Adventure Magazine Cover — page 31: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Yellow Treasure who are yourself a foreign devil! Where is my chair of office?” Turning to the fat-faced men on the cush- ions, he snapped out a repetition of the question in Chinese. They cringed from him, but did not answer. There was a crisis ahead. Suddenly, remembering May- sing’s words, I saw the whole situation. Hop-see-Long had left the Tong leaderless when he considered its usefulness to be at an end. Murchison had somehow gained the leadership in fact, though not in name; and now he intended to force Hop-see- Long’s abdication, and take the official title for himself. vas WE WERE witnessing the decisive ee, battle of a civil war, and the result might mean. life or death to us. I almost groaned aloud as I remembered May-sing, in the dungeon a dozen yards away—to be held evidently as a weapon over her father. “There is your throne,” said Murchison, pointing to the empty chair, while the pig- faced council stared in awe at the scene. “Take it!” “Since there is but one leader of the Tae- ping Tong,” said Hop-see quietly, “why do I see two thrones? Accord me the favor of an answer, white man.” “T sit in the other, as co-ruler of the Tong,” said Murchison, in a voice that trembled. “And “By whose warrant?” nce Hop-see- Long. “It is five years since I have been here. Then you were not of the Tong; nor any of these.””’ He waved his fan around the room. ‘By whose warrant, I beg?” “By warrant—” began Murchison. “Of the ex-emperor,” said Hop-see-Long. “Ts it not so?” He turned his gaze on the council, and its members cowered, making half-hearted gestures of negation. ~ “Yes,” cried Murchison, warrant.” — “Tt is a warrant I do not recognize,” said Hop-see-Long. He bowed gravely and raised his fan in signal,to his attendants. “Stop!” cried Murchison. Hop-see-Long paused in his turn toward the door. “The business is not complete,” said Murchison; “the council would speak with you awhile.” “The council,” said Hop-see-Long, “‘has “by his 21 nothing to say that the honorable foreign devil has not dictated. Let him speak himself as to why he has called me from my far-away home with the voice of the Tong.” “Be seated,” said Murchison, bowing toward the other throne. Hop-see-Long bowed in his turn. “Tt is an honor of which I do not feel my contemptible self to be worthy,” he said, “the honorable foreign devil will address his servant standing.” They were now sidewise to us; separated by a space in which we could see the ap- prehensive yellow faces of the council as its members moved uneasily on the silk cushions. It was striking to see the contrast between the faces opposed to each other— the face of the pure-blood Manchu with its calm, and the lean face of the half-blood, now beginning in spite of its owner to show signs of the rage that.was boiling within him. “The Tong has wished to inform the honorable son of Hung-sew-Tseuen,” Mur- chison snarled, “that the time has passed for inaction; that the Tong’s existence is menaced by the government, and that its treasure is being stolen by foreign devils— messengers of the traitor Campbell.” For an instant, Hop-see-Long’s gaze rested on Burns and myself. ‘““And so?” he inquired. ‘“‘And so the Tong demands of the hon- orable son of Hung-sew-Tseuen, who has deserted it to its fate, that he resign his office, and give place to another leader.” ‘“‘Then why is my miserable presence de- sired?” asked the old Chinese. ‘The Tong has doubtless chosen its new leader.”’ “The Tong desires the written word of the son of Hung-sew-Tseuen,” said Mur- chison, “and his honorable approval of the new leader.”’ “The excellent foreign devil would say that there are still certain real Tae-pings i in the Tong, and that these demand a writing from Hop-see-Long before they will turn their hatchets to the support of the accursed emperor and against the republic that has freed them?” Probably no one in the room but the speakers and Burns and myself knew what was being said; but once again that odd tremor shook the council and its guards. “Tf the exalted prince says it is so,” said Murchison, bowing deeply, “the dust under his feet will not presume to contradict.” COIN DOOKS © inn