Sons (15 page)

Upon this turtle Wang the Tiger leaped and he stood and looked down upon all his own men. He stood proudly with his hand upon the hilt of his sword and one foot thrust forward upon the turtle’s head, and he looked at them in his arrogance, his black brows drawn down, and his eyes glittering and piercing. And as he looked on these men who were his, his heart swelled and swelled until it seemed his body would burst with it, and he thought to himself,

“These are my own men—sworn to follow me. My hour is come!” And aloud he cried and his proud voice rang through those silent woods and echoed in the ruined courts of the temple, and he said, “Good brothers! This is who I am! I am a man humble as yourselves. My father farmed the land and I am from the land. But there was a destiny for me beyond the tilling of the fields and I ran away when I was but a lad and I joined the soldiers of the revolution under the old general.

“Good brothers! At first I dreamed of noble wars against a corrupt ruler, for so the old general said his wars were. But his victory was too easy, and he became what we know he is, and I could not longer serve under such an one. Now, seeing that the revolution he led had no such fruition as I dreamed, and seeing as I do how the times are corrupt and every man fights for himself, it came to me as my destiny that I must call for all good fellows who were restless and unpaid under the old general, and that I must lead these forth to hew out for ourselves a place to be our own, free from corruption. I do not need to tell you that there are no honorable rulers, and the people cry out under the cruelties and oppressions of those who ought to treat them as fathers treat their sons. This has been so from the old days, even five hundred years ago, when good brave fellows banded together to punish the rich and to protect the poor. So shall we do also! I call on you, brave and good fellows, to follow where I go! Let us swear to live and to die together!”

There he stood, shouting this out in his great deep voice, his eyes shining and darting here and there over the men who squatted on the stones before him, his brows now drawn, now springing up like flags unfurled, lighting and changing from instant to instant the look upon his face. When he had finished speaking, every man leaped to his feet and a mighty shout went up from them,

“We swear! A thousand thousand years to our captain!”

Then one man who was more waggish than the others cried out in a squeaky high voice,

“I say he looks like a black-browed tiger, I say!”

And so Wang the Tiger did look, he was so slender and long and he moved so smoothly and his face was narrow at the chin and wide at the cheek bones and very high, and his eyes were wild and watchful and shining, and there above them were his long black brows, pressing down and shadowing his eyes so that when he drew them down his eyes seemed peering and shining out of some cavern. When he lifted his brows up his eyes seemed to spring out from under them and his whole face opened suddenly as though a tiger sprang forth.

Then all the men laughed fiercely and they took up the cry and they shouted,

“Ha, the Tiger, the Black-browed Tiger!”

As for the poor dazed hermit, he did not know what to make of all this shouting of tigers through the valley, and it was true there were tigers roaming in these hills, and he feared them more than anything. Now when he heard these great shouts he looked here and there in his thicket and he ran and hid himself in a small wretched room at the back of the temple where he slept, and he drew the rude bar across the door and he crept into his bed and pulled the ragged quilt over his head and there he lay shivering and weeping and wishing he had not tasted the meat.

Now Wang the Tiger had all a tiger’s caution, too, and he knew that his venture was but barely begun and he must take thought of what was ahead of him. He let the men sleep for a while until the wine they had drunk was worn away and the fumes passed off from them, and while they slept he called out three of his men whom he knew to be clever tricky fellows and he told them to disguise themselves. One he bade strip himself except for his ragged inner trousers, and he bade him smear mud and filth on himself as a beggar does and go begging in the villages near the town where the old general was encamped, and he was to hear and to see what he could and to find out whether the old general was making ready to give chase or not. The other two he told to go into a market town and buy at some pawnshop a farmer’s garments and his baskets and pole and they were to buy produce and carry it into the city and loiter and see what men said and if any talked of what had happened and of what might happen now that the old general’s best men had run away from him. At the mouth to the pass Wang the Tiger set his trusty harelipped man to watch and to search the countryside with his keen eyes, and if he saw any movements of more than a few men anywhere he was to run without delay and bring the word to his captain.

