The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 17, 1904, Page 2

(& This is the second in- stallment of “The Queen of Quelparte,” a novel of the superstitions of the Koreans and Russia’s secret intrigue in the Far East—both of which have led to the present | war with Japan. This | novel is historically true. It is more fascinating than history because of | the thrilling love story that runs through it. You will get it complete in four installments. That means a $1 50 book for 20 cents—an offer | unequaled anywhere e 1904, by Archer Butler Hul- ert & Reserved CHAPTER IX THE HOLOCAUST t so terrible when an a d the distance te the peril of our nded as we were in the Ching-ling by the acherous priests who ted by emissaries of nce, s were not for a moment, each ked the other in the eye, & 5 usation on each stern lip. ons of ome another ounted a score of men ithful to, the treas- t rolled from my see that General i experienced lke . e as - hen raise to those two brave, that night; not be- ast night on earth, so long feared, they ff of which they many as- : r race by the un- d nber with awe and realize of other deceptive wire determined anger from that be traitors 'still ¥, one by one, the made to kneel ed from the ange secrets down over each, and the King rched with fear, we ke ready a stout looser such st ong hair fe ness to nee. earch el Li for arms was instituted by 4, knowing the thought- fulness of General Ling, 1 was sur- prised that the search resuited in pro- ng but two guns. were per- haps a dozen revolvers at our disposal. But Ling, nothing daunted, put out his sentries, who could, at Jeast, give warn. ing when the assault came, and sum- moned all the others within the temple walls. Even to the most confused among us some thincs were very plain. There wae now no longer hope of keeping the sarcophagus secreted within the tem- ple, for every traitor had looked upon and cou it agaid wherever that subterraneen apartment we izht stow Any secret there would in be readily unraveled. The only hope was, then, to obtain essistance from Wighout, drive away the wvillains, and carry the sarcophagus immediately to the Duicette. I am sure we thought frequently of the enemy by which we were surround- ed and of his plans, dut of this no one epoke. How old was the How had it been effected? Had the conspirators been warned by confederates who reached Lynx Island before us? Had it been disconcerted by the sudden arrival of Colonel Li? What was the object of the conspirators in assisting us to raise the sarcophagus? These and & score of other questions I asked myself, but. I could give no an- swer, Our success depended, I felt sure, on the rapidity with which I could get my Cossacks into this can- yon of Lynx Island. Of them I was confident and so was Li; he did not mention his own body of horse at this juncture of our affairs, and I did not anticipate that he would! However, 1 felt like kneeling to the man, as he stood there in the temple, surrounded by his trembling priests, to ask him to forgive my suspicions of him. Plans having been decided upon, we went at once to raise the sarcophagus rought suddenly to bay to the temple & ready to be trans- ported at the moment of the arrival of assistance — if, indeed, assistance shouild ever come! We mustered twen- men, four of the priests belonging hin the temple walls having bolted of the gates with others, now, btless, prisc ough I thought Ling and Li were secret hoving that they had gone t mo; The work went 1 feared it would the box being fou completed Slowly we lifted the weight by sheer stren »ulder, end, once i lway, we second made a qui to 4 it again. Si- asured coffin of the Queer of the temple and cove t ha dr made of curtain which had formerly ore the inner court 1t me of another nyself down into hast toward As I de- skirt of a iisappeared throuch ward which I was hurrying. ¥ hand on my revolver I went ¢ v it flinching. It was Ge Ling, moved to come here by a sir motive. Together we moved the bods to the bed, and Ling (for T could not) erranged it in proper positi there. He then came out with me, scended the wide stone steps weeping. 1 made .a hurried round ©of our guards. All was quiet. No one had eppeared, though we could hear foot- steps of sentries without, walking guard about the walls, and now and again we heard stones rolling from the sides of the canyon; when it bacame evident that our court was being watched from those heights, the carry- ing of torches was forbidden. I returned to temple. I had con- gidered the whole situation and had @ctermined, myself, to make the at- tempt to summon assistance. The offi- cers had just ended a discussion as I entered, and I found I had been antici- pated, for messengers were to be chosen by 1 until an answer was re- ceived from without, I went to Li and quickly put an end to this arrange- ment. You draw my name first, Colo- 1 sald, “for 1 shall be the first to go. The good man raised his hands to object, but I would not let him inter- rupt. “I can get through if another can,” I continued, “and, ¢nce through, 1 can quickest get our yacht into ser- vice and reach Wun Chow and my Cos- sacks. “But, sir,” broke in rough old Ling, “you are more likely to drop dead in your tracks once over the wall.” “As well dead there es here,” I said, as grufily. “Or captured alive and—" This was from Li. -He did not