Presently he felt better and began to take stock of the two other intruders. Though he was as bedraggled and as tired as if he had been ducked in a stream, his wits did not desert him, nor was his caution relaxed.

So far as he could see, they were mere villagers surprised by the storm. He looked keenly to see some trace of the red girdle, or any of the dread insignia which had brought convulsions to the land—but there was nothing more menacing in each man's belt than a sickle.

"Ai-ya," he exclaimed, purposely pretending to shiver from the cold and wet, and screwing up his ugly intelligent face as he studied them. "Certainly it is a piece of ill-luck to be caught by such weather. What an amount of water! If I had only shown caution I should have stopped an hour ago. Still fortune favoured me when I caught sight of this roof. Without it, it would be hard to say what would have happened."

The two men grunted but made no other audible response.

Conversation was indeed difficult. Peals of thunder rang out incessantly and the blinding lightning only served to show the torrential downpour which was fast converting the country into a lake. In the oncoming darkness the narrow brick hut seemed gloomy and uninviting; and the sullenness of the two men, crouching as far from the gaping doorway as possible, added to the disheartening nature of the hour.

"I am on my way to rejoin my uncle," resumed the boy still plucky as ever, and determined to profit by this opportunity to acquire information. "I have travelled nearly a hundred li but I lost my way when the storm came on. What is the nearest village?"

"Langfang," said one of the two abruptly.

"Langfang," he echoed, starting up in his excitement in spite of his fatigue. Then, fearful that he had acted his part badly by betraying unaccountable emotion, he sank back again in his semi-recumbent position against the wall.

Langfang....

He had reached the very spot where the foreign army had been a month before—where a great battle had taken place. His master had described to him how urgent messages had come from here—four in the space of two days—declaring that the army was advancing as fast as possible—fighting as it advanced and repairing the railway which was being attacked and destroyed by countless levies. But after those messages, there had been a great silence which had lasted so long that a consuming fear had come. Had all been massacred? No one knew, no one had been able to discover the slightest hint as to what had happened. That was why he was here; that was why he had been sent out as a folorn hope.

As he thought these thoughts he stole nearer the gaping doorway in spite of the splashing rain which blew in in great gusts. Now he pretended to be closely studying the prospect. He must find out something further.

"It is lifting a bit to the west," he exclaimed, pointing with a hand to a spot where the inky blackness was indeed giving way to light. "If the wind comes there will be a chance of its ceasing. I estimate the worst is over—the lightning and thunder are certainly less."—He turned. "Tell me: was there not fighting here last month? It was so rumoured in our locality?"

The man nearest him answered. He seemed to speak reluctantly as of matters which he wished to forget.

"It is so. The foreign devils came along the railway as far as the station which is six li from here. For two days in our village we heard the firing which continued without ceasing even during the night. Some of our people saw the foreign soldiers on this embankment extending many li, with big guns on the trains. It was said that they were sailors from ships. But great numbers of our regiments surrounded them, and in the end all were killed."

"All were killed—none were left?" cried the boy.

"Who knows!" rejoined the man sullenly as if this talk was increasingly distasteful to him. "So we were told. It was not our business. Some, who ventured near afterwards, picked up weapons in the fields and many cartridges. There were cartridges scattered for many li,—baskets and baskets of them were gathered."

"But the dead—what of the dead?"

The man made an angry gesture.

"How could we know? Men armed with swords were camped everywhere and we were afraid. There were men without number. They destroyed the railway; and in the end every piece of iron and timber was carried away so that it could never be restored."

The boy's eyes never moved from the man's face. It was difficult to say whether he believed him or not.

"And now—where is the fighting now—have all the devils been driven into the sea?"

"We have no knowledge," rejoined the other gloomily. "Only we know that everywhere there is still danger. Men in our village were taken forcibly to drive wagons for our soldiers. At any moment it is said the soldiers may return."

The boy pretended to whimper:

"Ai-ya," he exclaimed again. "I must travel sixty li further to find my uncle. It is doubly dangerous for me since I do not even know the road to Yangtsun." (He named a point twenty miles farther on.)

"Yangtsun—that was safe yesterday. Two of our men returned, having made their escape from the transport service. They declared that all the soldiers had gone."

