# On to Pekin/Chapter 22

CHAPTER XXII
AN ADVENTURE IN A JOSS HOUSE
"Trapped, as sure as fate!"
Such were the words which came to Gilbert's lips as he found himself in darkness, with the heavy door of the joss house locked behind him. He felt that he had been badly duped, and that his life was in grave peril.
His first movement was to feel for his pistol, which so far had rested in his belt. Drawing the weapon, he cocked it, and then backed up against the stout door, feeling that an attack could not come from that direction so long as the iron barrier was bolted.
He strained his ears, but all remained silent in the house of idol worship. From a distance came the hum of voices; for the sacking of Tien-Tsin still continued, although those in authority were now making some efforts to stop it. Less than a block from the joss house was a pawnbroker's ​establishment; and into this soldiers and Chinese beggars had broken, and were wrangling over the possession of everything brought to light.
The gummy joss sticks gave forth a strong odor, which in the confined space was sickening; and presently Gilbert began to cough. The sound echoed dismally throughout the joss house proper, showing that the edifice was almost empty.
"I suppose that old Buddhist is somewhere about," thought the young lieutenant. "I'll venture to say he's none too good to run me through with a sword, if he gets the chance."
He began to speculate upon how to move, feeling that he could not remain in the narrow entry forever, when a faint sound reached his ears, as of somebody approaching in bare feet. He immediately raised his pistol, and tried harder than ever to pierce the gloom which confronted him. But the darkness was absolute, for the windows of the house of worship had been boarded up just before the fall of the city.
The footsteps came closer and closer, until Gilbert judged that the on-comer was less than ten feet away. Then he heard the faint swish of a robe, as it brushed ​one end of the table upon which the meal to the dead was spread.
"Stop, or I'll fire!" cried Gilbert, in a determined voice. Instantly the sounds ceased directly in front of him. But from a distance came a low voice, asking some question in Chinese. What this was, Gilbert did not know; nor did he hear any answer to it.
The young lieutenant felt that he was now face to face with a deadly enemy, and it must be confessed that the cold perspiration stood out on his forehead. It is one thing to face an enemy in the open: it is quite another to face the same enemy in the dark. Gilbert had heard of bad Western men sometimes fighting a duel to the death with knives in a pitch-dark room, and he felt now that he wanted nothing to do with anything so terrible.
Suddenly he heard a slight noise close to his left side. He was about to turn in the direction, when several grains of rice fell upon his extended hand.
He did not know what to make of this. Had the rice been thrown by some one? and, if so, for what purpose? He knew that to touch the food of the ​dead is considered by many Chinamen a bad thing to do.
Soon, however, he concluded that the rice had been thrown merely to detract his attention from the person in front of him. The sounds from those bare feet reached him again, but now they were going away instead of approaching.
The enemy was perhaps calculating to attack him in another way, and he could not help but wonder what the next movement would be. Bitterly he regretted having come to the spot without a companion or two. "If I am killed in here, nobody will ever know what became of me," he reasoned, soberly.
His nerves were at the topmost tension, and his ears strained as never before. Consequently, when there came a faint noise from under the table before him, he noted it at once, although it was so slight that an ordinary ear would never have detected it.
Gilbert now remained silent. He had given the enemy fair warning; and he was resolved from now on to "shoot first and talk afterward." He was in the enemy's territory, and he must consider every stranger an enemy until he proved himself a friend.
The table was moving, and so was a portion of the ​floor. At first the table was shifted but the fraction of an inch. Then of a sudden it appeared to drop into space, as a trap-door opened to let it down. The disappearance of the feast table is a common thing in many Chinese houses of worship. So to have this trap-door there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Had Gilbert been leaning on the table, as his unseen enemy had likely thought was the case, he must have been pitched headlong into the hole. But, as the table moved, the young, lieutenant leaped back, and then to one side. So he still remained on the flooring above, although standing on a space scarcely a foot in width.