finish, for he saw me start. “Faugh!” I burst out, partly for my own encouragement (for Li's sugges- tion would have daunted a more head- strong man even than iyself), “I do not feer the cowards. Moreover, a for- eigner would fare better in their hands than a native.” Li, who knew me best, yielded first; then Ling acquiesced, but inconsolable, as one could well see. 1 guessed at a h reason and spoke to him, and t I sald struck home. “If T get through it will make your son a captain. Let us not both die—for hig sake.” 8o it came about that I attempted the journey down the cliffs of Lynx Island that night, though it was certain, as old Ling said, while he helped me get ready that 1 was running a most murderous gauntlet. But in my heart I preferred it to remeining in the temple. In such times I am quite a coward if I cannot be in action—many a man hes led a rout because he could not lead & charge. As I crossed the court in the dark- ness the nearest sentry was standing still, listening, and Ling, Li and T stopped, too. Now and agaln the tramping of many feet apbroached tk wall, retiring immediately, but to turn again. It was quite unintellig ble to me, but T noticed the men we anxious thet I be gone. I crossed to the farther wall, where all was still As the sentry without trudged by to- ward the corner, 1 sprang upon a straw-thatched roof and climbed from it to the wall, where I lay down, look- ing over. Nothing was audible save the tread of the returning seatry. His head was five feet below me. I leaned furtber over to add my arm's length to that of my sword. Unconscious of his peril, the fool walked under me, and then sank lifeless to the ground without & groan. I fell after him and not an instant too soon, for at that moment a form came quickly to the corner and, utter- ing a single but plercing exclamation, fled into the darkness. I stopped once to listen, All I heard was the sound of rolling stones started from their places by my feet. But it was not my duty to inquire into the method of the campaign con- ducted by the besiegers of the temple. My duty was to get my Cossacks at the earliest possible moment, and I ran on to the crest of the canyon, where I paused to breathe before risking my life on the cliffs below. The hiliside was all rocks. One by one I reached for them and slid and fell forward to the next, sometimes with good fortune, but more often evil. Now and again I paused in my flight to gain my breath, or measure the extent of my latest in- Jury. I must have been more than halfway down, for I had fallen again and was lving quite helpless where I fell, watching the lights on the yacht be- low me, when a dull, unearthly roar sent & million echoes ringing through the racky canyon, and reverberating sharply among the hills beyond Wun Chow. A light, as of a descending comet, suddenly lit up the thunder- heads over Lynx Island; then the dulled glare of burning buildings filled the sky. re The temple of Ching-ling had been fired. As I lay there, dazed, delayed ex- planations seemed to come to my dis- tracted mind—explanations of all the miscellaneous phenomena which ac- companied the complete triumph of the emissaries of the Chinese Prince Tuen. Then I thought of the good men—God have pity on their darkened soulsi— who were being burned beside the treasure The treasure! What of {t? I knew too well the answer. There was now no sacred ‘sarcophagus. There was now no body of the Queen to bury, though a nation was preparing for the imperial pageant but five days off! And the dynasty—it, foo, was doomed row with every kinsman of the late Queen. All this swept over me as I lay in utter darkness on the hillside. Then, on the land breeze which came with the storm, I heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs on the distant hills. The sigpal of flame had been given! My flylng column of Cossacks was oft for Keinning—with that letter of good news to Colenel Oranoff. CHAPTER X. AT THE END OF THE SEA. When I regained consciousness I was lying in my berth on the: Dulcette, My head.was heavily bandaged, and I could not move my left arm. I found this out by trying to do so, and for a little time I was unconsclous again. As consciousness returned once more, I lay very still, thinking of my strange dream. For hours, it seemed, 1 had been watching a bear walking slowly over a great meadow of red and white —the red portion steadily growing larg- er, for the bear was. bleeding. The blood was spreading in all directions, and I thought the animal was wounded in the shoulder. - This reminded me of something, but I could not for the life of me tell what it was; I thought I wrote it down, intending to ask Oran- off. The bear went on limping until it came to the mutilated body of a sec- ond bear, whereupon it arose on its hind legs, as though crazed with grief, and then keeled cver upon its back and lay pawing the which set me to laughing. This woke me up For a whi'e I could not get the con- nections of things, d now and then I saw that bej again, But the world came back clearly to me at last, and 1 remembered with & groan the events of the night previcus—or had it all happened weeks before? I remem- bered Ling and Li, and wondered if they were really burned alive with the sarcophagus and their faithful priests. Perhaps, the last moment, they did nd the irpperial funeral had been celebrated and the Rus- tectorate