashed. There has been a
collision. The cart has been run into by a carriage, as the case was
being got down. The case has slipped on to the ground. It has been
knocked in. And Kinko has jumped out like a jack-in-the-box—but alive,
very much alive!

I can hardly believe my eyes! What, my young Roumanian did not perish
in the explosion? No! As I shall soon hear from his own mouth, he was
thrown on to the line when the boiler went up, remained there inert for
a time, found himself uninjured—miraculously—kept away till he could
slip into the van unperceived. I had just left the van after looking
for him in vain, and supposing that he had been the first victim of the
catastrophe.

Then—oh! the irony of fate!—after accomplishing a journey of six
thousand kilometres on the Grand Transasiatic, shut up in a box among
the baggage, after escaping so many dangers, attack by bandits,
explosion of engine, he was here, by the mere colliding of a cart and a
carriage in a Pekin Street, deprived of all the good of his
journey—fraudulent it may be—but really if—I know of no epithet
worthy of this climax.

The carter gave a yell at the sight of a human being who had just
appeared. In an instant the crowd had gathered, the fraud was
discovered, the police had run up. And what could this young Roumanian
do who did not know a word of Chinese, but explain matters in the sign
language? And if he could not be understood, what explanation could he
give?

Zinca and I ran down to him.

"My Zinca—my dear Zinca!" he exclaims, pressing the girl to his heart.

"My Kinko—my dear Kinko!" she replies, while her tears mingle with his.

"Monsieur Bombarnac!" says the poor fellow, appealing for my
intervention.

"Kinko," I reply, "take it coolly, and depend on me. You are alive, and
we thought you were dead."

"But I am not much better off!" he murmurs.

Mistake! Anything is better than being dead—even when one is menaced
by prison, be it a Chinese prison. And that is what happens, in spite
of the girl's supplications and my entreaties. And Kinko is dragged off
by the police, amid the laughter and howls of the crowd.

But I will not abandon him! No, if I move heaven and earth, I will not
abandon him.

If ever the expression, "sinking in sight of port," could be used in
its precise meaning, it evidently can in this case. And I must beg you
to excuse me. But although a ship may sink by the side of the jetty, we
must not conclude that she is lost. That Kinko's liberty is in danger,
providing the intervention of myself and fellow passengers is of no
avail, agreed. But he is alive, and that is the essential point.

But we must not waste an hour, for if the police is not perfect in
China, it is at least prompt and expeditious. Soon caught, soon
hanged—and it will not do for them to hang Kinko, even metaphorically.

I offer my arm to Mademoiselle Zinca, and I lead her to my carriage,
and we return rapidly towards the
Hotel of the Ten Thousand Dreams
.

There I find Major Noltitz and the Caternas, and by a lucky chance
young Pan-Chao, without Dr. Tio-King. Pan-Chao would like nothing
better than to be our interpreter before the Chinese authorities.

And then, before the weeping Zinca, I told my companions all about
Kinko, how he had traveled, how I had made his acquaintance on the
journey. I told them that if he had defrauded the Transasiatic Company
it was thanks to this fraud that he was able to get on to the train at
Uzun Ada. And if he had not been in the train we should all have been
engulfed in the abyss of the Tjon valley.

And I enlarged on the facts which I alone knew. I had surprised
Faruskiar at the very moment he was about to accomplish his crime, but
it was Kinko who, at the peril of his life, with coolness and courage
superhuman, had thrown on the coals, hung on to the lever of the safety
valves, and stopped the train by blowing up the engine.

What an explosion there was of exclamatory ohs and ahs when I had
finished my recital, and in a burst of gratitude, somewhat of the
theatrical sort, our actor shouted:

"Hurrah for Kinko! He ought to have a medal!"

Until the Son of Heaven accorded this hero a green dragon of some sort,
Madame Caterna took Zinca's hand, drew her to her heart and embraced
her—embraced her without being able to restrain her tears. Just think
of a love story interrupted at the last chapter!

But we must hasten, and as Caterna says, "all on the scene for the
fifth"—the fifth act, in which dramas generally clear themselves up.

"We must not let this brave fellow suffer!" said Major Noltitz; "we
must see the Grand Transasiatic people, and when they learn the facts
they will be the first to stop the prosecution."

"Doubtless," I said, "for it cannot be denied that Kinko saved the
train and its passengers."

"To say nothing of the imperial treasure," added Caterna, "the millions
of his majesty!"

"Nothing could be truer," said Pan-Chao. "Unfortunately Kinko has
fallen into the hands of the police, and they have taken him to prison,
and it is not easy to get out of a Chinese prison."

"Let us be off," I replied, "and see the company."

"See here," said Madame Caterna, "is there any need of a subscription
to defray the cost of the affair?"

"The proposal does you honor, Caroline," said the actor, putting his
hand in his pocket.

"Gentlemen," said pretty Zinca Klork, her eyes bathed in tears, "do
save him before he is sentenced—"

"Yes, my darling," said Madame Caterna, "yes, my heart, we will save
your sweetheart for you, and if a benefit performance—"

"Bravo, Caroline, bravo!" exclaimed Caterna, applauding with the vigor
of the sub-chief of the claque.

We left the young Roumanian to the caresses, as exaggerated as they
were sincere, of the worthy actress. Madame Caterna would not leave
her, declaring that she looked upon her as her daughter, that she would
protect her like a mother. Then Pan-Chao, Major Noltitz, Caterna, and I
went off to the company's offices at the station.

The manager was in his office, and we were admitted.

He was a Chinese in every acceptation of the word, and capable of every
administrative Chinesery—a functionary who functioned in a way that
would have moved his colleagues in old Europe to envy.

Pan-Chao told the story, and, as he understood Russian, the major and I
took part in the discussion.

Yes! There was a discussion. This unmistakable Chinaman did not
hesitate to contend that Kinko's case was a most serious one. A fraud
undertaken on such conditions, a fraud extending over six thousand
kilometres, a fraud of a thousand francs on the Grand Transasiatic
Company and its agents.

We replied to this Chinesing Chinee that it was all very true, but that
the damage had been inconsiderable, that if the defrauder had not been
in the train he could not have saved it at the risk of his life, and at
the same time he could not have saved the lives of the passengers.

Well, would you believe it? This living China figure gave us to
understand that from a certain point of view it would have been better
to regret the deaths of a hundred victims—

Yes! We knew that! Perish the colonies and all the passengers rather
than a principle!

In short, we got nothing. Justice must take its course against the
fraudulent Kinko.

We retired while Caterna poured out all the locutions in his marine and
theatrical vocabulary.

What was to be done?

"Gentlemen," said Pan-Chao, "I know how things are managed in Pekin and
the Celestial Empire. Two hours will not elapse from the time Kinko is
arrested to the time he is brought before the judge charged with this
sort of crime. He will not only be sent to prison, but the bastinado—"

"The bastinado—like that idiot Zizel in
Si j'etais Roi?"
asked the
actor.

"Precisely," replied Pan-Chao.

"We must stop that abomination," said Major Noltitz.

"We can try at the least," said Pan-Chao. "I propose we go before the
court when I will try and defend the sweetheart of this charming
Roumanian, and may I lose my face if I do not get him off."