ASIA 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ANNEX 
 
 2 
 

 CftornKU Inioeratta Ktbrarg 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 CHARLES WILLFAM WASON 
 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 
 1918 
 
■" I'iimJITP^ 
 
 3 1924 023 150 950 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023150950 
 
:a story of eegstion mmm 
 
 BY ONE WHO WAS THERE 
 
 (( 
 
 THE S.G." 
 
 A ROMANCE OF PEKING 
 
 JtJUAN CROSKEY 
 
"THE S.G." 
 
41% It is with extreme diffidence that the author 
 presumes to mention a celebrated name in the pages 
 of this hasty trifle. But as the opportunity may not 
 occur to him again, and current events have given 
 that name prominence in connection with topics 
 touched on in the story o£ ''Valda/'he ventures to 
 express here his veneration for the administrative 
 genius, and his remorseful appreciation of the mag- 
 nanimity, of his former Chief, 
 
 SIR ROBERT HART, Bart., 
 
 INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF THE IMPERIAL MARITIME CUS- 
 TOMS OF CHINA AT PEKING, 
 
 who for forty years has controlled the destinies of 
 hundreds of Europeans and Americans scattered 
 among the thirty Treaty Ports of the vast littoral of 
 China, and to whom is due most of the real progress 
 that China has made toward commercial civilization. 
 
"THE S.G." 
 
 A ROMANCE OF PEKING 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIAN CROSKEY 
 
 ("Mr. M ")] 
 
 AUTHOK OF "max," "MBRLIN," "THE SHBN'S 
 PIGTAJI,," ETC. 
 
 ■WUvMvw V toiM 
 
 MASON 
 
 30 Columbia Place 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 1900 
 
 ^ 
 

 w! looM 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY JULIAN CROSKEY 
 
 *#* The discrepancy between the running title and 
 
 that on the cover is due to the tardy 
 
 discovery that VALDA has 
 
 seen service before. 
 
 BAGLB PRINT, BROOKLYN-NBW YORK 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. VALDA'S FIRST MEETING WITH 
 
 THE S. G 1 
 
 II. VALDA LEAVES PEKING 6 
 
 III. VALDA RETURNS TO CHINA 11 
 
 IV. THE WALLS OP PEKING 17 
 
 V. SOCIETY IN PEKING 25 
 
 VI. VALDA'S SECOND MEETING WITH 
 
 THE S. G 81 
 
 VH. BLAKE 38 
 
 VIIL THE S. G. CALLS ON VALDA 46 
 
 IX. VALDA CALLS ON THE S. G 53 
 
 X. THE STOLEN DESPATCH 61 
 
 XL THE CIPHER 70 
 
 XII. THE S. G.'S NEW PICCOLO PLAYER. 80 
 
 XIIL RUSSIAN DIPLOMACY 90 
 
 XIV. KUEI-LIEN 98 
 
 XV. THE OPENING OF THE YEAR 1900. 107 
 
 XVL THE RACE MEETING 116 
 
 XVIL THE REAPPEARANCE OF BLAKE... 123 
 
 XVin. THE GATHERING OF THE STORM. 131 
 
 XIX. A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW 139 
 
 XX. PRINCE TUAN 145 
 
 XXL PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE 151 
 
 XXII. THE PLIGHT THAT FAILED 162 
 
 XXIIL BLAKE GETS HIS PROMOTION 174 
 
 L'ENVOI 179 
 
Other Books by the Same Author. 
 
 *** The author is ashamed to saddle his trifling' story with these refer- 
 ences to past work, hut is advised that, as he has thrice changed his pen-name, 
 it is a necessary concession to the business of advertisement. 
 
 MAX : A Novel. (John Lane, London and New York, 
 1897. Third Edition.) 
 
 "The luckless Max is throughout most terribly and pathetically hu- 
 man. We are reminded at times of the methods of Mr. George Moore, at 
 times of those of Mr. Gissing ; but never to Mr. Croskey's disadvantage. 
 Every chapter is thorough, and every chapter takes Max one step nearer to 
 his dismal destiny. The opium scenes impress us as by far the best of their 
 kind in English fiction."— Z,o»<fff« Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "There is a Hogarthian touch in Mr. Croskey's " Max." It is a weird, 
 terrible, and pathetic story." — Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 "Max is extremely original, often brilliant, and sometimes much too 
 daring."— Woman. 
 
 " The description of the insidious temptation reminds one of the pages 
 of De Quincey, and is scarcely inferior to the writing of that famous essay- 
 ist." — Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 " There is a fine literary ring throughout the book, and a magnificent 
 moral for those who can grasp it. The author describes with almost De 
 Quincey-like vividness the helpless thraldom of opium." — Belfast News 
 Letter. 
 
 "Naomi is pictured with an extraordinary and touching sweetness."— 
 Bradford Observer. 
 
 " We hope that Julian Croskey, having disburdened his mind, will see 
 his career in a more favorable light. We do not believe that his years 
 have been so ' wasted' as he imagines." — London Academy, April,^qZ. 
 
 " The tragic and mysterious death of Sir Arthur Curtis in the Cariboo 
 bush has broken up one of the most interesting outfits of all that have 
 struck the Klondike trail. Mr. Croskey left this port yesterday for China. 
 Those who have read * Max ' will probably surmise that this gentleman is 
 
 identical with 'Mr. M ,' who made an abortive attempt to * reform' 
 
 China with 500 revolvers."— Vancouver. 
 
 " A novel that is based to a large extent on actual experiences in the 
 life of a man must always have a great fascination for the reader. Here is 
 unbared to the common gaze the life of a man who, filled with noble ambi- 
 tion and youthful ardour, has been suddenly checked in his ambitious 
 course by a freak of fortune. Then for a time he drifts out of the busy 
 world into enforced seclusion. When he takes his place among men again 
 the interest of the story begins. To win renown by a literary career is his 
 aim, but the task is not an easy one. Though gifted with genius, the 
 habits of his former life clog and hinder him. 'The failure of his hopes 
 leads him to take his life and so end his chequered career." — Book and 
 News Gazette. 
 
 MERLIN : An Extravaganza. (London, 1896 ; Mas- 
 terpiece Library.) 
 
 " As fresh in its presentation as any novel that has appeared for some 
 years ^a.^t.^—Mormng Post. 
 
 "A unique story, delightfully improbable, singularly fascinating."— 
 Telegraph. 
 
 " For our part, we devoured these pages while we chided the author for 
 asking us to swallow such a meal of tough impossibilities. tJnless we are 
 much mistaken, this is the very effect Mr. Croskey set himself to produce." 
 —Literary World. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR {.Continued). 
 
 THE SHEN'S PIGTAIL. (1894. London, Unwin ; 
 New York, Putnam.) 
 
 " There is much brightness in the sketches ; the novelty of the material 
 too, is not unwelcome."— j'a/arrfaj' Review. 
 
 " The literary etchings are bitten in effectively with very mordant 
 acid; the General is a capital portrait."— iOKrfo» Academy. 
 
 '^ Material of so rare and uncommon an excellence opens up a new 
 ■viQxXdu."— Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " The most realistic, as well as brightest, sketch of Anglo-Chinese life 
 that has yet appeared in fiction. The book is full of delicate humor and 
 acute observation."— £t/e»j«.f News. 
 
 " A cleverer or more novel detective stor3r I have never come across. 
 Mr. M 's knowledge of native life in China is wonderful." — To-day. 
 
 ** It is long since we have read such an original story. There is a fas- 
 cinating air of mystery about it, and the local coloring is at once brilliant 
 and unfamiliar. The author shows quite a Hardyish delicacy of handling 
 undelicate subjects." — Literary World. 
 
 " ' The General ' is a character sketch that is perfectly delicious. ' A 
 Little Chinese Party,* as risque as risque can well be, might be read by the 
 British Matron without a blush."— iV. Y. World. 
 
 " The author has a new field which reminds me of Kipling."— i\^. Y. 
 Outlook. 
 
 " A very bright and amusing volume. The stories are not only good, 
 but told with art in a neat and happy style."— P/it!/. Times. 
 
 " These stories give an admirable idea of Anglo-China life. It seems 
 not improbable that the author is the American who got into serious 
 trouble two years ago for smuggling rifies into the interior." — S. P. 
 Chronicle. 
 
 " Lively, original, and amusing."— A^. Y. Churchman. 
 
 "Novel, fresh, and entertaining." — Inter-Ocean. 
 
 " Its clever analysis of motive and minute tracery of detail would do 
 credit to Conan Doyle."— Detroit Free Press. 
 
 "Abounds in poignant humor, sarcastic at times, but withal truly 
 desWaio-as."— Boston Times. 
 
 ** Mr. M will doubtless be recognized by many, but although some 
 
 allusion is made to a Chinese Secret Society, nothing is indiscreetly men- 
 tioned." — Shanghai Daily News. 
 
 THE CHEST OF OPIUM. ("Vagabond" Library, 
 London, 1896.) 
 
 " The writer has a marvellous acquaintance with the Chinese."— .Pa// 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Mr. M. writes on China as one who has authority, and his story is sin- 
 gularly interesting." — London Chronicle. 
 
 " One of those realistic Anglo-Chinese stories for which the author has 
 established a reputation approached by no other. One scarcely knows 
 whether to admire most the profound knowledge of things Chinese or the 
 admirable astuteness of the detective."— G/ajyow Herald. 
 
 " The character sketching is capitally done, and the interest and curi- 
 osity of the reader are maintained at a high pitch by the unusualness and 
 acuteness of observation that the author &hovs."~Sheffleld Independent. 
 
 " In the interest and excitement of reading Mr. M 's tale, we confess 
 
 freely that he seemed to become suddenly master of the entire Chinese 
 
 'anguage. All this is no doubt due to the art of Mr. M , who tells his 
 
 story with such adroitness that you are compelled to master him as you go 
 along."— Newcastle Leader. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR (Continued). 
 
 CELESTIAL SHUDDERS. (Forthcoming.) 
 
 Six stories of Chinese torture, some of which appeared in magazines 
 five years ago ; containing among others. 
 
 THE PATE OF CONYBEARE, a psychological study of an intellectual 
 
 man who is transformed by mumpers into a hairy beast going on all fours. 
 
 *' The most terrible and incredible, yet awfully possible and Inevitably 
 
 convincing horror concerning the human soul that we have read since 
 
 ' Jekyll and Hyde ' and ' The Mark of the Beast.' "—The Bung-alow Book. 
 
 THE DRUNKARD. "One of the most dramatic sketches of delirium 
 tremens we have ever read." — Newsagent. 
 
 " Most pathetically and powerfully written. There is not an ounce of 
 exaggeration in its grim humor." — Public Opinion. 
 
 " Pathetic, though gruesome ; a psychological study of unusual inter- 
 est of the deterioration of a fine English gentleman into a mere sot." — 
 Philadelphia Bulletin. 
 
 " A weird and realistic sketch of the last days of a drunkard. Written 
 in a firm, straightforward manner, and gives a vivid insight into Anglo- 
 Chinese lite."— Boston Times. 
 
 " Psychologically curious and curiously sad." — Boston Literary World. 
 
 " A most vivid and terrible description of a wrecked manhood." — Buf- 
 falo Express. 
 
 " A relentlessly realistic study." — London Daily Chronicle. 
 
 CHINESE HORROR (1895). " A short and terrible tale of torture, fitly 
 named. Such a powerful and weirdly fascinating story I have seldom met 
 with." — Newsagent. 
 
 " Horrible though it is, it is powerful and convincing."— /,o«(ffl« Daily 
 Chronicle. 
 
 "The most vivid and hair-raising description of torture we ever read. 
 Its matter-of-fact ghastliness distinctly produces what is known as ' goose- 
 skin.' "- Scotsman. 
 
 " Too awful to believe ; but a splendid piece of writing." — Free Press. 
 
 " We question if Mr. M has ever done anything better than this 
 
 short story which he is pleased to call padding."— ^/aj^ozw Herald. 
 
 " ' Chinese Horror * is indeed horrible— too horrible almost for words. 
 It is not, perhaps, unwise for the English world to know something of the 
 diabolical cruelty which is covered by Chinese 'civilization. "—Court 
 Circular. 
 
 . (For other notices see bach.) 
 
VALDA: 
 
 A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 VaMa's First Meeting with the S. G. 
 
 AIvDA BERISKOFF was the 
 daughter of a former Russian 
 Minister at the court of Peking. 
 When Count Beriskoff married 
 an American heiress who was globetrot- 
 ting in China, he was compelled to leave 
 little Valda entirely to her Manchu 
 mother. The mother, on whom the 
 Count bestowed the pension which back- 
 stairs etiquette has established as proper 
 from a minister, and whose connection 
 with a foreigner it was fortunately pos- 
 sible to conceal, was sold, together with 
 her pension, to Sheng Ta-jen, a Chinese 
 mandarin of the second class who belong- 
 ed to the General Council and had the 
 entree of the forbidden city. This man- 
 darin happened one day to get into trouble 
 through a chip or scratch on one of the 
 twenty-five seals which passed through 
 his hands, and was thrown into prison, 
 during which misfortune he was bled to 
 the extent of several hundred dollars a 
 day for the necessaries of life. As he 
 
2 VALDA.: 
 
 v/as not a rich man, ruin stared tiim in 
 the face when he was suddenly released, 
 reinstated and, soon after, promoted. 
 His Manchu concubine had bribed a 
 Manchu member of the Inner Council oa 
 his behalf. What the sum was, where 
 she had obtained it, and by what means 
 she had 'placed' it, her husband did not 
 know, but he immediately married her, 
 and, then gradually, admitted her to his 
 confidence, until she obtained an entire 
 ascendency in the household. In this 
 way little Valda began life with the ad- 
 vantages of a Chinese education. She 
 was also initiated at an early age into the 
 mystery of palace intrigues, for she be- 
 came the medium of communication be- 
 tween her mother and the Russian 
 I^egation. Valda was not of course, her 
 Chinese name. Nor am I sure that it 
 was Russian, but we will let that pass. 
 
 When she was ten years of age her 
 Chinese life came to an abrupt conclusion. 
 Valda' s mother, being a Manchu, had 
 not permitted the child to be crippled, 
 and at this time she was beginning to 
 ride abroad in a tomboy fashion which 
 scandalized her Chinese step-mothers, but 
 which received the cachet of approval of 
 a Manchu Prince of sporting proclivities. 
 One day, having left her groom to drink 
 wine and play cards at a suburban guard- 
 house, she was enjoying an evening 
 gallop all by her lone in the direction of 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 3 
 
 the Imperial Hunting ' Park, when she 
 was overtaken by three young foreigners 
 returning from their Sunday outing in the 
 Hills. They had just taken on board the 
 last of many stout and champagne's (a 
 favorite Peking beverage), and were in- 
 clined to have some 'fun'. (The child's 
 equestrian eccentricities had been talked 
 of in the Mess, and she was supposed to 
 be a precocious ntt-cbi). Mounted on 
 strong cross-bred ponies, fed on beans, 
 the young men easily caught up with 
 Valda' s little potbellied mare and began to 
 crowd her, with very immature Chinese 
 jests picked out of Stent. Valda had a 
 high spirit, as well as a malicious humour, 
 and retorted not only with some choice 
 repartee as cultivated in the women's 
 quarter, but with her whip as well. Then 
 one of the young men, a handsome and 
 stalwart youth indeed, snatched her off 
 her pony and kissed her. Valda fought 
 wildly and fell to the ground, spraining 
 her ankle. Her captor dismounted, and, 
 unaware of her hurt, teased her almost 
 indecently while his companions sat on 
 their ponies roaring with laughter. They 
 were all mere boys; one a student inter- 
 preter of the British I^egation and the 
 others junior assistants of the Revenue 
 Mess, six months out from Europe. 
 
 Suddenly the two stopped laughing; the 
 other, looking up at them and then over 
 his shoulder, whispered. 
 
4 VALDA: 
 
 "Good God, theS. G.!" 
 
 The two dismotinted and the third stood 
 up, and all looked as sheepish and terrified 
 as schoolboys caught by a master. The 
 cause of their discomfiture was the ap- 
 pearance on the road, a little distance off, 
 of a mild insignificant-looking personage 
 jogging along on an old white pony, his 
 head bowed and his mustache showing the 
 satisfied smile of a valetudinarian who 
 feels that his constitutional has done him 
 good. 
 
 "This means the sack," said Blake, 
 the prime culprit, gloomily. 
 
 "It's all right," whispered another. 
 "We can say its an accident. I don't 
 believe he has seen. ' ' 
 
 "The 'S. G.' not see!" said Blake 
 bitterly. ' 'When he sees with his boots ! ' ' 
 
 " I don't care," said the I^egation man. 
 "Your 'S. G.' can't say anything to me. 
 Thank God I don't serve under a bloom- 
 ing Inquisition." 
 
 The sedate passenger rode up, and only 
 now raising his head, touched his helmet 
 with his fly- whisk and said pleasantly, 
 
 ' 'Good evening, gentlemen. ' ' 
 
 "Good evening, sir!" they responded 
 with suspicious alacrity. And the con- 
 sular man made bold to add, "Pretty 
 warm, isn't it, sir?" 
 
 The mild- faced personage did not ac- 
 knowledge this remark, but said, ' 'You 
 had better ride on, gentlemen. The South 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 5 
 
 Gate closes at seven." 
 
 Heavily the three young men mounted 
 their ponies, and, starting, at a deferential 
 jog trot, soon gave the bit to their im- 
 patient ponies and disappeared in a cloud 
 of dust, the only word spoken being a 
 muttered 'Damn' from the youth who had 
 pestered Valda. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Valda Leaves Pefcingf, 
 
 fN the meantime tlie S. G. had caught 
 Valda's pony and replaced her in 
 the saddle. In ordinary life he was 
 known as Mr. Pericord; officially, 
 as the Superintendent General of Imperial 
 Revenues. 
 
 "It is rather unusual for a young 
 Chinese lady to ride abroad, and alone, 
 is it not ? " he said gently, as if he would 
 excuse the misbehaviour of his fellow 
 foreigners. 
 
 His Chinese was perfect — just as perfect, 
 both in accent and form of address, as a 
 native's. So perfect, that Valda scarcely 
 noticed the incongruity; all she noticed 
 was the voice, grave, gentle, winning, 
 fascinating. 
 
 "I am not Chinese," she said, still 
 sulkily, for all foreigners were as yet bar- 
 barians to her. "I am Manchu. My 
 mother comes from beyond the Wall." 
 
 "The honorable father is a military 
 officer?" In China personal questions 
 are polite. 
 
 Valda told him the name of the man- 
 darin she believed to be her father, and 
 the S. G. lapsed into silence. 
 
 When four big men in the livery of the 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 7 
 
 Superintendent General of Revenues tipped 
 Utile Valda out of a big official chair in 
 front of Slieng Ta-jen's residence, there 
 was consternation in the household. 
 What it meant, Valda could not under- 
 stand ;when first her mother, and then her 
 step-father, cross-questioned her over and 
 over again as to every word that had pass- 
 ed between her and the S. G., she began 
 to think that she had been guilty of some 
 fearful impropriety. But the secret of it 
 was simply this, in the words of the man- 
 darin to his wife : 
 
 ' 'If the Tsung Shui-wu Ssu has found 
 out through the child that we have secret 
 communications with the Russian Em- 
 bassy, my head will pay the forfeit. He 
 has long suspected that our friends are in- 
 triguing to supplant his influence, and he 
 is so cunning and patient that if he only 
 discovers your past history he will the 
 next day have proof against me. You 
 must go down to my home in Wuchang 
 at once, wife." 
 
 ' "To be under the eye of his Hankow 
 Commissioner," said the lady bitterly. 
 ' 'How can you escape his vigilance if once 
 you rouse his suspicion ? The net- work of 
 his agents extends to the four comers of 
 the Empire." 
 
 In this trepidation, Valda was kept a 
 close prisoner for a week; with the result 
 that one afternoon she slipped away with- 
 out telling anyone, and waylaid the S. G. 
 
8 VALDA: 
 
 on his customary constitutional. 
 
 " Ching, lord," she accosted him 
 humbly. 
 
 The S. G. raised his eyes; he was riding 
 in a brown study, for he was about to bring 
 off his great coup of the Opium Convention, 
 and the affair was so delicate and audacious, 
 and involved such an immense change in 
 the revenue, that in spite of his Napoleonic 
 power of closing the door of his brain 
 during this brief hour of relaxation, he 
 could not dismiss the subject from his 
 thoughts. 
 
 "Ching, young master," he responded 
 gravely as he passed, but so absently that 
 he mistook Valda for a boy. 
 
 Valda gazed after the bowed figure on 
 the white pony with a feeling which 
 choked her; a disappointment that was 
 despair — a stupefaction which a child 
 might feel who was struck by a passer-by. 
 Then, stung by her innate daring and im- 
 pulsiveness, she smote her pony smartly 
 and overtook him. 
 
 "Ta-jen — pardon — but I want to, I 
 must, thank you. Forgive — please for- 
 give — the small one's impertinence." 
 
 Mr. Pericord brought his old pony to a 
 walk and dismissed lie cares of state for 
 the winning suavity which his enemies 
 called 'soft soap' but which was the quiet 
 unaffected kindness of a great and gracious 
 nature. 
 
 ' 'Thank me, my child — what for ? Ah, 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. 9 
 
 now I remember your face; it is for me to 
 ask pardon for my discourtesy in for- 
 getting it. I trust your ankle no longer 
 pains you?" 
 
 ' 'My ankle ? ' ' That was all poor little 
 Valda could say. Something so much 
 less simple than a forgotten sprain was 
 paining her, but she could not then inter- 
 pret what it was. And so she said nothing 
 and wished she had died before she had 
 accosted him, while at the same time 
 keeping timidly by his side because she 
 could think of no other way than being 
 swallowed up by the earth by which she 
 could excuse herself on that desolate road. 
 
 The S. G. was really bored, if he was 
 not positively annoyed by this tactless in- 
 trusion; but his almost feminine intuition 
 showed him the child's perplexity, and 
 with a good grace he resigned himself to 
 the complete interruption of his thoughts. 
 The only discourtesy he used was the one 
 best calculated to relieve the strange girl's 
 embarrassment; He took out his watch 
 and discovered that it was much later than 
 he thought, and therefore suggested a 
 canter. Every woman can probably pict- 
 ure to herself just how the girl felt as she 
 followed him: the unrelenting blush of 
 shame, the impotent self-hatred, the sen- 
 sation of being dragged at her pony's 
 tail rather than carried on his back. 
 When they passed through the Gate she 
 relieved him of her company without a 
 
10 VALDA: 
 
 word, and turning up a side street, rode 
 furiously through narrow alleys followed 
 by a pandemonitun of imprecations from 
 the coolies whose stalls or burdens she 
 upset. 
 
 And that was the last impression Valda 
 carried away with her of the city of her 
 birth. Through the agency of the 
 Russian lyCgation she was placed in the 
 Jesuit Foundling Convent at Tien-Tsin 
 for a year, to teach her French, after which 
 she was packed off to her father in St. 
 Petersburg, he having of his own initiative 
 sent for her in the interim. His wife having 
 died and left him her fortune without 
 other incumbrances, the Count had de- 
 termined to seek out his Chinese daughter 
 to amuse his declining years. When he 
 saw how remarkably handsome and in- 
 telligent she was, he decided to adopt her 
 and gave her the best Continental education. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Valda's Return to China. 
 
 T happened that within a year of her 
 return the Count, who was now in 
 the Foreign Office, had occasion to 
 conduct some delicate negotiations 
 in connection with the Kuldja Treaty in 
 which it was of advantage to him to be 
 able to deal direct with a special Chinese 
 envoy without the intervention of the res- 
 ident ambassador's interpreter. In this, 
 Valda's Chinese came in opportunely, 
 enabling him to score quite a little diplo- 
 matic triumph. Without any definite 
 prospects for her future, he nevertheless 
 saw the possibilities of the case and was 
 careful, in the scheme of her education, to 
 provide against her entirely forgetting her 
 Chinese. Nothing more was necessary 
 than that she should hold a brief conver- 
 sation with one of her fellow countrymen 
 every few months, and this was easily 
 arranged. 
 
 During the next seven years Valda was 
 transformed into a modem Russo-French 
 society girl. She acquired all the usual 
 accomplishments, and what was Mongolian 
 in her was no more in evidence that it is 
 in pure bred Russians. The only point 
 in which she differed from her fellows 
 was in her remarkable aptitude for, 
 
13 VALDA : 
 
 and experience in, Asiatic politics. This 
 gained lier something like a Kuropean 
 reputation, owing to her father' s peculiar 
 arrangement that- she should be periodi- 
 cally introduced to the Chinese Ministers 
 of the different countries in which her 
 education was carried on. By the age of 
 fifteen I think she was known by sight to 
 all the attaches of the Chinese embassies 
 in Berlin, Paris, and lyondon, and regard- 
 ed both by them and by diplomats as a 
 Russian spy of quite a new and harmless 
 sort. It is not usual for spies to call 
 openly at embassies. Valda knew twice 
 as much about Peking intrigues as all the 
 Foreign Offices put together, and it ended in 
 them seeking her, not her them. It was a 
 common jest of grey haired ministers to 
 say, when China came onto the carpet, 
 ' 'We must send for Miss Valda Beriskoff." 
 This flattered the Count. For once the 
 epithet 'Russian spy' became an epithet of 
 admiration and endearment, and gave 
 Valda a unique eclat when she finally 
 made her debut in society. 
 
 In consequence of this unbroken con- 
 nection with Chinese politics, Valda was 
 never allowed to forget the hero of her 
 childhood. The quiet, reserved figure of 
 the S. G. was always before her eyes, 
 although he shunned advertisement as 
 sedulously as politicians court it. His 
 name never appeared in the papers. None 
 outside the cabinets knew of his existence. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 13 
 
 When a T. Pericord, Ksquire, of Peking, 
 was gazetted in the list of British 'birth- 
 day honours,' when the rumors went 
 abroad that he had been asked for the 
 second time to become the British Minister 
 at Peking, with an earldom for a bribe, 
 people scarcely talked of it; none knew 
 who he was, or what he had done, and as 
 the society gabbler dreads nothing so 
 much as to appear ignorant of other 
 people's biographies, he shunned the topic 
 of Pericord. 
 
 Great Britain possesses numbers of ob- 
 scure celebrities like these, although none 
 wielding such power as wielded by this 
 Mr. Pericord in another country' s service. 
 Sir Claude MacDonald, I^ord Kitchener, 
 Milner, Rhodes — only when some trifle 
 such as a war or a massacre brings their 
 name into prominence does society discov- 
 er that they have been potentates for years. 
 
 But to Valda this name possessed all 
 the significance it possessed up and down 
 the coast of China and in the palaces of 
 the Forbidden City. 
 
 And as, year after year, year after year 
 went by and still the Tsung Shui-wu Ssu 
 remained the chief name to conjure by in 
 all the Chinese Embassies, she began to 
 think that she must have been mistaken in 
 associating it with a person who had inter- 
 ested himself in her. The name must 
 stand for some ancient and immovable in- 
 stitution like that of the Board of Rites or 
 
14 VALDA.: 
 
 of the Dragon Throne itself. It could not 
 refer only and individually to a slight, 
 mild-faced, middle-aged man with a gentle 
 voice and absent-minded eyes, who never 
 went anywhere except to sneak out by the 
 side door of his fu for a timid amble in 
 the dusk of the evening, who had been 
 afraid to say a word to his own employes, 
 and who, it was said, had no other way of 
 amusing himself than by shutting himself 
 up in a back room and playing a melan- 
 choly big fiddle. 
 
 In this way the memory of the S. G. 
 was perpetuated in her growing mind; a 
 sort of dream, crowded down by bare dry 
 facts of colorless reality. 
 
 When Valda was seventeen years of 
 age, the Prince Pauloskoff Tomski, (I am 
 sorry I don't know the correct way of 
 writing these names) sought her hand in 
 marriage. The Count, to whom the pro- 
 posal was made, was delighted. It was 
 the crown of his life's ambition. He in- 
 formed Valda of the honour awaiting her, 
 and desired her to arrange the date of the 
 ceremony without delay, as the Prince 
 was liable to die at any minute. I don't 
 suppose he told Valda this in so many 
 words, for the Prince made up well 
 enough to deceive a girl as to his age, and 
 the disease which was destroying him did 
 not admit of detailed description. 
 
 But to the Count's amazement, Valda 
 refused to obey him. She said she did 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. 15 
 
 not want to marry. The Count, seriously 
 alarmed, questioned her very closely, but 
 could discover no symptoms of a clandes- 
 tine love affair. The girl, in fact, shewed 
 a supercilious indifference to all the hand- 
 some gallants whose names her father 
 tentatively introduced. What was the 
 meaning of this? The girl was incompre- 
 hensible. Simply, she did not want to 
 marry at all. Incidentally, the idea of the 
 Prince filled her with loathing. 
 
 After a year of foolish efforts, the Count 
 entirely lost his temper. The alliance 
 meant everything to him. Its defeat meant 
 ruin. He told Valda that she was illegit- 
 imate, that he intended to disinherit her, 
 and that the best thing she could do was 
 to go back to China and marry a coolie. 
 Valda took him at his word, and said 
 quietly that there was nothing she would 
 desire so much. The Count had an apo- 
 plectic fit and died soon after. 
 
 Valda returned to China as the ward of 
 the Russian Minister at Peking. She had a 
 good wardrobe, a sparkling presence, 
 Parisian accomplishments, and the grand 
 style. Peking, with its attaches of every 
 nationality, is not such a bad hunting 
 ground for a portionless belle, and Valda 
 could have made a better match than 
 her origin warranted, if she had desired 
 and her guardian had approved. She did 
 not, however, marry. 
 
 The young Russian took her place, of 
 
16 VALDA: 
 
 course, in the holy of holies of Peking 
 Society, which, as it numbered in all 
 about one hundred members, (excepting 
 only missionaries and children) divided 
 itself in more numerous, exclusive, and 
 scandal-mongering cliques than even in 
 Shanghai or Simla. Passing globetrott- 
 ers and parliamentary journalists, enter- 
 tained by their ministers and invited 
 everywhere with an alacrity which would 
 be suspicious to less unsophisticated 
 persons, go home with stories of the large 
 hospitality of the East and the homelike 
 goodfellowship which exists among all 
 the members of these isolated settlements. 
 They little wot of all the heart-burnings 
 which trouble these worthy goodfellows, 
 especially over the priority of getting the 
 ear of a stranger. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Walls of Peking. 
 
