The queen of Quelparte; a story of Russian intrigue in the Far East

Front matter

CANNOT LEAVE THE LIBRARY.

Chap.. .

Shelf.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. Sealed Orders i

II. A Dream that Lives 4

Chapter One Sealed Orders

I STARED over the railing upon the changing face of the sea ; the long sweep of the hungry billows, the blue-black troughs between them, the deceptive, curling crests plunging one after another like thundering columns of plumed cavalry driven at the freak of the winds, matched perfectly the incoherent turmoil of my thoughts.

Miss Oranoff’s chair was close to mine, but a great gulf separated us, such as will come sometimes between friends when mutual explanations are long over-due; and the silence of that gulf lay heavy upon us after my first words of hot resentment, which made a pale girl paler still and an angry man not less angry.

What Dulcine Oranoff and I had been to each other matters little to the record of what we became ; but it mattered very much to me that she had left Washington without one hint or word of farewell, as though I were no more to her than a Legation lackey. I had at least been more than that.

And now, while pacing the deck before reading the strange letter my father had bade me not to open until I was on the sea, I found her, to whom I half feared it related, smothered in rugs in a steamer-chair near the Captain’s cabin — a passenger on my own good ship “ Gaelic ” to China!

I would not speak, and she, it seemed, could not, and as we sat like pouting children in dogged silence my thick thoughts stumbled on from one impossible explanation to another more impossible, and it was not until I thought again of my father’s strange letter that I saw any light. One mystery sometimes unravels another, as one poison is an antidote to another, and it occurred to me that that letter might explain this other mystery, which was so like slow poison to me.

But as I arose to go I found a gentleman behind us, and Dulcine sat up quickly at sight of him.

“ Father,” she said slowly, “ may I present Mr. Robert Martyn?” Then, in a moment she [ 2 ]

SEALED ORDERS continued, not without a catch in the words which belied their formality : “ Robert, my father — Colonel Oranoff.” The swift glance, the low tone, the halting words, coupled with my knowledge that the name Oranoff was not on the steamer’s passenger-list, made it plain that the two were traveling incognito.

Colonel Ivan Oranoff had married a Washington lady and maintained a home in Washington, though he was detailed abroad almost constantly in the Russian diplomatic service. His name was well known in many lands, and the man was said to be known even where his name was not !

The commonplaces of introduction were quickly over, and Miss Oranoff hastened my departure by lightly scoring me for not having read my steamer letters.

Not one word about steamer letters had passed between us!

“ Read those from home first,” she called after me, despite a quick, low word from her father. The command, with its distinct challenge, made me surer than before of the secret within a secret which that one envelope would explain.

Chapter Two

HENEVER I look back to those hours in which I determined to enter the employ of Colonel Oranoff of the Russian Service, my father’s lifelong friend, I remember best my light-hearted carelessness — and I am sobered. How much Youth owes to Ignorance ; its buoyancy, its indomitable hopefulness, its reckless self-confidence, were, each and all, impossible but for that monstrous debt.

“ I have never urged you, Robert,” the letter ran, “to interest yourself in this game we play, but it is the one grand game of the world. Where else are the stakes so great — the gains and losses so momentous ? This offer of Oranoff ’s gives you a splendid chance to ‘ take a hand,’ if you care to. I determined to let you come to your own decision alone at sea. Make it and cable me from Yokohama. You have knocked around the East enough to fit you for such business; this with your West Point training makes you the very man Oranoff needs.”

For what business I had been fitted by following, two years before, a runaway Celestial army, might well be considered a Chinese puzzle, yet such had been my chief experience in the East. During the Japan-China war I had been an aide to an American army officer, Colonel French, detailed to study the Chinese campaign, and we had followed the Yellow Dragon throughout the inglorious retreat from Korea to Pekin; from Wun Lung we got back to Tu Loo and Tu Lung, and if there had been more Loos and Lungs between that and the palpitating heart of the thing, Pekin, I doubt not we would have gone there too. But the Russian Bear, in his humorous but favorite role of White- Winged Dove of Peace, stepped in and put a stop to the war through fear Japan would keep what he wanted, — Port Arthur, the Gibraltar of the East. After that, Colonel French and I could have given points to a stampeding herd of cattle — but what else were we good for?