successfully declared. Or perhaps Ling had attempted to es- cape with the sarcophagus and had been cut down swiftly on the walls For scme reason 1 felt even now, that the destruction of the temple, so long and so cunningly planned, had been accomplished, Then suddenly my mind jumped fev- erishly across the mountains to Kein- ning, whither my Cossacks had taken that letter to Colonel Oranoff, in which I promised to be in Keinning B the Queen's body within two s! Here 1 groaned aloud, and, to my surprise, stain Kepneff arose from a chair at the head of my berth and le d over me. “If you are able, Martyn,” he said, with an eést gentlenees, “let us have for with rding at once, Colonel Li gone I am under your or- ders. We found you on the rocks last night while hurrying up to the tem- ple.” “Was it destroyed?” 1 brole in. “Utterly—ang all within it.” “Nothing remains hut ashes and the bones of those cremated.” I gro 1 alvad \ sob b e from the e me e 1 conld not answer, ard 1 iistened to the flab- by drum that was now starting out across the bay ags search of devils. But ss I listened my thoughts ran on to the task now dropped unex- pectedly on my shoulders. I must new do what Li would have done, and 1 tried to think what that would be. “Will you telegraph to Keinning?" asked Kepneff, gently. “Yes, from Han Chow,” I sald, membering Oranoff's words. I did not know what I was asking, for the storm which had ccme down re- upon Lynx Island was still raging over the Yellow Sea, stirring the mud bottoms to their stagnant depths. There was but one way for Kepneff to get me to Han Chow, and that was by running around the southern extremity of Quelparte to the mouth of the Khan, and ascending that river. It was a desperate risk, but he knew somehow that we were at a desperate pass, and without a word to me he set the little craft into the teeth of the gale. By worrying cautiously along in the lee of the islands which lay between Lynx Island and the mouth of the Xhan, Kepneff, brave man, neared the river as day began to dawn. The tossing of ~the little vessel caused me excruciating pain, and it was only by bracing myself firmly that I kept from rolling upon my injured arm. But when, now and then, we ran into smooth water behind the numer- ous islands, my thoughts turned from myself to the play in which I was be- coming so important an actor. One thing was sure now. Dejneff’s fine-spun theéories regarding: one of those absurd Quelpartien myth® would soon be put to the test. There was no doubt about the destruction of the sar- cophagus and of the Queen's body within 4t. Now, if the myth held good, the King of Quelparte was to become insane and his dynasty perish. I smiled grimly as my thoughts ran on; while 1 knew every sane man would agree with me and against Dejneff touching his silly belief, I had not ex- pected to precipitate any such actual test as this! 3 air convulsively,. O SUNDAY Howbeit, Dejneff had not been will- ing to admit that the relatives of the desecrated dead could become insane until' they knew of the desecration— and who knew of the destruction of the Queen’s body except its destroyers and myseif? Not one human being! And would I tell—or could they make me? In such wise did my thoughts turn anxiously to those whe had won the game at the temple of Ching-ling. Kepneff evidently had no trace of them, for he told me frankly that all had been destroyed. I was sure that, had he any trace of them, he would not have spoken in such a way. Evidently their original plan to get possessicn of the Queen's body had been frustrated by the sudden advance of the date of the funeral and by the arrival of Colo- nel Ll and myself on the scene. But after that, they had played their forced hands desperately and well, and my accidental escape wes all that now stood between them and ccmplete tri- umph. With an oath I swore into my wet pillow that 1 would still thwart their damnable, heilish plot even more completely than I had already! That funeral must be postponed, and the de- struction of the Queen's body be kept a roval secret! Here I laughed and clinched my fists; the thrill of our wild game was cn me, and 1 was Instantly caught up in a delirium of daring courses. And vet some very sober thoughts came tc me as the day grew brighter. What of our Russian protectorate? As 1 thought of that phase of the affair things took on a different color. It was cne thing to win from Tuen by post- poning the funeral, but quite another thing to ask Colonel Oranoff to post- pone the announcement of the protec- torate. It certainly could not be an- nounced when the people were just cheated out ¢f a hollday upon which so many thousand hearts had been so long and so fondly set. If the pageant were postponed, Tuen’s men might easily gaize the cry that Tuen had, after, all, “pawed Quelparte over” with success, and the proof of it was that there was no Queen to bury. But by the time our little boat had beaten her way into the smocth course of the Khan I had definitely resolved to telegraph Oranoff to postpone the funeral; this was the important thing. Other matters must adjust themselves some way. And ‘despite my mental suffering the hours of quiet,had done wonders for me; I felt/stronger than I had thought I cguld, and while Kep- neff protested vigorously against my venturing out, I had my way and was soon striding up the main