 'AlyDA, as a child, had travelled 
 from Peking to Tien-Tsin by- 
 boat, a leisurely four days jour- 
 ney. She returned by rail, in 
 four hours. Somehow, her hereditary 
 instincts told her that this thing was ab- 
 normal, not of the soil. When she found 
 that the line terminated as soon as the long 
 squat walls with their uncouth towers 
 broke the skyline, the uneasy foreboding 
 was cofirmed. It was a violation of tra- 
 ditions as venerable and immovable as 
 those walls, that swift artificial traction 
 should cut an unheeding path through 
 the feng-shuis of graves and antiquity 
 which hallowed these barren plains. If 
 only, (some passionate misgiving cried 
 within her) the noisy anachronism had 
 been able at once to carry itself right 
 through that barrier, the spell of seclusion 
 might have been dissipated forever. But 
 there ahead still couched the squat, grim 
 monster of the ancient city, intact, sar- 
 donical, gazing with its blank mud brow 
 towards the arrested innovation, sluggish- 
 ly cherishing the ancient backwardness 
 and all its vast mysterious potentiality of 
 resistance and resentment. Valda knew 
 the city and its people : bom there, the 
 
18 • VALDA : 
 
 sluggish foulness of its poverty and mil- 
 lions rested a reminiscent ground- work for 
 her intuitive comprehension of its character 
 and sentiment; and as in advance she pic- 
 tured to herself, behind the flat grey mound, 
 the mazy panorama of miles and miles of 
 narrow winding alleys, swarming with the 
 ant-like industry of stolid crowds, it seemed 
 to her that the steel rails and imbedded 
 trestles over which the steam horse thun- 
 dered, were mere ephemeral cobwebs, spun 
 only to be swept away. 
 
 Valda expressed a wish to hire a native 
 cart to carry her through the Chinese city 
 to the Chien Men, instead of using the 
 huggy which the minister had sent to 
 meet her. Valda' s origin had, of course, 
 been sedulously concealed, and it appear- 
 ed perfectly natural to the attache who 
 escorted her that this charming young 
 woman should be curious to see Chinese 
 Peking before immuring herself in the 
 aristocratic avenues of the Tartar City. 
 
 The jolting cart, with its rude and com- 
 fortless utilitarianism of construction, re- 
 stored Valda to a sense of home-coming 
 which the railway, the mode of travel to 
 which she had been accustomed for the 
 past eight years, had entirely failed to im- 
 part. This was China; this was the im- 
 memorial civilization of the East based on 
 the only primitive foundations of expedi- 
 ence and economy. Trained in culture 
 and luxury as she had been, she now felt 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKINO. 19 
 
 a scornful contempt for the showy ex- 
 travagances which Western civilization 
 had grown to depend on as indispensables. 
 And then she smiled on her companion 
 and said with a charming shudder — 
 
 ' 'What hopeless barbarity everywhere! ' ' 
 
 ' 'We shall change it all when Russia 
 rules Peking," responded the attache. 
 
 "Ah!" Valda remembered. Intrigue — 
 a patient relentless purpose — international 
 rivalries forever wrestling in mortal strife 
 beneath the tranquil surface of stereotyped 
 courtesies — and behind, in the back- 
 ground, gaping with vacant grin, the 
 countless millions of China, storing up 
 beneath their apathy an energy which 
 might submerge Russia itself in its flood. 
 
 ' 'Our influence is already paramount, I 
 hear?" suggested Valda. 
 
 "But for one man we should dictate the 
 Yamen's policy, annex the land, and 
 monopolize the trade, of each district in 
 succession as soon as we were ready to 
 assimilate it." 
 
 "So? They told me that Sir Claude 
 had succumbed unresistingly to the pre- 
 cedents of Sir Thomas Wade. ' ' 
 
 ' 'Oh, the British Minister does not alarm 
 us," replied the young diplomat with a 
 smile of approval for his companion's in- 
 teUigence. ' 'Our stumbling block is Mr. 
 Pericord, the S. G. I. R. D. Fortunately, 
 we have the assurance of Holy Writ that 
 no man can live forever, or the impreg- 
 
30 VALDA: 
 
 nable persistance of this solemn-faced 
 dullard would drive our minister to 
 despair. ' ' 
 
 "The S. G. ! " murmured Valda softly. 
 Then she lapsed into silence. 
 
 A shadow fell over the cart; Valda 
 looked up and shuddered. In front of 
 them, so close that it seemed that it might 
 fall and crush them, loomed a vast cliff- 
 like embankment, a square tower of un- 
 couth solidity squatting heavily alone. It 
 was the city wall. Sheer from a rubbly 
 base it towered, gray, and crumbling, yet 
 massive and inscandible; far as the eye 
 could reach it stretched away on either 
 hand, clean-cut and straight, solidly 
 buttressed, ponderously yet symmetrically 
 be-towered. In front of them the black 
 arched mouth of a tunnel, appearing in 
 proportion to the cliff it pierced a mere 
 burrow, yet wide and lofty enough to 
 admit three loaded camels abreast. Scat- 
 tered on either side of the road, a suburb 
 of caravansaries, mat sheds, reed huts, 
 dwarfed to the proportions of bee hives 
 and cucumber frames. 
 
 Half an hour before, Valda had looked 
 forward to the Wall as to an old familiar 
 friend, harmless and homelike; now its 
 awful antiquity and strength crushed her 
 with an unspeakable sense of foreboding. 
 The barrier to the civilization of the 
 West; the rampart of the prejudices of 
 the Bast; and yet folding in its massive 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 31 
 
 womb a brood of the very snakes who 
 were plotting its downfall. The ugly 
 simile — Valda knew Milton and Dante 
 better than Chu-Tza or Mencius — had 
 scarcely occurred to her that she repented 
 it revulsively, and, thinking softly of the 
 man whom her companion had called a 
 solemn- faced dullard, felt hopelessly that 
 her metaphor should have been that of 
 angels hugged in the embrace of a cobra. 
 
 ' 'They say these huge walls serve no 
 other purpose than to keep out the fresh 
 air, ' ' she said pensively, ' 'that they would 
 be worse than useless for defence." 
 
 ' 'They do say so, ' ' sneered the Russian 
 attache. ' 'We have a habit of despising 
 systems we do not use." 
 
 "But I suppose it is true that these 
 walls could offer no resistance to artillery?' ' 
 
 ' 'The people who say that imagine that 
 Chinese walls are the same as those of med- 
 iaeval cities of Europe. Granite or brick 
 walls are merely death-traps to those be- 
 hind them. Mud embankments fifty feet 
 thick are advocated nowadays as the only 
 protection against shell fire. That is what 
 these wall are, only they are too high 
 and these towers are explosive targets. 
 When they have been battered a little 
 they will form a ridge over a hundred feet 
 thick, in which even siege shells would 
 bury themselves. ' ' 
 
 Valda was astonished. "Do you mean 
 to say that Peking would be capable of 
 
33 VALDA : 
 
 Standing a siege?" 
 
 "The walls could be defended at any 
 one point, ' ' he replied indifferently. ' 'But 
 they have a circuit of twenty or thirty 
 miles, so that it would not be difficult to 
 scale them somewhere — if one had loo,- 
 ooo men to spare for simultaneous assaults 
 from at half a dozen quarters." 
 
 ' 'There would still remain the Imperial 
 City," said Valda half to herself. "And 
 the Palace after that." 
 
 ' 'You seem well up in the topography 
 of the old shop, ' ' the attache said in sur- 
 prise. "But you have touched the kernel 
 of the matter: it is that, we count on if 
 we should ever have to hold Peking — 
 against other Powers. An enemy once 
 within the walls, but outside the Imperial 
 Wall, would be in a death-trap. Peking 
 could only be taken by starvation." 
 ' 'What do you mean by a death-trap ? ' ' 
 "Well, there is the population; you 
 can't exterminate that. Ten thousand or 
 fifty thousand men (they would have to 
 keep together) wouldn't cover a square 
 inch on a chart of a city like this. There 
 are walls all around them which can't be 
 crossed in a hop, skip and a jump. Where 
 would you be if the Chinese got hold of 
 the gates and mount a few guns on the 
 wall?" 
 
 "I don't like to think of it," Valda 
 murmured with a shiver. "Suppose, 
 without war or a siege or anything like 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. 33 
 
 that, the crowd were to turn against us ; 
 the I<egations, I mean? What hope of 
 escape should we have ? ' ' 
 
 ' 'Revolvers for us and arsenic for you, ' ' 
 replied the Russian. 
 
 They were by this time passing under 
 the long and gloomy tunnel of the gate. 
 ' 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, ' ' 
 whispered Valda, as if afraid that the 
 guards should ever hear her. 
 
 "Come, come," said the attache gal- 
 lantly, taking advantage of the gloom to 
 press her hand. ' 'That is not exactly the 
 spirit in which a debutante should look 
 forward to the most brilliant little coterie 
 of fashion to be found east of Moscow." 
 
 "So that is what you think your- 
 selves?" laughed Valda, rallying.* "Are 
 you so very gay then? ' ' 
 
 "We should be absolutely frivolous if 
 it were not again for that solemn- faced 
 gentleman I referred to just now. Some- 
 how one can't come within a block of the 
 man without feeling either choked with an 
 atmosphere of statistics or chilled with an 
 atmosphere of Secret Reports. The poor 
 fellow lacks what these prigs of English 
 call our 'Muscovite Veneer.' He wears a 
 worried look, to quote the ghastly vul- 
 garity of these student boys." 
 
 "I am afraid you have not a very good 
 opinion of your fellow Europeans in 
 Peking, Captain Vassilich. " 
 
34 VALDA.: 
 
 "Oh, they will pass, they will pass — 
 until they do pass. We must put up 
 with their airs for a year or two longer, I 
 suppose, until Peking is called Alex- 
 anderburg." 
 
 "OrNewTokio." 
 
 "Never!" said the Captain sharply. 
 ' 'I for my part would sooner let loose the 
 whole flood of fanaticism which is brood- 
 ing like a poisonous miasma" — he waved 
 his hand towards the crowded alleys — 
 ' 'aU round us in a million secretive hearts, 
 than see Japan paramount at Peking." 
 
 ' 'And be yourself its first victim, most 
 likely," said Valda scornfully. 
 
 "With all my heart, if by so doing I 
 could stave off the Yellow Union which 
 would swallow up Russia in half a 
 centufy. But what an astonishing insight 
 into Asiatic politics you seem to possess, 
 MissBeriskoff!" 
 
 "Oh, I read the papers, you know," 
 she answered. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Society in Peking, 
 
 AlvDA was at once embarked on 
 the full tide of the gaieties of 
 Peking Society, and invitations 
 poured in on her, every salon 
 being eager to claim this new attraction 
 before its rivals. A ball at the French 
 I<egation, a dinner at the British, a hill 
 picnic by the students' mess, were organ- 
 ized in her special honor within the first 
 fortnight ; but the invitation which alone 
 excited her anticipations was a plain un- 
 pretentious card bearing these printed 
 words : 
 
 ' ' Mr. Pericord requests the pleasure of 
 Miss Beriskoff's and H. E. M. de Samo- 
 var' s presence at a garden party to be held 
 in the grounds of the Superintendancy 
 General of Chinese Imperial Revenues on 
 Saturday next. ' ' 
 
 "Mister Pericord?" she said question- 
 ingly, in a voice which caused the Minister 
 to look at her searchingly. "Is the 
 Superintendant General a — a bachelor?" 
 
 M. de Samovar uttered a low laugh. 
 "Ha, ha, Miss Valda, you aim at the 
 highest from the start, then? For our 
 own sakes I wish he were, but no such 
 luck. Mr. Pericord has a genius for 
 rendering himself inaccessible to feminine 
 
36 VALDA: 
 
 intrigues. Mrs. Pericord has lived in 
 I^ondon for the past five years, but the 
 S. G. lets it be fully understood that 
 he is only a grass widower, and only to 
 that extent " 
 
 Valda blushed indignantly and turned 
 away. She understood the insinuation, 
 and was not shocked at her guardian's 
 indelicacy because she was accustomed to 
 the manners of Russian noblemen; but it 
 hurt her that even diplomatic scandal 
 could associate the least suggestion of 
 sensuality with the face which abode in 
 her memory as the type of goodness. 
 
 Valda entered the beautiful grounds, 
 hung with endless chains of paper lanterns 
 and idealized by the soft strains of the 
 famous band, with a fluttering uneasiness 
 which contrasted strangely with her habit- 
 ual self-assurance. She was received by 
 a florid young man with a Scotch accent; 
 ' 'We are delighted to welcome so charm- 
 ing an accession to our dull society here," 
 he said with elaborate clumsiness. 
 
 Valda scarcely glanced at the old 
 young man (his face was that of a boy, 
 but his hair was grizzled at the sides) ; a 
 feeling of bitter disappointment beset her, 
 and she turned her eyes away with such a 
 look in them as a woman might wear 
 whose life's dream had been cruelly 
 shattered. 
 
 "Take my arm, Miss Beriskoff," said 
 the military attache. ' 'The minister will 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 27 
 
 be buried in a game of wliist with the 
 other gray beards for the next three 
 hours, so you must allow me to be your 
 chaperon. What do you think of the S. 
 G. ' s private musicians ? The man divides 
 his time equally between them and the 
 Revenue, and they say the Revenue runs 
 itself while the S. G. runs the Band." 
 
 ' 'You did not tell me there had been a 
 change in the head of the Revenue 
 Service, Captain Vassilich," Valda said 
 wearily. 
 
 "I don't suppose I did. If I could have 
 told you that I could have as easily told 
 you that the Great Wall had taken unto 
 itself wings and joined the chorus of 
 angels. ' ' 
 
 Valda turned on him quickly; her eyes 
 flashed with painful eagerness. "But 
 surely that young man who appears to act 
 as host is not the Superintendant General 
 who was here before I was born?" 
 
 "Oh, Cinderpan? He's only one of the 
 Royal Family: a Vice- Assistant Tempor- 
 ary Acting Secretary or something of the 
 sort who relieves the great man of the i 
 onus of performing the common courtesies 
 of society. Its a wonder we were not 
 received by his boy. He looks on us as a 
 lot of idle butterflies who have got to be 
 kept in good humor, but as to condescend- 
 ing to appear at his own garden parties — 
 oh, you cannot expect that of a man who 
 collects the revenue of the Chinese Empire, 
 
28 VALDA.: 
 
 — and keeps his own private band." 
 
 Valda smUed charmingly; she seemed 
 to find her companion's wit full of enter- 
 tainment, 
 
 "Then does the S. G. never go out ? " 
 "I don' t think he has accepted an in- 
 vitation for the last five years — since he 
 relieved himself of Mrs. Pericord' s dicta- 
 torship. They do say he takes a consti- 
 tutional occasionally, but if so, he manages 
 to slip out of the city by a tunnel or an 
 airship, for no one ever encounters him. ' ' 
 The next day Valda borrowed one of the 
 Minister' s ponies and rode out along the 
 Tung-Chou Road alone. She returned 
 dejected. Whenever she could escape 
 the round of gaieties — the tennis-parties 
 and afternoon teas at the Peking Club, 
 the picnics to the Hills, the undress 
 boudoir calls, the official receptions — she 
 rode out if possible alone ; but whether it 
 was because the young men of the Messes 
 always happened to be emerging from 
 their 'Barracks' just as she passed, or 
 because the dust blinded her, or because 
 she found the country too squalid and un- 
 interesting, the effect of her gallops 
 seemed only to be depression and weari- 
 ness, and she soon abandoned them. It 
 was only by accident that she learned 
 later that the S. G. had been out of the 
 capital, summering at a coast resort called 
 Pei-tai-ho. And he returned, as he went, 
 unannounced. 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. S9 
 
 But it was not till the winter came, 
 cutting ofE Peking from all the world by 
 its barrier of ice in the Gulf of Pechile, 
 that the brilliant little society of I^egation 
 Street was thrown entirely on its own 
 resources for amusement. The opening 
 of the skating rink — the flooded tennis 
 grounds of the Peking Club — inaugurated 
 the three months of isolation with a bril- 
 liant display of Chinese furs, both on the 
 caps and cloaks of the high mandarins 
 invited, and on the muffs and jackets of 
 the foreign women. Sleigh rides, tobog- 
 gan parties, soirees, and balls, replaced 
 the languid garden parties and picnic 
 excursions of the oppressive summer, and 
 for the rest, all the world (a few hundred 
 persons at the most) depended on the S. 
 G.'s fortnightly courier service for the 
 mails from Shanghai. 
 
 And now it was that the S. G,, the 
 Veiled Prophet of the Revenue Myth, as 
 the young consulars deUghted to dub him 
 to their chums of the I. R. D., came out 
 of his shell and condescended to show 
 himself once a month at a public dinner, 
 and even to be at home to, callers once a 
 week. Kvery young man who could 
 play a musical instrument was now to 
 have the chance of a lifetime of attract- 
 ing the personal attention of the S. G., 
 and anecdotes were revived of all the 
 'careers' that had been made by a happy 
 knack of the banjo or a fluty mouthing of 
 
30 VALDA : 
 
 the clarionet. 
 
 But if the young men practised and 
 hoped, what of the wives of Secretaries 
 and Assistants who had intrigued to 
 obtain a transfer to Peking for the express 
 purpose of offering their charms to the 
 retiring grass- widower? It had come to 
 be accepted as the duty of all married 
 women in the Revenue Service to forget 
 their modesty when the chance presented 
 itself to obtain their husband' s promotion 
 by a little bit of flirtation; and everyone in 
 Peking except the S. G. himself knew 
 that every woman attended his receptions 
 with this avowed intention. In fact, it 
 was whispered that they even cast lots 
 among themselves as to whose turn it 
 should be to monopolize the bashful old 
 bachelor and inveigle him into his 
 conservatory. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 Valda*s Second Meeting with the S. G. 
 
 IKLiDA. listened to these boudoir 
 anecdotes with silent indigna- 
 
 tion. But what were her feel- 
 ings when her guardian began 
 to hint that she herself was expected to 
 use her charms on behalf of Russian 
 diplomacy ? 
 
 "You are far and away the cleverest 
 woman in Peking," said Mr. Samovar, 
 ' 'and you are the only one of the lot who 
 understands the first thing about Asiatic 
 poHtics. The opportunity presents itself 
 to you to perform a signal service for 
 your country. You are aware that we 
 intend to annex Manchuria to our Amur 
 province of Eastern Siberia. There are a 
 great many exceedingly delicate questions 
 connected with this stride, each one of 
 which, in some inexplicable fashion, 
 seems to come around to, and depend on, 
 this sphinx-like Mr. Pericord. Not the 
 least important of these questions is that 
 connected with the collection of duties at 
 the Port of Niuchuang, which is at 
 present administered by the department 
 which he controls. Now if Manchuria is 
 to be a part of Russia, Niuchuang, which 
 is the Port of Mukden, should be admin- 
 istered, and its tariff regulated, by us. 
 
38 VALDA: 
 
 We were already in process of pacifically- 
 engrossing this port by means of certain 
 loans or railway concessions, when the 
 United States Government, which ignores 
 all the established precedents, crudely, 
 although, I must confess, very skillfully, 
 addressed a circular to the Powers vir- 
 tually demanding a recognition of the 
 "Open Door" fiction for all the Treaty 
 Ports. This circular was aimed straight 
 at our own heads with reference to this 
 very Port of Niuchuang, where American 
 imports of piece goods and oil form a 
 growing item of the trade. Bluffed in 
 this vulgar fashion, we were compelled for 
 the time being to declare that we had 
 no intention of altering the tariff or as- 
 suming the collection of the duties. But 
 of course we have no intention of allowing 
 this transparent bluff of a non-military 
 Republic to turn aside the manifest destiny 
 of Russia. It has therefore become ex- 
 tremely important for us to know just 
 what secret understanding exists between 
 the Chinese Government and Great Britain 
 and Japan towards enforcing the Open 
 Door policy — when we are ready to declare 
 our hand. I have sounded the Tsung-li 
 Yamen and find that they know nothing. 
 Between ourselves, our enemies are nego- 
 tiating directly with Mr. Pericord, who 
 arrogates to himself, as he has always 
 done in the administration of the Revenue, 
 the astonishing claim to keep in his own 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 33 
 
 pocket, as it were, the documents relating 
 to this vital understanding, to be placed 
 in the Yamen's hands only when the 
 matter reaches the stage of active inter- 
 ference. Until I know what this under- 
 Standing amounts to, my hands are tied 
 and I might almost say the whole Eastern 
 poUcy of Russia is brought to a standstill. 
 Valda" — here M. de Samovar laid his 
 hand on her shoulder and looked at her 
 impressively — "Valda, I entrust to you 
 the vital task of sounding Mr. Pericord 
 personally on this topic. You have all 
 the facts. You will meet him at dinner 
 to-night. A woman of your intelligence 
 need not be told by what means a timid 
 but sympathetic man is best persuaded to 
 part with his secrets. ' ' 
 
 Valda withdrew her shoulder from her 
 guardian' s hand as she might have shud- 
 dered from the touch of an asp, and 
 walked away from him. M. de Samovar 
 looked after her with an evil perplexity. 
 
 ' 'I/Ct the girl play me false, ' ' he muttered, 
 "and she shall find that Peking is not St. 
 Petersburg. ' ' 
 
 At last Valda was to meet the hero of 
 her childhood: to look on the face which 
 had haunted her during eight years 
 crowded with new sensations, in the 
 whirl of social triumphs, in the din of 
 masculine flattery, in the very midst of 
 whispered courtship from some of the 
 
34 VA.LDA : 
 
 handsomest and most celebrated beaux of 
 Kurope. Everyone had wondered at the 
 strange girl's indifference to these flatter- 
 ies, her aversion to marriage, her coldness, 
 her inaccessibility. She herself perhaps 
 had sometimes wondered at her apathy. 
 Now, at last, her heart told her why she 
 had kept herself unclaimed, and an awful 
 misgiving beset her that she should find 
 she had cherished an utter delusion, pre- 
 pared for herself a disappointment full 
 only of bathos and ridicule. 
 
 Had she hoped then to marry this man? 
 That would be an absurd conclusion; a 
 child of ten years does not think of 
 marriage, and it would have been sufficient 
 for her as she grew older, to remember 
 that Mr. Pericord had already a wife. 
 Did she love him ? Again, does a child 
 realize what is meant by love, and does a 
 young woman fasten her affections on the 
 memory of a man, a man too of almost in- 
 significant appearance, old enough to be 
 her father? To analyze the sexual 
 character of a Russo-Manchu half-caste 
 would be beyond the diagnosis of a 
 lyavater, and to the girl herself this inex- 
 plicable fondness appeared now something 
 unnatural and even shameful; but* sym- 
 pathies do not reason, and her knees 
 literally trembled, and her heart fluttered 
 with terror, as she prepared to see the 
 grave face and weak body transformed 
 into the decrepitude of old age. 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. 35 
 
 "Welcome to Peking, Mios Beriskoff." 
 Valda laughed outright: laughed almost 
 hysterically. She pressed the firm white 
 hand with school-girl cordiality, and re- 
 torted gaily — 
 
 "But, sir, I have already been three 
 months in Peking ! Does Your Grandeur 
 dare to imply that no one can have arrived 
 in Peking until she has received the ofiic- 
 ial recognition of your handshake ? I think 
 I have attended half a dozen of your 
 garden parties, but I really did not know 
 until this minute that the Superintendant 
 General of Chinese Revenues was anything 
 more corporeal than a Board!" 
 
 To say that this speech spread con- 
 sternation though the assembled guests 
 would but faintly indicate the astonish- 
 ment, I might almost say terror, which 
 was depicted on the faces of the young 
 men, the ladies, the Staff, even the griz- 
 zled Ministers, who had to stroke their 
 mustaches with a simultaneous uplifting 
 of long-fingered hands which had the air 
 of a salute. And when they ventured to 
 raise their eyes stealthily to the face of the 
 Veiled Prophet, the Grand I^lama, thus 
 audaciously bearded, their consternation 
 was changed to a profound alarm for the 
 anticipated pleasures of the evening. For 
 the S. G. was blushing deeply, — blushing 
 to the very top of his bald forehead, and 
 his hand visibly trembled as he still held 
 it outstretched. 
 
36 VALDA: 
 
 "1 really did not know that I had been 
 guilty of any such presumption, mademoi- 
 selle, ' ' he stammered, with the offended 
 but frightened look of a snubbed school- 
 boy. 
 
 ' 'Oh, forgive me ! ' ' murmured Valda, 
 turning hastily away to hide her own 
 burning blushes and not less manifest 
 confusion; terrified at the bounding of 
 her heart which it did not seem possible 
 that she could control sufficiently to go 
 into dinner sedately. 
 
 For the man who had greeted her with 
 such grave and modest benignity was the 
 same man, the very same, with the same 
 low sympathetic voice, who had lifted her 
 onto her pony after putting to flight her 
 tormentors, who had carried her through 
 the very courtyard she had just traversed, 
 who had enquired tenderly if her ankle 
 pained; not a day older, not a wrinkle, 
 not a new white hair in the iron-gray 
 beard, only a little firmer and more up- 
 right in carriage, a little more self-assured, 
 a little fuller in the face, a little younger in 
 the eyes, as if — she thought with senseless 
 rejoicing — the resumption of his bachelor- 
 dom had taken away the petty worries 
 which carve crow's-feet on the brows of 
 genius. And so it was that a wild elation 
 had siezed her, a mad revulsion from the 
 mortal misgivings which had made her 
 knees to quake, a boundless joy to look at 
 last upon the incarnation of her dubious 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 37 
 
 dreams and evanescent memories, so that 
 she uttered the first gay coquetries of her 
 heart, entirely forgetting that she was a 
 stranger and a guest, and her host a great 
 Personage whom women were wont to 
 bow to with little less awe than to royalty. 
 
 She was brought back to her senses by 
 a little pat on the shoulder, and the voice 
 of her guardian at her ear. 
 
 ' 'Magnificent ! " he whispered with an 
 encouraging smile. ' 'But be careful, for 
 he is as shy as a two-year-old. Do not be 
 in a hurry to press your advantage. The 
 impression is made and it will bear fruit 
 even if he sulks for a week. You've got 
 in ahead of the rest and that is the main 
 thing." 
 
 Valda'snew found joy vanished into 
 air. She shuddered at her guardian's 
 touch, and all her thoughts seemed turned 
 to desecration. 
 
CHAPTKR VII. 
 
 Blake. 
 
 S.OR the rest of the evening Valda 
 was absorbed in listening to her 
 idol from a distance, and in watch- 
 ing the attitude towards him of 
 the guests, as various in rank and impor- 
 tance as they were cosmopolitan in na- 
 tionality. There were representatives of 
 a dozen different countries, Austrian, Bel- 
 gian, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, as well 
 as American, British, French, German and 
 Russian; the wives of these, their attaches 
 and Secretaries; three or four great man- 
 darins, including Prince Ching and the 
 Governor of Peking; the Roman and An- 
 glican Bishops; a sprinkling of chaplains, 
 doctors, consular students, and Revenue 
 Assistants, together with some winter- 
 bound travellers and savants and the heads 
 of the two chief colleges in the capital, one 
 of whom was privately the specif corres- 
 pondent of the Times. The S. G., as a 
 purely Chinese official, was compelled to 
 be more catholic in his hospitality than the 
 lyegations, who scrutinized their lists of 
 'eligibles' by the light of national obliga- 
 tions, and the private preferences of their 
 women folk. 
 
 To anyone less romantic than Valda, it 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 39 
 
 would have been difficult to see in Mr. 
 Pericord anything to attract such tremul- 
 ous sympathy as she felt. The man seemed 
 a type of self -obliteration; a negative quan- 
 tity, something regular and mechanical, in- 
 spiring confidence and respect indeed, but 
 far too unemotional to inspire emotion. 
 Seated at the head of his table, he spoke 
 scarcely at all, or if he exhibited any symp- 
 tom of domestic naturalness, it was to his 
 head boy or butler, when he called his at- 
 tention by a gentle look to the wants of 
 his guests. But to them, to the ministers 
 and great ladies on his either hand, he 
 merely listened; graciously, it is true, but 
 with an absent air which betrayed the 
 habit of the recluse. And yet one had but 
 to look round the faces of the guests to 
 perceive that there was in this man a rare 
 attraction and impressiveness; the minis- 
 ters and high Mandarins might be per- 
 ceived to lift their eyes quickly when he 
 spoke, as if in the midst of their con- 
 versation they were listening to catch the 
 simplest word from his lips. But more 
 especially in the young men of his own 
 staff was this reverence to be noticed. Not 
 the youngest and most reckless but seemed 
 imbued with an air of devotion and love as 
 he looked at his chief; and one perceived, 
 if one did not understand, how for thirty 
 years he had controlled the destinies of 
 hundreds of employes with hardly a sin- 
 gle instance of mutiny or ingratitude. 
 
40 VALDA : 
 
 Valda remarked especially this expres- 
 sion of devotion in a young man who sat 
 opposite her, whose strong and handsome 
 face wore an air of settled melancholy. He 
 looked Hke one who bore patiently an un- 
 merited injury, because he was conscious of 
 integrity and wished to retrieve a lost posi- 
 tion. The more she looked at him, the 
 more familiar did his features appear; and 
 then suddenly the conviction came to her 
 that this was the very boy who had 
 snatched her from her pony and kissed 
 her eight years before. After dinner it 
 was the custom to dance, many guests 
 coming in later for that purpose only. 
 Seeing her melancholy vis-a-vis standing 
 alone near her, Valda assumed the priv- 
 ilege of her Russian audacity to say to him: 
 
 ' 'Are you not somewhat ungallant, Mr. 
 Blake, to stand idle when you see that I am 
 dying for a waltz and have no partner?" 
 
 A bright smile broke up the gloom of 
 the man's face and he offered her his arm 
 with alacrity. 
 