This, with a lazy journey through Europe, homeward, made up the sum of my experience in the golden East. Yet I had acquired a thing of which I did not know ; it was the Travel-Fever.

Have you had that fever ? If not, you have escaped the most pitiless disease ; one knows not when he contracts it and it never leaves. Other fevers burn themselves out, or snuff out the patient and die down with the life-light. This fever never dies ; it fills the sufferer’s eyes with aching dreams of quaint harbors almost, but not quite, reached ; his ears ring with a new coolie chorus all but clearly heard; it fills his nostrils with the medley scent of flower fetes more beautiful than any he ever saw; it rages in his brain with luring suggestions of odd shadows on unfamiliar hillsides ; he hears new voices laughing beneath new trees, weird temple bells tinkling in the night ; and, now and again, he sees the battered prows of a ship come ’longside out of an unknown sea. Other fevers freeze at Death’s touch — but does the Travel-Fever ? Some say yes, some no, and many are silent here.

“ The note enclosed,” the letter went on, “ states in my name that you will meet Colonel [ 6 ]

Oranoft in the Captain’s cabin the midnight following its receipt. Send it, and go to-night, lad. Cable me your resignation, and we will send another man to Tokyo.”

The sea was calm at eventide and the moon shone bright. After the dancing Dulcine and I found our chairs and looked out happily upon the glistening wastes. If we were quiet now it was because the waves were quiet — the baffling winds had left us all to peace. We had prettily made our mutual confessions, the burden of mine being that I was no sailor and could not have read a steamer letter, though it contained a will leaving me the steamship line for an inheritance.

The lights danced high in Dulcine Oranoff’s large black eyes while we hinted of the days ahead. I was surprised to find how fully this girl shared her serious father’s confidences. She soon told me that their destination was Keinning, the old capital of Quelparte.

“ We are to settle Japan’s and China’s ancient quarrel for its possession,” I volunteered, looking at my watch.

“Yes,” Dulcine answered me slowly.

“ In favor of neither? ”

“ In favor of neither/’ the girl replied as we arose.

When, a few minutes later, I was admitted to the Captain’s cabin, Colonel Oranoff welcomed me with genuine warmth to his great table covered with a mass of papers and maps. For a time he spoke of my father, and I soon caught the drift of his reminiscences, in which he implied a great trust and confidence in me for my father’s sake. He could not have done this in a more charming indirect way, and it won me to him even more than anything my father had written. For a time then he remained silent, resting his pale face on his hands, gazing down upon the littered table.

A large map, oddly marked in red and white, hung on the wall near me and at once attracted my attention. The man at the table came to me at last, his eyes also upon this map.

“You are looking at Peter’s map?” he asked. Then, without awaiting a reply, he continued, stroking it with the end of a pencil as he spoke. “ Peter the Great made a will and bequeathed to Russia this eastern half of the world. The red,” and here the pencil swept swiftly from St. Petersburg to Korea, [ 8 ]

“ shows the portion of our inheritance we have received ; the white we have not yet obtained.”

“ The will has been contested,” I commented, dryly enough.

“ And is still in litigation,” Oranoff answered suggestively. I was looking beyond Korea to Quelparte.

“ Quelparte is still white,” I said. The man looked at me one moment and understood. “You have not danced all the evening,” he commented with a pleasant nod. Then he turned quickly to the map and his face grew stern as he answered me : “ But it will be red, Marty n, before a single month has passed. The Czar has a Razor for every beard; men talk of the power of Russian armies, but they are nothing to the secret service men who are fast realizing Peter’s Dream. The heavier the beard the sharper the Razor — and the rule works both ways, even while Czars come and go. That Dream is still president.”

There was fire in the words and the man unconsciously raised a hand as he spoke them as though swearing a holy oath. I was thrilled.

