The Mirror of Kong Ho, Ernest Bramah [popular e readers .txt] 📗

alone in a strange land, in the absence of his more highly-accomplished companion, unable to indicate his wants and requirements to those about him, I regretfully admitted that I had not chanced to encounter that John whose wandering footsteps he sought; and to indicate, by not leaving him abruptly, that I maintained a sympathetic concern over his welfare, I pointed out to him the exceptional brilliance of the approaching night, adding that I myself was then directing a course towards a certain spacious Heath, a few li distant in the north.

“Sing-dance tomollow, then?” he said, with a condensed air of general disappointment. “Chop-chop in a pay look-see show on Ham—Hamstl—oh damme! on ‘Ampstead ‘Eath? Booked up, eh, John?”

Gradually convinced that it was becoming necessary to readjust the significance of the incident, I replied that I had no intention of partaking of chops or food of any variety in an erected tent, but merely of passing the night in an intellectual seclusion.

“Oh,” said the one who was walking by my side, regarding my garments with engaging attention, and at the same time appearing to regain an unruffled speech as though the other had been an assumed device, “I understand—the Blue Sky Hotel. Well, I’ve stayed there once or twice myself. A bit down on your uppers, eh?”

“Assuredly this person may perchance lay his upper parts down for a short space of time,” I admitted, when I had traced out the symbolism of the words. “As it is humanely written in The Books, ‘Sleep and suicide are the free refuges equally of the innocent and the guilty.’”

“Oh, come now, don’t,” exclaimed the energetic person, striking himself together by means of his two hands. “It’s sinful to talk about suicide the day before bank holiday. Why, my only Somali warrior has vamoosed with his full make-up, and the Magnetic Girl too, and I never thought of suicide—only whether to turn my old woman into a Veiled Beauty of the Harem or a Hairy Lama from Tibet.”

Not absolutely grasping the emergency, yet in a spirit of inoffensive cordiality I remarked that the alternative was insufferably perplexing, while he continued.

“Then I spotted you, and in a flash I got an idea that ought to take and turn out really great if you’ll come in. Now follow this: Missionary’s tent in the wilds of Pekin. Domestic interior by lamp-light. Missionary (me) reading evening paper; missionary’s wife (the missus) making tea, and between times singing to keep the small pet goat quiet (small goat, a pillow, horsecloth, and pocket-handkerchief). Breaks down singing, sobs, and says she feels a strange all-over presentiment. Missionary admits being a bit fluffed himself, and lets out about a notice signed in blood that he’s seen in the city.”

“Carried upon a pole?” this person demanded, feeling that something of a literary nature might yet be wrested into the incident.

“On a flagstaff if you like,” conceded the other one magnanimously. “A notice to the effect that it is the duty of every jack mother’s son of them to douse the foreign devils, man, woman, and child, and especially the talk-book pass-hat-round men. Also that he has had several brick-ends heaved at him on his way back. Then stops suddenly, hits his upper crust, and says that it’s like his blamed fat-headedness to frighten her; while she clutches at herself three times and faints away.”

“Amid the voluminous burning of blue lights?” suggested this person resourcefully.

“By rights there should be,” admitted the one who was devising the representation; “but it will hardly run to it. Anyway, it costs nothing to turn the lamp down—saves a bit in fact, and gives an effect. Then outside, in the distance at first you understand, you begin to work up the sound of the advancing mob—rattles, shouts, tum-tums, groans, tin plates and all that one mortal man can do with hands, feet and mouth.”

“With the interspersal of an occasional cracker and the stirring notes produced by striking a hollow wooden fish repeatedly?” I cried; for let it be confessed that amid the portrayal of the scene my imagination had taken an allotted part.

“If you like to provide them, and don’t set the bally show on fire,” he replied. “Anyhow, these two aren’t supposed to notice anything even when the row gets louder. Then it drops and you are heard outside talking in whispers to the others—words of command and telling them to keep back half-a-mo, and so on. See?”

“Doubtless introducing a spoken charm and repeating the words of an incantation against omens, treachery, and other matters.”

“Next a flap of the tent down on the floor is raised, and you reconnoitre, looking your very worst and holding a knife between your teeth and another in each hand. Wave a hand to your followers to keep back—or come on: it makes no difference. Then you crawl in on your stomach, give a terrific howl, and stab me in the back. That rolls me under the curtain, and so lets me out. The missus ups with the wood-chopper and stands before the cradle, while you yell and dance round with the knives. That ought to be made ‘the moment’ of the whole piece. The great thing is to make enough noise. If you can yell louder than the talking-machine outfit on the next pitch we ought to turn money away. While you are at it I start a fresh row outside—shouts, cheers, groans, words of command and a paper bag or two. Seeing that the game is up you make a rush at the old woman; she downs you with the chopper, turns the lamp up full, shakes out a Union Jack over the sleeping infant, and finally stands in her finest attitude with one hand pointing impressively upwards and the other contemptuously downwards just as Rule Britannia is played on the cornet outside and I appear at the door in a general’s full uniform and let down the curtain.”

For acting in the manner designated—as touching the noises both inside and out, the set dance with upraised knives, the casting to earth of himself, and being myself in turn vanquished by the aged female, with an added compact that from time to time I should be led by a chain and shown to the people from a raised platform—we agreed upon a daily reward of two pieces of silver, an adequacy of food, and a certain ambiguously-referred-to share of the gain. It need not be denied that with so favourable an opportunity of introducing passages from the Classics a much less sum would have been accepted, but having obtained this without a struggle, the one now recounting the facts raised the opportune suggestion of an inscribed placard, in order to fulfil the portent foreshadowed by William Greyson.