 ' 'You dance very well, ' ' she said. ' 'How 
 is it that you appear so isolated here? Are 
 you a new arrival?' ' 
 
 "It is not that," he replied, "although 
 it is true that I only returned from leave a 
 month ago. I used to know a good many 
 people when I was at Peking before, and 
 there are several members of my service up 
 here who have been stationed at the same 
 ports as myself during the last seven years. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 41 
 
 But I am out of favor, you see; I am sup- 
 posed to be in the S. G.'s black books. 
 When a man has once got that sort of bad 
 name his friends are prone to give him the 
 cold shdulder — at Peking." 
 
 "But what makes you think you are 
 in his black books?" (Valda said 'his' as 
 if to her as much as to Blake there was 
 only one 'he' in China). 
 
 ' 'Well, you see, I have had only one 
 promotion in seven years, and that is al- 
 ways a sure sign of disgrace in our 
 Service, when the Chief is known never 
 to lose sight of the meanest of his 500 
 Assistants. And then, until my leave 
 came, I was kept for unusually long spells 
 in the two worst ports in the Yellow Book 
 — Hainan and Pakhoi: in fact this is my 
 first transfer north since I was sent down 
 eight years ago. Most men are generally 
 expected to resign when they receive this 
 treatment. I have returned a year before 
 my leave was up, and that in the face of 
 a very cold letter from Mr. Pericord 
 suggesting that after my prolonged resi- 
 dence in malarial districts he would have 
 supposed that I should wish to reside in 
 Kurope indefinitely. But, you see, I have 
 
 faith in the justice of my Chief " 
 
 Valda, who had been imperceptibly 
 steering her partner backwards towards ' 
 the portieres of the card room, suddenly 
 came to a standstill. "Now, what was 
 that you were saying? Tell me again; I 
 
43 VALDA: 
 
 am extremely interested in this mysterious 
 Service of yours. ' ' 
 
 ' 'I see that I have made myself ridicu- 
 lous," he said coldly. 
 
 ' 'No, no ! You were saying that you 
 had faith in your chief — that you meant 
 to rehabilate yourself " 
 
 "I did not say so, but you have read 
 my purpose," he replied with renewed 
 eagerness. ' 'The S. G. might ignore me 
 for twenty years without shaking my firm 
 conviction in his justice and generosity. 
 I was a poor lad, without influence or 
 ability, when he nominated me to the 
 Service on the petition of my mother, who 
 had no introduction save the rumour of 
 his goodness; and if my punishment has 
 been over-severe for a trivial fault, I do 
 not forget that the S. G. has the cares of 
 an empire on his shoulders as well as 
 hundreds besides myself to keep an eye 
 on, and I acquiesce in the inexorable rule 
 that in the Revenue an Assistant must 
 never incur suspicion." 
 
 A murmured conversation on the other 
 side of the curtains had ceased; Valda 
 raised her fair arm to the portiere as if to 
 prevent her companion from looking . 
 beyond. 
 
 ' 'What was your fault ? ' ' she murmured 
 with a soft look which stirred the blood in 
 the young man's pulses. 
 
 "I would rather not tell you," he said 
 awkwardly. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 43 
 
 "I expect you had been drinking." 
 ' 'That, I am ashamed to say, is the very 
 truth ! " he said eagerly. ' 'I had been out 
 to the hills with a consular man who in- 
 sisted on mixing stout with my champagne, 
 and as I had virtually never taken any- 
 thing more intoxicating than a Vermouth 
 and bitters I simply didn't know what I 
 was doing. And yet I am well aware that 
 what I did was the very gravest fault in 
 the Revenue decalogue — one which, if the 
 native feeling had been as hostile then as 
 it is now, might have seriously compro- 
 mised the Service. I give you my word. 
 Miss Beriskoff, that I have not touched 
 wine since that day." 
 
 ' 'Now if Mr. Pericord could have heard 
 that explanation, and not take steps at 
 once to repair his injustice," said Valda 
 vivaciously, stepping quickly aside from 
 her position between the curtains, ' 'then I 
 should really believe what everyone says, 
 that your S. G. is not a man, but a . . . " 
 ' 'Machine, ' ' said a gravely gentle voice 
 behind them. ' 'I am afraid you would be 
 right. Miss Beriskoff." 
 
 Blake started, and turned deadly pale — 
 he understood why Valda had decoyed him 
 thither and drawn him on to confess him- 
 self. The S. G. had been standing im- 
 mediately behind them during the inter- 
 view, in conversation with the British Am- 
 bassador. 
 
 "I<et me assure you, sir," stammered 
 
44 VALDA : 
 
 Blake indignantly, "ttat had I been 
 aware. . ." 
 
 But the S. G. slowly turned Ms back 
 on him as if he had not heard, and walked 
 pensively away. 
 
 ' 'Pardon me if I leave you here, Miss 
 Beriskoff," said Blake haughtily. "You 
 have friends at hand; I have not." 
 
 "You are unkind," said Valda sadly, 
 without making any motion to detain him. 
 
 Blake turned sharply, a blush of shame 
 fighting with his wounded pride. "lam 
 a brute, " he replied. "Forgive me. Your 
 intention was of the kindest." 
 
 "Come, come," murmured Valda, slip- 
 ping her hand timidly to his arm and look- 
 ing up at him with a reproachful shyness, 
 ' 'must you be so harsh towards a Uttle 
 trick like that? For punishment I insist 
 that you shall take me to the buffet and 
 pledge me by breaking your pledge." 
 
 Blake, overwhelmed by coquetries to 
 which he was an utter stranger, succumbed 
 like melted wax. 
 
 ' 'Why have you done it, why have you 
 have you done it?" he whispered inco- 
 herently as they left the buffet; the glass 
 of champagne had gone to his head. 
 
 "Oh, I hke to make allies," said Valda 
 airily. ' 'I suppose you are in love with 
 me now?' ' 
 
 Blake did not reply. 
 
 "Once but, twice shy, I see," she said. 
 
^ ROMANCE OF PEKING. 45 
 
 "The last indiscretion left an abiding im- 
 pression." 
 
 "You do not know what that indiscre- 
 tion was, or you would not tempt me." 
 
 Valda laughed mischievously. She re- 
 membered the occasion very distinctly. A 
 reckless joy seemed to have seized upon 
 her and to be tingling in her veins with 
 the exuberance of her childish gallops. 
 Why was it? Why was she so happy, 
 why did even the memory of this young 
 man's rudeness seem like bright sunshine? 
 She had found him — found the hero of her 
 dreams; the searching quiet eye, the low 
 melodious voice, the steadfast magnetic 
 hand — aU had remained unchanged by 
 time as if waiting — waiting for her return, 
 a child no longer, but a woman. She 
 looked again at Blake; her hero! Yes, it 
 was through him that she had found her 
 hero; and perhaps that was why the young 
 man also appeared charming in her eyes, 
 as if he reflected the noble image of his 
 chief. 
 
 "Do I not?" she said, with a sparkHng 
 glance. "Perhaps a 'little bird'. ..." 
 
 Blake joined in her happiness with a 
 hearty laugh. The S. G's 'little bird' — 
 the mysterious agency which told him 
 everjiihing that was going on in every 
 Junior Revenue Mess all over the Empire 
 — was the standing joke par excellence in 
 Peking. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The S. G. Calls on Valda. 
 
 ^N the following afternoon there was 
 a commotion among the servants 
 in the Russian lyegation. The 
 Tsung Shui-wu Ssu had called in 
 person. His greatness was represented by 
 a diminutive slip of pasteboard which had 
 the air of having lain in a drawer for 
 twenty years, and which bore in antiquated 
 style the simple legend — ' 'Mr. Pericord. ' ' 
 He had humbly requested the fur smoth- 
 ered Cossack to convey it to Miss Beriskoff . 
 Valda, looking through a window, smiled 
 as she saw the thin and threadbare gray 
 overcoat and round hat of a style long dead 
 and buried; the wardrobe, one might think, 
 that the poor young Scotchman had brought 
 out with him in the fifties. It was so 
 characteristic; everyone else was muffled 
 in costly furs and continually receiving 
 fresh cases of boots and hats and collars 
 and coats fot fear they should fall behind 
 the fashion, but the greatest man of the 
 community, when he took the astonishing 
 step of calling on a mere woman, could 
 find nothing better in which to array him- 
 self than these relics of his youth. 
 
 "I am afraid. Miss Beriskoff," he be- 
 gan at once, standing near the door with 
 his old hat in one hand and the other 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 47 
 
 stretched over one of the charcoal braziers 
 which stood on either side of the entrance 
 — "I am afraid I did not sufficiently show 
 my appreciation of your — your, ahem, re- 
 partee — I mean the very proper snub you 
 administered to me for never having called 
 on so charming a young lady. Is it too 
 late to repair the discourtesy?' ' 
 
 ' 'Do come near the fire, sir. ' ' she said 
 humbly; ' 'you are shivering. It is I who 
 am overwhelmed with my audacity — my 
 gaucherie. I was afraid I had put myself 
 irrevocally in your black books. ' ' 
 
 ' 'Ah, you continue to fling at my head 
 the idle talk of the young men about my 
 severity. Miss BeriskofE? I envy Mr. 
 Blake his champion. Would that I could 
 find as fair an advocate to take my part 
 sometimes." 
 
 ' 'Oh, Mr. Pericord, ' ' she answered im- 
 pulsively, stretching eagerly forward to 
 take his hand, and then drawing back in 
 confusion, "I — I would do anything — 
 for you." 
 
 The room was dark save for the fire and 
 the dim glow of the braziers, and the dull 
 winter twilight that crept through the 
 heavy curtains. Tea was brought — tea in 
 tall glasses, with lemons and brandy in 
 lieu of milk — but that was the only inter- 
 ruption of their privacy. M. de Samovar, 
 if he was in the house, refrained from com- 
 ing to welcome his distinguished visitor. 
 
 Mr. Pericord remained for two hours; 
 
48 VA.LDA: 
 
 before half this time had elapsed the ru- 
 mour of this unprecedented visit had spread 
 not only to all the other tea-tables of Lega- 
 tion street, but into the Forbidden City it- 
 self, whither certain magnates of the Tstmg- 
 li Yamen were swiftly and secretly bidden, 
 to inform the Dowager Empress what was 
 meant by this prolonged stay of the Tstmg 
 Shui Wu Ssu at the Russian I<egation. 
 
 And these everlasting fears of intrigue 
 were not without reason. A note had been 
 brought in to Valda by a Chinese servant, 
 which bore these words — 
 
 ' 'Niuchuang — now. ' ' 
 
 She knew that her guardian was list- 
 ening, and that she was expected to com- 
 mence her despicable task at once. Drop- 
 ping the paper into the fire, as she thought, 
 with a sigh, she tactfully brought the con- 
 versation round to the political embroglio 
 in Manchuria. 
 
 Mr. Pericord was, long before this, talk- 
 ing to the girl as to an old friend; it was 
 rarely indeed that he could unbosom him- 
 self to a sympathetic listener, for a man in 
 his position is denied the luxury of friends. 
 And so here he sat in the pleasant gloam- 
 ing, forgetful of time and engagements, 
 greedily if unconsciously absorbing this 
 brief spell of sympathy and homeliness, 
 and allowing himself to talk as unreserved- 
 ly as if intrigue and diplomacy were un- 
 known. 
 
 At last, with a sigh, he rose. . ■ 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 49 
 
 "The best of friends must part, I sup- 
 pose," he smiled — he was never con- 
 spicuous for originality. ' 'I am sorry to 
 go. I have enjoyed myself more during 
 these few minutes than during many years, 
 Miss Beriskoff." 
 
 He looked at the clock. 
 
 ' 'Good gracious, did I say a few min- 
 utes? Then the Treasurer of Paoting must 
 have been waiting at the Superintendancy 
 for an hour! What excuse shall I make 
 to him, Miss Beriskoff?' ' 
 
 "lyet him wait, sir," she answered. 
 "You can always rule China, but it is not 
 often you can forget that China exists. 
 Sometimes I wish it did not — when I see 
 how it monopolizes you. I am jealous of 
 China. And I know very well that it will 
 not permit you to call at the Russian I<e- 
 gation again. ' ' 
 
 ' 'You are right, ' ' he said gravely. ' 'My 
 visit wUl certainly be misinterpreted. And 
 yet I dont think we have mentioned poli- 
 tics once, have we, unless it was some 
 reference to the future of my pet port 
 Niuchuang. You see it is seldom I am 
 able to meet anyone who does not talk 
 politics. There is an atmosphere of Asiatic 
 intrigue about Peking which affects even 
 the women. You will keep yourself un- 
 spotted from its taint, will you not, my 
 child?" 
 
 Valda, with a sob, lifted her face to his. 
 He hesitated; then he kissed her on the 
 
50 VAJ.DA : 
 
 brow. 
 
 "But sometimes you will come to see 
 me, dear friend, ' ' he whispered. 
 
 For full a minute they stood silent in 
 the warm darkness, hands pressed in 
 hands; Valda striving with her sobs, Mr. 
 Pericord carried away with the incense of 
 second youth. 
 
 "Wait here," said Valda prettily, re- 
 luctantly and slowly drawing her fingers 
 out of his. ' 'It is altogether too cold for 
 you to return in so thin a coat. See, it is 
 snowing. I will bring you a robe." 
 
 She ran out of the room. Mr. Pericord 
 ttu-ned towards the fireplace. A bit of 
 paper in the fender caught his eye and he 
 picked it up. "Niudiuang — now," he 
 read, in the familiar hand of the Russian 
 Minister. 
 
 When Valda returned, bearing a splen- 
 did overcoat of sable belonging to her guar- 
 dian, Mr. Pericord was leaning against the 
 mantlepiece with bowed head. His atti- 
 tude was full of fatigue; the glimpse she 
 caught of his face in the firelight seemed 
 haggard and wrinkled. 
 
 "You are tired?" she said gently. "I 
 wish you could stay all night. ' ' 
 
 The S. G. allowed her to wrap him in 
 the robe. 
 
 ' 'Did you say that I was to come to the 
 side gate in Tung Chiao street?' ' she whis- 
 pered, looking up in his face affectionately, 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 51 
 
 as a daughter might, with her hands on 
 his sleeve. ' 'But I shall be so afraid of 
 disturbing you when you are busy." 
 
 "Yes, better not — better not," he re- 
 plied, coldly and absently, and moved to 
 the door. 
 
 Valda stood tottering, as if some one had 
 dealt her a cruel and treacherous blow. 
 She looked after him— but bitter rebellious 
 tears blinded her beseeching eyes; she tried 
 to call to him, but her voice was choked. 
 
 ' 'Valda, you deserve the Grand Cross, ' ' 
 said the voice of her guardian behind her. 
 ' 'I happened to overhear a little of your 
 conversation with your visitor — on Man- 
 churian politics, I think it was: nothing 
 else reached my ears, I assure you. Of 
 course it was quite a confidential conver- 
 sation, and no possible blame can attach 
 to you if Mr. Pericord should inadvertent- 
 ly have said things which he would not 
 say to me. All is fair in diplomacy and 
 Peking, you know — you have heard the 
 saying before to day, I see. You have 
 cleared up one of our most vexatious 
 doubts. You have enabled me to learn 
 something of the most vital importance. 
 I perceive that the United States' Open 
 Door circular, instead of being an empty 
 "blufP unbacked by any of -the military 
 powers, is on the contrary the indication 
 of a definite conspiracy to defeat our ac- 
 quisition of Manchuria. A secret alliance 
 
52 VALDA: 
 
 exists against us of a far more formidable 
 character than I imagined. A desperate 
 remedy becomes imperative. We must 
 appeal to the 'last resource 'while England 
 still has her hands full of Egypt and 
 Africa, and the United States is tied up 
 with Aguinaldo and the Bryanites. A 
 war now — yes, even a riot and reprisals, 
 — no matter what, so that we can get an 
 army into Peking and remove . . . ." 
 
 Valda looked at her guardian stead- 
 fastly; had he been less preoccupied with 
 his diplomatic reflections, he might have 
 thought that she had aged by ten years 
 in a day. 
 
 "What will be the ultimate effect of our 
 policy on Mr. Pericord? she asked qtuetly. 
 
 ' 'Oh, it will spell ruin for him, I sup- 
 pose," replied the Minister, indifferently. 
 ' 'The one supreme hold he has on the 
 Palace is the idea that as long as he 
 collects the revenue none of the Open 
 Ports can be alienated or annexed. He 
 scored a triumph over us in this connect- 
 ion by means of that btdl-dog of his, 
 McCleavy Brown. But all these English- 
 men and Americans must be cleared out. 
 Above all, a devoted servant of the Czar 
 (such as I myself, for instance) must 
 stand in the shoes of Mr. Pericord. — Now 
 I must write. my despatch for to-morrow's 
 courier, dear. I shall have dinner served 
 in my study." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Valda Calls on the S. G. 
 
 S'ALDA also liad her dinner served 
 in private, but she did not eat. 
 While her French maid was en- 
 joying the savory dishes, Valda 
 was out on foot alone in the bitter cold, 
 which was not so keen as the cruel chill at 
 her heart. Now she hurried, now she 
 hesitated and half turned back, while al- 
 ways she shrank close to the shadow, 
 dreading that even the bright moon should 
 detect the purpose of her errand. The 
 streets were entirely deserted at this hour, 
 and one might have taken Peking for a 
 vast uncovered catacomb, so silent, so un- 
 tenanted, so white and death-like looked its 
 eyeless avenues. Everywhere, on either 
 hand, nothing was to be seen but plastered 
 and painted walls, and crisp and glittering 
 snow. No lighted windows or hospitable 
 doors broke this still monotony; Chinese 
 houses of any pretention never abut on 
 the sidewalk, but sequester themselves be- 
 hind stucco walls whose very gates are 
 again blinded by a piece of wall in front. 
 The few belated passengers she passed 
 intensified the oppressive mystery and si- 
 lence, for they glided by like wraiths, 
 their hands hugged in their sleeves, their 
 faces muffled in cowls or hairy ear-flaps, 
 
54 VALDA: 
 
 their backs bent to avoid tbe icy blast, 
 their footfalls deadened by the thick felt 
 soles of their shoes. Valda attracted no 
 attention, because she was cowled in a 
 native feng-mao, a combined cap and cape 
 which is held by a visor-like flap across 
 the chia. Overhead, the stars and moon 
 shone down with an electric brilliance, 
 marking the city in white and black 
 squares as rigid and clear cut as a checker 
 board' s. 
 
 Valda reached at length the spacious 
 compotmd which enclosed the Yamen of 
 the Superintendancy General. Here at 
 last there was an air of bustle, which 
 caused her hastily to shrink into the 
 shadow of the opposite wall. A squad of 
 soldiers were stamping about in the street 
 to keep their feet warm, their rifles care- 
 lessly stacked in the middle of the road, 
 with huge lanterns bearing monstrous 
 Chinese characters on their paper globes, 
 slung haphazard from the muzzles. It 
 looked like a group of goblin giants. The 
 men were Chih-li braves, tall stout fellows 
 even when stripped; but in their loose 
 winter uniforms, thickly padded with 
 cotton wool, their legs swathed in padded 
 leggings, their heads picturesquely muf- 
 fled in huge black turbans, they were 
 swelled out to twice their bulk. A couple 
 of shabby Manchu ponies stood dejectedly 
 by the wall, with high-peaked wooden 
 saddles and massive brass stirrups; half a 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. 55 
 
 dozen tawdrj' sign-boards on poles were 
 leaning lop-sidedly by the gate, their rag- 
 amuffin bearers in conical red hats squat- 
 ting in a circle hard by and surreptiously 
 smoking. Valda learnt, by the big gilt 
 letters on these wooden standards, that 
 the Mandarin for whom they were wait- 
 ing was none other than the Treasurer of 
 Chih-li, an official second only in import- 
 ance to the Viceroy. 
 
 At that minute the great man, in his 
 great g^een pagoda-like chair, carried low 
 down by four bearers using swing-poles, 
 was borne out, obsequiously followed by 
 his fat conical-hatted pipe-bearers and the 
 high-booted and leather-aproned officers 
 of his escort; and behind them bowed the 
 solemn tingchais of the S. G., who closed 
 the gates as soon as the rabble got under 
 way. 
 
 Then Valda was all alone again in the 
 deserted street, Uke a shivering angel shut 
 out of paradise. She knew that Mr. Peri- 
 cord could not yet have had his dinner; she 
 knew that her visit at this hour, so soon af- 
 ter parting from him, alone and in stealth, 
 would bear the worst construction in his 
 eyes; and her tortured heart still felt the 
 dull wound of his inexplicable rudeness on 
 leaving her. And yet, it was impossible 
 that he could have meant an5d;hing; their 
 conversation had been so sweetly intimate; 
 the pure kiss which he had pressed on her 
 brow had been a compact of enduring 
 
56 VALDA : 
 
 friendship on his part, and a yearning love 
 on hers. Perhaps he had been preoccupied 
 by the thought of the visitor waiting for 
 him at home; her momentary absence from 
 the room had allowed him to remember the 
 pressing calls of duty. If by any chance 
 he had, in rehearsing the coniELdances they 
 had interchanged, conceived a seldom ab- 
 sent fear of indiscretion — if he had remem- 
 bered that the fascinating young woman 
 was still the ward of the Russian Minister, 
 his secret enemy; well, the news that Valda 
 was bringing to him now would dissipate 
 all these suspicions and prove at once the 
 thoroughness of her devotion. 
 
 Fortified by these reasons, though still 
 trembling with painful doubts, she turned 
 down the side street, and, unfastening the 
 wicket gate he had told her of, touched 
 the electric bell three times. 
 
 The door opened mechanically, admit- 
 ting her to a small ante- room, where she 
 seated herself, aware that she would be in- 
 spected through a peep-hole by Mr. Peri- 
 cord' s confidential valet, and her presence 
 announced without other formality. The 
 S. G., in instructing her, had explained 
 that there was nothing necessarily clandes- 
 tine about this secresy, but that he was so 
 pestered by lady petitioners that it was the 
 only means he could devise to protect his 
 precious time and save them the annoyance 
 of being told that he was not at home in 
 the presence of official visitors. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 57 
 
 Valda was kept waiting for what seemed 
 to her hours, and her courage dwindled 
 to misery. Then Mr. Pericord himself 
 entered, and this increased her wretched- 
 ness, for she fully expected that he would 
 at least invite her to his drawing room, if 
 not to his sanctum. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Beriskoff?" he said. He 
 carried the robe she had lent him on his 
 arm. "You are going to a party and 
 found that you need this, perhaps?' ' 
 
 For a moment she stood looking with the 
 incredulous reproach of a pet animal whose 
 advances are repulsed. Then her woman' s 
 pride came to her rescue and she said 
 wearily — 
 
 ' 'I did not imagine that you could treat 
 a woman quite so cruelly, Mr. Pericord. 
 I have compromised myself by this unusual 
 call, in order to give you some informa- 
 tion which I have just learned and which 
 concerns you vitally. But I should prefer 
 not to mention it here where you are Uable 
 f.o be interrupted." 
 
 "Experience has compelled me to fore- 
 f/o receiving private revelations, I regret to 
 say, Miss Beriskoff. I am not the less 
 jjtateful for your thoughtfulness. Will 
 you allow me to send you home in my 
 ^jhair?" 
 
 To his astonishment, Valda burst into a 
 passion of tears. How was he to know 
 that this simple offer recalled the begin- 
 ning of her life's secret, and recalled it with 
 
58 VALDA : 
 
 a contrast which nearly broke her heart? 
 
 ' 'Oh, what have I done, what have I 
 done ? ' ' she cried wildly, when at last 
 she could control her sobs. ' 'Two hours 
 ago, Mr. Pericord, you honoured me with 
 the name of friend. You yourself invited 
 me to use the privilege of this entrance 
 whenever I could spare the time to see 
 you. I come to tell you something of 
 vital importance, something needing im- 
 mediate action, and you greet me as a 
 stranger — you refuse even to listen to 
 me." 
 
 "I am compelled to. Miss Beriskoff." 
 "But why — why? I will not believe 
 that it is simple rudeness; I have known 
 you so long! Tell me the reason of it, 
 Mr. Pericord. I implore you, tell me, be- 
 fore it shall be too late for us to recover 
 the sympathies of this afternoon ! ' ' 
 
 "You make too much of a trifle," he 
 replied, evidently distressed, and aston- 
 ished at her claiming a long acquaintance. 
 ' 'I have not by any means decided to re- 
 pudiate the friendship which promised so 
 much more solace to me than you can 
 imagine. I wished only to hint, without 
 hurting your feelings more than necessary, 
 that the many years that I have resided 
 in Peking have compelled me to be 
 skeptical. Private communications, es- 
 pecially when emanating from certain of 
 the legations, have so frequently proved 
 the reverse of disinterested that I have 
 
A BOMA.NCE OF PEKING. 59 
 
 been compelled to make a rule not to 
 listen to them. And, as perhaps your 
 friend Mr. Blake has told you, my rules 
 do not admit of exceptions. ' ' 
 
 "You think that I am M. de Samovar's 
 tool— a spy, perhaps?" she said with a 
 low- voiced scorn, which might have con- 
 vinced a man of stone. 
 
 "I^et us avoid all politics, I beseech 
 you!" he replied, deeply moved. 
 
 She went close to him, and taking his 
 reluctant hand, turned her flashing eyes 
 full on his. 
 
 ' 'I insist on knowing why you suspect 
 me, Mr. Pericord." 
 
 He looked at her distressfully, and then, 
 suddenly recaptured by his habitual dis- 
 trust, or perhaps reminded of some intri- 
 gue just imparted by the Treasurer, he 
 withdrew his hand. 
 
 ' 'Since you insist, here is the proof of 
 your duplicity. But as I said before, I 
 wish to overlook it. If you will grant me 
 this one favor, of avoiding all allusion to 
 political affairs, I shall still endeavor to de- 
 serve your friendship. ' ' 
 
 Reluctantly, but with a grave sternness 
 which terrified her, he produced from his 
 pocket the slip of paper he had picked up 
 in the fender. 
 
 Valda was overwhelmed. She sank into 
 a chair, murmuring — "My God, what can 
 I do?" 
 
 She rose impetuously. ' 'I do not care 
 
60 VALDA: 
 
 — I have not time to explain," she cried. 
 ' 'Whether you will listen or not, I will tell 
 you that the Russian minister, my guar- 
 dian, is at this very moment — ." 
 
 Mr. Pericord held up his hand. 
 
 "Since you refuse to respect my rules, 
 I shall wish you good evening. Miss Beris- 
 koff." 
 
 With a cold bow and a reproachful look, 
 he was gone. 
 
 Then the latent strength and initiative of 
 Valda' s character asserted itself; a strength 
 inherited from her mother, who possessed 
 in excess the bold qualities which dis- 
 tinguish Manchu women. She wrote a 
 brief note on the stamped paper which 
 stood on a small writing desk, and, muf- 
 fling herself in Mr. Samovar's fur over- 
 coat which she had lent to Mr. Pericord, 
 she went out without one backward glance 
 and sought the building which contained 
 the quarters of the Revenue Mess. Here 
 she sent up the note by a boy. In a few 
 minutes she was joined by Blake. 
 
 This occurred on the 2nd of January. 
 
CHAPTKR X. 
 
 The Stolen Despatch. 
 
 HREK days latter much excite- 
 ment was caused in lycgation 
 street by the following circular 
 addressed to the foreign minis- 
 ters by Mr. Pericord. 
 
 "The S. G. of I. R. D. regrets to inform 
 Your Excellencies that he has just received 
 a telegram from the Treasurer of Chih-li 
 to the effect that yesterday, shortly after 
 midnight, at no great distance from 
 Paoting Fu, the courier employed by this 
 Department for the transmission of Your 
 Excellencies' mail to the coast was waylaid 
 by robbers, and his mail-bag broken into. 
 Whether any matter is missing from the 
 bag cannot be ascertained until its contents 
 are checked at Shanghai, where the courier 
 is not due before seven days, schedule time, 
 dependent on weather. The Shanghai 
 Commissioner has been instructed by wire 
 to telegraph the results of his inspection 
 immediately. In the meantime the Nieh- 
 tai of Paoting has been commanded to use 
 every means to discover and apprehend the 
 offenders. — Signed, J. R. Cinderpan, Act- 
 ing Assistant Secretary. ' ' 
 
 This circular was not sent under cover 
 to each I^egation separately, but carried 
 round by a tingchai, on a clip. It was 
 
62 VAlDA : 
 
 handed in open, initialed as seen, and re- 
 turned to the bearer. All the lyegations 
 were within a ten minutes walk of the 
 Superintendancy General. 
 
 Mr. Samovar happened to be in the 
 drawing-room with Valda when it came. 
 She was trjdng over a new piece of music, 
 a love song, which had just arrived from 
 St. Petersburg. Without ceasing to play, 
 she turned her head and watched her guar- 
 dian' s face. In the dim rich setting of 
 that profusely decorated room, the silent 
 movement of her head, and the intentness 
 of her glance, would have struck an artist 
 as something vaguely dramatic. 
 
 Not less dramatic was the look of com- 
 mingled rage and dismay which overspread 
 the brow of the minister. ' 'By God, ' ' he 
 muttered, ' 'has that fox caught me in my 
 own trap? But no — it is an accident — 
 well, we shall see." 
 
 His boy reappeared to say that the mes- 
 senger was waiting for the clip. 
 
 "But I must keep this," said M. de 
 Samovar haughtily. "I must hold a 
 proof. . ." Then he seemed suddenly to 
 recollect that he was the last man who 
 should show misgiving concerning the af- 
 fair, and hastily initialing the sheet with 
 the pencil attached, he handed it to the 
 boy and took up the song that Valda was 
 playing. 
 
 Ten days later, information was received 
 that the mail was short of one cover only. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 83 
 
 The anxiety of private correspondents (the 
 courier carried several hundred private let- 
 ters out of Peking each week) being thus 
 relieved, nothing was felt but a rather pi- 
 quant curiosity as to who was the fortunate 
 (or unfortunate) sufferer. This of course 
 could not be ascertained for two or three 
 months, for it was impossible to delay the 
 dispatch of the mail by steamer, and only 
 the non-acknowledgment of the mysterious 
 letter would betray its disappearance. Such 
 an accident had not been known to happen 
 since the stormy times of the Taiping Re- 
 beUion, and everyone agreed^ especially 
 when no trace of the robbers was found, 
 Chinese statecraft was at the bottom of the 
 mischief. The abstracted cover, it was 
 hinted, was an important despatch from 
 one of the Ministers to his Government. 
 And of course, if any of the Ministers had 
 sent a despatch important enough to be 
 filched, he couldn't be expected to declare 
 it. He, whoever he was, might have what 
 suspicions he chose. To suspect Mr. Peri- 
 cord of destroying for his own private ends, 
 the credit of the splendid service which he 
 had reduced to such clock-work regularity, 
 was beyond the back-biting of his most 
 malicious enemies. Thus the affair was 
 forgotten long before any confirmation 
 could be expected, although doubtless 
 many Uved in hopes of being able to claim 
 this speck of notoriety. 
 