How that old dream does live on! — aye, and will live while most dreams are dead and [ 9 ]

forgotten. Peter left the eastern continent to Russia. If this was not the first it was the greatest will ever broken. By some cruel mockery of fate Russia has come into the possession of the greatest but least desirable portion of its inheritance, the deserts of Asia and Siberia; but Europe and India, Persia and China are, for some reason, still unconquered. My thoughts ran back to Quelparte.

“ There is a Razor, then, for the King of Quelparte ? ”

“ For this reason,” said Oranoff, coming close to me; “we are about to lease Port Arthur from China ; that will make Japan wild. I am to go and conquer Quelparte with gold roubles — the King and his nobles ; when that is done — ” the man threw his hands apart quickly and looked to me.

“Throw Quelparte over as a sop to Japan to avert war and — ”

“ And keep Port Arthur,” said Oranoff, sinking into his chair, evidently satisfied with me.

The wind was rising, and as the prow of our ship pounded into the trough of the sea the great red and white map floated lazily out from its anchorage on the wall.

“ It is growing rougher,” said Colonel Oranoff at last, rising to tighten an incandescent globe on his table. I wondered that he could so quickly come back to the present.

“ Then if you fail,” I ventured, my thoughts still running fast to the end of the chapter, “ little is lost, since the conquest of Quelparte is only to be a temporary triumph.”

“ Fail ! ” he repeated in a gentle tone. “ Those Razors are not sharpened on failures,” and Oranoff looked at me smiling. He had the patience of a true teacher !

A little nettled at myself, I lay gazing upon that blood-red map, and soon the color made me think of war, and I found myself talking again to that silent man.

“ You cannot fear a war with Japan, Colonel Oranoff ? ”

“ Peace is surer,” he answered quietly. Then looking at the map he continued : “ We have gained much more by peace than by war — more than Caesar or Alexander or Napoleon ever gained in war,” and the tired voice seemed to strengthen on the boast.

[ii]

“ But they cost too,” interrupted Oranoff, “cost more than those of war; our wars cost the Czar the lives of thousands of his lowliest — peace the lives of hundreds of his best; war takes muscle — peace, brains. Does the Czar gain or lose ? ”

“ He gains the Dream,” I suggested, and the tired man sighed “ Amen.”

The night’s conference ended with the story of Menin. I had risen to take my leave when Oranoff drew me to the table and displayed a photograph of himself he had taken thoughtfully from the recesses of a cabinet drawer.

“You spoke of failure,” he said, and then tossed this picture angrily on the table.

“ A good likeness,” I observed ; the poise of body and head, the coat and hat, the black imperial, were all lifelike.

An oath burst from the white lips. Startled, I looked more intently, and Oranoff’s pencil pointed to the shoulders; I saw that one was lower than the other.

“ The hell-hound can’t help that,” he whispered fiercely.

“ Then it is an impostor ? ” I cried.

“ My only failure,” said Oranoff, slowly, “ was due to this dare-devil’s cunning. I happened to cross his plans once in Bangkok and he played hell with me in Herat. Look at him sharply, Martyn, and swear you will know me when I carry my shoulders like that.”

“ You fear him still ? ”

“ Aye — and you would, too, could you know him.”

I looked intently at the picture as Oranoff held it out to me as he might have held out to a bloodhound the garments of an escaped prisoner before starting it on the trail. Presently I affirmed that I could know those shoulders anywhere, and understood well enough that I was to be, for the present, at least, the bodyguard of Colonel Ivan Oranoff. The contest for Quelparte, after all, might be, perhaps, a thing for this Menin and me to fight out!

“ At least I shall be kept near Colonel Oranoff, and that means near Dulcine,” I thought with a pleasure not in the least marred by my knowledge that I was to guard a man engaged in a business not apt to make him loved — the reddening of Peter’s Map.

Chapter Three

T WO weeks after I parted from the Oranoffs at Yokohama my little steamer brought me to Tsi, the seaport of Quelparte.