"But where—in what direction?"

"It is not known," said the man curtly because the question revived his fears. "It was enough for our fellows to be set free—they did not stop to inquire what their captors might be doing."

The boy suddenly sat down with his knees drawn up against his chest in a characteristic attitude which signified excitement which he wished to conceal. He was not as cold as he had been because he was so greatly excited. His cotton clothing was indeed beginning to dry from the heat of his body; and as he now stripped off his shoes and cloth socks he felt almost comfortable in spite of his hunger.

"These are frightening days," he exclaimed sententiously. "Truly one hears enough every hour to make one fear to live."

Now he sorted all he had heard out on a system based on an intimate knowledge of his fellow-countrymen's methods in the face of clamant danger. Probably these men, after their kind, had fled far from their village into the back country on the first inkling of trouble—they had certainly disappeared as soon as the first shots had been fired in the battle they had described. What they had related was mere hearsay which had become greatly exaggerated with the passage of time. It was certain, of course, that the foreign army had retreated; otherwise the railway would never have been so completely destroyed. But he did not believe that all had been killed. That would mean that he would only find emptiness at the end of his journey. It had been rumoured that all foreign ships had been sunk or set fire to so as to remove all possibility of flight and to secure the death of all foreign men and women. Still he did not believe that any of these things had really happened. They had been tried perhaps. That was it—tried. Experience had taught him that the foreigners were far-seeing. They would never have allowed themselves to be trapped like that.

A sudden movement roused him from this brown study. In his fatigue he had nearly dozed off. Both the men had risen and were now standing at the doorway, calculating aloud their chances of getting home. The rain had certainly greatly slackened, and although it was still coming down heavily the worst was manifestly over. But in half-an-hour it would be completely dark: it was now or never for these two.

They suddenly made up their minds. Stripping themselves naked to the waist and rolling up their loose trousers to their thighs, they stepped out with a gruff word of farewell.

Once more the boy was left to his own devices.

The moment they were gone he peered into the corner where they had been sitting. Yes—they had been grass-cutting. Two large bundles of grass were stacked in the corner. Without compunction, he tore off the sweet-potato vine which bound the bundles; distributed the grass comfortably on the ground and then plunged luxuriously into it. He knew that they would not return until the morrow and by that time he would be far away. The steady fall of the rain and the warmth of the grass soon lulled him to sleep, and in spite of his hunger, he slept with that deepness which only comes to those who toil.

When he finally awoke, the stillness and clearness of the night made him creep to the doorway and look out. It had entirely stopped raining, and every cloud had vanished. The waning moon, lower than ever in the horizon, shed a pale light over the water-logged country out of which peered the tall kaoliang in ominous black patches. As far as the eye could see it was like that; and as he stood and looked he knew that had it not been for the embankment he would have been as good as lost. It might be days before it was dry enough to travel more than short distances at a time on the roads. The sunken roads had become mere water-courses; and as for the mud in the fields that would be enough to defy the stoutest resolution.

He drew a deep breath. Certainly this was an undertaking such as he had never dreamed of. Yet he was not disheartened. He tightened his belt to lessen the gnawings of hunger and poked his fingers into his ribs which were sticking out of his thin body in a queer way. For the second time since he had started he had gone for nearly a day without food. Yet with the curious eastern passivity, which can bear anything so long as it is a mere question of patience, he waited tranquilly until the first ray of dawn before he moved.

It came at last, at about four in the morning. Grasping his staff and his little bundle he started stumblingly along the embankment which ran as straight as an arrow to the sea. He knew that he must meet people very soon; for this being the only possible road, men from the villages would inevitably gravitate towards it.

It was hardly full daylight when he reached what remained of the nearest station. This was Langfang. The buildings had been burnt, and here and there were great gaps in the walls as from shell-fire. But it was not that which set him running: it was a long spiral of grey smoke rising from a lean-to of matting and boards which had been put up against one of the brick walls. Somebody was cooking—food was in sight....

He loosened a string of cash in his belt as he ran, forgetting everything in the immense desire to eat which overcame him. A woman appeared at the door of the lean-to. She was of the poorest class, with dishevelled hair and of slatternly appearance; but behind her was a man with a bowl in his hand.