 But something else occurred within the 
 
64 VALDA: 
 
 month to temporarily dismiss every other 
 scandal from this Uttle gossiping society, 
 which siezed on the slightest social 
 rumour like hungry wolves. Mr. Blake, 
 an American Revenue Assistant employed 
 as English Tutor in Mr. Pericord's 
 Chinese College, had disappeared from 
 Peking. None had seen him leave the 
 city by cart with his baggage, nor was 
 any mention made of his arrival by train 
 in the next week's Tientsin sheet. Gossip 
 was not able to hint at a 'mysterious dis- 
 appearance' with the insinuation of a 
 crime, for if there had been anything of 
 that sort the Revenue Department would 
 have caused an investigation. But the 
 Superintendancy General preserved a 
 stolid silence. The members of the I. R. 
 D., when questioned, shook their heads, 
 thereby intimating, in a manner quite 
 familiar to all Pekingites, that the in- 
 junction of He Who Must Be Obeyed lay 
 heavily on their souls. A new tutor was 
 appointed to the Tung Wen without 
 comment. 
 
 In short, everyone knew that Blake 
 had been 'sacked,' and, although none 
 knew why, the air was rife with plausible 
 explanations. To begin with, he was on 
 the S. G.'s 'black books;' that was com- 
 mon gossip. It was whispered that he 
 had formerly been addicted to secret 
 drinking, or even opium smoking, and 
 that after swearing to reform he had been 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. 65 
 
 guilty of a relapse. These two sins are 
 held in China to be greatly worse than 
 murder. Not to drink at all is a serious 
 raisdemeanor, but even that is better than 
 drinking alone. Smoking opium is simply 
 damnation; you may drink a bottle of 
 Chlorodyne a day or even spot yourself 
 all over with morphia injections, but to 
 smoke, like a common Chinaman, is 
 filthy. 
 
 Another explanation, which was greed- 
 ily swallowed and maliciously circulated 
 by the women, was that Blake had been 
 seen alone at night with Miss Beriskoff; 
 some even went so far as to assert, on the 
 strength of their 'boys" boudoir bulletins, 
 that she had been seen slipping out of the 
 I. R. D. compound disguised in a man's 
 coat. Nothing passes unseen in China, 
 and nothing — at least with reference to 
 his Staff — failed to reach the ears of the 
 S. G. through his ' liitle bird. ' Anything 
 in the nature of a clandestine liaison on 
 the part of an Assistant might cause his 
 dismissal, not on moral grounds, but be- 
 cause it was liable to 'compromise the 
 Service. ' 
 
 This audacious scandal was encouraged 
 by Valda's temporary disappearance from 
 social functions on the plea of a chill. 
 
 The plain facts of the matter were as 
 follows. 
 
 The day after the holding up of the 
 courier, Blake sought a private audience 
 
66 VALDA: 
 
 with his Chief. He said — 
 
 "It was I who robbed the mail, sir." 
 
 The S. G., who had in his long ex- 
 perience encountered nearly every form of 
 monomania and depravity that is to be 
 f omid in young men, was for once in his 
 life bewildered. For a moment he ap- 
 peared almost startled; for another 
 moment, shocked. Then he looked stead- 
 fastly at Blake with an air which seemed 
 visibly petrifying into the frigidity of an 
 iceberg. 
 
 "Kxplain yourself," he said. 
 
 "Sir," cried Blake, "I did it for the 
 Service ! A person — to be frank, a lady. . . " 
 
 ' T gave you credit for something better 
 than this, Blake. I expect my StafE to be 
 at least as inflexible to corruption as I try 
 to be myself. Women are notoriously 
 dangerous; you are distinctly warned in 
 the Instructions to beware of exchanging 
 confidences with the members of a certain 
 Ivegation. But one whose blandishments 
 were so unblushing — so manifestly in- 
 sincere " 
 
 Blake was astonished. "Pardon me, 
 sir. If one thing was manifest, it was 
 surely the lady's attachment to yourself. 
 As for me . . . ." Poor Blake smiled 
 bitterly. 
 
 "Attachment is easily feigned," said 
 the S. G., with something of the same 
 bitterness in his voice. "We too, are 
 easily deceived, and even when convinced 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 67 
 
 of the fact, a sting of regret is left behind 
 which obscures our conviction. Only one 
 rule can safeguard a man in a centre of 
 intrigue like this. It is — and I have so 
 often reiterated it in the Instructions — Do 
 not play with edged tools. However" — 
 and with a sigh he resumed his air of 
 sternness, — "the mischief is done. You 
 will please inform me by what means you 
 carried out your robbery." 
 
 Blake bowed his head. "You will re- 
 member, sir, that on the 3rd I asked you 
 for two days' shooting leave. I rode along 
 the Paoting Government Road alone, with 
 a spare pony. I performed the last twenty 
 miles at night, a little ahead of the courier. 
 I waylaid him, and knocked him down. 
 In the struggle he rode over me. When 
 I had rifled the bag, I rode back unseen 
 to railhead, where I left my saddle and 
 ponies with a friendly Belgian and got a 
 ride back on the gang truck. Thus the 
 Service escapes suspicion, at the price of 
 my ponies and this." He glanced down 
 at the hand thrust between the buttons of 
 his waistcoat, which was the only shng he 
 used for a crushed arm. 
 
 "Proceed," said Mr. Pericord. 
 
 The young man bravely bore up against 
 the terrible simplicity of that word, and 
 produced from his breast-pocket a long en- 
 velope bearing the royal arms of Russia. 
 
 ' 'I stole this. It contains, I believe, in- 
 formation which it is important for you to 
 
68 VALDA : 
 
 know." 
 
 Mr. Pericord drew back; lie did not 
 touch it. 
 
 "That!" he exclaimed. "Good God, can 
 so young a child have been privy to a 
 conspiracy like this? Nothing short of 
 my complete ruin. . . I, to have inter- 
 cepted an official despatch by highway 
 robbery. . ." 
 
 Then he recovered his usual impenetra- 
 biUty. 
 
 ' 'I am sorry, Blake. You have allowed 
 Miss Beriskoff to use you as a tool for a 
 very malicious plot to bring me into dis- 
 grace. I do not know that I have ever 
 been entrapped into so difficult a dilemma. 
 I am sorr}' for you, but I must adhere to 
 my rule in such cases, of observing a strict- 
 ly non-committal attitude. For my part, I 
 do not know who is the culprit or what 
 mail is missing. The offence, as you are 
 aware, carries with it a penal sentence of, 
 I think, fourteen years hard labor. For 
 the rest, you must do as you think fit. 
 Your resignation will not be gazetted for a 
 month, so giving you ample time to leave 
 Peking before it is published." 
 
 ' 'My resignation?' ' stammered the un- 
 fortunate man, turning as white as a sheet. 
 
 "What else?" said the S. G. in stem sur- 
 prise. 
 
 Blake' s head sank on his breast like that 
 of an ox under the poll- axe. He was some 
 seconds in recovering the faculty of 
 
A ROMANCE OF PUKING. G9 
 
 thought. Then he held out the despatch 
 again and said in a dull careless voice, 
 
 ' 'You may as well at least read it, sir. I 
 dont think I care to be sent to prison, and 
 so it will not be restored to M. de Samovar 
 in any case." 
 
 ' 'You have not, by chance, stolen the 
 Russian cipher also, I suppose?' ' 
 
 "The. . . cipher. . ." Blake put the 
 useless document back in his pocket. The 
 despair and anguish on the man's face 
 made a pitiable spectacle. 
 
 ' 'For God' s sake tell me what I am to 
 do, sir, ' ' he implored faintly. 
 
 The S. G.'s patience gave way. 
 
 "You may as well offer your services to 
 the Russian Minister or Viceroy l,i, who 
 are both such confirmed well-wishers of 
 the Superintendancy General. I do not 
 think you can do me a worse harm in the 
 employment of my enemies than you have 
 done me in my service. Or since you are 
 such an adept at muscular brigandage, you 
 might assist Prince Tuan in drilling his 
 new sect of Boxers." 
 
 "By God, I think I will," muttered the 
 broken man, driven to recklessness. Box- 
 er was the Peking nickname for the local 
 self-drilling clubs recently established. 
 
 "Your salary will be paid up to the end 
 of the quarter," the S. G. said, turning 
 his back on Blake in order to make an en- 
 try in one of the mysterious ledgers which 
 lined the standing-desk. "I think," he 
 
70 VALDA : 
 
 added, extending a slip of paper behind him 
 without turning his head, ' 'to avoid un- 
 necessary comments, you had better take 
 it now, Mr. Blake." 
 
 The slip was a cheque on Tientsin for 
 500 taels, virtually a gift of $700 from Mr. 
 Pericord's private pocket. 
 
 Blake was a grown man, not particular- 
 ly gushing, although under the spell of 
 Valda's sympathy he had talked like a 
 schoolboy. At this practical proof of his 
 chief's thoughtfulness he was moved to 
 say many things. He was a big robust 
 fellow, and he was struck with a vague 
 sense of pathos in the bowed and fragile 
 form before him, realizing for the first 
 time that the S. G. was an old man, and 
 • a lonely one. But it is hard to speak to a 
 man's back. A little catch of the breath 
 was the only thing that broke the silence, 
 and Blake went slowly out. 
 
 When he had left the room, Mr. Peri- 
 cord leaned his head in his hand wearily. 
 All his life had been a struggle to sup- 
 press the sentimental side of his nature, 
 which was as soft as a woman' s. Scenes 
 like this, of devotion which he was com- 
 pelled to repudiate, hurt him. 
 
 "Cruel Necessity ! " he murmured with 
 a sigh. 
 
CHAPTKR XI. 
 
 The Cipher. 
 
 jlyAKK, before his disappearance, 
 sought a farewell interview with 
 Valda. He told her everything 
 the S. G. had said to him, and his 
 manly tenderness was profoundly grieved 
 to witness the girl's distress when she 
 learnt in what light Mr. Pericord regarded 
 her. He concluded by handing her the 
 fatal despatch with a rather mournful at- 
 tempt at cheerfulness. 
 
 ' 'Since no one else will have it, I must 
 give it back to you, ' ' he said. ' 'I suppose 
 you did'nt know that the Ministers use a 
 cipher. I think the best thing you can do 
 — for me, at least — will be to slip it among 
 Mr. Samovar's papers and let him think 
 he never sent it off. It's one of those 
 things which are of no importance to any- 
 one except the owner, as they say in the 
 I,ost ads." 
 
 "I will take it," replied Valda resolute- 
 ly, ' 'but I am not going to let your chival- 
 rous sacrifice be in vain. What can I say 
 to you? To speak of my gratitude and re- 
 morse would sound like hypocrisy in face 
 of the trouble I have got you into. And 
 yet. . ." 
 
 "Please dont worry yourself about that, 
 Miss Beriskoff . I dare say I shall fall on 
 
73 VALDA : 
 
 my feet when I have got over the stun of 
 it. After all, there are other things besides 
 the Revenue Service. . . " 
 
 "Oh, dont say that!" 
 
 ' 'I mean, there are other ways of serv- 
 ing the S. G. than by working out statis- 
 tics or teaching young Manchu brats how 
 to say foreign devil. Don't think for 
 a moment that I have gone back on my 
 loyalty. Even if Mr. Pericord had been 
 unjust, which he certainly hasn't, it would 
 be enough for me that he is the only man 
 in the world to you. ' ' 
 
 Valda looked at him with an expression 
 divided between remorse and admiration. 
 Her eyes were suffused with regret. 
 
 ' 'If I only knew what I could do to 
 repair it ! " she murmured, as if she 
 would make him forget that his sacrifice 
 had been for a rival. "I would give 
 everything I possess . . . ." 
 
 ' 'Except the one thing. ' ' 
 
 "Would that I could give that too," 
 she murmured, blushing deeply. ' 'But I 
 cannot. ' ' 
 
 As she said this she continued to look 
 at him with a sidelong glance not abso- 
 lutely discouraging to a rejected suitor, 
 and gradually her hand stole out towards 
 him. 
 
 Blake hesitated a moment, as if he felt 
 he was taking an unfair advantage. Then, 
 overmastered by her beauty, he took her 
 hand and imprinted on it a passionate but 
 
A BOMANCE OF PEKING. 73 
 
 hopeless kiss. 
 
 ' 'I have read your secret, Miss Beris- 
 koff , ' ' he said. ' ' But you can' t expect me to 
 look at such an attachment calmly. Please 
 don't think it is vulgar jealousy. My 
 respect for him would not leave room for 
 such a thought even if he were a man of 
 my own age. But it kiUs me to see any- 
 one so young and beautiful as you, throw- 
 ing away your heart on a man who has 
 no feeling, and who, forgive me for 
 saying it, is already married and old 
 enough to be your father. ' ' 
 
 "I cannot help it ! " 
 
 ' 'Well, I ought to say goodbye now. I 
 am not likely to find myself in the same 
 company with you again. That mail rob- 
 bery — I suppose some one will find out 
 that I left my ponies down there, soon — 
 puts me out of respectable society as well 
 as out of the service. I dont know where 
 I shall go. But" — here his self-control 
 broke down — "God knows, Valda, I shall 
 pray for your happiness! ' ' 
 
 Valda listened to his lecture with an air 
 of contrition and shame little to be ex- 
 pected from a high-spirited coquette. No 
 haughty Hf ting of the head, no flash of re- 
 sentment, interrupted him. On the con- 
 trary, when he ceased, she was quietly cry- 
 ing. 
 
 He turned from her abruptly, biting his 
 moustache. ' 'Damn me, ' ' he muttered to 
 himself — ' 'I have no tact. ' ' 
 
74 VALDA : 
 
 Then Valda suddenly flung her arms 
 round his neck. 
 
 "My brave, chivalrous friend!" she 
 sobbed. ' 'I cannot help it! His image 
 has been in my mind so many years. The 
 early impression was only strengthened by 
 absence. . ." 
 
 Then Blake remembered her. 
 
 ' 'You! ' ' he muttered. ' 'The little Chm- 
 ese tom-boy ! ' ' He held her off from him, 
 enveloping her in his deep gaze. 
 
 ' 'Well, since something else left no im- 
 pression at all, there can be no harm in re- 
 peating it. ' ' 
 
 So he kissed her on the lips, and, this 
 time, Valda did not struggle. 
 
 M. de Samovar had been delighted by 
 Mr. Pericord' s visit to Valda. Apart from 
 providing him with information of a valua- 
 ble nature, it promised much for the future. 
 M. de Samovar was a keen man of the 
 world, and able to form a penetrating esti- 
 mate of Mr. Pericord 's character; and he 
 had little doubt, from the conversation he 
 had Ustened to, that the timid and self- 
 isolated Superintendant was ready to fall 
 a slave to Valda' s charms. And he fore- 
 saw that it would be a thorough slavery. 
 Mr. Pericord had probably never yet suc- 
 cumbed to a real infatuation, and it is just 
 these ascetic and self -controlled men who 
 abandon themselves entirely when they are 
 captured after middle age. He would re- 
 
A. ROMANCE OF PEKING. 75 
 
 veal everything that Valda wished to know, 
 and M. de Samovar imagined that he had 
 a strong hold over his ward to compel her 
 to act as his tool. 
 
 The nature of this hold was as follows; 
 and it explains why the polished aristocrat 
 had so little scruple in compromising the 
 future cf his ward. Before Count Beris- 
 koff died, he virtually disowned Valda in 
 his will by leaving her only a legacy, while 
 the bulk of his estates went to a distant 
 relative who was formally styled next-of 
 kin. After his death, a sealed letter was 
 forwarded to M. de Samovar which ex- 
 plained Valda' s origin. In it the Count 
 reviled Valda for her disobedience, and ad- 
 vised Samovar to employ her as a spy, the 
 only thing for which she was fitted. His 
 malice even went to the extent of express- 
 ing doubt if he was actually her father. 
 It was this letter, which contained some 
 singular allegations, which the Minister 
 counted on as a final instrument to bend 
 Valda to his will. 
 
 But for some mysterious reason, the 
 friendship between Valda and the S. G. 
 had come to a conclusion as soon as begun. 
 Mr. Pericord did not repeat his call, and 
 Valda obstinately refused to seek him. 
 The robbery of the mail had increased M. 
 de Samovar' s diplomatic anxieties, and al- 
 though he did not yet know if it was his 
 own despatch which had disappeared, he 
 was impatient to see his little scheme con- 
 
76 VA.LDA: 
 
 summated. 
 
 "Are the very fates against Russia?" he 
 exclaimed. "Not only is a most impor- 
 tant communication delayed by a mail rob- 
 bery, but I have to live in daily dread of 
 learning that that communication has 
 fallen into the hands of my enemy. Should 
 that be so, and should he find a means of 
 reading its contents, onr influence in Pek- 
 ing would be ruined; our diplomacy would 
 be held up to the scorn and horror of the 
 civilized world, and I should probably be 
 transferred to Siberia. I hold in my hand 
 only one instrument capable of piercing 
 the armor of this terrible man, and that 
 instrument fails me at the last moment. 
 By heaven, I scarcely wonder at your 
 father disowning you." 
 
 "Would it make so much difference 
 then," said Valda softly, "if Mr. Pericord 
 learnt the contents of yonr despatch?" 
 
 ' 'It would make the step I contemplate 
 quite impossible. Apart from the pre- 
 cautions which would be taken to prevent 
 it, I could not venture to set the scheme 
 in motion if there was the remotest chance 
 of it being traced back to this Legation. 
 Our diplomacy has not been conspicuous 
 for scruples when we strike for big stakes, 
 but this is a thing which squeamish 
 Europe would stand aghast at. We might 
 even be called assassins, if an accident 
 happened." 
 
 "An accident?" 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 77 
 
 "Well, you never know quite how far 
 a Chinese mob will go when it is started. 
 Peking is an awkward place for a revo- 
 lution. But nothing short of a revolution 
 in Peking would give us an excuse to oc- 
 cupy it with an army." 
 
 Valda became thoughtful. ' 'But even 
 if it should have been your despatch that 
 was stolen, no one could decipher it, 
 could they?" 
 
 "Thank God, no, I think not.— But 
 that is not the question. I ask you once 
 more, Valda, will you call on Mr. Peri- 
 cord, or won't you?" 
 
 "No!" replied Valda angrily. "I 
 never wish to speak to Mr. Pericord 
 again." 
 
 ' 'You may do much worse than be the 
 friend of an irreproachable gentleman," 
 the minister said menacingly. ' 'You forget 
 the facts of your birth. You will continue 
 to enjoy every luxury, and a brilliant 
 position in society, while you remain my 
 ward, but I am afraid you would find a 
 small annuity a poor ofiset for the stigma 
 of illegitimacy if I turn you out into the 
 cold. If it is not Mr. Pericord, it will be 
 Captain Vassilich." 
 
 From that day M. de Samovar was grati- 
 fied by perceiving a change in Valda. She 
 had evidently not understood the crude 
 realities of her situation, and it had hum- 
 bled her to recall them bluntly. The at- 
 tentions of Captain Vassilich were already 
 
78 VALDA: 
 
 of a gross nature, and if once he knew that 
 she was nothing more than an illegitimate 
 half-caste they would become unbearable. 
 This alone might plausibly explain Valda's 
 new affection for her guardian, which im- 
 pelled her so frequently to betray an intel- 
 ligent interest in his work, and to seek the 
 shelter of his study. It was true that her 
 intimacy with Mr. Pericord was not re- 
 newed, but Valda had not the less fallen in 
 with the Minister' s desires. One day, when 
 M. de Samovar had again pressed her on 
 this point, with the renewed threat of hand- 
 ing her over to the tender mercies of his 
 attache, Valda had astonished him by a 
 brilliant plot of her own. 
 
 ' 'I should have little chance of regain- 
 ing Mr. Pericord' s esteem if my name were 
 compromised, sir," she said penitently. 
 ' 'But if you will trust and assist me, I be- 
 lieve I can find a way to Mr. Pericord' s 
 confidential papers, if I cannot to his con- 
 fidence. And if your despatch should have 
 fallen into his hands, that would serve your 
 purpose still better." 
 
 ' 'You are a genius, Valda. What is yotu: 
 plan?" 
 
 Valda told him. 
 
 ' 'It is an excellent idea, ' ' said M. de Sa- 
 movar thoughtfully. ' 'I will write to Shang- 
 hai for one at once. ' ' 
 
 Thus re-established in her guardian's es- 
 teem, Valda began to insinuate herself in 
 his confidence until she became a daily as- 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 79 
 
 sistant in his cabinet, frequently acting as 
 liis amanuensis for private despatches. And 
 at length her opportunity came. 
 
 A cipher despatch from M. de Muravieff, 
 the Chief of the Foreign Office, at St. 
 Petersburg, arrived while the Minister's 
 Secretary was absent on a hunting excur- 
 sion. Valda wrote down the interpretation 
 while M. de Samovar deciphered it by a 
 code which he drew from a locked drawer. 
 Valda made a note of the drawer and of the 
 manner in which her guardian used the 
 cipher. It consisted of a piece of stencil 
 of the same size as the official despatch 
 paper, pierced at haphazard by narrow slits 
 like the perforations on a sheet of auto- 
 matic music. M. de Samovar placed this 
 perforated board over the despatch and read 
 out the scattered words which remained 
 visible, then he turned to a page in a small 
 book which bore the title of Common 
 Prayer, and as Valda spelled out the words 
 she had taken down, the Minister sub- 
 stituted for each letter another letter of the 
 alphabet. What the final result was, she 
 could not see, for the duplicate system was 
 intended to hide the contents even from the 
 Secretary. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The S. G/s New Piccolo Player. 
 
 FORTNIGHT later occurred 
 the Russian Ball, perhaps 
 ^^ the most notable CTent of 
 ■^^w the Peking winter season, on 
 account of the great size and mag- 
 nificence of the ball-room in this 
 Legation, and the running of a spe- 
 cial guest-train from Tientsin for 
 the occasion. T-wo or three gun- 
 boats are alw^ays allowed to be 
 frozen up in the Peiho as a win- 
 ter garrison for the northern port, 
 and their officers formed a desirable 
 quota of uniformed dancing men. 
 Tientsin has nothing whatever to do 
 during the winter except to amuse 
 itself, and only a lack of hotel ac- 
 commodation, and a general objec- 
 tion to prison walls, prevented a 
 large proportion of its population 
 from residing in the capital. As it 
 was, Peking was more inclined to 
 empty itself into Tientsin than vice 
 versa. No amount of magnificence 
 and gayety could banish the sense of 
 gloom and fear which lurked behind 
 the sombre halls of Peking; but the 
 foreign settlements of Tientsin, situa- 
 ted two miles away from the w^alled 
 native city, were full of foreign life. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 81 
 
 fine stores, and open metaled streets, 
 and there a European or American 
 felt a sense of security and custom. 
 
 Diplomatic hostilities did not, of 
 course, interfere with the social inter- 
 course betw^een the Russian Legation 
 and the Superintendency-General, and, 
 as usual on such occasions, Mr. 
 Pericord obligingly lent his band for 
 the evening. And he went still fur- 
 ther ; he put in an appearance him- 
 self. The afifairs of the despatch 
 might at any time become public, and 
 it w^as essential to provide against 
 anything so disastrous as an open 
 rupture w^ith the Embassy. 
 
 When Mr. Pericord slipped in, unob- 
 served, late in the evening, the Chinese 
 band w^as playing an old sweet 
 waltz w^hich w^as his particular favor- 
 ite, and w^hich he had been at per- 
 sonal pains to have rendered beauti- 
 fully ; but when he caught the strains 
 he was disappointed. The culminat- 
 ing beauty of a certain passage had 
 been produced by the piccolo, and he 
 knew that to-night that little 
 triumph would be wanting. The 
 piccolo is an easy thing to make a 
 noise on, but one of the hardest in- 
 struments to use effectively in con- 
 junction with two score of flutes and 
 trumpets. With it, time is every- 
 thing ; and since the loss of the only 
 
83 VALBA : 
 
 player he had been able to train, he 
 had not found a satisfactory substi- 
 tute. 
 
 What was his delight, then— for the 
 whole soul of this hard-worked man 
 went into this only recreation — what 
 w^as his delight to hear the loud sil- 
 very trill of the speaking w^histle join 
 in at the accustomed passage, its ex- 
 uberant pipe flung out with the ease 
 and precision of a master player ! 
 
 Mr. Pericord, an unaccustomed in- 
 terest lighting up his tired eyes, 
 moved nearer to the stand and 
 looked up at his pet performers. In 
 the center, facing the conductor, sat 
 an ununiformed boy of remarkable 
 beauty, clad in a purple silk kua-tza. 
 The ball-room w^as close, and several 
 of the performers had removed their 
 caps. The boy was remarkably con- 
 spicuous in the shadow by the exceed- 
 ing whiteness of his shaven forehead, 
 framed in a charming group of bris- 
 tles like a woman's comb. His queue 
 was magnificently thick and glossy, 
 and its silken tassel lay coiled on the 
 floor by his chair, showing that it 
 would reach to his heels when stand- 
 ing. But again and again, the glis- 
 tening whiteness of his forehead 
 caught the eye. It was a w^hiteness 
 one sees in a less degree on a China- 
 man's head after his w^eekly shave. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKIN-a. 83 
 
 But one would say that the snowy 
 scalp had never before been exposed 
 to the air uncovered. The effect of it, 
 over the more swarthy face and pur- 
 ple jacket, was startling and beauti- 
 ftd, like the aureole of an angel. And 
 the boy w^as playing divinely. 
 
 _ " It is a great liberty I have taken, 
 sir," said Monsieur de Samovar, " but 
 how could I resist— I, who love fine 
 music only less than your Excellency ? 
 The lad came up with one of my 
 guests from Tientsin, and when he 
 heard your band play, he begged so 
 earnestly to take a part that I al- 
 lowed him to arrange it with your 
 conductor during supper. And he 
 plays well, does he not ? " 
 
 " I wiU ask your Excellency to in- 
 troduce me to the lad's master," said 
 Mr. Pericord, without committing 
 himself to more. When he found that 
 the guest in question -was a French- 
 man in his own service, he did not 
 hesitate to request the transfer of the 
 youth. If it had been a Russian out- 
 sider, he might have had suspicions. 
 
 Mr. Pericord stayed longer than his 
 usual quarter of an hour, w^hich w^as 
 the most he vouchsafed to a public 
 entertainment. He appeared to lin- 
 ger and to look about him uneasily. 
 
 "I do not see Miss Beriskoff," he 
 said to his host. "I trust that my 
 
84 VALBA : 
 
 presence is not responsible for her ab- 
 sence. She is offended w^ith me, per- 
 haps?" 
 
 " Impossible, my dear Mr. Pericord. 
 It is my -ward, on the contrary, who 
 ■would seem to owe you an apology. 
 How^ever, it is simply an ordinary in- 
 disposition w^hich keeps her to her 
 room to-night." 
 
 " I intended no unkindness. I came 
 here this evening with the hope of re- 
 moving the bad impression she has 
 conceived of me. Perhaps I might ask 
 your Excellency to convey that inten- 
 tion to her. I will do myself the hon- 
 or of calling on Miss Beriskofif to- 
 morrow^." 
 
 "Too late," muttered M. de Sam- 
 ovar to himself. 
 
 When, on the following day, Mr. 
 Pericord called at the Embassy he re- 
 ceived the astounding news that Yal- 
 da had disappeared. 
 
 "I can only suppose," said M. de 
 Samovar indifferently, "that she has 
 eloped with the gentleman w^ho re- 
 cently left your service. Mr. Blake 
 probably slipped in among the crow^d 
 of guests from Tientsin. The results 
 of her indiscretion be on her own 
 head!" 
 
 Mr. Pericord seemed strangely 
 moved. He stood for some moments 
 lost in regretful thoughts. 
 
A BOMANGE OF PEKINQ. 85 
 
 "We can trust no one," he said at 
 length, sadly, taking his leave. 
 
 If the mysterious disappearance of 
 Blake on the 7th of January caused a 
 sensation, the mysterious disappear- 
 ance of Valda three ^veeks later caused 
 a veritable scandal. As in the former 
 case, the Argus-eyed boys had seen 
 no foreign baggage loaded on sleighs 
 for the terminus, and the Tientsin 
 newspaper recorded no arrival of a 
 well-known young lady from Peking. 
 The members of the Embassy pre- 
 served an official silence similar to 
 that imposed on the Revenue Mess re- 
 garding Blake. Of course. Legation 
 street society jumped to only one con- 
 clusion: she had eloped with Blake, 
 and they were either hiding in the 
 Chinese city or had left Peking over- 
 land. They might have joined a cam- 
 el caravan for Russia, via Kiatka, or 
 they might have gone down to 
 Shanghai by canal boat, via Chinan 
 and Chin-kiang ; probably the latter, 
 as the port of Shanghai is never 
 closed by ice and is in bi-weekly 
 steamer connection w^ith Yokohama 
 and Hong Kong, for America or Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 The most singular point about the 
 affair w^as the equanimity of her 
 guardian, M. de Samovar. He ap- 
 
86 VALDA : 
 
 peared in no way distressed ; " Young 
 people will be young people," was all 
 he said. And as week after week 
 went by without her reappearance, 
 M. de Samovar seemed to grow quite 
 cheerful, as if a load had been re- 
 moved from his mind. When Mr. 
 Pericord one day referred in a regret- 
 ful manner to the mail robbery, he re- 
 plied with a cordiality w^hich almost 
 smacked of triumph — 
 
 " Oh, that doesn't trouble me at all, 
 Mr. Pericord. I, at least, lost noth- 
 ing. I am afraid you were the only 
 loser." 
 