I was rescued from the coolie-infested wharves by a gruff old Captain Dejneff, who came down from the capital with Miss Oranoff to meet me. Soon we were off for Keinning, twenty miles inland.

A clear, sweet day of the matchless month of November lay upon the Land of Morning Calm. Such is the native name, preserved by courtesy, of a land which has known only centuries of oppression by China or Japan since long before the birth of the Christ. But the mornings have remained true to the name — in inverse ratio to history’s defiance of it. The battle-ground of the nations^ each side of it, the wanton spoil of conquerors from all sides, Quelparte has been the “ dark and bloody [i4]

ground ” of Asia, and nowhere has the fate and doom of a nation so plainly affected its people. The Quelpartiens, great, stalwart men, each a king in stature and mien, are weak, resistless, hopeless ; yet, withal, a soberly happy race which loves the helpless land as though pitying it for having no stauncher friends.

Dulcine was jubilant with the enthusiasm of a new-comer to these old plains and hills. The strange, white dress of the natives, the multicolored clothing of the children, the long, tender vistas across the paddy-fields, the dim blue of the distant mountains, appealed with freshening charm to her happy eyes. The contrasts, which in Quelparte must attract all visitors, fascinated her.

“ They do everything backward here,” she was already laughing out to me; “the boys braid their hair down their backs and the men do it up on their heads ; the fires are built under the floors and the chimneys open into the gutters ; is that a new adaptation of your Russian stoves, Captain Dejneff?”

This gruff old officer, whose face was buried under a great sandy beard, took not unkindly to Miss Oranoff’s running fire of bantering [ 15 ]

quips. Yet my little experience among men made me look twice at him ; he had an odd predilection for humming old songs, and he looked at the plains as though they had told him some of their strange secrets. Dejneff had been connected with the Russian Legation here for many years ; he was somewhat forgetting the outside world — being slowly embalmed alive in the traditions and superstitions of this strange land.

This Dulcine was discovering, without comprehending its real intent.

“ See,” she cried to me, as we were passing a little cluster of straw-thatched huts in a sequestered vale, “ the only children in the world who do not play on a doorstep ! ”

We had suddenly flushed a covey of little people, who ran helter-skelter into the nearest huts and peered out at us from the dark interiors.

“ Do you also fear the Devil-of-the-Threshold, Captain Dejneff?”

The low-hummed song was choked as the great square shoulders came up in a shrug.

“ Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, “ why not ? If there is one — peste ! — it ’s better to look out, I think. Did not the Romans carry brides over them ? ” A people of ten millions and not one who dares to stand or sit on the threshold for fear of the Devil there ! As I recalled the superstition in the light of DejnefFs attitude I thought of the draughts in a doorway. Were they the Devil ?

A flock of wild geese flew suddenly up from a paddy-field and went waywardly circling in the thin blue air toward the distant mountains.

“ There goes my Widowed Wild Goose, Captain Dejneff,” cried Dulcine; “give me the melody, and Lieutenant Martyn shall see I have not wasted my time in Keinning.”

The old man hummed a little louder, but, as Dulcine caught the measure he stopped quickly and listened to the girl’s clear notes in the Quelpartien Love-song:

“ ‘ Silvery moon and frosty air,

Eve and dawn are meeting ; Widowed wild goose flying there, Hear my words of greeting !

“ ‘ On your journey should you see Him I love so broken-hearted, Kindly say this word for me,

That ’t is death when we are parted.

[ 1 7 ]

“ ‘ Flapping off, the wild goose clambers,

Says she will if she remembers.

« 1 Farewell ’s a fire that burns one’s heart,

And tears are rains that quench in part,

But then the winds blow in one’s sighs,

And cause the flames again to rise.

“ ‘ My soul I ’ve mixed up with the wine,

And now my love is drinking —

Into his orifices nine

Deep down its spirit ’s sinking.

“ ‘ To keep him true to me and mine,

A potent mixture is the wine !

“ ‘Fill the ink-stone, bring the water,

To my love I ’ll write a letter ;

Ink and paper soon will see The one that ’s all the world to me.

