THE RECLUSE
From then on, the statue and the child shared a secret together, for none but they, knew that the Fu-dog really lived.
And after that there were no more dreams.
2
Time passed, summer succeeding summer, but the garden remained the same. The Fu-dog crouched for his spring as patiently as of old, biding his time to leap. The wind in the willows still made shadows on his porcelain back and body when the sun was right and the poppies in the flower bed around the base of his pedestal might have been the very same as far as appearances went, but Su-rah had changed and for her this morning the world was also new.
Ten years had passed since the understanding with the statue and Su-rah was at an age which means little here, but much in a land where children are betrothed at birth.
For the last two years she had known that sometime she would marry the fat, greasy, old merchant whose wealth was fabulous and had been gained in tea.
What did it matter if he was a very good friend of her father’s and that the marriage was a matter of policy between the men? He was fat and greasy just the same!
But Su-rah had not objected. It was her fate, it was best for her, of course, or Father Chan would not have made the plans.
Now—all was changed and her heart seethed with rebellion, for Arslan, an archer of the palace guard and an utter nobody, had dared to smile at her as he passed in the corridor that morning.
Boldly had he smiled, with no respectful down drooping of the eyes!
And Kwan-Yin aid her!—her cheeks flushed as she thought of it!
She—Su-rah—of the House of Chan—had smiled back!
Being quite honest with herself, alone in the garden, she admitted that he was good to smile at. What broad shoulders he had, to be sure, and such a comely face!
Somehow she could not be as angry at Arslan as she ought; instead, her wrath had become strangely turned about and she was thinking in hard terms of a certain tea-merchant back in Shi-kung-su.
Summer waned and became autumn, but she did not forget and when autumn merged into winter she was still angry when the Tartars came down like a wolf pack from the North and there was furious fighting for some time upon the Wall.
As far as Su-rah could see, the plain was black with horsemen and a dull thunder of hoofs and guttural shouting made a rumbling undercurrent of dread that cast a blight and a shadow upon even the bravest attempts at gayety in the city.
They sang horirble war-chants, threatening and clanging, to the clash of cymbals and rattling of the nakirs or kettledrums.
Then the attack came and for an entire day the Tartars surged against the wall like the waves of a living sea!
Wave after wave of horsemen washed up, a footman running by the side of each galloping horse and carrying a section of ladder. Arrived at the base of the Wall, they fitted the sections together, dropping like flies beneath the sleet of arrows pouring down from above.
Wave after wave retreated to the unceasing stridulations of the nakirs, while the war trumpets of the Chinese blared defiance at them.
Wave after wave left a dark spray behind them on the ground, but steadily the ladders rose with each successive charge.
And then they topped the Wall!
At the section defended by Su-rah’s three brothers and their palace guard, there was a watch tower and in this place of seming safety sat Su-rah and some other of the women who were acutely interested in the fight.
They had not dreamed that the Tartars could storm a high defended wall, and supposed that they could see all the fighting without the slightest danger. So it was that through an arrow slit, Su-rah saw the defenders push the ladders away, clustered with climbing men, saw the ladders totter and reel like a drunken giant and falling, slash a trough in the army below.
But there were Tartars on the Wall and the fighting was hand to hand.
One of the older women began serving out knives to the women in the tower and although no word was spoken, all knew what they were for.