 In the meantime the new piccolo 
 player discovered at the Russian Ball 
 had been placed on the strength of 
 the S. G.'s private band. Further, he 
 had been taken into Mr. Pericord's 
 household, as a cupbearer or second 
 boy, to save him from the risks w^hich 
 might attend such remarkable beauty 
 as he possessed. The lad w^aited at 
 the informal tiffins of the Superin- 
 tendency, and became known as 
 "Gazelle Eyes." His carriage, his 
 pouting breast, his graceful neck, 
 were as gazelle-like as his fine eyes. 
 Speculations were made as to his 
 origin, and it was concluded that he 
 was one of those ratse aves among 
 Chinese, a descendant of the Parsee 
 or Arabian immigrants who filtered in 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKINO. 87 
 
 with Mohammedanism. These hand- 
 some types, with their straight eye- 
 brows and fine noses, are sometimes 
 met with in Yunnan and Shensi. And 
 Gazelle Eves said he came from "be- 
 yond the Wall." 
 
 The proper name of Gazelle Eyes 
 w^as Wang Kuei-lien. He proTed in- 
 Taluable in more w^ays than as a 
 piccolo player. His know^ledge of the 
 private characters of high mandarins 
 and of the intrigues seething wthin 
 the Yellow City itself w^as marvelous. 
 He explained it by saying that his 
 uncle w^as one of the eunuchs of the 
 Palace, although the eunuchs are sup- 
 posed to be without relations. This 
 would have probably caused Wang's 
 dismissal, for Mr. Pericord's constant 
 preoccupation w^as the exclusion of 
 spies from his household, had not 
 the lad found occasion to prove his 
 loyalty in a very singular and indeed 
 embarrassing manner. 
 
 The incident occurred at one of the 
 S. G.'s receptions. The w^ife of a 
 Senior Assistant, who thought she 
 ought to be the wife of a Commis- 
 sioner, had at length secured the long 
 watched for opportunity of getting 
 the S. G. to herself. It was one of the 
 women w^ho had spoken of her un- 
 blushing intentions m the presence of 
 Valda. "What is there in it?" she 
 
88 VALDA : 
 
 had said airily; "it's like wheedling 
 a new bonnet out of papa, that's 
 aU." " Or a box of candies from the 
 pasha," suggested a lapdog Under 
 Secretary w^ith plastered straw hair. 
 
 This w^oman, a stout and handsome 
 creature, had dragged the reluctant 
 S. G. into a shady corner of the con- 
 servatory, and suddenly threw her 
 fleshy arms round his neck. 
 
 "Oh, forgive me, Mr. Pericord!" 
 she sobbed theatrically. "I cannot 
 help it ; I must tell you, if you banish 
 me from Peking tomorrow^. You are so 
 lonely. Oh, I wish I could do anything 
 to bring a smile to your dear lips!" 
 
 Now, Mr. Pericord was only flesh 
 and blood, and the sort of man who, 
 being far too diffident to make ad- 
 vances himself, was liable to fall an 
 easyprey to women audacious enough 
 to make love to him. It is, therefore, 
 
 not impossible that Mrs. might 
 
 have then and there captured his 
 passing fancy sufficiently to entice 
 him into some demonstration which 
 he would certainly atone for by send- 
 ing her husband dow^n — with a 
 promotion — had not an interruption 
 occurred. This interruption came 
 from Kuei-lien, the piccolo player. 
 The boy moved swiftly from behind a 
 shrub and said in a voice of breath- 
 less passion, in Chinese : 
 
A BOMANCE OF PEEING. 89 
 
 "Stop, master! she is fooling you! 
 she has talked it all over with her 
 husband and the other women, and 
 they are all w^aiting to see how she 
 succeeds. You will see how they look 
 at you when you go back to the 
 draw^ing-room ! " 
 
 In the face of such an unpleasant 
 hint no man could be expected to 
 make love, even if he w^ere less sen- 
 sitive than the bashful S. G., and Mr. 
 Pericord abruptly dismissed his siren 
 on the excuse that business called 
 him, and slipped away by a back 
 door. He sent for the boy and repri- 
 manded him with severity ; but Kuei- 
 lien w^as able to give a satisfactory 
 reason for his insinuation, quoting 
 several English-speaking boys as his 
 authority, and the S. G. ended by 
 being not only appeased but amused 
 and grateful. To such a man, ridi- 
 cule is terrible; an act which saves 
 him from it is proportionately es- 
 teemed; but to any man less accus- 
 tomed to gratuitous devotion than 
 the S. G. was, the eager, almost the 
 jealous, heat of Kuei-lien's interrup- 
 tion would have appeared remark- 
 able. Chinese are faithful servants, 
 but they are not apt to interfere in 
 things w^hich don't concern them. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 Russian Diplomacy. 
 
 WEEK or two later another 
 act of clandestine loyalty was 
 traced to the new boy, which 
 could not fail to convince Mr. 
 Pericord of his trustworthi- 
 ness; and, indeed, it conYinced Mr. 
 Pericord of some startling things be- 
 sides. 
 
 When the news reached Peking that 
 one cover had been stolen from the 
 mail-bag, M. de Samovar had gone to 
 the extent of repeating its contents 
 by wire over the Siberian system. 
 There followed a succession of tele- 
 graphic communications, with delays 
 between, which convinced the Chinese 
 government that something of the 
 highest importance was being dis- 
 cussed. At length, in February, the 
 minister received definite instructions 
 from Count Muravieff. The message 
 ran as follows — but, of course, m 
 cipher : 
 
 "Boer war by no means finished — 
 England's hands full for another six 
 months — Aguinaldo active — United 
 States cannot spare troops from Phil- 
 ippines — Presidential election, anti- 
 Imperialism, bars foreign enterprises 
 —Japan finances low, new cruisers 
 not finished; strike. Push Pericord 
 
A BOMANCE OF PEEING. 91 
 
 appoint Russian Commissioner Niu- 
 chuang. Demand Tsiing-li Yamen no 
 British on Shanhaikuan Railway, and 
 our nominee, Hsti, to be Governor, 
 Mukden. If obstinate, secret backing 
 England and America or Japan, fo- 
 ment. Assure T support. Instruct 
 
 Consul General Tientsin prepare seize 
 Taku Railway, Must strike within 
 six months, or Roberts ready for 
 China." 
 
 Then M.de Samovar paid an official 
 visit to the Superintendent of Rev- 
 enues, and informed him that it would 
 facilitate business if a Russian nomi- 
 nee w^ere appointed to the Commis- 
 sionership of Niuchuang. 
 
 Mr. Pericord received the demand 
 with his usual grave politeness, and 
 assured his Excellency that he would 
 give the matter his attention; but 
 when the minister had gone, the S. G. 
 w^as no longer able to maintain his 
 mask of indifference. The demand 
 was precisely similar to the seizure of 
 Port Arthur after the Japanese had 
 captured it. The admirable civil ser- 
 vice he had built up was as much, and 
 as valuable, a part of China as the 
 land itself. The possession of any 
 branch of it formed just as much a 
 pied-a-terre for further encroachments 
 as the possession of a harbor did. If 
 Russia claimed the right to collect the 
 
93 VALDA : 
 
 customs duties at Niuchuang, Japan 
 ■would make the same claim for 
 Fusan and Foochow, Gerniany for 
 Chefoo, Great Britain for Shanghai 
 and the River Ports, Italy for Amoy, 
 France for Lungcho-w and Mengtze, 
 and perhaps the United States for 
 Tientsin; and, as for himself, his oc- 
 cupation would be gone, for the Chin- 
 ese Government would hold him re- 
 sponsible for the loss of its main 
 source of revenue. But to whom was 
 he to turn for help ? He was an Eng- 
 lishman, and England and America 
 were the natural defenders of the 
 Open Door policy which preserved the 
 integrity of China ; but England and 
 America had looked on the seizures of 
 Port Arthur and Kiaochao without 
 lifting a hand, and they -were at pre- 
 sent too full of their own troubles to 
 interfere on anything short of direct 
 proof of Russia's ultimate intention. 
 It was entirely a case of diplomacy ; 
 he wanted something in his hand, no 
 matter how unsubstantial, on which 
 to make time by a "bluff." 
 
 M. de Samovar had accurately fore- 
 seen this perplexity, and had antici- 
 pated nothing more serious than the 
 usual Chinese delays in acquiescing to 
 the inevitable ; and he did not expect 
 any reply to his request until he 
 should reiterate it. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 93 
 
 To his astonisliment he received the 
 ■very next morning the following des- 
 patch, formally sealed and addressed 
 to H. E. Monsieur de Samovar, H. I. 
 R. M.'s Envoy Extraordinary and 
 Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court 
 of Peking, at the Legation, Peking, 
 China, and carried across the street 
 by hand. 
 
 "Sir. — In reference to Y. E.'s verbal 
 request of yesterday, that a person 
 of Russian nationality be appointed 
 to the Commissionership of Niuchu- 
 ang, I have the honour to inform 
 your Excellency that such a step is 
 not at present contemplated by this 
 Department. — I have the honor to 
 be, Sir, your Excellency's most 
 obedient humble servant, T. Pericord, 
 Superintendent General of the Im- 
 perial Revenue Department of China." 
 
 When M. Samovar received this, his 
 expression w^as not amiable. "What 
 does it mean, Roupensky ? " he said 
 to his secretary. " What can the man 
 have to rely on that he dares give me 
 a flat refusal like this ? " 
 
 " I expect we shall find, if we send 
 the boy to enquire, that he invited 
 Conger and MacDonald to a game of 
 whist last night. You know nothing 
 will out-bluff an American. When 
 they have said a thing you can 
 never tell whether they will weaken 
 
04 VALBA : 
 
 till you call their hand. It couldn't 
 be MacDonald, for he -would have had 
 to refer the matter to his Foreign 
 Office, and Lord Salisbury is too de- 
 liberate to answer over the wires." 
 
 "Well, there it is. It is meant for a 
 defiance, or he would have been care- 
 ful not to put it on paper. It means 
 that w^e have got to teach the Yamen 
 once for all that the Russian Minister, 
 and not this nondescript Scotchman, 
 dictates what shall and what shall 
 not be done in Northern China." 
 
 "And that can only be done by a 
 Russian army within the walls of 
 Peking." 
 
 "Before six months are out that 
 shall happen," said M. de Samovar 
 ominously. "Russia, as the cham- 
 pion of peace, must be the first to in- 
 sist that the persons of envoys be re- 
 spected. There are symptoms in the 
 air that Peking will not be safe for 
 foreigners this summer." 
 
 "Your Excellency has a fine weath- 
 er-sense," murmured the secretary, 
 suppressing a smile. 
 
 At about the same time the print- 
 ing office of the Statistical Depart- 
 ment at Shanghai was wagging its 
 head over the following telegram re- 
 ceived that morning from Mr. Peri- 
 cord: 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 95 
 
 "Gazette. Fourth Assistants A. Sub- 
 stitute Unattached for Resigned after 
 name of Blake in this quarter's is- 
 sue." 
 
 "That is the first time I have ever 
 known the S. G. to change his mind," 
 said the Statistical Secretary; "and 
 before we go to press we shall have 
 another wire telling us to shove him 
 up into the Third B's. I am glad for 
 Blake, for he is a steady, hard-work- 
 ing fellow, and the only thing against 
 him is that he speaks Chinese too 
 well to please his Commissioners." 
 
 The "Revenue Gazette" referred to 
 is published quarterly at Shanghai in 
 a yellow^-bound book of no meagre 
 dimensions, and is, to about a thous- 
 and men on the coast, a publication 
 far more eagerly awaited than a new 
 Kipling volume by fiction maniacs. 
 It records the rank, promotions, trans- 
 fers, leaves and dismissals of the staff. 
 It is divided in five parts : the Indoor 
 Staff (foreign), the Outdoor Staff 
 (foreign), Indoor Staff, Clerks, lin- 
 guists, and Shupans (native); Out- 
 door Staff, boatmen, carpenters, 
 weighers, w^atchmen (native); and the 
 Coast Survey and Lighthouse Depart- 
 ments. The Indoor Staff is divided 
 into ten grades : Commissioners, Act- 
 ing Commissioners and Assistants-in- 
 charge. First Assistants A, First As- 
 
96 VALDA : 
 
 sistants B, Second Assistants A.Second 
 Assistants B, and so on, the lowest 
 being Fourth Assistants B. The whole 
 service includes eight or nine hundred 
 foreigners and three or four thousand 
 natives, distributed among some 
 thirty-five ports opened by treaty to 
 foreign trade. Over all these the S. G. 
 w^atched with autocratic eye. The 
 conduct of at least six hundred indi- 
 viduals of this huge staff was the 
 subject of his personal monthly scru- 
 tiny, by means of secret reports. 
 Never seeing them, save by their 
 photographs on joining, he knew^ the 
 character and habits of each, register- 
 ing them cumulatively as the years 
 went on, in his mysterious ledgers, so 
 that at any moment, and at any 
 place, he could put his finger on the 
 right man for an emergency. And so 
 the Statistical Department had ceased 
 to wonder when the S. G. individually 
 dictated the entries in the "Gazette" 
 concerning an insignificant Assistant 
 like Blake. Blake had been dismissed 
 in January, but the ' ' Gazette ' ' was not 
 due till March, so that his resignation 
 was not known outside of Peking. 
 Marked as " Unattached " he might re- 
 main lost to view for a year without 
 forfeiting his right to reappear in his 
 ordinary vocation. Many so-called 
 "unattached" Assistants are engaged 
 
A ROMANCE OW PEKING. 9? 
 
 on special missions which it is not ad- 
 visable to advertise. 
 
 What -was the reason of these two 
 prompt volte-faces on the part of the 
 methodical S. G. ? 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Koei-Iien. 
 
 IN the previous chapter we re- 
 corded M. de Samovar's bomb- 
 shell demand for a new 
 Commissioner at Niuchuang. 
 soon as he had departed, Mr. 
 Pericord, deep in perplexity and 
 with his head sunk on his breast, 
 returned slowly to his sanctum. 
 His movements about the house 
 were always quiet, and all the doors 
 opened noiselessly. On entering his 
 study, he surprised the boy Kuei-lien 
 within. 
 
 His mind being imbued with fears 
 of Russia, he associated the lad's in- 
 trusion w^ith the thought of Russian 
 intrigues ; perhaps he was a spy, like 
 Valda. 
 
 "Since you appear to be taking the 
 place of my boy, Kuei-lien, you may 
 bring me my tea," was all he said. 
 
 He sank into a chair and drew from 
 a pigeon-hole marked N (R) a bundle 
 of papers. In turning them over he 
 lighted on one which had certainly 
 not been placed there by himself, for 
 the paper was of a different style to 
 that furnished by Parkin and Gotto 
 to the Revenue Department. 
 
 Mr. Pericord scrutinized the paper 
 closely. He had little doubt that it 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEEINO. 99 
 
 had just been placed there by the new 
 servant, and he supposed that it -was 
 a spurious despatch to conceal the 
 theft of some important document. 
 Biit he had no sooner glanced over it 
 than his face betrayed something like 
 excitement. It -was a translation of 
 part of a despatch from M. de Samo- 
 vor to Count Muravieff. Although 
 not entire, it bore the date and pre- 
 amble, which made it clear that it 
 pretended to be a reproduction of the 
 letter stolen from the courier by 
 Blake. This only increased Mr. Peri- 
 cord's suspicions. It seemed to ex- 
 plain the mystery of the mail robbery. 
 M. de Samovar was trying to blind 
 him, Mr. Pericord, by putting into 
 his hands a false statement of Russia's 
 intentions which should have every 
 appearance of being authentic. Hav- 
 ing failed in the first instance through 
 Mr. Pericord's refusal to read the 
 stolen letter, he had now bribed this 
 servant to place in his desk an ap- 
 parent translation of that letter. He 
 recalled how the new piccolo-player 
 had been thrust on his attention by 
 M. de Samovar, and he had no doubt 
 that Wang was a spy. 
 
 When he read the document, all 
 these suspicions w^ere scattered. 
 There could be no doubt of its 
 authenticity and genuineness. The 
 
100 VALDA : 
 
 stolen despatch had indeed been a 
 bona-fide communication, in cipher, 
 and this was unmistakably a bona- 
 fide translation of that cipher. The 
 whole process of decipherment was 
 shown, as may be seen by the angli- 
 cised rendering of one sentence, which 
 was, however, spread over four lines 
 of meaningless words : 
 
 [query. 
 Mohat bigotizmef lateris add note- 
 Mht bgtzmf Itrs adntqr 
 Niu Chuang must be ours. 
 The disclosures contained in this 
 confidential despatch were such as 
 the Minister could not possibly have 
 desired Mr. Pericord to know. They 
 frankly revealed Russia's intrigues in 
 Manchuria and Russia's secret under- 
 standing with Germany regarding 
 the Open Door question. They con- 
 tained a reference to France which 
 alone was sufiicient to detach that 
 power from the Russian alliance. In 
 fact, this was an instrument in Mr. 
 Pericord's hands which, without any 
 diplomatic pressure, would enable 
 him to stiffen the back of the Tsung-li 
 Yamen to resist Russia's interference. 
 He had merely to make certain hints 
 in private conversation with M. de 
 Samovar to cause that gentleman to 
 withdraw his demand for a Russian 
 Commissioner at Niuchuang. 
 
A ROMANOE OF PEKING. 101 
 
 The placing of the paper in his desk 
 at that juncture was indeed the work 
 of a friend. Blake's loyalty in inten- 
 tion he had never doubted ; but now 
 he w^as compelled to suppose that the 
 person w^ho had instigated Blake had 
 also been loyak That person was 
 Valda. Yalda had protested a gra- 
 tuitous devotion to him in a manner 
 w^hich it had been cruelly hard to 
 doubt. But what had the piccolo- 
 player to do w^ith Yalda and Blake ? 
 
 Kuei-lien brought in the tea. Mr. 
 Pericord, w^hile apparently absorbed 
 in his documents, studied the youth 
 attentively. His own face, had he 
 known it, afforded a curious study. 
 One might have thought that he was 
 indulging in a reprehensible espionage. 
 
 "You have thick hair," he said, lift- 
 ing the boy's heavy queue as it fell 
 onto the arm of his chair v^rhen Kuei- 
 lien stooped over the tea-tray. 
 
 The boy's hand trembled so that he 
 spilt the tea ; his face crimsoned over. 
 Although the remark was natural 
 enough, Mr. Pericord's voice had 
 quivered as if it had required a strong 
 effort of will to utter the words. So 
 a younger man's voice might quiver 
 when venturing the first tentative 
 w^ord of love to a proud beauty. 
 
 " They say our hair grows long be- 
 cause we cut it in front," faltered the 
 
103 VALDA : 
 
 boy, bending low over the tray. 
 There was no hght save that of the 
 open grate in the room. 
 
 Mr. Pericord stole a glance at the 
 white scalp visible beyond the rim of 
 the neat skull-cap. He noticed the 
 shell-like delicacy of the boy's small 
 ear. Although, when the eye is used to 
 it, the Chinese custom has a distinct 
 beauty of its own, Mr. Pericord 
 seemed to see something pathetic and 
 regretful in that neatly shaven temple. 
 
 "Yao pei-tang, tung-chia?" said 
 the boy, holding the sugar tongs. It 
 w^as the first time he had been al- 
 lowed the privilege of waiting on the 
 S. G. in person. 
 
 "Two lumps, please," replied the 
 S. G. absently, in English. The boy, 
 who professed ignorance of English, 
 dropped in two pieces of sugar. 
 
 "Don't go, Kuei-lien," Mr. Pericord 
 murmured, apparently busy with the 
 papers on his knee. He always took 
 his afternoon tea in his arm-chair, 
 seated by the fire. It was his only 
 hour of relaxation, apart from his 
 morning hour in bed. 
 
 Mr. Pericord made no allusion to 
 the strange document, but said pres- 
 ently, v\rith the air of a man who is 
 trying to solve a doubt, "Will you 
 bring your whistle, Kuei-lien, and 
 play to me?" 
 
A BOMANCE OF PEKING. 103 
 
 The boy was proficient on all sim- 
 ple flute instruments, and could pro- 
 duce from an ordinary brass wbistle 
 melodies well adapted for a small 
 room. 
 
 Kuei-lien obeyed, and seating him- 
 self on a low^ stool in the opposite 
 shadow^ of the fireplace, played some 
 of the old and simple ballad airs 
 w^hich w^ere Mr. Pericord's favorites. 
 The S. G. listened with his chin rest- 
 ing on his palm. At length he 
 moved, and, stooping over the arm 
 of the chair, reached for a big violon- 
 cello, swathed in an old green bag. 
 He tuned it a little, and scraped the 
 chords. 
 
 " iee if you can accompany me, 
 Kuei-lien," he said. 
 
 After snatches of some oi his stereo- 
 typed band pieces, the S. G. passed 
 imperceptibly to a new Russian love- 
 song which had appeared in Peking for 
 the first time that w^inter, introduced 
 by Miss Beriskofif. The boy continued 
 to accompany w^ithout w^avering. In- 
 deed, he whistled the air with the fa- 
 cility and expression of familiarity, 
 independent of the 'cello's sub-tones. 
 The singular duet produced a pretty 
 harmony, and at one passage in the 
 song the deep, low wail of the strings 
 seemed to speak like the impassioned 
 voice of a man. 
 
104 VALDA : 
 
 When Kttei-lien ceased, of his own 
 accord, the air of the darkened room 
 was quivering with human emotion. 
 The walls, or the atmosphere, of a 
 small room, especially in the gloaming 
 of firelight, have the sympathetic 
 capacity of re-echoing, for a little 
 while, the unspoken passions of the 
 soul which are interchanged in music. 
 Mr. Pericord, who had a sensitive im- 
 agination, evidently felt this myster- 
 ious influence, for he sat for some 
 minutes in silence, his bow hanging 
 idly from his hand. He uttered a deep 
 sigh. Then, in a voice full of sadness 
 and regret, he said : 
 
 "Thank you, Kuei-lien; I must not 
 
 detain you any longer." 
 
 • »*«»*♦ 
 
 The next day the piccolo-player w^as 
 relieved of further personal attendance 
 on the S. G. He \^as not dismissed, 
 but, on the contrary, removed from 
 the servants' quarters in the rear of 
 the compound to a small sleeping 
 room in the house. His duties, how- 
 ever, were quietly taken from him, 
 and he was left to amuse himself how^ 
 he might, with certain implied restric- 
 tions which would prevent him com- 
 ing within sight of his master. The 
 other servants supposed that the boy 
 was to go through a course of study 
 preparatory to promoting him to a 
 
A ROMANCE OF PUKINU. 105 
 
 subordinate clerkship on the staff, a 
 step that would have surprised no 
 one, for Kuei-lien was obviously 
 "above his place." Had there been 
 any w^omen in this ascetic household, 
 they might have whispered that the 
 S. G. had private reasons for shunning 
 the sight of his beautiful musician, as 
 Saul sometimes shunned David. 
 
 The room allotted to Kuei-lien had 
 at one time been a boudoir, and the 
 books, photographs, ornaments, and 
 piano had never been removed. This 
 isolated room w^as situated imme- 
 diately over the S. G.'s study, and 
 was connected with it by a long dis- 
 used speaking tube. Here the lonely 
 lad was sometimes heard playing to 
 himself. 
 
 In spite of the opportune Russian 
 document, Mr. Pericord evidently did 
 not absolve the boy of all suspicion. 
 He had no sooner despatched his curt 
 reply to Mr. Samovar than he had 
 misgivings concerning its w^isdom. 
 Indeed, in many things, his usual 
 clearness of action seemed to be for- 
 saking him. He was often preoccu- 
 pied, as a business man will some- 
 times be by domestic cares. A slight 
 sound, especially the faint echo of 
 music, would disturb him. 
 
 Meeting Mr. Samovar one day, he 
 said to him : 
 
106 VALDA .• 
 
 "You have no news of Miss Beris- 
 koff, M. de Samovar ?" _ 
 
 "I believe her to be in Shanghai," 
 replied the minister. 
 
 After some hesitation the S. G. said: 
 "The piccolo-player whom you intro- 
 duced to me bears a remarkable re- 
 semblance to your ward, M. de Sam- 
 ovar." 
 
 Mr. Samovar laughed frankly. "I 
 don't wonder; he is Valda's brother!" 
 Then he told Mr. Pericord the facts of 
 Yalda's birth. 
 
 " Of course you attribute all sorts 
 of base motives to me now, Mr. Peri- 
 cord," he concluded with the same 
 air of frankness. " But I declare you 
 w^ould do me an injustice. You know 
 what Chinese and their relatives are. 
 Yalda had, unknow^n to me, renewed 
 acquaintance with her precious fam- 
 ily, and, of course, they pestered her 
 for foreign positions. This Wang, 
 after all, played the piccolo well. But 
 if you have the slightest suspicion of 
 his honesty, send him back to me. My 
 attache, Vassilich, has taken a fancy 
 to him." 
 
 Mr. Pericord did not send Kuei- 
 lien back. Nevertheless, he was in- 
 formed that the boy sometimes 
 slipped out to the Russian embassy, 
 and he appeared by no means set at 
 ease by Mr. Samovar's explanation. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Openingf of the Year J 900. 
 
 ^^N the meantime had come and 
 fflMI gone the great festival of 
 i^ China New Year, which her- 
 ds'* aided in the 25th year of the 
 unhappy Emperor Kuang Hsu, the 
 5th cycle of the Manchu dynasty he 
 represented, and the last year of the 
 19th century of Christendom. This 
 19th century had been almost as 
 pregnant in change and prophesy for 
 China as for Europe. It had seen the 
 steadfast encroachment of Western 
 innovations on a civilization which 
 had endured without change for over 
 2,000 years. It had suffered the shock 
 of three foreign wars and witnessed 
 the introduction of militant Chris- 
 tianity, of modern weapons, of foreign 
 loans, of telegraphs, of railways. It 
 had felt, w^hat made a far deeper im- 
 pression than the burning of the Sum- 
 mer Palace or the destruction of the 
 Pei-yang fleet, the suave but inflexible 
 grip of a methodical and conscien- 
 tious foreigner on the collection of the 
 revenue, and watched w^ith impotent 
 jealousy the sure extension of his fin- 
 gers until, in the ramifications of a 
 great civil service, they spread over 
 all the comers of the Empire and 
 threatened to close in on the very 
 
108 VALDA : 
 
 likin and land-tax which supported a 
 million of proud but greedy extortion- 
 ists. In fact, solid and impenetrable 
 as was the bulk of native conserva- 
 tism, no observant Chinaman could 
 leave his inland home without realiz- 
 ing that an irresistible encroachment 
 had taken place and could never be 
 pushed back save by the extermina- 
 tion of every foreigner, and every con- 
 vert to foreignism, within the limits 
 of the Empire. 
 
 For Europe and America, on the 
 other hand, the year 1900 was wel- 
 comed with rejoicing as the eve of the 
 millennium; thethresholdof that 20th 
 century which must surely witness 
 the culmination of scientific socialism, 
 bringing with it the sublimation of 
 enlightenment and the universal do- 
 minion of peace. It was to be the 
 century of the brotherhood of nations: 
 a liberty, fraternity, and equality, 
 which should include even China in 
 its benevolent embrace. 
 
 On this day it was the custom for 
 all the high mandarins of the 
 Tsung-li Yamen to pay their re- 
 spects to the Legations in a body. 
 The appearance of these cavalcades, 
 these processions of eight-bearer 
 chairs, this sea of sign-poles, this 
 sw^arm of conical-hatted retainers 
 and peacock-plumed secretaries, in 
 
A ROMANCE OP PEEING. 109 
 
 the quiet precincts of Legation street, 
 brought home to the observer in a 
 most startUng fashion the isolation 
 and "taboo" of the foreign ministers 
 in Peking. Only then did one realize 
 ho-w utterly ignored were these repre- 
 sentatives of the Great Powers by the 
 Court to which they were accredited. 
 They lived as unnoticed in one small 
 street of the vast city as any insignifi- 
 cant colony of Shansi Mohammedans 
 or Mongolian camel-drivers clustered 
 in reed huts outside the northern 
 gates; as unrecognized by the high 
 society of the capital as the Chinese 
 colony in New York. The Imperial 
 City, the home of the government of 
 the Empire, the center of all the in- 
 trigues which they w^ere here to take 
 a hand in, w^as to them literally noth- 
 ing more than a wall ; none had ever 
 entered its gates, walked in its spa- 
 cious avenues and wondrous parks, 
 nor even, from the parapet of the 
 Tartar Wall, seen more of its throng- 
 ing palaces than a glimpse of yellow 
 tile through the tops of trees. Twice 
 a year these powerful representatives 
 of foreign states were permitted to 
 bow before the Emperor's effigy — and 
 even the poor boy himself was but a 
 waxen effigy — in one of the pavilions 
 outside the §ate; once a year the 
 great mandarins of the foreign office 
 
110 VALDA : 
 
 condescended to pay an official visit. 
 Social intercourse there -was none; 
 the Legations were simply tolerated 
 and ignored, and the real capital of 
 China retained its haughty seclusion 
 unbroken, treating Europe and Amer- 
 ica, in the persons of their Ambassa- 
 dors, like tributary states, as con- 
 temptible as Corea. And the stolid 
 millions, whose din around them was 
 like the hoarse murmur of the sea 
 against an islet, took note of this 
 official contempt for the foreigners, 
 and looked curiously through their 
 gates, w^ondering how soon the signal 
 would come to divide among them- 
 selves the spoils within. 
 
 On previous occasions there had 
 wont to be a show of at least a spu- 
 rious cordiality and empressement on 
 the part of the visiting mandarins; 
 the glass of champagne w^hich they 
 took at each Legation assisted the 
 hollow cheerfulness. But this year 
 everyone noticed an impalpable some- 
 thing in the bearing of these visitors 
 which rendered cordiality impossible. 
 They seemed with one accord to look 
 on their foreign hosts with a sort of 
 shivering curiosity, as if behind them 
 they saw ghostly apparitions. It 
 was observed that at the German 
 embassy they refused to take w^ine. 
 The whole ceremony was felt to have 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. VA 
 
 been a fiasco, and everyone w^as re- 
 lieved Mrhen it -was over. 
 
 And all the time in the surrounding 
 streets, and for miles and miles 
 throughout the monstrous city, the 
 increasing and reverberant din of 
 crackers and cannon seemed to be 
 sending a tocsin of unholy revel, as 
 if the stolid millions had awoke to a 
 consciousness of their conglomerate 
 strength, and were indulging in war 
 dances of defiance and insult. Bven 
 New^ York on the Fourth of July can- 
 not compare with the smallest 
 Chinese village for fiendish revelry 
 of noise w^hen China's New Year 
 comes round. And Chinese crackers 
 have at least the merit of continuity. 
 
