THE RECLUSE
If the Tartars should win!
Steadily the enemy grew fewer, however, as no reinforcements came, and the danger passed. Su-rah, staring through her arrow-slit, gasped. Who was that, whom the giant barbarian held high and helpless above his head, striding toward the edge of the parapet?
Surely it was—yea, it must be—Arslan! With no warning she unbarred the door and slipped into the midst of the fighting. The Tartar strode by; with all her puny might she drove her blade between his shoulders.
He coughed and fell. Arslan dropped upon the stones.
The archer did not rise at once from his knees, but caught the edge of her embroidered robe and pressed it to his forehead.
“Daughter of Chan,” he said, haltingly, “you are as brave as a warrior. My life is yours to use.”
For a breath, she smiled at him, then her face hardene;d she was a daughter of the House of Chan, he was an offspring of the gutter; she wondered if he even knew his father’s name!
She twitched the silks from his fingers and spoke in a hard tone that stung the sensitive boy like a slash of a whip.
“I would have done the same for any other cur of the streets!” she said coldly, and swept back to the tower, holding her robes close about her to avoid the sullying touch of the dead men all around.
Perhaps that would teach him his proper place, she thought, and it had, for he hurled himself like a madman into the scattered remnants of the battle, hoping for death to wipe out his shame.
Not again during the day, did the barbarians win to the top of the Wall and at dusk they withdrew and a truce was mutual.
Su-rah should have been delighted with the manner in which she canceled the insult of that smile which she had answered, but that night there was the sound of sobbing in her chamber.
When the nurse entered with a light, Su-rah was asleep, oh, very soundly so!—but there was a tiny halt in her breathing and the nurse, who had seen and heard the events upon the Wall, did not believe that Su-rah’s cheeks were wet for pity of the tea-merchant’s fate if the Tartars had entered Shi-kung-su.
The next morning that vast army had disappeared in search of some weaker section which might fall to their power, and only their dead remained.
But during the night when she fitfully dozed, tormented by thoughts which would not let her rest, a sentry on the watch tower saw a dark shape lunge out from the Wall, heard a splash and a commotion far below in the deep hollow where the sewage of the city flowed toward the Hwang-ho through gratings in the masonry, and he beheld the flickering of torches as Tartars helped their fellow to safety.
And Su-rah woke from her troubled slumbers with a start. Again the dark horseman rode through her dreams and though he had been very close before she awoke, no protecting Fu-dog was near to save.
Houlagou, the Tartar, had not been killed when the girl’s dagger turned upon a boss of his hide armor, but he had been wounded sorely.
Slyly he had marked her features and her rank and swore that her pride should be broken. Houlagou had in all his life allowed no injury to go unpaid.
That winter her comings and goings were watched by many eyes within the city, for Houlagou was something of a noble in his own way and could command spies, none of which were Tartars.
3
When Chan and his family moved out of the city in the spring time, they found the summer palace gutted and partially destroyed, but in the garden where the Fu-dog stood, as usual, things were intact and unharmed.
Su-rah ran to him and caressed him as a long lost friend and afar off, Arslan gazed enviously, madly jealous of the unfeeling statue which could not appreciate its good fortune.
But when a breeze stirred the red eyes so they roved about, Arslan went away somewhat hurriedly. Of course, he was not superstitious, but there was something about
(sixty-six)