"Ta-ko (elder brother)!" he exclaimed in the manner of the people. "I have not eaten since I lost my way yesterday morning. I have yet money for a meal. Give me to eat."

He handed over his diminutive holed coins as though they were all he had in the world. The woman took them and counted them carefully before she was satisfied. Then a bowl of little millet and a trifle of salted cabbage was set before him; and he ate as though he had never eaten before.

"I will have another," he said instantly, tendering the emptied bowl.

"What," cried the woman, "you would eat all our store for one small tiao of money?"

Disdainfully he took more of the small coins from his belt and placed them in her hand.

"Give me as much as I can eat and I will pay at the rate demanded."

This time two rough flour-cakes were added to the bowl of millet for the price; and when he had finished he was given a cup of poor tea.

"The money is exhausted," said the woman when he tried to get more. But now his spirits had risen and his defiant manner had returned.

"See here," he exclaimed, taking out and ringing on a stone one of the small silver coins which the master had given him to show that it was not base metal. "I have a good coin and as I must reach Yangtsun this evening to find my uncle I will purchase enough to carry me there."

"Silver!" exclaimed the woman in the same covetous tones the priest had used. "You carry silver!"

The coin passed from the hand of the man to the hand of the woman and then back again twice before a bargain was struck. But finally it was agreed that for the price he could take the sixteen small and very rough flour-cakes that were ready.

He ate four of them as he stood there, and stowed away the others, talking to the couple with his mouth full all the while. And when the woman's back was turned he nearly emptied the coarse earthen tea-pot which she had prepared for the delectation of her man, feeling now that matters had been equalized. Then he scrambled up the embankment and hastened on.

The sun rose and he sweated just as the night before he had shivered. Presently he overtook a party of men with heavy saddlebags on their shoulders who said that they were bound for Yangtsun. His heart leaped within him as he heard that and without further ado he attached himself to them. They were all timid and frightened, but they said that there was nothing for it but to push on since their business demanded it. Also they were too much concerned about themselves and the dangers they might encounter to ask him a single question—excepting the inevitable one as to whether he had seen soldiers.

"It is said all of them have left Yangtsun," they repeated again and again to him, apparently to reassure themselves. "Otherwise we should have never started. For ten days we have been waiting in a village and now that the rains have closed the roads we decided to risk the journey along the railway. Several have done it safely already."

"You were wise, you were wise," agreed the boy, "I, too, have been forced to travel owing to death in our family. I go to find my uncle who is employed in a wine factory."

"So small and yet not alarmed," commented one wonderingly.

"What would you," rejoined the boy, "when a house is on fire even the timid must act."

This sententious remark, which he had often heard his seniors use, and which his ready memory had stored for use, so favourably impressed the three that presently when they rested they invited him to share their food. His prodigious appetite amused them—he ate everything that was offered down to the last crumb. But when one produced a leather bottle and a little pewter wine-cup and offered him a drink, his caution returned. He knew well from experience that drowsiness would rapidly come if he indulged himself.

"I am unable to use wine," he said in the set phrase of the native teetotaller.

"We trust that your uncle will reward you," they remarked approvingly.

"I am only a clumsy fellow unable to read and entirely untrained," he answered in the way which modesty and good manners demanded.

It was late afternoon before they saw the town of Yangtsun loom up in front of them. It was easy to make out, as a long low city wall flanked it. Several others had joined the party and the conversation was general, each trying to pick up something from his fellows which would reassure him.

"It is said that our soldiers are massed, less than twenty li from here, and that there is the remnants of a foreign army who have taken refuge in an arsenal opposed to them," said the latest arrival.

"Is that supposition true, do you think?" asked the boy in an undertone of the three men with the saddlebags.

"We fear so," they said in the same undertone, "for the seaport is closed to all. Our business is there and many bales of our wool are involved. Our plan is to remain in hiding in Yangtsun until it is possible to move. One way or another the fighting is sure to go. Then, by some path, we may be able to reach the seaport which we must do to save our interests from ruin."

The boy nodded.

"The soldiers are the only problem. If we avoid them all is well. There may be a way known in this town."

Now he determined to remain attached to this trio—for the time being at least—telling them when necessary that he was unable to find his uncle because he had fled.