 The winter had passed avsray and 
 the ice of the Peiho melted, bringing 
 Peking once more in touch with the 
 outer w^orld. With the advent of the 
 first steamer from Shanghai, carry- 
 ing a swarm of merchants for Tientsin 
 and syndicate-mongers for Peking, , 
 the sombre mediaeval atmosphere, 
 which had reasserted its sway during 
 the closed months, seemed to be dissi- 
 pated by the revivifying influx of 
 Western civilization and American 
 enterprise. But only at the first 
 flush : old residents of the north could 
 not long shut their eyes to a some- 
 
113 VALDA : 
 
 thing in the air, an uneasiness, a 
 mysterious and ominous agitation 
 like that beneath the oily surface of a 
 whirlpool, -which reminded some of 
 the peculiar symptoms which, in 
 1870, had preceded the massacre of 
 Tientsin. On that occasion, China, 
 always stolid and impenetrable to 
 the outward eye, had been convulsed 
 in all its prejudices by; a treaty which 
 had opened the interior to mission- 
 aries ; and the result, after two years 
 of imperceptible seething, had been 
 the sudden and fanatic outbreak 
 which resulted in the barbarous kill- 
 ing of a score or more of Catholic 
 nuns and priests, as well as of the 
 French consul himself. Then followed 
 twenty years of acquiescence, culmin- 
 ating in 1890 in a series of anti-mis- 
 sionary riots all along the valley of 
 the Yangtze. Another spell of ten 
 years w^itnessed the Japanese war, 
 the invasion of missionaries into the 
 remotest provinces, the seizure of 
 Port Arthur by the Russians, Kiao- 
 chao by the Germans, and Wei-hai- 
 wei by the British, and finally the 
 projection and active construction 
 of railroads everyw^here, as if all 
 obstacles had been overcome, and 
 China existed only as the happy 
 hunting ground of foreign capital- 
 ists; while its ancient prejudices, its 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 113 
 
 proud mandarinate, its secluded 
 court, were ignored as images whose 
 day had passed for ever. 
 
 This railw^ay enterprise and foreign 
 encroachment was most conspicuous 
 in the two northern provinces of 
 Shantung and Chih-li. In the moun- 
 tains of the Shantung promontory, 
 peculiarly sacred to the memory of 
 Confucius and the cult of Buddha, 
 German mining engineers w^ere pros- 
 pecting everywhere under the escort 
 of German marines. The hardy and 
 independent natives were being 
 handled dictatorially by the iron fist of 
 German soldiers. It was a treatment 
 to w^hich they w^ere not used. Chu, 
 the Governor-General, in his capital, 
 Chinan, felt that at any moment a 
 German agent might set up a Yamen 
 of his own and reduce him, the vice- 
 roy, to the position of a mere figure- 
 head, until such time as the whole 
 province, with its population of 
 twenty millions, should be openly 
 annexed to Kiaochao. In the face of 
 this menace, the Governor called 
 upon the people to form themselves 
 into a volunteer militia, and practice 
 drill at home. The idea had first 
 taken root during the Japanese inva- 
 sion in 1895. 
 
 The same thing was going on in 
 the contiguous province of Chih-li. A 
 great trunk railway line had been 
 
114 VALDA : 
 
 projected to connect Canton in the 
 extreme south with Peking in the ex- 
 treme north, a distance of over 2,000 
 miles, crossing the river Yangtze at 
 Hankow. This was being energetic- 
 ally rushed forward by Belgian en- 
 gineers, who, by the spring of 1900, 
 had already a hundred miles open 
 from Peking to Paoting-fu. In an- 
 other direction, from Tientsin north- 
 w^ard to Shanhaikuan and Niuchu- 
 ang, a system was growing up in the 
 hands of British and Russian engin- 
 eers, which w^ould speedily connect 
 the imperial province of Manchuria 
 with the Trans-Siberian trunk line. 
 This activity, desecrating as it did 
 all the superstitions of the people, 
 aroused a feeling of unrest similar to 
 that in Shantung. The Emperor (in 
 reality the Dowager Empress) issued 
 an edict encouraging the people to 
 form themselves into volunteer corps 
 for the defence of their homes. In this 
 way the Boxer organization was 
 established. 
 
 Now as soon as the imperial sanc- 
 tion raised this secret society to the 
 rank of a national organization, all 
 the other secret societies, heretofore 
 as much against the Emperor as 
 against the missionary, felt that their 
 time was come to revel in anarchy 
 and bloodshed. They would for the 
 time being drop all notions of rebel- 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEEING. 115 
 
 lion, and cloak their designs under 
 the patriotic cry " Expel the foreign- 
 ers." They began with the native 
 converts to Christianity, slaughter- 
 ing them wholesale. 
 
 The anti-foreign feeling once let 
 loose, the foreign ministers at Peking 
 were thunderstruck to perceive that 
 China w^as still as retrogressive as 
 ever. All the^e railways and tele- 
 graph poles, instead of, as they had 
 fondly hoped, heralding the dawn of 
 a new civilization in China, simply 
 served as red rags to the bull of fana- 
 ticism. Still they did nothing. Lega- 
 tion street had for so many years 
 been worried by the cry of w^olf that 
 it had long since adopted the w^eary 
 conviction that nothing could be 
 done and that, if left alone, the 
 trouble would die away of its own 
 accord. So, whenever a despairing 
 cry from some poor missionary who 
 saw his toil of years swept away in 
 a moment, arrived, they put it in a 
 pigeon-hole and politely hinted to the 
 Tsung-li Yamen that there appeared 
 to be some slight disturbance in the 
 provinces, and the Chinese ministers 
 as politely assented, with the grave 
 assurance that the usual Imperial 
 Edict would be forthcoming and their 
 Excellencies need have no anxiety. 
 
 Such was the state of things at the 
 date of the spring race meeting. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Race Meeting. 
 
 |HE Cup race of the International 
 Club was the principal social 
 event of the Peking legationers 
 during the month of May. 
 After that the tropical summer, 
 ■which followed close on the heels of 
 winter, rendered riding uncomforta- 
 ble, and in June the ponies were put 
 out to grass, not to be brought back 
 to the stables till September. Apart 
 from a little pig and deer shooting in 
 the winter, riding was almost the only 
 amusement of the young men of Le- 
 gation street. Everyone kept one 
 pony; most, even of the youngest 
 juniors on $100 a month, kept two; 
 and a considerable number of them 
 kept quite ambitious racing stables. 
 Their mounts were the sturdy Manchu 
 ponies, many of which were descended 
 from a cross by the British cavalry 
 mounts turned adrift after the occu- 
 pation of Peking in 1860. They came 
 down indroves of shaggy grass-blown 
 mustangs or cayuses in a virtually 
 wild state, when the very smell of a 
 foreigner made them ungovernable, so 
 that they could only be mounted by 
 first throwing a bag over their heads. 
 In this state they are called griffins. 
 After the Peking foreigners had taken 
 
A BOMANOE OP PEKING. 117 
 
 their pick, buying them at from $20 
 to $50, the droves passed on to Tien- 
 tsin, and thence by steamer to Shang- 
 hai, where they fetched at auction 
 from $50 to $100. 
 
 But no one w^ould recognize the un- 
 kempt griffin in the close-clipped, well- 
 groomed, superbly muscular form they 
 presented after a month or tw^o of 
 beans and w^heat and hard training. 
 Then one saw^ that the Mongolian 
 pony makes one of the best military 
 mounts in the w^orld. There were up- 
 wards of two hundred of these spirited 
 beasts in the stables of Legation 
 street. ' 
 
 This was noted by one of the great 
 princes w^ho w^ere wont to grace the 
 spring meeting with their presence. 
 
 "Do you see that, Yii?" he said to 
 his companion, as a score of young 
 Legation men cantered onto the 
 course, as spick and span and spirited 
 as their ponies. "We could equip a 
 couple of squadrons of light cavalry 
 on those yang ma, which w^ould ride 
 round any of those Cossacks they 
 can bring up for the first three months 
 at least." 
 
 "And they would feed the foreign 
 devils for the same length of time, 
 after we have cut off their provisions," 
 responded Yu gloomily. 
 
 "Ah, I am glad you mentioned that. 
 
118 VALDA .■ 
 
 Ho-chi," said the prince. "We must 
 see to that when the time comes. We 
 must pen them all up in one legation, 
 hey?" 
 
 " That is the first thing to do, your 
 Highness." 
 
 The man thus obsequiously ad- 
 dressed, who rode a large piebald 
 pony, w^as a swarthy and big-limbed 
 Tartar, magnificently clothed in semi- 
 military costume, and surrounded by 
 a brilliant escort of Manchu princes 
 and Chinese mandarins. A gloomy 
 hatred seemed to hang on his brow 
 like a thundercloud as he sat haughti- 
 ly w^atching the assembly of foreign 
 fashion in the Grand Stand opposite. 
 The foreign ministers, as they trotted 
 past, bowed to such of the nobles as 
 they were personally acquainted 
 with, but without formality, since 
 these in the Prince's following were 
 uninvited guests. Invitations to the 
 Grand Stand had indeed been issued, 
 but had been ignored by the prince. 
 Prince Ching, on the other hand, to- 
 gether with such of the Tsung-li min- 
 isters as could afibrd to defy the Tar- 
 tar, w^ere to be seen in the enclosure 
 surrounded by the brightly dressed 
 women of the Legations. 
 
 Sir Claude MacDonald, a graceful 
 cavalier with melancholy face and 
 sweeping mustaches, rode past ac- 
 
A BOMANOE OF PEKING. 119 
 
 companied by Mr. Conger and sev- 
 eral ladies. He nodded familiarly and 
 indifferently to the Tartar nobles, al- 
 lowing them to see that they were of 
 far less importance to Her Britannic 
 Majesty's representative than the 
 thoughtful, sturdy Republican on one 
 side of him, and the brilliant Chicago 
 belle on the other. 
 
 "Who is that farmer-like fellow 
 w^ho sits on his horse as if he w^ere a 
 sack of rice ?" inquired the prince. 
 
 "It is the Flower Flag minister, 
 your Highness," replied the ex-Gov- 
 ernor of Shansi. "In America they 
 never gallop, because their cavalry is 
 only used to perform long marches." 
 
 "The man has a good face," said 
 the prince, w^ho, outside his heredi- 
 tary hatred, was of generous nature. 
 " These Americans, I understand, are 
 not among our enemies ? " 
 
 "Not hitherto, your Highness. 
 Formerly they were vassals of Eng- 
 land, and they speak the English lan- 
 guage still. But two years ago they 
 fought their first foreign war, and be- 
 ing victorious, it is reported that 
 their King is puflfed up with pride and 
 contemplates establishing a colony 
 within the four seas, in imitation of 
 England." 
 
 "But I beg your Highness to note 
 that this compels them to seek our 
 
120 VALDA : 
 
 friendship," put in the wizened Sheng, 
 whose wife once had the honor of in- 
 fatuating the Tartar prince. "These 
 American people are Hke our own, 
 w^hoUy devoted to money-making, 
 and they will never permit their king 
 to incur the expense of w^ar when 
 they can gain more by peace. Be- 
 sides, when all other nations are 
 using force, they can gain prestige 
 by sticking to diplomacy." 
 
 "Then you shall see to them w^hen 
 the time comes, my worthy friend," 
 said the soldier contemptuously. 
 " Provided they had no share in the 
 destruction of my glorious brother's 
 garden, and have not laid claim to 
 any part of our territory, I bear them 
 no grudge." 
 
 The French and Russian ministers 
 ambled by. They bowed with great 
 politeness and flattering smiles, and 
 their courtesy w^as returned in kind. 
 
 "These men are our worst enemies 
 and our greatest friends, your High- 
 ness," said Yij. "Fa-Gwo (France) 
 does not count without 0-Gwo (Rus- 
 sia), for she dare not send her troops 
 abroad and has never learned Eng- 
 land's secret of maintaining foreign 
 possessions without expense. 0-Gwo 
 is our neighbor to the north and de- 
 sires to eat up the home of the glori- 
 ous dynasty (Manchuria). She em- 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 121 
 
 ploys tens of thousands of our people 
 to build the roads of the steam-horse. 
 Therefore she dreads war, lest she 
 should lose her influence as a friend, 
 and she will not permit the other 
 nations to make w^ar lest in the con- 
 fusion she should be numbered 
 among our enemies." 
 
 "Leave Russia to me," said the 
 prince grimly. " She will find w^hen 
 the day comes that I have not spent 
 twenty years on the border for 
 nothing." 
 
 "Oh, your Highness, Russia is our 
 very good friend," said Sheng. "She 
 cannot complete her railway or resist 
 Japan without our alliance, and w^ill, 
 if need be, even join us in thrusting 
 out the other barbarians." 
 
 " How much do they pay you to 
 say that?" said the prince with a 
 grim smile. 
 
 "What words, Highness?" mur- 
 mured the old mandarin tremulously, 
 and his rivals smiled and exchanged 
 nods. 
 
 A slight, cold-faced gentleman, pre- 
 cisely dressed, rode past, sitting stiffly 
 erect. He took no notice of the prince 
 w^hatever. 
 
 "Very good, my friend," muttered 
 the prince, his dark face growing 
 purple under a sudden access of his 
 ungovernable temper. "By the tombs 
 
123 VALDA : 
 
 of my ancestors! does a barbarian 
 dog dare to slight me beneath the 
 shadow of my walls ? Who is this 
 sword-faced coxcomb ? " 
 
 "That is the Te-Gwo (German) 
 Tsung-Ling, your Highness. His mas- 
 ter is the w^ar-lord of Europe, and 
 all the servants under him carry 
 themselves stiffly, like despots whose 
 right is might. These presumptuous 
 Germans have dared to lay hands on 
 a portion of our sacred empire and 
 shoot our people like dogs." 
 
 "Then, by the shade of Kang Hsi, 
 the dogs shall eat him!" cried the 
 prince furiously, w^hirling his horse 
 round and galloping out of the enclo- 
 sure, followed by his tumultuous es- 
 cort. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Reappearance of Blake. 
 
 HAT black-browed ruffian is 
 lacking in the usual good 
 manners of Chinese, appa- 
 rently," said Baron von 
 Ketteler to M. Pichon. " I regret that 
 your Excellency should have conde- 
 scended to notice the felloA?\r." 
 
 "The father of the heir presump- 
 tive can scarcely be ignored, M. le 
 Baron," replied the French minister 
 deprecatingly. His position in Peking 
 was the most uncomfortable of all 
 the foreign envoys, for he was not 
 only responsible for the enormous 
 vested interests of the Roman Catho- 
 lic clergy, but he had special instruc- 
 tions to maintain cordial relations 
 with the German representative while 
 practically supporting the policy of 
 Russia. It was believed that Russian 
 and German interests at Peking wrere 
 identical, but, on the other hand, the 
 diplomatic methods of the two em- j 
 pires were widely sundered. To the 
 Baron, diplomacy w^as subordinated 
 to the first duty of exacting a rigor- 
 ous respect towards the representa- 
 tive of the German Emperor ; to M. 
 de Samovar, personal dignity counted 
 for nothing beside the gaining of dip- 
 lomatic ends. 
 
134 VALDA : 
 
 "I equally regret that your Excel- 
 lency should have seen fit to put a 
 slight on so notoriously hostile a per- 
 sonage as Prince Tuan," said M. de 
 Samovar. "I must take the liberty 
 of hinting that in the present uneasy 
 state of popular feeling it is not judi- 
 cious to throw^ the Imperial faction 
 into the arms of intriguers like Chu 
 of Shantung, whom, I think, I ob- 
 served among the prince's escort. A 
 portion of His Majesty the Emperor 
 William's territory is now as conter- 
 minous with China as our own." 
 
 "As for that," replied Baron von 
 Ketteler, "we at least have nothing 
 to fear. I might even go so far as to 
 say that it would suit us to have to 
 suppress hostility near Kiaochao." 
 
 "I am afraid your Excellency will 
 not have long to w^ait for that oppor- 
 tunity," replied the Russian minister 
 with ill-concealed annoyance. "But 
 in the meantime you forget that you 
 yourself are within the w^alls of Pe- 
 king." 
 
 "What does your Excellency mean 
 by that?" said the Baron haughtily. 
 " One might almost imagine from the 
 tone of your remark that Peking w^as 
 a Russian instead of a Chinese capi- 
 tal. I trust that I am capable of 
 upholding the dignity Of the master I 
 serve under any circumstances." 
 
A BOMANCM OF PEKING. 135 
 
 "I am afraid M. le Baron forgets 
 that he has not an army at his back," 
 interposed the Spanish envoy, Senor 
 de Cologan, the doyen of the Corps 
 Diplomatique, -with a pacific smile. 
 "I, for one, should feel decidedly un- 
 comfortable at the Legation if Prince 
 Tuan -were to take offence. He has, 
 unfortunately, a most ungovernable 
 temper." 
 
 "And for that very reason is of no 
 account," replied M. Ketteler. "I 
 assure you, gentlemen, that Prince 
 Tuan and his coterie are regarded 
 with far more dislike by the President 
 of the Tsung-li Yamen than we are." 
 
 "That would be more reassuring if 
 Prince Ching w^ere a younger man," 
 put in the United States Charge 
 d'Affaires, who was more conversant 
 with the French language than Mr. 
 Conger. "I'm afraid the Yamen would 
 cut about as much figure as a pack of 
 old w^omen if those fire-eating Man- 
 chus get the bit in their teeth. What 
 do you say, Sir Claude ? " 
 
 " Oh, these little rumors of hostihties 
 really amount to nothing, gentlemen, ' ' 
 replied the British minister, stroking 
 his mustache with a bored air. 
 "Judging by the reports of my pred- 
 ecessors, a similar condition of things 
 has existed intermittently ever since 
 the legations were established." 
 
126 VALDA : 
 
 "Come, gentlemen," said Miss Con- 
 ger, vivaciously, "you are at the races 
 now, not at the council-board. Which 
 of you is going to bet me a box of 
 gloves against Mr. Cheshire's gray ? " 
 
 "It depends on who's up, my dear 
 young lady," replied the fatherly M. 
 de Cologan, in English. " If it is Mr. 
 Cheshire himself I w^ill bet you a dozen 
 boxes, for he alw^ays goes at a trot." 
 
 " What has become of your ward ? " 
 asked Lady MacDonald of M. de Sam- 
 ovar. " You have never allowed that 
 charming girl to be carried off by a 
 Revenue man — and a disgraced junior 
 at that?" 
 
 "Nevertheless, that predacious de- 
 partment generally succeeds in carry- 
 ing off all the good things, does it 
 not, your ladyship ? See, is that not 
 a Revenue man who leads on the 
 black?" 
 
 " It is Mr. Blake himself," said Lady 
 MacDonald, quietly. 
 
 And such indeed, to the astonish- 
 ment of everybody, appeared to be the 
 fact. The pony, a big bull-necked run- 
 aw^ay whom Blake had broken in and 
 w^hom no one but Blake could mount, 
 was well known; but everyone sup- 
 posed that the animal had been sent 
 dow^n to Shanghai, as it had not been 
 auctioned at either Peking or Tientsin 
 after Blake's disappearance. Nor, of 
 
A BOMANOE OF PMKINa. 127 
 
 course, had Blake been heard of since 
 then. Now only, as the fiery beast 
 dashed past the stand in a lather of 
 foam, did the spectators recognize in 
 the lithe form and splendid horseman- 
 ship of the rider, the disgraced and 
 banished Assistant. There was a buzz 
 of comment. The scent of a scandal 
 lent piquancy to the excitement. 
 No one cheered. The ladies craned 
 forward beneath their parasols, w^his- 
 pering eagerly w^hile they w^atched for 
 his return. Blake bore the reputation 
 of bein^ the handsomest man in 
 Peking, m spite of his gloominess and 
 taciturnity ; the rumor of his disgrace, 
 capped by the audacity of eloping 
 w^ith the -ward of the Russian min- 
 ister, had elevated him onto the ped- 
 estal of romance. 
 
 "I suppose this is the diplomatic 
 w^ay of answ^ering my question, M. 
 de Samovar," said Lady MacDonald 
 coldly. "I must congratulate you on 
 arranging a dramatic surprise. It 
 only remains to see Miss Beriskoff re- 
 appear to produce quite a curtain." 
 
 "I assure your ladyship that I w^as 
 quite unaw^are of this gentleman's 
 presence in Peking. In fact, I had 
 very good reasons for supposing that 
 he had left the country. Since he has 
 the hardihood to show his face here 
 again after the — ^the equivocal circum- 
 
128 VALDA : 
 
 stances connected with his departure, 
 it will be my duty to — Will your lady- 
 ship pardon me if I leave you for a 
 moment?" 
 
 Lady MacDonald looked around at 
 him with intense surprise. The 
 usually suave and unemotional diplo- 
 matist seemed to be positively quiver- 
 ing with anger. He left his seat and 
 gave a w^hispered order in Russian to 
 his attach^, Captain Vassilich, w^ho 
 in his turn descended and w^hispered 
 instructions to the minister's Cossack 
 attendants. 
 
 These attendants, together with a 
 score of mafoos riding their masters' 
 second mounts, formed a group at 
 the side of the Grand Stand. Among 
 them might have been noticed a 
 handsome and handsomely dressed 
 boy, lounging side-saddle fashion on 
 a small pony w^hich belonged to Mr. 
 Pericord's stable. The boy was prob- 
 ably in attendance on some lady 
 guests staying with the Superintend- 
 ent for the races. He had thrown one 
 leg over the pommel of his saddle in 
 order to watch the races at his ease. 
 
 When Captain Vassilich w^alked up 
 to the Cossack sergeant and gave 
 him his instructions, this boy listened 
 unobserved, although he could not be 
 expected to understand the Russian 
 language. At the same time the cries 
 
A BOMANOE OF PEKING. 129 
 
 from the Grand Stand told that the 
 jockeys w^ere coming up the last 
 stretch. " Here they come ! The black 
 leads! Black Bess! Black Bess!" 
 was the shout. As the superb stal- 
 lion fle-w past, his rider bending his 
 head lo-w over the beast's neck as if 
 to avoid recognition, one lady re- 
 marked: "How haggard Mr. Blake 
 looks, poor fellow! Where has he 
 been all this time ? " 
 
 Others, apparently, felt the same 
 curiosity, for as soon as the flag went 
 down proclaiming Blake the w^inner 
 of the S. G.'s famous cup, everyone 
 began flocking out of the enclosure 
 tow^ards the paddock. Blake's mount 
 w^as pulling hard, and had shot a 
 hundred yards beyond the w^inning 
 post. Blake, as he sawed him to a 
 trot, seemed to hesitate whether to 
 turn back and face society, or to dis- 
 appear again. At this moment the 
 boy, who w^as still listening to w^hat 
 Vassilich w^as saying, gave his pony 
 a smart cut and galloped after Blake. 
 In his haste he forgot to throw his 
 leg astride the saddle, but he seemed 
 to sit as easily sideways. 
 
 Every one noticed and admired this 
 graceful feat. To their surprise, the 
 boy galloped straight up to Blake 
 and addressed him impetuously. 
 There was a hurried whispered coUo- 
 
130 VALJDA : 
 
 quy; the man appeared astonished, 
 a prey to a strange conflict of emo- 
 tions ; then with a look of despair, as 
 two Cossacks cantered towards him, 
 he gave the rein to his beast and shot 
 like an arrow from the course. 
 
 Nothing more w^as seen of Blake. 
 After a host of surmises, society came 
 to the conclusion that the the unfor- 
 tunate man w^as mad, and the old sin- 
 ister rumor of his drinking habits 
 was revived to account for his eccen- 
 tric reappearance. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Gathering: of the Storm. 
 
 sHE incident of Blake's reappear- 
 Ml^ ance, and indeed all the sport- 
 ^g ing gossij) which usually occu- 
 &' pies Peking for a fortnight 
 after the cup race, was to be immedi- 
 ately swallowed up in far more seri- 
 ous topics. The autumn of 1899 had 
 been exceptionally dry, the snowfall 
 had been slight, and for the first time 
 in many years the spring had been 
 rainless. Consequently there was 
 much distress in the north, and starv- 
 ing country-folk began filtering into 
 the capital. They thronged the gates, 
 and as many of them had never seen 
 foreigners before, their presence be- 
 came a decided nuisance, and on more 
 than one occasion the young men of 
 Legation street were obliged to spur 
 their ponies to force a way through 
 the crowd. This resulted in the 
 trampling of a beggar or two, and 
 suddenly the curiosity became con- 
 verted into a furious clamor. Orders 
 were issued by the S. G. that none of 
 his staff were to ride beyond the 
 walls without leave. 
 
 It is a curious thing that in China 
 the ordinary residents of the settle- 
 ments never realize the state of pop- 
 ular feeding about them. Their boys 
 
132 VALDA : 
 
 are such notorious alarmists that it 
 is the fashion to ignore rumors of riot 
 until the riot occurs. The only result 
 of the rumors is to make the foreign- 
 ers a little more sensitive and there- 
 fore resentful of the customary in- 
 sults. When a man feels that he is 
 surrounded by hatred, the barking of 
 a dog is enough to upset his nerves 
 and make him impatient and scorn- 
 ful. He unconsciously does his best 
 to precipitate the gathering outbreak. 
 It was a dictum of Anson Burling- 
 hame that half the bitter hatred of 
 Chinese to foreigners is the cumula- 
 tive result of the strangers' overbear- 
 ing manner, and this has grown 
 truer every day during forty years. 
 A Chinaman never forgets the ' loss of 
 face ' w^hich is implied by an unretali- 
 ated blow^, and these blows have been 
 freely distributed of late by the 
 swarm of new^comers w^ho care noth- 
 ing for native susceptibilities. Ger- 
 many, for instance, will not wipe out 
 the memory of her sailors' high-hand- 
 edness for many decades, though she 
 rule Shantung with a stick of candy. 
 While Legation street was amusing 
 itself with horse-races, Shantung and 
 Chih-li w^ere seething with an un- 
 governable resentment against all 
 things foreign, the result of niany re- 
 cent defeats and encroachments, 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 133 
 
 superadded to the accumulated 
 hatred of years. All North China 
 w^as bubbling on the edge of an aw- 
 fial upheaval , and the ministers were 
 busying themselves about the con- 
 struction of summer bungaloAvs in 
 the hills. 
 
 Mr. Pericord sat in his office gazing 
 at a letter -with an air of profound 
 and anxious distress. This letter was 
 a copy of one addressed two days be- 
 fore to the French minister by Bishop 
 Favier, Vicar Apostolic of Peking. It 
 was dated the 19th of May, 1900, 
 and ran as follows : 
 
 "Mr. Minister: From day to day 
 the situation becomes more serious 
 and threatening. In the Prefecture 
 of Paoting-Fu more than seventy 
 Christians have been massacred ; near 
 Icheou, only three days ago, three 
 neophytes w^ere cut in pieces. Many 
 villages have been pillaged and 
 burned; a great many others have 
 been completely abandoned. 
 
 "More than 2,000 Christians are 
 fleeing, w^ithout bread, without cloth- 
 ing, without shelter. At Peking alone 
 about four hundred refugees, men, 
 women, and children, are already 
 lodged at our house and that of the 
 Sisters; before eight days we will 
 probably have many thousands. 
 
 "We will have to dismiss the 
 
134 VALDA : 
 
 schools and the colleges, also use all 
 the hospitals to make room for these 
 unfortunate people. 
 
 "Upon the east of us pillage and in- 
 cendiarism are imminent; -we are 
 hourly receiving the most alarming 
 news. Peking is surrounded on all 
 sides; the 'Boxers' are daily coming 
 nearer the capital, delayed only by 
 the destruction which they are mak- 
 ing of Christians. 
 
 " Believe me, I pray you, Mr. Minis- 
 ter, that I am w^ell informed and say 
 nothing lightly. 
 
 "Religious persecution is only one 
 object. The real purpose is the exter- 
 mination of Europeans, a purpose 
 which is clearly set forth and written 
 upon the banners of the 'Boxers.' 
 Their associates await them at Pe- 
 king, where they will begin by attack- 
 ing the churches and finish with the 
 legations. 
 
 "For us here at the Paotang the 
 day is practically ended. All the city 
 knows it; everybody is speaking of 
 it, and a popular outbreak is manifest. 
 
 "Under these circumstances, Mr. 
 Minister, I believe it my duty to ask 
 you kindly to send us at least forty 
 or fifty marines to protect our per- 
 sons and our property." 
 
 Mr. Pericord looked up at the en- 
 trance of his secretary. 
 
A BOMANOE OF PEEING. 135 
 
 "You have got it, I see," he said 
 sadly. "I do not know whether to 
 hope that our diplomatists have at 
 len^h aw^akened or not. The usual 
 polite remonstrance would be worse 
 than useless, and yet, in the present 
 state of court feeling, I am not sure 
 that forcible language would not be 
 almost worse." 
 
 "You need not have any fear of the 
 language being too forcible, sir," re- 
 plied Cinderpan with a bitter grin. 
 " It begins with the usual ' I have the 
 honour to inform your Highness and 
 your Excellencies,' 'demands' half a 
 dozen absolutely inadequate pre- 
 cautions, and ends w^ith 'I improve 
 the occasion to reiterate to your 
 Highness and your Excellencies the 
 assurance of my highest considera- 
 tion.' Could anything be more inert 
 than a 'demand' couched in such 
 soap-sud terms?" 
 
 "What would you?" replied the 
 S. G. wearily, taking the memorial of 
 the Diplomatic Corps in his hand. 
 "Nothing can be done in dealing with 
 a 'body' like the Tsung-li Yamen. 
 There is only one maxim that is of any 
 avail in diplomacy, and that is, find 
 the n2a/2, and talk to him as to a man." 
 
 "There is only one man who can 
 do that, and he is not a minister," 
 said Cinderpan. 
 
136 VALBA : 
 
 "Leave me, my dear Jatnes," mur- 
 mured Mr. Pericord, who had begun 
 to peruse the so-called ultimatum. 
 
 The S. G., after some minutes reflec- 
 tion, blcTsr the whistle of a speaking 
 tube and called, "I should like to 
 speak to you, Kuei-lien." 
 