When this was done and these men gone and the others had slept away their wine, Wang the Tiger took stock of all he had. He set down with a brush upon paper the number of his men and how many guns he had and how much ammunition and what the clothing of the men was and what their shoes were, whether good for a long march or not. He commanded his men to file past him and he looked closely at every one, and he found he had a hundred and eight good lusty men, not counting his two lads, and not one among them was too old and only a few were diseased, beyond sore eyes or the itch or such small things that anyone may have and these cannot be counted illness. Now as his men went past him slowly thus, they gaped and stared at the marks he made upon the paper, for not more than a scant two or three of them could read or write, and they were more in awe at Wang the Tiger than ever, because besides the skill at arms he had this wisdom also, that he could brush marks upon a piece of paper and he could look at them again and see meaning there.

And Wang the Tiger found he had besides his men a hundred and twenty-two guns and every man had his belt full of ammunition, and besides this Wang the Tiger had eighteen boxes of bullets he had taken secretly from the general’s store to which he had had access. These he had sent one by one and his trusty man had brought them here and stored them behind the crumbling old Buddha in the temple, because there the roof was best and leaked least, and the Buddha sheltered them from rains driving in the gaping doors.

As for clothing, the soldiers had what they wore and it was enough until winter winds came and each man had his quilt to sleep in.

Wang the Tiger was well pleased at all he had and there was enough left of food to feed them three days more, and it was his plan then to march out by night as quickly as he could to his new territories in the north. Even if he had not loathed these southern lands he would have marched to another place, because the old general was so indolent that for ten years and more he had not moved from this place and he lived upon the people taxing them heavily beyond what they could afford to pay, and he took shares of their grain, too, and this he had done until the people were poor and there was nothing more to be had from them, and so Wang the Tiger must seek fresher lands.

Neither was it in his purpose to fight a battle with the old general over this stretch of over-taxed land, and he planned he would move on to the regions near his own home, for there were hills there to the northwest where he might shelter his men, and if he were pursued too hotly he could retreat into the more inaccessible parts, into these places where mountains are fierce and wild and the people are savage, and even lords of war seldom go there save at such times when they are driven into robbery and retreat. Not that he thought of retreat now; no, it seemed to Wang the Tiger that his way lay open before him, and he had only to be fearless and press on and make his name great in the land, and he set no defines to his greatness.

Then the ones whom he had sent out came back and one said,

“The news is everywhere that the old hive of bees has divided and a new swarm has come out and everywhere people are frightened because they say they are sucked so dry and they say the land cannot feed two hordes.”

And the one who was the beggar said, “I hung about the very old camp and I smeared mud and filth on my face, so that no one could see what I was, and I listened and watched as I whined for alms, and the whole camp is astir and the old general is shouting and screeching and ordering this and that and taking it back again and saying something else, and he is all askew with his confusion and anger and his face is all purple and swollen. I dared so much as that, even, and I went close to see him, and he shouted out and I heard him, ‘I did not dream that black-browed devil could do a turn like this, and I trusted him with everything. Yes, and people do say the northerners are more honest than we! I wish I had him skewered here upon my gun, the cursed thief and son of a thief!’ And he cries out every word or two that his men are to take up arms and pursue us and give battle!”

The man paused and chuckled and he was that same fellow who loved to joke in his squeaky way, and now he said, and his voice went squeaking higher and higher and he grinned through his mud,

“But I did not see a single soldier move at all!”

Then Wang the Tiger smiled a little and grimly and he knew he had nothing to fear, for those men had gone unpaid for nearly a year and they stayed on only because they could be idle and yet fed. But if they were to fight they must be paid before they would do it and Wang the Tiger knew that when it came to such a point the old general would not pay them and so in a day or two his anger would cool and he would shrug himself and go back to his women, and his soldiers would sleep in the sun and wake to eat and sleep again.

As for Wang the Tiger, he set his face to the north and he knew he need fear no one.