“ ‘ While the pen and I together,

Left behind, condole each other. ’ ”

The sky and plains made a perfect setting for the song, so sad and yet throbbing with human experience.

One must be impressed with the weird songs of the East, bearing so lightly and everlastingly their heavy loads of care. But does this burden differ from the burden of our own popular music ? I recalled the street songs of America prevalent at the time. What a load of sorrow, regret, hopeless contrition, this mongrel music voices! Are the world’s songs all sad, and are our Christian hymns of hope and trust and faith our only happy music ?

Old Dejneff was interesting Dulcine in the women of this poor land, some of whom we met — veiled, unveiled, smiling in the chairs in which they were carried by hurrying coolies, or weeping under weary loads.

Up to the age of ten or twelve the little Quelpartienne of good family enjoys great freedom, and can play in the yard with her brothers and see whom she wishes, but the time comes when she must never be seen without the chang-ot, or sleeved apron over her head and held close about the face. From that time she remains mostly within doors and can be familiarly seen only by the people of the household and the nearer relatives. This stage of her life is short, for she generally marries young and goes to take her place in the family of her husband, who will be found living with his parents. From that time on she can be seen and conversed with face to face only by her husband, father, father-in-law, uncle, cousin, [ i9]

second cousin, etc., down to what the Quelpartiens call the “eighth joint,” which means the relationship existing between two great-greatgrandsons of a man through different branches. This means something like fourth or fifth cousin in America. It will at once appear that a Quelpartienne is not entirely cut off from social intercourse with men, for in a country where families are so large as in Quelparte the men on both sides of a family within the limits prescribed may number anywhere from twenty to a couple of hundreds. Of course, grandfathers and great-grandfathers and greatuncles are also among the favored ones, although their number is naturally limited. But as a rule none of these male relatives will enter the inner part of a house, or woman’s quarters, except on the invitation of the husband, and generally in his presence.

To all this, and much more, Dulcine listened with rapt interest, though interrupting her grave companion often with merry peals of laughter. What particularly interested me was the amused interest this Dejneff took in the strange customs of the people, while at the same time he turned out to be signally super- [20]

stitious regarding their superstitions. Other things being equal (if they ever are), a superstition is a thing one man believes that another does not. Yet there was a philosophy in Dejneff’s orientalism that impressed me. He sought deeply for reasons in all their fanaticisms. For instance, as he and I were discussing the Japan- China war, over our lunch at a little Japanese inn at Oricle, Dulcine swamped our sober efforts at the mention of the battle of Ping-yang.

“ The city of Ping-yang, Robert, is said to be situated in a boat, and no inhabitant dares to dig a well within the city wall for fear of scuttling the boat ! ”

We looked to Dejneff, who said thoughtfully, “ And they bring water half a mile, I do think.”

“ Cursing the boat all the way, no doubt,” I commented.

“ You believe the legend, of course, Captain Dejneff ? ” The square shoulders came up, and the growl was deeper in meaning, even, than in tone :

“ It ’s not the only vile city on a boat named Cholera and they are scuttled by the [21]

thousands who do not drink water brought from without.”

And was this reckless philosophy? In civilized communities are we not coming to know that our great cities are on boats, and are not millions lost each twelvemonth who do not drink water brought from afar?

But it was at the House of the Tiger-Woman that Dulcine lost all hope of shaking old Dejneff’s sober conceptions of these foolish myths. This was once a little hut beside the worn path to Keinning, now it is only a great heap of stones.

It is a Quelpartien belief that if an animal drinks water which has stood for twenty years in a human skull it will change into a human being. The story goes that a youth once loved a maid whose parents dwelt in this buried hut. But while betrothed to her, which means more in some countries than in others, he became enamoured of another maiden in Keinning and a wedding day with her was set. With brazen face the youth came one day to give Erlane a last traitor’s kiss. Her parents were overjoyed at the return of the forgetful lover, but the girl sat trembling on her mat — for a crane by [ 22 ]

the river had told her all. When the lad took Erlane in his arms, her hands held him tight and still more tightly, her sweet form changed contour beneath his caresses, her clothing fell from her, while to cover her blushes a tawny, mottled fur closed over her face — and a tigress sucked the faithless lover’s life-blood and left him dead.