 The piccolo-player entered, and 
 stood in the shadow by the door, as 
 wis his w^ont. 
 
 "I believe you told me that you 
 had a relative in the Palace, Kuei- 
 lien." 
 
 "Yes, master." 
 
 "Your relative is in a position to 
 deliver a verbal message to one of the 
 Imperial princes." 
 
 The S. G. said this rather as a 
 statement of fact than a question, 
 and the boy appeared embarrassed. 
 Then he said impetuously — 
 
 "I will deliver a message to the 
 Emperor himself if it is your wish, 
 master." 
 
 "I do not want you to run any 
 risks, Kuei-lien. And yet" — his voice 
 was scarcely audible — "you are the 
 only one I can trust." 
 
 " Is it Prince Tuan ? " 
 
 The S. G. looked up keenly. He 
 made no comment on the lad's intui- 
 tion. 
 
 " I desire greatljr to have a private 
 conference -with his Highness. If it 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEEING. 137 
 
 were known that I had sought such 
 an interview it would forfeit the con- 
 fidence the Yamen has in me, and 
 excite the gravest suspicion towards 
 me on the part of the ministers. And 
 yet, it is the only hope; I say nothing 
 of the ruin of my life's work in this 
 country. The lives of all our friends 
 are in danger." 
 
 Why did he say, " our ? " 
 
 "I will bring the prince here this 
 evening, master." 
 
 "Kuei-lien, I have something to say 
 to you. A certain minister seeks my 
 downfall ; for him it would be of more 
 importance than the lives of all the 
 foreigners." The boy looked up. 
 
 "If he knew^ — and I understand that 
 he employs agents to watch me, even 
 in my own household; if he knew 
 that I had sought audience with the 
 prince, he would have in his hands 
 the advantage which he has long in- 
 trigued for m vain. He came near 
 obtaining it a few weeks ago when 
 a Mr. Blake, who had been in my 
 employ, rashly showed his face on 
 the race-course. An unknow^n friend 
 warned Mr. Blake of his danger, and 
 he fled in time to escape arrest. That 
 friend of Mr. Blake's unconsciously 
 saved me also. I was going to say, 
 if this minister of whom I speak were 
 to hear of my present purpose, I 
 
138 YALBA : 
 
 should not complain. I am willing to 
 sacrifice my favor at Court if by so 
 doing I can avert a terrible disaster." 
 
 "I understand, sir," said the boy in 
 a low: and quivering voice. "I do not 
 think it is possible lor anyone to 
 serve Mr. Pericord and his enemies as 
 well." 
 
 The S. G. sank his head on his hand. 
 The boy, with a lingering look from 
 the dark corner where he stood, went 
 out. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A Momentous Interview. 
 
 |T midnight, with the utmost 
 secrecy, a swarthy, broad- 
 shouldered Chinaman, with 
 the face of a Roman Antony, 
 was introduced into Mr. Peri- 
 cord's study. He had come entirely 
 unattended, save by the lad, Kuei- 
 lien, and he was dressed in the mean 
 garb of a coolie. 
 
 "The lowly abode is greatly hon- 
 ored," said the S. G. grarely. 
 
 "Let us waive ceremony," replied 
 the visitor brusquely. "The Tsung 
 Shui-wu Ssu is known to me by repu- 
 tation as a faithful servant of my 
 house and a man of few words. 
 Speak." 
 
 "Your Highness conspires to raise 
 a race-war against foreigners this 
 year." 
 
 The man leapt to his feet with a 
 furious gesture. 
 
 "Who — who are you w^ho dare to 
 tell me my purposes?" he roared. 
 "Conspire! A Chinese head had 
 fallen for less than that." 
 
 " My nationality shall not stand in 
 the w^ay of your vengeance v\rhen the 
 time comes. Prince Tuan," replied the 
 S. G. calmly. " I speak to your ears 
 alone, as man to man, and there is 
 
140 VALDA : 
 
 not another in wliose manliness I 
 should show this confidence. Your 
 conspiracy is that of a patriot and a 
 prince, and will deserve the more hon- 
 orable name of w^ar w^hen it declares 
 itself. For forty years I have served 
 your royal house faithfully, and been 
 its councillor in troublous times w^hen 
 your Highness has stood aloof in the 
 mountains. I might claim the privi- 
 lege of ofifering that counsel now to 
 one who will shortly be in the place 
 of the Son of Heaven. Am I per- 
 mitted to speak ?" 
 
 "Speak; nothing will change my 
 purpose." 
 
 "In unloosing the hatred of the 
 ignorant people against foreigners, 
 your Highness will undo my life's 
 work. I do not speak of that work 
 as it affects my own fondness and 
 ambitions in it. The first result of 
 the crusade will be to drive from the 
 treaty ports all the foreigners re- 
 siding there, and among them the 
 foreign staffs which I maintain for 
 the collection of revenue. Then, the 
 taxes, such as can be collected when 
 the system I have established is dis- 
 organized, will be seized by the vice- 
 roys, each in his own province. The 
 revenues which are remitted to me 
 here every three months will cease to 
 flow in. Forced loans on the gran- 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 141 
 
 dees of Peking will alienate all sympa- 
 thies from you. But money is the 
 sinews of war." 
 
 The prince, although but a heavy- 
 witted soldier, was impressed by this 
 unexpected forecast. 
 
 "So be it,'' he said sulkily; "better 
 that the nation be plunged in ruin 
 than lose its independence." 
 
 "Its independence is safe for many 
 years, Prince ; secured by the rivalries 
 of the Powers, long enough, at least, 
 for the formation of an army to up- 
 hold it if the finances are devoted to 
 that purpose. But to precipitate 
 matters now is to court invasion 
 while you are unprepared." 
 
 "That is as it may be," replied the 
 prince with a certain rude cunning, 
 "but unfortunately a w^ell-disciplined 
 army is not easily aroused to fanati- 
 cism. All great conquests, such as 
 those of my noble ancestors over the 
 more civilized Chinese, have been ac- 
 complished by the spirit, the impulse. 
 This spirit is not to be found in the 
 Chinese once in a thousand years. 
 The destiny of accidents has ripened 
 it now ; I take it on the bound and 
 hurl it at my country's enemies." 
 
 "1 see your Highness is more versed 
 in history than I knew," said the 
 S. G. vrith profound dejection. "I do 
 not dispute your theory, although I 
 
143 ■ VALSA : 
 
 think that you are making a mistake 
 in relying on your Chinese subjects. 
 They are a peaceable and money- 
 loving people, and they will weary of 
 a w^ar in w^hich victory brings them 
 no rest. Your Highness has under- 
 estimated the groMrth of civilization 
 which has been sapping their tur- 
 bulence. The Emperor himself has 
 shown a fondness for our foreign 
 inventions as far as he can under- 
 stand them in toy railw^ays and 
 electric launches. Kang Yu-wei was 
 not an adventurer who adopts new 
 ideas for the sake of personal 
 aggrandisement. Lin, Kia, and 
 Fan were w^ealthy and responsible 
 gentlemen, w^ho w^ould not lightly 
 risk their liberty unless they felt sure 
 that change was inevitable. Lo, Wu, 
 and Wang, your ambassadors in 
 Europe and America, are not the less 
 Chinese because they speak French 
 and English and are honored guests 
 of fashionable society abroad. Li 
 Hung-Chang built the Tientsin rail- 
 way, and his brother developed the 
 coal and iron mines at Wuchang. 
 Sheng devotes himself to the tele- 
 graphs. Yuan has adopted foreign 
 drill and arms. These, at least, are 
 not pro-foreign mandarins. I say 
 these things, your Highness, to con- 
 vince you that while you have buried 
 
A EOMANGE OF PEKING. 143 
 
 yourself in tlie wilds of Manchuria a 
 public opinion has been growing up 
 w^hich trends inevitably to the adop- 
 tion of foreign methods ; it will never 
 again be forced into line with a re- 
 actionary conservatism." 
 
 The prince, only enraged at the con- 
 vincingness of these w^ords, had been 
 clenching his big fists, and with diffi- 
 culty abstained from interruption. 
 
 "I will stamp it out!" he cried at 
 length. "I will stamp this public 
 opinion out until the only vestige re- 
 maining dissipates itself in the stream 
 of blood! Do you think I am igno- 
 rant of your plots because I have kept 
 aloof from Peking ? It is you yourself, 
 Pericord, who are at the bottom of 
 all this. The names you have men- 
 tioned are those of the ringleaders in 
 the treasonable conspiracy of the Pao 
 WangHui. You yourself founded this 
 society ten years ago through the 
 madman. Mason. "You escaped sus- 
 picion by sacrificing your tool, but the 
 revelations extracted from his ser- 
 vants are still in the archives of the 
 loyal Liu at Nanking. I tell you it is 
 not a public opinion. It is a conspi- 
 racy, the object of which is to place 
 the whole administration of the Em- 
 pire in the hands of your foreign civil 
 service and your foreign-trained Chi- 
 nese, and since no Manchu will conde- 
 
144 VALDA: 
 
 scend to learn your barbarous tongue 
 it will end in an attempt to overthrow 
 our holy dynasty. It is a treason, I 
 say, and, by my ancestors ! as treason 
 it shall be wiped out in blood." 
 
 "Your Highness forgets that the 
 holy Emperor in person endorsed the 
 Memorials of Kang Yii-wei. A king 
 cannot conspire against himself." 
 
 " Kuang Hsii a king! " retorted the 
 prince contemptuously. " The puppet 
 has forfeited all rights to be called 
 Son of Heaven, since he smuggled into 
 the Palace the accursed Book which 
 claims that title for Wild Pig, your 
 God. Nothing save the necessity that 
 I myself should play dictator has kept 
 that wax-faced virgin alive. So soon 
 as ever the w^innowing fan of w^ar has 
 sifted out the true leaders from the 
 false, so that my will shall guide while 
 my face is hidden, Po Chun, my son, 
 shall reign, even though he may never 
 perform the sacred rites to his father." 
 
 "Be sure that I sympathize with 
 your Highness' ambition," replied M. 
 Pericord, quietly. "It is not in my 
 province to concern myself with Pal- 
 ace intrigues. But ambition does not 
 necessitate fanaticism. Why must 
 your Highness connect a state intrigue 
 with an anti-foreign crusade ? " 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 Prince Tuan. 
 
 ^^PHE prince was evidently affected 
 frllK by the peculiar power of the 
 S^ S. G. to extract confidence. 
 ^®* "I will tell your Greatness, 
 and you will understand why the 
 Throne itself is a small thing beside 
 my patriotism. When I w^as still a 
 boy of ten years of age, in 1860, my 
 beloved brother, the sainted Emperor 
 Hsien Feng, was forced to flee north- 
 ward by the approach of the French 
 and British invaders. The allies, in- 
 stead of pursuing us, revenged them- 
 selves by the w^anton destruction of 
 my brother's Summer Palace, the 
 gardens of the Yuan Ming Yuan. 
 This insult, and the defeat of his 
 army, broke my brother's heart. A 
 palace was seized within the Imperial 
 City as a residence for the British 
 envoy. The Emperor declared he 
 would never return while his capital 
 was contaminated by the foreigners' 
 presence. On the 17th of August the 
 bitterness of his humiliation overcame 
 him, and he died. 
 
 " He died deserted. No sooner w^as 
 his sickness manifest than his brother 
 Kung, accompanied by his concubine 
 Tzu Hsi, the present Dowager Em- 
 press, left him and hurried to Peking 
 
146 VALDA : 
 
 to put his son on the throne. Of all 
 his family, I alone, a mere boy, re- 
 mained by my elder brother's bed. 
 And the dying Emperor said to me: 
 ' Ko-Ko, never forget this day. My 
 own sloth has ruined me. I have 
 neglected my army, and, with ten 
 million braves ready to die at my 
 command, have fled before ten thous- 
 and red-heads. Be thou a soldier; 
 train thy son, w^hen thou hast one, to 
 be strong and brave; and go not 
 nigh the accursed capital until thou 
 canst purge it of barbarians.' 
 
 "Then I swore an oath to avenge 
 my brother, though to do so I should 
 have to place my own son upon the 
 throne. You know that, owing to 
 certain ancient restrictions of the 
 ancestral rites, the prophecies say 
 that this v\rill sound the death-knell 
 of the Ta Ching dynasty. I care not. 
 
 "Pursuant to this promise, I spent 
 tw^enty years of my manhood seeking 
 battle everywhere against the turbu- 
 lent mountaineers and cattle raiders 
 of the north. I travelled everywhere 
 through the confines of Manchuria 
 and Shensi, and watched the en- 
 croachments of Russia. My son Po 
 Chun, as he grew up, I have trained 
 in the same hardy exercises as I my- 
 self have loved, and taught him also 
 to learn by heart the mountainous 
 
A EO MANGE OF PEKING. 147 
 
 topography of the border. And when 
 I conquered an unruly hill tribe, I 
 conciliated it, teaching its hardy 
 horsemen to prepare themselves 
 against a more dangerous enemy 
 than the government. 
 
 " Not until 1892, when the rebellion 
 of the Ko Lao Hui and the Manchu 
 Vegetarians seemed to betoken an 
 aw^akening of the nation to some 
 vague sense of patriotism, did I con- 
 sent to take up my residence m Pe- 
 king. The war with Japan opened 
 my eyes to the fact that all my 
 energy in training men to the use of 
 bow^ and spear had been w^asted, and 
 that nothing could save my country 
 but magazine rifles. Although I 
 abhor all things that are foreign, I 
 have thrown my energies into the 
 task of re-arming and re-organizing 
 the army, assisted by trusty lieuten- 
 ants like Yuan. This occupied me for 
 three years. 
 
 "Then I realized that the time had 
 come to take the great step of placing 
 my son on the throne. During my 
 long absence the hated spirit of for- 
 eign innovation, as you have just told 
 me, had begun to infect even the Court 
 to w^hich I belong, and I discovered, 
 to my horror, that the puny Emperor 
 himself was secretly reading all sorts 
 of foreign books, and filling the gar- 
 
148 VALBA : 
 
 dens of his palace with foreign toys 
 "worked by electricity and steam. 
 When Kuang Hsii appended the ver- 
 milion signature to the outrageous 
 proclamation prepared by Kang Yii- 
 wei, I hesitated no longer. I entered 
 the apartments of my aged sister-in- 
 law, and called upon her once more to 
 exercise her pow^er to save the Empire 
 from slipping out of our hands. The 
 result w^as what you know. Kuang 
 Hsii -was sequestered on an island in 
 the lake, and the government was 
 once more declared to be in the hands 
 of a regency. My son, Po Chun, w^as 
 named as heir presumptive, should 
 Kuang Hsii die. 
 
 "Even then I might have gone no 
 further, leaving the rest to my son. 
 But when the rumors of this intrigue 
 found their way into Legation street, 
 the ministers demanded to see the Em- 
 peror in person. They virtually de- 
 clared by that act that they consid- 
 ered themselves the regency, and 
 Kuang Hsii their nominee. That de- 
 cided me. In the preoccupations of 
 politics and war I had almost forgot- 
 ten my oath. The audacious pre- 
 sumption of these foreigners — ^but I do 
 ,not include your Greatness in that 
 term — has sealed their fate. They 
 must be driven from Peking." 
 
 "I am grateful for the confidence 
 
A BOMANOE OF PEKlNa. 149 
 
 your Highness has reposed in me," 
 Mr. Pericord said, gravely, as if this 
 extraordinary confession Tvere the 
 most natural thing in the world. "I 
 need not say that it will be held 
 sacred. Nevertheless, I have to 
 beg that you w^ill consider the 
 courtesies of w^ar, and -warn the 
 foreign ministers to leave Peking 
 before their personal safety is jeo- 
 pardized." 
 
 " Let them use their own discretion 
 on that point. The w^arnings are 
 manifest enough without any neces- 
 sity that I should disclose the inten- 
 tions you attribute to me. Yes, let 
 them see to themselves ! For, by the 
 tombs of my ancestors! there are 
 some among them " 
 
 "Enough, your Highness," inter- 
 posed the S. G. peremptorily. "They 
 are my fellow-countrymen. My duty 
 forbids that I should leave Peking, 
 even if my services did not ensure re- 
 spect to my office. As a high officer 
 of the state, my humble counsel re- 
 mains always at your Highness' dis- 
 posal. The war you are about to^ 
 levy will be the downfall of your* 
 House. It is my duty to express that 
 opinion, and my duty is done." 
 
 "And right manfully, too, by the 
 beard of Kang Hsi ! Rest assured that 
 I respect and honor you, Mr. Peri- 
 cord. Good night." 
 
150 VALDA : 
 
 As the prince was about to leave 
 the room, Kuei-lien darted forward 
 and, prostrating himself, burst into a 
 long and passionate harangue in sup- 
 port of the S. G.'s arguments. Tuan 
 listened with unexpected patience. 
 Then he lifted the lad by the hand. 
 
 " What, you too, boy ? You, whose 
 mother is, next to my own royal step- 
 mother, the bravest patriot of them 
 all ? Verily, the Tsung Shui-wu Ssu 
 casts a spell upon all w^ho serve him. 
 You shall enter the service of my son 
 w^hen the splendor of the throne 
 shines once more untarnished by the 
 presence of presumptuous foreigners. 
 So fear not." 
 
 "My service is pledged elsewhere, 
 your Highness," said Kuei-lien sadly. 
 
 "And your heart, too, girl," whis- 
 pered the prince, not unkindly, sud- 
 denly grasping the boy's shoulder 
 and looking closely in his face. Then 
 he laughed gruffly and strode away. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 Pteparations for Defence. 
 
 |T may be imagined that Mr. Peri- 
 cord found food for the most 
 anxious thought in this revela- 
 tion of the prince's purpose. 
 Tuan had virtually volunteered the 
 information that ever since the Japan- 
 ese war he had been re-organizing the 
 army with the distinct intention of 
 declaring war against all foreign 
 powers, in order to reclaim the sove- 
 reign rights abandoned by his brother 
 Hsien Feng. The treaties which ad- 
 mitted the right of foreigners to 
 travel in the interior, to live in sepa- 
 rate settlements under extra-territor- 
 ial jurisdiction, and to have their 
 representatives resident in Peking, 
 w^ere to be abrogated. Evidently the 
 manner of effecting this w^ould be,<not 
 by an honorable declaration of w^ar, 
 but by instigating the people to mas- 
 sacre. In fact, the w^ar had already 
 been in progress a month, and it might 
 at any moment culminate in an at- 
 tack on Legation street. It was too 
 late to do anything save warn the 
 ministers to flee. The S. G. was a 
 Chinese stateman, the ptince's confi- 
 dence had been given to him as to a 
 loyal servant of the Throne, and it 
 was impossible for him to betray that 
 
163 VALDA : 
 
 confidence. But if only he had known 
 this a month earlier ! 
 
 He called privately on the British 
 minister. 
 
 "But, my dear Mr. Pericord," said 
 Sir Claude, w^ho appeared far from 
 upset by the S. G.'s warning, "you 
 seem to forget your own good deeds. 
 Your foresight is so infallible that it 
 has become a second nature to you, 
 and your right does not know what 
 your left is doing. I assure you that 
 I acted promptly on your warning of 
 three w^eeks ago, and am quite ready 
 for our truculent prince." 
 
 " My warning — three weeks ago ? I 
 w^ish I could recollect anything of the 
 sort. What do you refer to ?" 
 
 "Ah, w^ell — of course; you are per- 
 fectly right to have no official kno-«rl- 
 edge of the matter. When you label 
 a man Unattached, I suppose it means 
 that you disown responsibility for his 
 services. Of course, it is well under- 
 stood that you cannot officially un- 
 dertake to protect us foreign devils. 
 As a devotion-inspiring autocrat, you 
 beat even my friend Cecil Rhodes." 
 
 " I confess that you bewilder me, Sir 
 Claude. Would you be kind enough 
 to explain how any member of the 
 Revenue service has been able to 
 reassure you concerning these riots ?" 
 
 "Certainly. It happened on the 
 
A BOMANOE OF PEEING. 153 
 
 day of the Cup race. Your man, who 
 is an American, sent a note to Conger 
 to meet him behind the stables during 
 the second race. Conger, who is my 
 very good friend, beckoned to me to 
 accompany him. In this way we did 
 the whole thing in fifteen minutes 
 without any of our boys, coolies, or 
 Unguists being any the wiser. Your 
 man — a fine fellow : you choose your 
 instruments well — has managed to 
 get into the confidence of Tuan's 
 right-hand man, Tung, by serving 
 him as a drill-instructor. He gave us 
 positive assurance that Tuan meant 
 to shut the gates of Peking on us at 
 the beginning of June, when an at- 
 tack v\ras to be made on Tientsin 
 while we were being held as hostages 
 if it failed. Mr. Unattached added 
 that the Boxer rascals would prob- 
 ably get out of hand and try to mas- 
 sacre us. I have lost no time in lay- 
 ing in sand and provisions, I assure 
 you." 
 
 "Sand? Provisions? Are you 
 speaking of a balloon trip. Sir 
 Claude? The idea is original, but 
 you can scarcely carry " 
 
 The British minister burst into a 
 hearty laugh. 
 
 "Original? By Jove, it is, Mr. 
 Pericord, and I will make a note of it 
 at once. A balloon ! By gad, that is 
 
154 VALDA : 
 
 the very thing. But the sand and 
 provisions I meant -were a different 
 sort of ballast. I suppose we shall 
 have to feed at least five hundred 
 mouths, it may be for a month, and 
 you can't beat sand-bags for bullet- 
 stoppers." 
 
 "But, do you mean to say that 
 you intend to stay in Peking in face 
 of such a -warning; in face, too, of 
 the information I have just given 
 you?" 
 
 "What else, my dear sir? You 
 couldn't possibly have supposed that 
 we should run away ? Why, such a 
 splendid opportunity wouldn't occur 
 again in a century." 
 
 "Opportunity?" 
 
 "Yes; don't you see? Our friend 
 Samovar is privately encouraging 
 Tuan, with the intention of occupying 
 Peking in force with a Russian army 
 before America or England can trans- 
 port troops to the spot. This, by the 
 bye, is also a tip from your secret 
 service man, and, of course, can only 
 emanate from you, who seem to 
 know everything. Well, they all think 
 it takes an army to occupy Peking. 
 I hope to undeceive them. When 
 Alexieff, or Nodzu, or whoever it may 
 be, arrives under the walls of Peking, 
 I hope to have the honor of receiving 
 him in person at the Chien Men, and 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEEINQ. 155 
 
 pointing to the Union Jack and the 
 Stars and Stripes, and asking what I 
 can do for him. But that is a minor 
 matter. Not to be too bumptious, I 
 trust to give these damned Chinamen 
 the sort of a lesson Powell has been 
 administering to the Boers." 
 
 "You would convert Legation 
 street into a new Mafeking? " said the 
 S. G. nervously. "Is it not a terrible 
 risk? I am an old man, and know 
 nothing of soldiering, Sir Claude, but 
 it appears to me that, commanded as 
 we are from the wall and hemmed in 
 in the midst of a hostile popula- 
 tion ." 
 
 " What is sauce for the goose may- 
 be sauce for the gander. I tell you, 
 Mr. Pericord, that I would not miss 
 this opportunity if I had no one but 
 my wife to share the risk of it ! I am 
 sick of diplomacy. I w^as not cut out 
 for a diplomat, and the lies and trick- 
 ery w^hich taint the very air of Pe- 
 king, make me almost forget the plain 
 duty of an English gentleman. Now, 
 thank the Lord, I am allowed to re- 
 member that I am a soldier by trade. 
 Looked at from that point of view, 
 the policy w^hich I am sent here to 
 represent seems a policy of letting our 
 prestige go to the dogs, and, by God ! 
 I mean to save it as the civilians 
 saved India in the days of the Mu- 
 
156 VALBA : 
 
 tiny, or I don't want to leave Peking 
 alive!" 
 
 The two men locked hands ; the S. 
 G.'s eyes w^ere moist. 
 
 " I, too, am an Englishman," he said 
 in a low voice, as if he w^ere half 
 ashamed of having spent his life in 
 the service of China. " And I thank 
 God for it." 
 
 "We will see this thing through, 
 Pericord — you, I and Conger." 
 
 "I shall do my part if it becomes 
 necessary," the S. G. replied, revert- 
 ing to the cautious misgivings of ex- 
 perience. "But theoretically, I do 
 not approve. I do not approve. Sir 
 Claude. I shall endeavor to prevail 
 on Mr. Conger to follow^ prudence 
 rather than valor. I am afraid you 
 have not calculated all the risks." 
 
 Another conversation on the same 
 topic may as well be inserted here, 
 although it did not occur until three 
 w^eeks later, w^hen the dangers forecast 
 by Mr. Pericord had become facts. 
 It w^as on the 12th June, w^hen Tung 
 Fu-hsiang marched out to stop the 
 advance of Seymour's relief column, 
 shutting the gates of Peking behind 
 him. 
 
 "Mr. Conger," said Sir Claude 
 MacDonald, "we are in a trap. We 
 have got to get our backs against the 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 157 
 
 wall and prepare for the worst. I 
 certainly did not quite realize the 
 magnitude of Tuan's preparations 
 when I determined to hold the Lega- 
 tion, and I see now that if Seymour 
 is defeated w^e stand a poor chance of 
 getting out of Peking alive." 
 
 "We have put our hand to the 
 plough, and w^e cannot turn back if 
 we want to, as Mr. Dooley puts it," 
 replied the United States minister 
 with his quiet smile. 
 
 "Just so; and we don't mean to. 
 But I wisk to God your Legation was 
 next to mine. In times of danger, 
 British and American blue-jackets 
 have alw^ays been brothers. But I am 
 sorry to say there is little love lost 
 between my men and those of my 
 neighbour Samovar." 
 
 "Nor between mine and those of 
 my neighbour Ketteler," replied the 
 United States minister, visibly dis- 
 tressed. "I tell you, Sir Claude, it is 
 not much use my pretending to be 
 equal to this emergency. I have not 
 slept for three nights, and the thought 
 of my wife and my guests unmans me. 
 I look to you to decide on the proper 
 military measures to be taken." 
 
 "We shall have to pull together and 
 rely on ourselves, that is obvious. 
 Our men will not work with Dutch- 
 men and Dagoes." 
 
158 VALDA : 
 
 "Mr. Samovar and Mr. Pichon 
 appear to be concocting some private 
 arrangement of their own, and Baron 
 Ketteler appears to resent any sug- 
 gestion on military matters. You, 
 thank God, are a soldier and have 
 dealt with similar situations before. 
 Between us we muster, I think, just 
 200 English-speaking men. As Mr. 
 Samovar refuses to have a telephone 
 passed over his roof, my secretary, 
 Mr. Squiers, suggests this code of flash 
 signals between us in case of attack 
 by night." 
 
 "An excellent suggestion, sir; and 
 we will rig up a heliograph as well, 
 besides working Pericord's splendid 
 notion of a balloon. But — look here, 
 Conger." Sir Claude laid his hand on 
 the minister's shoulder. "As you say, 
 I have been in tight places before; 
 things were not always comfortable 
 at Zanzibar, to say nothing of the 
 Niger Territories. Now — this is a 
 damned awkward thing to talk about. 
 Do you see these paper packages? 
 Our doctor has had a hundred of them 
 put up. As an ordinary prescription 
 they would be marked ' Poison.' Put 
 a few in your pocket. It's a ghastly 
 thing for a man to have to shoot his 
 own wife, don't you know." 
 
 "May I ask you for a drink? " said 
 Mr. Conger, sinking into a chair with 
 
A BOMANGE OF PEKING. 159 
 
 shaking hands. " Insomnia has played 
 the devil 'with my nerves. Thank you. 
 Yes, if it comes to that " 
 
 "Of course you will have to stand 
 by your own Legation as long as it is 
 possible to keep up a show of diplo- 
 matic relations with this scoundrelly 
 Yamen. It is a pity your government 
 is not a little more generous in its 
 building grants. Send your mission- 
 ary w^omen over to me if you are 
 crowded. Ketteler, I presume, can 
 hold the east end of the street unless 
 they put a gun on the w^all behind ; 
 but the moment Ketteler is pushed in 
 you must all come over to my place 
 and make the best of it." 
 
 " That is very good of you." 
 
 "If it comes to shelling us from the 
 Chien Men, well. Samovar will inter- 
 cept some of the trouble. He never 
 expected to play shield to the British 
 Legation, I'll be bound. And between 
 ourselves, Conger " 
 
 The rest of Sir Claude's words were 
 uttered in a whisper. 
 
 No sooner had the Legation guards 
 passed within the walls of Peking, 
 then the Boxers broke across the 
 Peking-Tientsin railroad behind them 
 and burnt the stations of Feng-tai 
 and Huang-tsun. The retreat of the 
 foreigners was cut off. Seventy miles 
 
160 VALDA : 
 
 as the crow flies separated them from 
 the port of Tientsin, and the inter- 
 vening plains were swarming with 
 thousands of rebels. On June 5th, 
 Rear Admiral Kempff cabled to Wash- 
 ington: "Engagement begun." He 
 referred to a collision outside Tientsin 
 between the territorial garrison 
 under General Nieh and the Boxers. 
 He little thought that his pregnant 
 words announced the commencement 
 of war between China and the world. 
 
 On this day railway communica- 
 tion w^ith the cOast entirely ceased, 
 and the Boxers, joined by the Imperial 
 troops sent out to quiet them, com- 
 menced openly drilling within sight 
 of the walls at Feng-tai. 
 
 Then M. de Samovar played his 
 trump card. He called on the Tsung- 
 li Yamen and formally oifered to sup- 
 press the rebellion with Russian 
 troops, thus forming an alliance with 
 China against all the world. To his 
 profound chagrin, the offer w^as re- 
 fused. On the very day that he was 
 to call for a definite reply. Prince 
 Tuan was appointed President of the 
 Board of Foreign Affairs in superses- 
 sion of Prince Ching. Russia's diplo- 
 macy, steadily pursued with a single 
 purpose since the seizure of Port 
 Arthur in 1895, was mysteriously 
 defeated. 
 