“Oh, we’ll star you, never fear,” assented the accommodating personage, and having by this time reached that spot upon the Heath where his Domestic Altar had been raised, we entered.

“All the most distinguished actors in this country take another name,” he said reflectively, when he had drawn forth a parchment of praiseworthy dimensions and ink of three colours, “and though I have nothing to say against Kong Ho Tsin Cheng Quank Paik T’chun Li Yuen Nung for quiet unostentatious dignity, it doesn’t have just the grip and shudder that we want. Now how does ‘Fang’ strike you?” and upon my courteous acquiescence that this indeed united within it those qualities which he required, he traced its characters in red ink upon a lavish scale.

“‘Fang Hung Sin’ about fits the idea of snap and bloodthirstiness, I should say,” he continued, and using the brush and all the colours with an expert proficiency which would infallibly gain him an early recognition at any of our competitive examinations, he presently laid before me the following gracefully-composed notice, which was suspended from a conspicuous pole about the door of the tent on the following day.

FANG HUNG SIN
The Captured Boxer Chieftain.

Under a strong guard, and by arrangement with the British and
Chinese authorities concerned,

FANG HUNG SIN

Will positively reënact the GORY SCENES of CARNAGE in which
he took a LEADING and SANGUINARY PART during the LATE RISING.

ALONE IN PEKIN
Or, What a Woman can do.

PANEL I. PEACE: The Missionary’s Tent by Night—All’s Well—
The Dread Warning—“I am by your side, Beloved.”

PANEL II. ALARM: The Signal—The Spy—The Mob Outside—
Treachery—“Save Yourself, my Darling”—“And Leave
You? Never!”

PANEL III. REVENGE: The Attack—The Blow Falls—Who Can Save
Her Now?—“Back, Renegade Viper!”—The English Guns
—“Rule Britannia!”

FANG HUNG SIN, The Desperado.
There is only one FANG, and he must be seen.
FANG! FANG!! FANG!!!

I will not upon this occasion, esteemed one, delay myself with an account of this barbarian Festival of Lanterns; or, as their language would convey it, Feast of Cocoa-nuts, beyond admitting that with the possible exception of an important provincial capital during the triennial examinations I doubt whether our own unapproachable Empire could show a more impressively-extended gathering, either in the diverse and ornamental efflorescence of head garb, in the affectionate display openly lavished by persons of one sex towards those of the other, or even one more successful in our own pre-eminent art of producing the multitudinous harmony of conflicting sounds.

At the appointed hour this person submitted himself to be heavily shackled, and being led out before the assembled crowd, endeavoured by a smiling benignity of manner and by reassuring signs of welcome, to produce a favourable impression upon their sympathies and to allure them within. This pacific face was undoubtedly successful, however offensively the ill-conditioned one who stood by was inspired to express himself behind his teeth, for the space of the tent was very quickly occupied and the actions of simulation were to begin.

Without doubt it might have been better if this person had first made himself more fully acquainted with the barbarian manner of acting. The fact that this imagined play, which even in one of our inferior theatres would have filled the time pleasantly for two or three months, was to be compressed into the narrow limits of seven minutes and a half, should reasonably have warned him that amid the ensuing rapidity of word and action, most of the leisurely courtesies and all the subtle range of concealed emotion which embellish our own wood pavement must be ignored. But it is well and suggestively written, “The person who deliberates sufficiently before taking every step will spend his life standing upon one leg.” In the past this one had not found himself to be grossly inadequate on any arising emergency, and he now drew aside the hanging drapery and prepared to carry out a preconcerted part with intrepid self-reliance.

It has already been expressed, that the reason and incentive urging me to a ready agreement lay in the opportunities by which suitable passages from the high Classics could be discreetly woven into the fabric of the plot, and the occupation thereby permeated with an honourable literary flavour. In accordance with this resolve I blended together many imperishable sayings of the wisest philosophers to present the cries and turmoil of the approaching mob, but it was not until I protruded my head beneath the hanging canopy in the guise of one observing that an opportunity arose of a really well-sustained effort. In this position I recited Yung Ki’s stimulating address to his troops when in sight of an overwhelming foe, and, in spite of the continually back-thrust foot of the undiscriminating one before me, I successfully accomplished the seventy-five lines of the poem without a stumble. Then entering fully, with many deprecatory bows and expressions of self-abasement at taking part in so seemingly detestable an action, I treacherously, yet with inoffensive tact, struck the one wearing an all-round collar delicately upon the back. Not recognising the movement, or being in some other way obtuse, the person in question instead of sinking to the ground turned hastily to me in the form of an inquiry, leaving me no other reasonable course than to display the knife openly to him, and to assure him that the fatal blow had already been inflicted. Undoubtedly his immoderate retorts were inept at such a moment, nor was his ensuing strategy of turning completely round three times, striking himself about the head and body, and uttering ceremonious curses before he fell devoid of life—as though the earlier remarks had been part of the ordained scheme—to any degree convincing, and the cries of disapproval from the onlookers proved that they also regarded this one as the victim of an unworthy rebuke.

“Not if the benches were filled at half a guinea a head would I take on another performance like that,” exclaimed the one with whom I was associated, when it was over. “Besides the dead loss of lasting three quarters of an hour it’s tempting providence when the seats are movable. I suppose it isn’t your fault, Kong, you poor creature, but you haven’t got no glare and glitter. There’s only one thing for it: you must be the Rev. Mr. Walker and I’ll