We went on in silence (after each of the coolies had cast his stone upon the growing monument), the shock of superstition heavy on us all. The coolies had uttered fierce words as they hurled their stones, and this brought out Dulcine’s next question, though she was silent for a long space and mocked old Dejneff no longer:

“ What do the coolies cry when they throw their stones, Captain ? ”

“ When the women throw they cry, ‘ A tiger for each traitor ’ ; the men, ‘ A tiger for each broken vow.’ Does that superstition work good or ill, think you ? ”

Nearer and nearer drew the ragged peaks of the mountains which lie about Keinning. Our day bade fair to end a little soberly, and I wondered if it was not all a stern lesson

Dejneff had been sent to teach me early, — a lesson he seemed to have learned well in all these years. My thoughts ran on to the game that was playing between those mountain crests. Was the King of Quelparte being shaved easily ? Or was his beard of tougher fiber than had been anticipated ? Whatever the beard, I knew the “ Razor ” was keen !

Yet old Dejneff took occasion to strengthen his gloomy triumph over our incredulity. A great hillside on the outskirts of the city was covered with little mounds of earth. The sentinels stationed there were paid by the relatives of the dead; for, Dejneff told me, it was a myth of Quelparte that if a grave was harmed all relatives of the desecrated corpse became insane. “ Rifling graves becomes a new way to pay off old scores,” he said at the close, suggestively.

“ But does the legend come true ? ” I asked.

“ Often,” he answered quickly ; “ when the sacrilege becomes known they think they are going crazy, so they go ; and it ’s all the same to me what makes them, I think.”

I know of no city, which the average globetrotter visits, more alive with the tales of dead centuries than this gray old Keinning, which most ignore. As we went swaying through the great gate of the wall the grinning clay monkeys on the roof, placed there to keep the devils out, made no cry.

DejnefFs chair was near mine as we went through.

“ Dejneff, ” I asked quietly, that Dulcine might not hear, “ do you who live here really believe the wild legends of this land ? ”

The low, weird monotone he was humming ceased and he turned stolidly upon me :

“ No, Martyn, we don’t ; but you follow our line and you won’t get off far: we act as though we didr l

CHAPTER FOUR THE SECRET OF LYNX ISLAND HE first impression of the capital of

A Quelparte will be the most lasting impression, however long may be the stranger’s stay. He may learn the great wide avenues, the little twisting streets, the palaces old and new, the great gates of the city wall, and even the mountains round about — but to the city he will be a stranger still. The spirit of that valley, caught up slowly in centuries of time, is never really felt by the temporary sojourner ; at least, after a busy month with Oranoff here I felt when I gazed out from the plaza of the Russian Legation over that sea of roofs that I was no less a perfect stranger than when I first saw Keinning. It was nothing that Dulcine Oranoff and I had followed that great city wall ten miles in circumference, or that from the highest peaks of the “ Silk-Worm’s Head ” we had looked for hours upon this old relic of other centuries. Our happy companionship was real — aye, fast deepening; the mellow autumn lights aslant the blue mountain sides were real — these intangible things could be seen and felt : but old Keinning lay deep in a revery, not a syllable of which could be caught and held. Its white people were ghosts, and all their beliefs and traditions were ghoulish mysteries.

Such was the general setting of the Piece ! As for its development, even the sober Oranoff seemed satisfied ; each act, carefully planned, went through perfectly. The King, after the Japan-China war and the murder of his Queen by Chinese renegades, had fled to the Russian Legation ; here well “ in hand,” he had been played clean to the hilt. Old Andorph had secured practical possession of the mint and customs, and Dejneff had come quickly into the good graces of Quelpartien army officers. Scarcely a night but a banquet of one kind or another was served in the great dining-room of the Legation. The boxes of roubles, brought merrily up from Tsi by troops of thundering Cossacks, often needed replenishment, but never was the need unsatisfied.