  Next morning after breakfast I was again summoned to attend Prince Kai Lun Pu. I may as well remark in this place that with the Chinese the surname comes first, and Kai was my new friend’s family name, as mine is Steele. “Pu” with him stood in the place of “Sam” with me, and Lun was his middle name. But as the Chinese name always means something, a free translation of Kai Lun Pu into English would be “blossom of the tree,” Kai being a tree, or in some connections the root of a tree. So the Prince’s name was a very pretty and appropriate one, although it sounds so queer to our uncomprehending ears. My new friend greeted me as cheerily as on the previous day, although I noted the fact that dark circles had settled around his eyes and his cheeks were a bit more hollow. The doctor was with him when I came in, and I asked if his patient had slept. “Not a wink,” he replied. “Our Prince does not intend to lose a moment of life, and so I sat up with him until after midnight myself. Then he talked to Mai Lo until daylight.” “And that was time wasted,” added the Prince, with a queer glance at his attendant, “for Mai Lo has a limited vocabulary, although he is so wise and experienced. I think he spoke six words to me in return for all my chatter. So now I will excuse him from my presence until I require his services.” Mai Lo heard and prostrated himself humbly before his Prince, retiring with the stealthy glide of a ghost. The doctor was preparing his hypodermic syringe, and the sick man watched him thoughtfully. “Do you see much change in my condition?” he presently asked. “A little,” answered the doctor. “Your vitality is wonderful. An ordinary man would have succumbed long ago.” “Am I sure of today?” enquired the Prince. The surgeon administered the hypodermic before replying. Then he said, slowly: “While your heart retains its action you will live; but a clot may interfere with the action at any time. I cannot promise you even today, yet you may see the light tomorrow—or of several tomorrows.” “But not many of them?” “Not many, Prince.” “Ah, the Earth Dragon is relentless. I cannot reach China?” “No, indeed. To Shanghai or Hong Kong is two weeks. And there is another thing that I must speak to you about. I have no means of embalming or preserving your body.” For a moment the Prince looked grave. Then he laughed again, lightly, but I thought with little or no mirth. In spite of his Occidental education Kai Lun Pu retained the prejudices of his forefathers and longed to have his body carried to China and laid to rest in his ancestral halls. “What a fuss old Mai Lo will make when I am cast into the sea!” he remarked. “You’ll have to put him in irons, Sam, or he’ll run amuck among you and cause mischief.” “If he does he shall go after you,” I promised. “That is, unless you wish him preserved to carry out your bequests at home and convey your messages to your friends.” The Prince made a face so ridiculous that both Gaylord and I smiled at him. “I will confide to you a secret,” said he; “my servant is fully as repulsive to me as he is to you. But he is a man of high birth, a mandarin and the hereditary governor of my own province; so I had to carry the fellow with me on my travels.” “He looks like a dummy,” I suggested. “And his looks are very deceptive,” retorted the Prince. “Mai Lo is remarkably subtle and observing, and as intelligent as he is proud and ambitious. Really, until my accident occurred, I feared the fellow, although I knew he would sacrifice his life for me if necessary. It will be his duty after my death to return to his home, propitiate the Earth Dragon, and then commit suicide; but the chances are Mai Lo will find a way to avoid that. There will be too much to feed his ambition.” “Will he inherit your estates?” inquired the doctor. “By no means. Mai Lo is noble, but not of the blood royal. My estates will go to the Emperor, because I have no heir; my ancestral halls will be sealed up and abandoned, and—I shall soon be forgotten.” “Why so?” I asked. “Because I shall never become an ancestor myself,” he responded, laughing genuinely this time. “An absurd statement, isn’t it, Sam? But my countrymen are devoted Shintoists, or ancestor worshippers, and while I have gained honor and respect in life through my powerful ancestry, in death I lose all and am speedily forgotten.” While I thoughtfully pondered this statement the doctor withdrew and left us alone together. “Do you believe in this queer religion of ancestor worship, Prince?” I inquired. “Of course not, Sam. I’m a mighty poor Chinaman, as far as our orthodox traditions and religious observances are concerned. In fact my people are not really religious at all, for they vilify and even thrash their bronze and wooden gods if they do not behave properly, and the whole ceremonial worship of China is a farce. I do not mind telling you that even before I went to Europe my heart