street of Han Chow toward the long, low build- ing to which the zigzag line of tele- graph poles from Keinning led me. A boy sleepily answered my shout and I entered the paper door into a large room which I saw. at once was the operating room. “Can I send a message to Keinning?” I said hurriedly. The lad stood speechless. A voice in the next room spoke a surly mono- syllable, and the boy answered: “Yes.” I turned to the table and composed the following: ‘‘Message carried by Cossacks prema. ture. Am returning on Dulcette alone. Postpone funeral indefinitely. Martyn.” After rereading, I rewrote this in cipher and handed it to the man who CALL. now appeared, g his raiment. It was all I thought best to say. It ‘was unnecessary for Oranoff to know that his worst fears had been realized. This I thought (and much else) as I held out the paper to the lazy fellow, who began to biush and back away. I was angry i{n & moment, and with good reason, and roared out to the man, who spoke again to the boy. Then the boy said to me: “He says that you asked could génd a message.” ‘Whereupon the fellow pointed to the instrument, nodding wildly. it you T wanted to Knock the nodding head off the man's shoulders In my anger. He wa¢ holding the message in his hands where he lay when I crossed the room. The boy fled. In my despair I touched the Instruments, I fondled the shining little bars. I opened the key and shut it, each motion being re- corded on the recelver. .Then the re- celver began to sing alone monoton- ously, and then it stopped for a reply. Sweat poured from my face, and I thought of putting my mouth down and of shouting my message into the instrument. Then I arose, crossed the room, and kicked down the paper walls. Cautiously the boy returned with a man whe could explain the situation, and from him I learned that a new “Minister of Interfor” had recently been appointed, and, to satisfy a great host of relatives halfway down to the “eighth joint,” even the telegraph ser- » had to be invaded, capable opera- tors being thrown out and novices put In their places. They had held office a month new, and not a meesage had passed over the imperial Quelpartien telegraph line. All this I learned as I stormed. out of the building and down the straggling street to the viliage. Consider my desperate plight. A hundred mountainous miles from Kein- ning, and out of connection with it, no decent horse to ride, and the imperial funeral but four days off, not to be postponed until I could come and de- clare that there was no Queen's body to bury! It so happens to a fellow sometim (and happlly for his sanity) that fail- ura becpmes so overwhelmingly appar- ent that he feels he is being led provi- dentially into paths he would never ctherwise have entered. As I ran to the shore of the Khan and was being taken to the Duleette, it was a re- Mef to stop and assure myself that none of the luckless train of unfortu- nate events had occurred through any conscious fallure of my own. I could not see where 1 should have done other than that I had done. Had I not played a poor hand well? These reflections fortified me to meet Kepneft and his dark face—for they had had a fearful night and were loth. I saw at once, to hurry out to sea again. * 1 steted my plight to Kepneff as clearly as possible without revealing my secret. His gloomy face grew darker. He lool down stream and asked ff I could not go by land. Then he went and studied charts and in- struments and left me alone in agony. Day broke, and with it came the tide, moon-led up the great rivers of Quel- parte—that tide of the end of the sea. As I sat on the deck of the yacht and stared gloomily before me, what I saw matchéd my sickening brain. We were (while the great tide of the Yellow Sea was out) thirty feet below the high-water line. A thousand slimy roots lay exposed to view, covered with black mud which slid off continually and dropped into the water below. A thousand hateful crawling things were wriggling back into the river. Banks of reeking mud lay open to view, sagging, stinking, slinking into: their own unfathomable depths, The cavern of Avernus never.been pic- tured so Lorrible as the unbared sea- coast and river banks at the Yellow Sea end of the sea. Our Then, silently, a change came, little boat drifted to the other side of its anchorage, and reeds and grasses and branches, mud-coated, swung lel- surely up stream, by the order of the setting moon. The drifting became a flowing, end the flowing a flood-tide, sweeping swiftly inland from the storm-tossed sea. Ope by one the great mud-banks disappeared from sight, and the crawling things and the black roots ‘were covered by murky, bolling waters. Lower and lower the land seemed to fall, as our little craft shot thirty feet and more into the alr, and on the wind, which followed the rising waters, came the noise of the incessant clamor and crash of the sea where the waves pounded the black seawall. When Kepneff woke me, his face was still dark, for the poor man knew he could not weather that sea, and had to tell me so. And I saw at the water's edge two ponies, saddled. I knew the rest. . After two terrible days and nights, Kepneff's servant and I reached Keln- ning. The first night we slept a few hours in a deserted hut near a village where we had made an unsuccessful attempt to purchase new mounts, Our two little Korean ponies broke down in the middle of the afternoon, and we had pushed on this far afoot. The sec- ond day our experience was similar, though the ill-fed horses gave way sooner on the rough, unused road along the mountain ridges. We walked on. At last we stopped on the summit of a precipitous ridge and built a fire. My man had brought a little rice with him, and we put it to boil before trying to push on to the nearest village. After consuming our meager dinner, he went into the valley to the brook, and after a long absence returned. On a stone by our fire he placed two freshly baked loaves of Chinese bread. 