T
HREE DAYS DID WANG
the Tiger allow his men to feast and they ate all they could and they drank the jars of wine down to the very lees. When they were fed as they had not been in many months and stuffed and full with their feeding, and when they had slept until they could sleep no more they rose up strong and quarrelsome and lusty. Now all these years Wang the Tiger had lived among soldiers and he had learned well how men are and he knew how to manage strong, common, ignorant fellows, how to watch their moods and make use of these and how to seem to give liberty and yet hold all he could within the leash of his own will. So when he heard his men fall easily into quarreling and when they threatened each other over nothing at all or over nothing more serious than that one fell over another’s outstretched legs as he tried to sleep, and when he saw how some began to think of women and long after them, he knew the hour was come when some new hard thing must be begun.

Then he sprang upon the old stone turtle again and he crossed his arms on his breast and he cried out,

“Tonight when the sun is gone behind the edge of the flat fields at the foot of the mountain we must start upon the journey to our own lands! Let every man take heed to himself, and if he has it still in his mind to return to easy feeding and sleeping under the old general let him return now and I will not kill him. But if, having set out with me tonight, any man turns back from the oath we have sworn, then I will stick him through with my sword!”

When he said these last words Wang the Tiger drew out his sword as swiftly as a flash of lightning plays across a cloud, and he thrust it straight out at the listening men and they were so startled they fell back one upon the other and they looked at each other in terror. Wang the Tiger stood waiting and staring and as he waited there were five among the older men who looked doubtfully at each other and at that sharp glittering sword he held thrust at them, and without a word they rose and crept away and down the mountain and they were seen no more. Wang the Tiger watched them go, and he held his sword out still motionless and shining, and he shouted,

“Is there any other one?”

There was a great silence over the men and not one moved for a time. Then suddenly a slight stooped figure stirred on the edge of the crowd and it made haste to creep away, and it was the son of Wang the Eldest. But when Wang the Tiger saw who it was he roared out,

“Not you, you young fool! Your father has given you to me, and you are not free!”

And he sheathed his sword as he spoke and he muttered with contempt as he did it, “I would not dip this good blade into such pale blood. No, I will whip you soundly, as one whips a child!” And he waited until the lad stood still again, his head hanging down as he always held it.

Then Wang the Tiger said in his usual voice,

“Let it be so then. See to your guns and tie your shoes fast upon your feet and gird yourselves, for tonight we make a mighty march. We will sleep by day and march by night so that men will not know we are moving through the countryside. But every time we come into the territory of a lord of war I will tell you what his name is, and if any ask you who we are you must say, ‘We are a wandering band who come to join the lord of these lands.’ ”

Thus it came about that when the sun fell and there was yet a little light of day but the stars were out too, without a moon, the men filed raggedly to the pass, each man girded and with his bundle on his back and his gun in his hand. But Wang the Tiger had the extra guns given only to the men he knew best and whom he could trust for there were many among these men of his who were untried as yet and he could spare a man better than a gun. Such as had horses led them down the mountain and at the foot of the mountain before they set out on the highway to the north Wang the Tiger paused and he said in his harsh way,

“Not one of you is to stop except where I say and we will make no long stop until dawn at a village which I shall choose. There you may eat and drink and I will pay for it.”

So saying he leaped upon his own horse, a high red beast with thick bones and long curled hair that had come from the plains of Mongolia, very strong and tireless. It had need so to be this night, for under him Wang the Tiger had put many pounds of silver he carried, and what he could not take he had given to his trusty man to carry and to certain others in lesser amounts, so that if one yielded to a temptation such as may assail any man, no great quantity would be lost. But strong as his beast was Wang the Tiger would not let it go at its full best. No, he was kind at heart and he held his horse reined in and kept it walking, mindful of those men who had no horses and must walk. On either side of him, also, rode his two nephews and he had bought asses for them, and the short legs of the asses could not match his own horse’s stride. Some thirty odd of his men were on horses and the rest afoot, and Wang the Tiger divided his horsemen and put half before and half behind and the walking men between.