A BOMANCE OF PEKING. ICl 
 
 " Valda has played me false," M. de 
 Samovar exclaimed, writh a ferocity 
 ■which for once showed the true color 
 of the Muscovite. "Vassilich, seek 
 
 her out ; she is " here he whispered 
 
 in the attache's ear. "Instead of dis- 
 covering anything important at the 
 Superintendency-General, she has be- 
 trayed our designs to Pericord and 
 he has played off Prince Tuan against 
 me. Let the girl be brought back to 
 the Legation, and I will force the 
 truth from her if my Cossacks have 
 to tear her limbs off." 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Flight that Failed. 
 
 |N the 10th of June the Recorder 
 of Victories at the Board of 
 
 ^ ^ War received a telegram from 
 '^®*' the Viceroy of Tientsin an- 
 nouncing the departure of Seymour's 
 rehef column. The S. G., as head of a 
 courier service -which worked in con- 
 junction with the Imperial Post, had 
 close relations with this Board ; and 
 the ominous information reached him 
 ten minutes after it had been deci- 
 phered. 
 
 Mr. Pericord appeared utterly pros- 
 trated by the news. Every one on his 
 staff had perceived in his conduct 
 since the outbreak an indecision and 
 preoccupation very different to his 
 usual attitude in crises, but his dis- 
 tress on receipt of the welcome intelli- 
 gence puzzled even Cinderpan. 
 
 "What has come over the Chief?" 
 he said to the second secretary. Hay- 
 rick. "Is he sinking into dotage, or 
 is there something behind all this 
 w^hich none of us has suspected ? I'll 
 never believe that he meant to bring 
 off the Pao-Wang revolution him- 
 self." 
 
 "Pooh, the S. G. has enough to 
 think about without changing the 
 Government. It's my belief he w^ants 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKINO. 163 
 
 to retire, and foresees that if the 
 Pow^ers take over the Government of 
 Peking they will force him to take the 
 helm. It'll mean an earldom and all 
 that, of course, and be a doocid fine 
 thing for the service, but it looks to 
 me as if there -was a private worry on 
 his mind." 
 
 " Oh, he's in love !" laughed a junior, 
 getting off his stock w^itticism. This 
 jejune chestnut had come into vogue 
 from some private theatricals given 
 by the mess. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Pericord had 
 remained lost in sad reflections. 
 
 "Impossible, impossible," he mur- 
 mured to himself poignantly. "I 
 must disillusion her at any cost." 
 
 Then, w^ith vaccillating hand, he 
 rang the bell. Kuei-lien appeared. 
 
 "My boy," Mr. Pericord said, not 
 looking at the youth but speaking 
 very gently, "I must again entrust 
 to you a mission which I may not 
 perform openly. A foreign army has 
 to-day started from Tientsin to rescue 
 the envoys here ; by so doing it seals 
 their doom. This army is an army of 
 invasion, but in numbers it is a mere 
 battalion, quite inadequate for the 
 purpose. It will simply enrage the 
 Government, and its certain defeat 
 will send the wavering to the banners 
 of Prince Tuan." 
 
164 VALDA .- 
 
 He paused for a little while, and 
 then resumed — 
 
 " To-morro-wr or the next day all the 
 foreigners in Peking will be prisoners. 
 The next few^ hours are the last chance 
 for the w^omen to w^ithdraw^. If there 
 is a general exodus, suspicion w^ill be 
 aroused and they will be stopped; 
 only a few, therefore, can go. — Count 
 Beriskofif, unlike his successor, w^as my 
 friend. He married an American, and 
 some of his wife's relatives are at pre- 
 sent guests of my equally good friend 
 Mr. Conger. Count Beriskoff had a 
 daughter " 
 
 He turned away and looked out of 
 the window. Kuei-lien w^as silent. 
 
 "Miss Beriskoff," continued the S. 
 G., "may still be in Peking. If so, it 
 w^ould be natural that she should seek 
 the protection of her father's relatives. 
 The United States Legation is the only 
 one which is regarded with friendship 
 by the Tsung-li Yamen. I think that 
 a party quickly leaving that legation 
 would be unmolested. Go, I beg of 
 you, Kuei-lien, and at once, and tell 
 them what I say. And if by any 
 means you could find and warn Miss 
 Beriskoff " 
 
 "Are you so anxious, master," fal- 
 tered Kuei-lien in Chinese, "that she 
 should go?" 
 
 Mr. Pericord turned his large eyes 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEEING. 165 
 
 full on the boy. Their pupils dilated 
 to the rim of the iris, as if a mortal 
 pain had gripped his heart. 
 
 "For her sake, for her sake!" he 
 groaned. " Yes, Kuei-lien ; you— Miss 
 Beriskoflf, I mean — must leave me, 
 must leave Peking." 
 
 "But if she would rather stay?" 
 faltered the boy in a low voice, hang- 
 ing his head. 
 
 " It cannot be — no, it cannot be." 
 
 Kuei-lien moved near to him and 
 lifted his deep and pleading eyes. 
 
 "Let me stay, master. Only as 
 your servant — only a native ser- 
 vant, w^ho w^ould rather die by 
 your side than go back to a life of 
 gayety.y _ 
 
 " Kuei-lien, w^e are speaking of Miss 
 Beriskoff," said Mr. Pericord hope- 
 lessly. "Listen, child; you do not 
 understand. She might have been 
 my own daughter. Count Beriskoff 
 and I w^ere friends; twenty years 
 ago I was not alw^ays a recluse. . . . 
 Sometimes, desipientes, we shared the 
 same pleasures together ..." 
 
 He passed his hand over his fore- 
 head. 
 
 "I am afraid it is true what they 
 say of me, that I am growing old ; 
 
 J^ou perceive it too, do you not, Kuei- 
 ien ? You have never thought, per- 
 haps, that he whom you have chosen 
 
166 VALDA : 
 
 to call master is an old man, old 
 enough ..." 
 
 He turned from the AYindow and, 
 crossing the room, laid his hand on 
 the youth's shoulder. 
 
 "Nay, child," he murmured sooth- 
 ingly, "do not "weep. My heart is 
 heavy enough without the tears of 
 those I love. Go, go, my boy, and if 
 you cannot find Miss Beriskoff, then 
 accompany Miss Conger yourself. 
 Perhaps you will find her again in 
 Tientsin; find her, I pray God, re- 
 stored to the natural affections of 
 youth : brilliant once more with that 
 high spirit which first reminded me I 
 was old; go " 
 
 "What message shall I give her, sir, 
 from you? I have heard it said 
 among the servants that once w^hen 
 she came to you in secret, -wishing to 
 do you a service, you dismissed her 
 harshly, saying that she w^as a spy." 
 
 "I have learned my mistake, Kuei- 
 lien ; how could I have dreamed . . . But 
 all that is past; better that I had 
 continued to suspect her. Tell her — 
 tell her, Kuei-lien, that I shall never 
 forgive myself— never forget her. Tell 
 her that now — ^now, w^hen, I must 
 never see her again — she takes aw^ay 
 with her an old man's love : a love 
 which he would not be at liberty to 
 utter, which would only be a shame 
 and weariness to her ..." 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 167 
 
 "No, no — I love you!" cried the 
 boy. 
 
 Mr. Pericord's voice hardened. 
 
 "Go, Kuei-Hen," he said gravely, 
 ■with a slight emphasis on the Chinese 
 name. "No breath of scandal must 
 ever rest on the name of Miss Beris- 
 koff ; nor will I, even in the privacy of 
 my own heart, recognize any fact 
 which could compromise her. Go, 
 boy; every moment is precious. And," 
 he added, v^rearily, "cbing, not tsai- 
 cbien, Kuei-lien. Presentiment tells 
 me that I may not see you again." 
 
 The boy fell on his knees and sobbed 
 with passionate silence over his mas- 
 ter's hand. Then Mr. Pericord bent 
 over him and kissed his brow w^ith in- 
 finite tenderness. 
 
 ' ' My daughter, ' ' he whispered. ' ' Do 
 you understand ?" 
 
 An hour later some ladies, including 
 
 Miss. and Miss Woodward, left 
 
 the United States Legation in closed 
 carts, escorted by Mr. Under-Secre- 
 tary Bainbridge and a squad of 
 marines. Unexpected deference was 
 shown to them by the guards of the 
 Ha Ta gate, and they passed through 
 the Chinese city unmolested. Once 
 outside the walls and in the open 
 plain they experienced such an ex- 
 pansiveness of relief that they only 
 
168 VALBA : 
 
 then realized tinder Tvhat a tense 
 strain they had all been living dur- 
 ing the past week. None had been 
 outside the city during that time, and 
 they fully expected to find the train 
 service still in operation at the ter- 
 minus. But when they reached Ma- 
 chia Po they were confronted by a 
 heap of cinders ; and the only rolling 
 stock visible was a string of wheels 
 buried beneath a tangle of twisted 
 iron-work. At the same time there 
 gathered about them from the village 
 a group of silent natives, whose pale- 
 blue sleeves were stained w^ith dark 
 patches. Some of them carried under 
 their jackets crude iron swords, in 
 w^ooden sheaths, such as village 
 smithies hammer out of nail-rod. 
 
 " What are we to do ?" 
 
 " There w^as nothing to be done but 
 to turn back. They had no provisions 
 with vvrhich to attempt the journey 
 overland, and, infested by rioters as 
 the country was, they could expect no 
 relays of ponies. 
 
 "Wait; isn't that a foreigner over 
 
 there?" said Miss W , pointing to 
 
 a man on a black horse who w^as ad- 
 vancing slowly at the head of a com- 
 pany of natives marching with some 
 show of discipline. 
 
 "Why, yes; and I declare I believe 
 it is Black Bess. There is no other 
 
A BOMANCE OF PEKING. 169 
 
 black pony of that size in Peking. 
 These wretched Boxers have stolen it, 
 I suppose. How that poor Mr. Blake 
 would swear if he saw it in that 
 shaggy condition." 
 
 But here their attention was draw^n 
 aw^ay by the thunder of hoofs be- 
 hind. Turning in alarm they beheld a 
 small party of Cossacks bearing down 
 on them from the direction of the 
 city in a swirl of yellow^ dust. 
 
 "That is the handsome Captain 
 Vassilich at their head," said one of 
 the ladies. " I suppose M. de Samo- 
 var has sent him to escort us back. 
 I do hope nothing has happened in 
 Legation street." 
 
 Captain Vassilich pulled his pony 
 to its haunches as he raised his hel- 
 met with an air of unwonted con- 
 straint. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Mr. Bainbridge, 
 but I am informed that Miss Beris- 
 koff is of your party. I am sorry to 
 say that M. de Samovar cannot for a 
 moment consent to her departure. 
 Of course, Mr. Conger can do as he 
 pleases, but our minister considers it 
 extremely injudicious for any foreigners 
 to appear to be fleeing at this junc- 
 ture. Miss Beriskoff must return 
 with me, if you please." 
 
 "Miss Beriskoff'!" exclaimed the 
 Under Secretary, too astonished to be 
 
170 VALDA : 
 
 on his dignity. "I thought Miss 
 BeriskofF had eloped to Etirope 
 months ago?" 
 
 "We have information that she has 
 been hiding in Peking," replied Yassi- 
 lich, somewhat confused. 
 
 "Well, you can see for yourself she 
 is not in the carts." 
 
 "Oh, she will be disguised, of 
 course. Ah !" 
 
 His exclamation was drawn by see- 
 ing one of the native servants who 
 had accompanied the fugitives on 
 horseback, dart out from the taw^dry 
 cavalcade and gallop off in the direc- 
 tion of the village. 
 
 "It is she! After her, men! Ten 
 roubles each if you catch her ! " 
 
 The Cossacks dashed forward on 
 their hardy ponies, quickly spreading 
 out to outflank the fugitive. The 
 marines, w^ho w^ere on foot, moved 
 leisurely in front of the carts and 
 began carelessly handling their rifles. 
 There was no love lost between the 
 American sailors and the Russian 
 Legation guards. 
 
 The boy rode straight tow^ards the 
 man on the black horse. Then, just as 
 a Cossack was stretching out the butt 
 of his spear to trip the little pony, the 
 boy cried aloud in English — 
 
 " Help, Alan ! Help ! Save me ! " 
 
 The black pony seemed to be gal- 
 
A BOMANCE OF PEKING. 171 
 
 vanized into a thunderbolt. There 
 was a rush, a shock, and the Cossack 
 and his mount rolled over and over 
 in a cloud of dust. 
 
 " A renegade, by God!" shouted 
 Vassilich, driving his spurs home and 
 drawing a revolver. " Catch the 
 girl, men. Leave this rascal to me." 
 
 Vassilich fired as he galloped, and 
 the mandarin-hat of the leader 
 spun into the air, revealing the un- 
 mistakable lineaments of a foreigner. 
 
 " Blake ! " muttered the attache. 
 The next moment he dropped on his 
 pony's neck, shot through the lungs, 
 and the renegade wheeled round, 
 stooped for his hat at full speed, and 
 crushed it low^ over his brow^. 
 
 But in this instant Kuei-lien's 
 pony stumbled, and five Cossacks 
 swooped towards him. 
 
 " Ta cbiang ! " shouted the rene- 
 gade to his native foUow^ers. 
 
 Then, to the astonishment of the 
 Newark's marines, each Chinaman 
 brought from behind his back a short 
 repeating carbine, and dropping on 
 their knees with a precision which 
 spoke of drill, they fired a volley at 
 the Russians which brought two of 
 them to the ground and put the rest 
 to flight. 
 
 " Point blank at 200 yards, by 
 Jove!" said the iVewar&'s lieutenant. 
 
173 VALDA : 
 
 " Guess it's sporting Mausers they've 
 got, and know how to use them. 
 Give 'em Springfield, lads." 
 
 But before the men could fire, the 
 Boxer leader — every one was a Boxer 
 at that time— galloped forward with 
 uplifted hand. 
 
 "Stop, for God's sake!" he shouted 
 in English. "Here, sir, stop your 
 men and I'll stop mine. Mr. Bain- 
 bridge knows me ; I am an American, 
 too. If another shot is fired the 
 ladies will have a poor chance of 
 getting home again. These China- 
 men are drilled blue-jackets." 
 
 They were also drilled soldiers, it 
 w^as evident, for they had seized the 
 second's lull to open out and cast 
 themselves on their faces. As there 
 were at least fifty of them, to half a 
 dozen men in the ladies' escort, and 
 as they w^ere armed with the finest 
 weapon yet invented, and, further- 
 more, supported by a gathering 
 swarm of genuine Boxers behind, the 
 intervention was permitted. 
 
 The man rode up and uncovered his 
 head with a look of gloomy shame. 
 "Lieutenant — Mrs. Woodward — my 
 name is Blake ; I was dismissed from 
 the Revenue Service some months 
 ago. I have taken command of these 
 men in the hopes of keeping down the 
 anti-foreign feeling. They are good 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 173 
 
 fellows — ^Admiral Ting's old crew, and 
 I just saved them from being common 
 
 rebels. These d d Cossacks don't 
 
 count; they are a worse gang than 
 the Boxers themselves. But if you 
 fire a shot you know very w^ell that it 
 may put an end to any hopes of 
 saving Legation street. Would you 
 mind withdrawing as quickly as you 
 can before that riff-raff bring out 
 their old horse pistols ?" 
 
 " Your hand, Blake," said Bain- 
 btidge, extending his own. " Whether 
 you've turned Boxer or not, I guess 
 you'll always be on the right side 
 when the pull comes. And, by the by, 
 old chap, have a look at your Service 
 ' Gazette ' next time you're a civilized 
 American. I kind of fancy that you're 
 wrong about being Dismissed." 
 
174 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Blake Gets His Promotion. 
 
 |HE hapless fugitives turned 
 sadly back to Peking. Blake 
 sat gazing after them for 
 some seconds like a man -who 
 realizes that he is an outcast. Then 
 a timid voice said from behind : 
 
 " Alan ! " 
 
 He turned and saw the Chinese 
 youth whom he had saved from the 
 Cossacks. 
 
 " It is you, Valda," he said, look- 
 ing mournfully at her tonsured head. 
 " When you warned me on the race- 
 course I thought I recognized you, 
 although you spoke Chinese. But 
 afterwards when I fled I refused to 
 believe it. I persuaded myself that it 
 w^as a nightmare of my imagination." 
 
 " Why should you be so anxious to 
 disbelieve your ow^n eyes ? Am I so 
 very ugly in this dress ? " 
 
 " Are you quite shameless?" he said 
 fiercely. "Is it quite impossible to 
 place any misconstruction on your 
 freak? You would not think so, I 
 fancy, if you had heard the remarks of 
 Prince Tuan's suite about you w^hen 
 you passed w^ith Mr. Pericord's 
 guests." 
 
 "A woman does not cut off her hair 
 for a passing freak," Valda replied 
 
A ROMANCE OF PBKINO. 175 
 
 with quiet dignity, but with a pathe- 
 tic touch of feminine regret and re- 
 proach. 
 
 "You seem almost more beautiful 
 as you are," said Blake harshly. 
 "Mr. Pericord did not find you any 
 less . . . No, damn me!" he shouted 
 aloud, unconsciously lashing his pony 
 and wrenching it back again ; " I can- 
 not discuss it : it makes me mad to 
 think about it . . . Stand still, you 
 brute, will you ?" 
 
 "When you haTe recovered your 
 temper, Mr. Blake, I shall be ready to 
 explain anything you wish to know^." 
 Yalda turned her tired little pony, at 
 a walk, back toward the walls of 
 Peking. 
 
 Blake sent his big black with one 
 bound to her side. 
 
 "Have I any right to ask explana- 
 tions from you. Miss Beriskoff?" he 
 said humbly, although the passion in 
 his voice w^as hardly controlled. 
 
 " I. have no one else to turn to," she 
 answered in a low^ voice, without 
 looking at him. 
 
 " Oh, my God, forgive me ! Do not 
 tell me anything. If I can serve you 
 . . . What else — what else have I to 
 live for except to show^ how^ I love 
 you, Yalda?" 
 
 " Men have strange ways of prov- 
 ing their love," she murmured. 
 
176 VALDA : 
 
 " There is at least one way -which is 
 common to all honorable men. With 
 the deepest humility, Valda — ^I am 
 not worthy of you, I am a disgraced 
 and penniless man — ^but I place my 
 life and my heart at your feet, and if 
 you w^ill marry me ..." 
 
 Valda turned her head and gave 
 him one quick, full glance, in which 
 there was a trace of tender mockery. 
 
 It is, on the w^hole, lucky for plain 
 men that passion makes them rhetori- 
 cal. A little touch of extravagance 
 often finds the way to the heart of a 
 coquette. But Valda did not say any- 
 thing ; she continued to let her droop- 
 ing pony w^alk toward Peking, while 
 Blake was all the time w^restling -with 
 the impatience of his. 
 
 "You do not say anything, Valda. 
 May I dare to hope " 
 
 "That I have forgotten Mr. Peri- 
 cord? I shall never do that, Alan." 
 
 ' ' Ah ! ' ' perhaps Blake had forgotten. 
 It is not easy for a young man to re- 
 member a gray-haired rival. 
 
 "Perhaps, if you knew^ my origin, 
 you would not be socager to — marry 
 me. The daughter of a Russian Count 
 is, no doubt, a respectable match even 
 for a Revenue man. But the daughter 
 of a " 
 
 ' ' Hush, dearest. Do you forget that 
 I recognized you when w^e said good- 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEKING. 177 
 
 bye ? Would not the ease with which 
 you w^ear your present disguise re- 
 mind me ? When a man loves a wo- 
 man as I love you, he does not ask to 
 see her pedigree." 
 
 ' ' I always believed that I was Count 
 Beriskoffs daughter. My mother is 
 the wife of the Grand Councillor Sheng, 
 and now^ a very great lady in the 
 Imperial City. But my father— I 
 no longer know w^ho my father is. A 
 greater man than Count Beriskoflf has 
 called me his daughter to-day." 
 
 Blake stared at her in astonish- 
 ment. Then intuition, which love 
 w^ill sharpen and refine incredibly in 
 the most obtuse of men, made him 
 understand everything. He knew, as 
 distinctly as if he had overheard it, 
 that the S. G. had taken upon himself 
 this preposterous stigma to save the 
 girl from the unnatural devotion which 
 had obsessed her. He understood, 
 too, that at present Valda w^ished to 
 believe it, as a salve to the disloyalty 
 of her affections. Mr. Pericord had 
 indeed cured her to his own forfeit, 
 and yet without forfeiting more than 
 just that particle of passion which 
 differentiates a daughter's tenderness 
 from a wife's. 
 
 "You will marry me then, my dar- 
 ling?" he whispered, bending towards 
 her. 
 
178 VALDA : 
 
 She put out her hand, and he seized 
 it. 
 
 "We had better ride straight to 
 Tientsin, had we not? I think 
 bet-ween us -wq can pass through ten 
 milHon Boxers in these togs." 
 
 She looked at him fondly and trust- 
 fully. It was a pleasant thought to 
 be transformed once more into an 
 admired beauty, and to leave the 
 murky city which was not only rife 
 w^ith horrible dangers, but which 
 would alw^ays remind her of her 
 double shame. She sat, looking 
 silently towards the dull, squat walls 
 of her birthplace. Blake did not inter- 
 rupt her, thinking she was taking a 
 mental farew^ell. 
 
 "He is there," she said at last. 
 
 Blake felt the unconscious test 
 which her loyalty w^as putting to his. 
 He realized, almost w^ith a sense of 
 awe, the primitive heroism of his 
 fiancee's character. And he remem- 
 bered his own deep-seated devotion 
 to the grave Chief who remained at 
 his post at the risk of his life. 
 
 " If you are willing, Valda," he said 
 gently, "we will go back." 
 
 "My husband!" she said. With 
 that word, she realized something of 
 her own sublimity, and rejoiced to feel 
 that her riper love had not missed a 
 hero. 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEEING. 179 
 
 Then, when Blake had issued in- 
 structions to his soldiery, the pair 
 rode back to Peking. 
 
 L'ENYOI. 
 
 I have not yet received any definite 
 news of what befell our friends during 
 the tragic six weeks between the 10th 
 of June and the 16th of July, when the 
 blood-soaked city w^as as mysteriously 
 and completely \reiled from the ken of 
 civilization as if Some vast-winged 
 dragon had rapt it away in a cloud 
 back to the filmy chasms of antiquity. 
 But one very characteristic, and on 
 the w^hole satisfactory item, I am able 
 to report, on the strength of a letter 
 which has reached me to-day from 
 Shanghai. 
 
 It will be remembered that about 
 the 20th July, after the lesson adminis- 
 tered by the capture of Tientsin by the 
 allies, and the entire defeat of Tung's 
 troops by the Legation guards, the 
 Chinese Government graciously vouch- 
 safed permission to the foreign minis- 
 ters to communicate w^ith their 
 respective homes. The Commissioner 
 at Shanghai, and indeed the Revenue 
 Service all over China, w^as awaiting 
 news regarding the safety of the 
 
180 VALDA : 
 
 Superintendent General with more 
 anxiety than any Foreign Office 
 awaited news of its diplomatic repre- 
 sentative. Apart from the personal 
 love and veneration for their chiefs, 
 the entire careers of a thousand for- 
 eigners depended on this news. 
 
 When, therefore, a telegram arrived 
 from Chinan, addressed in the familiar 
 code-word "Gustos," the rumor ran 
 around the General Office, the Opium 
 Desk, the Import Desk, the Export 
 Desk, the Transit Pass Desk, the Half 
 Duty (Coast-wise) Desk, and all the 
 branches of the Statistical Depart- 
 ment, like a streak of lightning, and 
 almost before the envied tinff-chai had 
 passed the cover to the Commissioner 
 a score of Senior and Junior Assist- 
 ants, backed by a crowd of linguists 
 and sbupans, flocked round the " For- 
 bidden Gate" of the Commissioner's 
 cosy office to hear the momentous 
 news. 
 
 Mr. B broke the envelope in the 
 
 midst of a pin-drop silence. He glanced 
 over the telegram. 
 
 "This concerns you, I think, 
 
 K ," he said, passing it carelessly 
 
 t® the Statistical Secretary. 
 
 The latter gentleman read it aloud. 
 
 "Gazette, Third Quarter. Fourth 
 Assistants A. Blake to be promoted 
 to Second B for special services, w^ith 
 
A ROMANCE OF PEEINQ. 181 
 
 transfer In Charge to Niuchuang.— 
 Pericord." 
 
 A howrl of good-natured execration 
 welcomed the luck of Blake. After 
 six weeks of mortal silence — nothing 
 but a cold item of routine ! Neverthe- 
 less this very absence of all personal 
 news brought back to them the Touch 
 of the Vanished Hand which they 
 loved, and the Staff w^ent wild w^ith 
 joy ; " Pericord " — that contained 
 everything they wanted to know, 
 and the shroffs and coolies in the 
 w^eighing-sheds w^ere kicked out of the 
 w^ay in order that the Outdoor Staff 
 might repair in a body to their club 
 to celebrate the Salvation of the 
 Service. 
 
 But almost on the heels of the first 
 telegram came a second. The con- 
 tents of this w^ere as follows. 
 
 " S. G. informed that during inter- 
 ruption of communications a laxity of 
 discipline observable among Out-port 
 Staflfe. Statistical Department will 
 prepare circular in conformity with in- 
 structions contained in Circulars Nos. 
 73 and 109 of 187—, reminding Com- 
 missioners and Assistants-in-Charge 
 that prestige of Service must be main- 
 tained.— By order, Cinderpan." 
 
 " Here, no business can stand this, 
 you know," said the Commissioner, 
 laying aside his work and vainly try- 
 
183 VALDA : 
 
 ing to restrain a delighted grin. 
 ;' The ' little bird' and the Threaten- 
 ing Letter at once ! Gentlemen, if any 
 of you care to drop in to the club 
 during the next half-hour I shall be 
 obliged to stand you a cocktail to in- 
 augurate the revival of Despotic 
 Discipline." 
 
 Then a cheer went up which nearly 
 typhooned the roof of the new Cus- 
 tom House. Next to the S. G., the 
 Port Commissioner is the greatest 
 man in the land, and when he un- 
 bends even the Indoor Staff is apt to 
 forget its dignity. 
 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE WANDERJAHRE CLUB. 
 
 This club has existed notnadically for ten years, and numbers about 
 xoo members scattered all over the world. It is made up of wanderers who 
 are story-tellers and story-tellers who, if not habitual vagabonds, have the 
 daring, the romance, and the modesty of the wander-lust deep seated in 
 their souls. Not a few of its members have since achieved fame as novel- 
 ists, war-correspondents, pioneers, and scouts ; and not a few have left 
 their bones in the Klondike, the Philippines, and South Africa. But 
 their fame and their heroism is not recognized in the club nor blazoned on 
 
 g Tinted rolls ; the qualification of membership is brave and simple man- 
 ood, in which literacy counts for little and notoriety for naught. And 
 from this fraternity of manhood women are not excluded. Some of its 
 best loved brothers are women who have dared to fare for themselves and 
 face the world independently like men ; one of them still wields the pick in 
 the Yukon, and many wield the pen in more dangerous wilds. 
 
 Among such a fraternity there inevitably grows up an unwritten code 
 of ethics and art which brushes aside the overgrowth of phrases and 
 reposes on the bare bedrock of natural truth. No shams or hypocrisies 
 can survive in the hard school of necessity and adventure. Starvation, and 
 the danger of death, soon reveal the essential truths which are common to 
 human nature. But every member of the Wanderjahre feels bitterly the 
 oppression of cant the moment he tries to assimilate himself to the pre- 
 tentious civilization of cities, and there has thus grown up in the club a 
 spirit of hardy rebellion which demands expression. The eve of the 
 twentieth century has appeared to them an apt moment in which to con- 
 centrate and organize their forces for a social crusade. Theydo not aspire 
 to be agitators, but believe that an extension of the club, combined 
 with a reduction to print, and a periodical discussion, of their simple tenets 
 of manliness, would afford a welcome outlet for the dissatisfaction of all 
 those who pursue ambition in the face of the slow oppression of society. 
 This oppression weighs heavily on artists, and more heavily on those who 
 demand, in spite of poverty, to walk abroad, if they choose, in a shirt- 
 waist. Jn short: The watchword of the Wander jahres is Liberty, within 
 the confines of manliness, virtue, and truth. 
 
 It is proposed to establish in various capitals a modest club room and 
 headquarters, and to inaugurate a small monthly journal to be mailed free 
 to members wherever found. The immediate objects of the club are: (i) To 
 afford a fixed address, a rendezvous, an agency for forwarding mails, and a 
 bureau of information, for scattered and perhaps homeless wanderers. {2) To 
 help each other in diiSculties by advice, arbitration, introductions, and, when 
 possible, loy cash. (3) To keep absent members in touch with home and 
 with each other, to give them a chance to tell the reason of their exile, and 
 to let the world know something of the unpretentious heroism of its re- 
 jected. (4) To form a brotherhood of kindred spirits who suffer in soli- 
 tude, to uphold the virtues of adventurousness and enterprise, and to com- 
 bat, by the ideal of manhood in the rough, the degeneracy of effete culture 
 and unnecessary shams. 
 
 It is contrary to the idea of the club to parade a list of well-known 
 names or to affect fashion and luxury. For literary men and women, it is 
 a club of workers who have their name to make ; for wanderers, it is a let- 
 ter-box and cosy corner where a pipe can be smoked and a good story told 
 without fear of contaminating the furniture. As the club develops com- 
 mittees will be formed to appoint local secretaries and establish local head- 
 quarters in different towns. Members of both sexes are now invited to 
 join. The entrance fee and annual subscription for those who join this 
 year will be one dollar, or four shillings, which should be forwarded with 
 application. For loc. (6d.), a booklet containing an account of the aims 
 and history of the club will be forwarded. 
 
 Address, by letter only, JULIAN CROSKEY, 20 Joralemon Street, 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., or " Ravenshead," CrefBeld Road, Acton, London. 
 
 Local applications to — 
 
 C. P. KKNYON, Westminster House, Eccles, England. 
 
 PHILIP HILTON, Roberts Horse, Pretoria. 
 
 ROGER POCOCK, ex-N. W. Mounted Police, somewhere in Patagonia. 
 
 Dr. CHIPMAN, Hudson, Quebec. 
 
 CHARLES MORRIS, Dawson City. 
 
 .•. Applicants for membership would oblige by statinjp; if they are will- 
 ing to act as local secretaries, pro tern. Old friends of M m China 
 
 please write.