1 was too thankful to question gift or giver, though nothing could have been more miraculous to me. Kepneff's ser- vant only smiled. At a venture I drew from my belt a roll of Japanesey yen and he weighted them down with a little stone on the rock beside the fire, and I felt that hidden eyes were watching us as we passed away. That afterncon we procured more ponfes, and at dusk passed the Imperial Mausoleum outside of Keinning. CHAPTER XL KEINNING. The capital of Quelparte was arrayed in its barbaric best. Even by night and without other light than that of the moon, the holiday attire of the heathen city was spectacular. I could hardly stay on my weak little pony, and but for my companion's arm I should have fallen to the ground never to see Keinning that night. Yet this sight—a nation prepared for the fu- neral of a Queen whose corpse I could not bring to them—stung my heart to new strength. For a long distance before reaching the city we had passed by crowds of pilgrims wending their way toward Keinning. Every mouth was talking of the great celebration, and thosé who were silent were thinking as they trudged along only of the pageant they were to witness at thelr journey's end. The great forms of the men in their loose clothes seemed to occupy all the roadway, as they swung along with giant strides. What a nation of sol- diers the Quelpartiens would make! Men of such stature are nowhere to be found in the world, and yet their white apparel exaggerates their proportions. But their paces suggest their immense size; and, one after another, they my horse all day long as though a wounded snail. much like that be- rd LynxIsland—nar- viliza- w, stony, eircuitous. How & cf z :loon can be judged by its roads! Who could mot tell from these little, twist- ing, rough roads of Quelparte that It had always been & conquered, apa- thetic hermit nation! As it grew dark andr“"]e sight of Keinning, we fe er!nl parties of pligrims who were not able to better our own P rate of traveling. As we rode behind such & it were The road was tween Keinning a were within in with sev- party Kepneff's servant listened togf their conversation, and I asked him what was sald. After waiting & mo- ment, he repeated to me each travel- er’s remark In turn. “We are lucky to get in before the robbers are out.” “Yes, the robbers will do big busi- ness before the great moon has set.” The speaker looked back at us and seemed to feel more safe in our com- pany. “We might as well be robbed by highwaymen as by the government, I think,” put in another of the band. Several laughed solemnly. “Has the government been robbing u lately?”” asked the first speaker. “No, but it will get to us in time: since the Americans found gold in the mountains the government has been sending out men to’ locate gold mines around through the country. They came into Chufla province last month. They find out who the rich men of a province are, and then go to their family graveyards and decide that there is a large gold mine on that very spot.” A deep, querulous growl arose from each man In the company. “But they don’t dig the graves up for gold, do they?” “Oh, no; the ownérs are afrald they will go insane if the graves are dis- turbed, and so they pay large sums of money to the government prospectors, whe move along to the next wealthy man on the list.” For a time there was silence as each one pondered the matter, now and then emitting a half cry and groan as the plight of their poor country came up before their eyes. “The funeral has been long delayed, some one put in after a continued si lence. *Yes, and the King will breathe easier when the body is in that marble tomb.” “He will be lucky to get it there, too, against Tuen's bragging.” “Look at the banners,” another cried out suddenly. We had approached nearer the city than we knew, and be- side the gate great Bamboo poles bore silken flags announcing the imperial funeral. “Oh, see the roof,” & third traveler cried out, at the sight of the green and red flags and steamers which ran off westward with the evening breeze. As with the gates, so with the streets, the Bell House, the Legations, the Marble Pagoda—flags, streamers, pennons, ban- ners, were everywhere, and my heart sank lower as I watched each piece of bunting rise on the freshening wind. The words of the countryman con- cerning Tuen struck home hard and quick, and trebled every fear I. had known. If all these thousands were talking thus, what would be said when the announcement of postponement was made? Yet I knew Oriental statesmen were prolific in excuses, and I doubted not for one moment Oranoff’s ability to meet the extremity. Some reason would be raked up which would quiet the people. The King might be taken ill; we had him, and it surely would be ¥