refused to acknowledge those decayed ancestors of mine as more important than the dust to which they have returned in the course of nature. But I kept the secret of my apostacy to myself, and in order to secure ample funds to enjoy the pleasures of Europe I even robbed my ancestral halls of a portion of their treasure.” “Oh!” I said. “Is there treasure, then, in your ancestral halls?” He smiled. “More than half the wealth of China—the accumulated wealth of centuries—is tied up forever in this absurd manner,” he replied. “My family was old at the time of the Tartar invasion, and it has always been wealthy. In my ancestral halls, in my province of Kwang-Kai-Nong, lies a mass of treasure that would startle the world if it were to be unearthed and publicly displayed. Yet no one has ever seen it in my generation but myself.” “I do not quite understand this system,” I said, much interested in these statements. “It is our immemorial custom,” explained the Prince, “to bury with each head of a family one-half the wealth he possesses, to be used by him when his resurrection occurs at the end of the world. The remaining half is inherited by his eldest son, his successor. A daughter never inherits, you know. When the son dies, one-half his wealth is laid with his body in the tombs of the ancestral halls, and so this accumulation goes on from century to century, and half the wealth of the nation is continually abstracted from its resources.” “But suppose there is no son,” said I. “What happens then?” “Then the line ends. In the case of a noble family, such as ours, the confidential servant secretly seals up the ancestral halls and then commits suicide, so that no one may ever discover where they are located. If he hesitates to kill himself by the ninth day the other servants promptly kill him; so his fate is really sealed in case his lord dies without an heir.” “And is Mai Lo your confidential servant in this case?” I asked curiously. “You have guessed it,” replied the Prince, smiling. “If I were sure he would do his duty it would deprive death of half its sting; but I suspect, Sam, that Mai Lo has as little respect for ancestor worship as I myself, and it is my impression that he will rob the tombs of my forefathers very freely before he seals them up forever.” “But won’t his fellow-servants kill him if he fails to commit suicide?” I asked. “I could answer that question more positively if I knew the mind of Mai Lo better,” returned the Prince, more gravely than was his wont. Then he brightened and said: “I am much interested in your friends Archie and Joe, who were so loyal and brave in your Egyptian adventures, which you related to me yesterday. Did you not say they were still your comrades?” “Yes, indeed, Prince. Both are now aboard the Seagull.” “May I see them? Will you bring them here to see me?” he asked, eagerly. “They will be greatly pleased,” I replied. “When?” “At once. You remember the doctor’s warning.” “I’ll get them,” said I, rising. “Send Mai Lo,” suggested the Prince. I did so, asking the attendant, who stood stiffly outside the door, to summon my friends to an audience with Kai Lun Pu. In a few minutes Joe and Archie arrived, as eager as I knew they would be to make the acquaintance of our interesting passenger. The Prince conversed with them upon various subjects for fully an hour, pressing them for details of our former adventures and shrewdly drawing out the characteristics of both the boys without their suspecting it in the least. I felt quite proud of my friends, for although each in his own way was odd to the verge of eccentricity, two more manly, truer hearted fellows did not exist—or at least that was my opinion of them. The Prince seemed to approve of them, too, and with their quaint answers and ways they certainly amused him—Archie bluff and outspoken and Joe modest and retiring as a girl. Presently, as he lay back upon his pillows, Kai Lun Pu began to laugh. He laughed again, seemingly much amused; and still again, with evident enjoyment of some thought that had occurred to him. Archie and Joe stared at him rather uneasily, and I own I had myself a fleeting suspicion that his maimed body was finally affecting his mind. But the next moment the Prince said, in his ordinary tones: “By all the big and little gods, I’ll do it!” “Do what, Prince?” I asked, curiously. “Give you a new adventure to undertake,” he replied, almost gleefully. “You three boys are not tired of adventures, are you?” “Not much,” returned Archie, stoutly. “And although you’ve found some small treasure already, you wouldn’t object to finding more, would you?” he continued, eyeing us closely. Our eager faces must have answered him; but I said, as calmly as I could: “What is the proposition, your Highness?” “The proposition is simply this, Sam; I’m going to show you how to rob my ancestral halls!” |
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