As the table shot downward, Gilbert glanced into the hole, and by a faint light coming from a blue lantern, made out the ghost-like form of the Buddhist priest dressed in a combination of yellow and black, and carrying in one hand a long, curved sword. The face was not a crafty one, but, on the contrary, rather holy-looking; and this look kept the young officer from firing. The next instant the trap-door closed again, and all became as dark and silent as before.
The look on the Buddhist's face haunted Gilbert, and he could not get it out of his mind. Why ​should such a man wish to take his life? Surely, nature could not make a villain with such a countenance as that.
"He must be a religious fanatic, and imagine that the sacrifice of my life is necessary," he thought. And this was the exact truth. The old priest had been attached to the joss house for sixty years; and he believed that, if he could only mark the walls of the edifice with the blood of a military enemy slain in the building, before the idol of the god of construction, the building would be saved.
Gilbert now resolved upon a bold movement, which was none other than to feel his way into the joss house proper. He felt that his position in the entry was known, and that a bullet from some unknown source might finish his life at any moment. He knew he was running a risk; but, on the whole, it looked safer to move than to remain where he was.
With pistol in one hand and sword in the other, Gilbert passed from the entry to a wide archway, leading to a broad stone flooring. Here he came upon a series of seven steps, and his arm touched a large stone idol. There was something on the floor in front of the idol; and, as his foot pressed ​upon this, a tiny bell at a distance commenced to ring.
The ringing of the bell was followed by a cry of alarm, and then a yell of rage. He heard the footsteps of the old Buddhist priest approaching.
"Let lem alone, dog!" was the cry, in very bad English. "Do not tlouch lem, dog! " The cries continued, and the priest came closer. But, instead of falling directly upon Gilbert, he came up on the opposite side of the idol. He tried to reach the young lieutenant from behind, and his curved sword nipped Gilbert in the back.
Without hesitation the young lieutenant let drive with his pistol. The report and the echo were followed by the falling of a piece of the idol to the floor, and a mad yell from the priest, who now flung himself bodily upon Gilbert. Sword met sword in the darkness; and then the pair clinched and rolled over, down the steps to a cleared space below. The priest was a heavy man, fully six feet tall; and it was he who came down on top.
"Get off!" gasped Gilbert. "Get off, or I will fire!" And he brought around his pistol; but, as it was discharged, his wrist was twisted around, and ​the bullet crashed into the roof far above, bringing down dust and splinters upon their heads.
The priest continued to call out; and soon a light appeared, and with it two men, one being the messenger who had come for Gilbert. Both were armed with daggers of the Malay pattern. In a trice Gilbert had the pair at his side, both trying to drag him away, and thus save the old priest from harm.
"Capture him alive! Do not kill him!" screamed the Buddhist priest, in Chinese. "I must have him for a sacrifice."
"We will do our best," answered one of his followers. "But he looks like a mighty fighter."
"So much the better. It is what our good god needs," returned the old Buddhist.
He leaped up, and reached for the lantern, to place it where it would be more to his followers' advantage. Meanwhile the two new-comers were hauling away at Gilbert, one at one arm and the other at the other.
Gilbert could not use his sword, but the pistol was available; and, watching his opportunity, he blazed away, and brought one of the men down with a serious wound in the abdomen. Then he turned ​upon the second fellow, and fired once more. But the man dropped his hold and fell flat, and the bullet passed over his head.
The second shot had scarcely left the pistol when Gilbert struggled to his feet. The lantern was a fairly bright one; and by its rays he made out a door at the far end of the joss house, and started to run for it.
"Stop him!" roared the priest, in Chinese; and, then, as he saw Gilbert nearing the door, he leaped toward an idol standing to one side of the building. Behind the idol was a knob, attached to a long iron chain. The Buddhist waited until Gilbert had reached a certain spot in the floor, then he pulled upon the huge knob with all his might.
A scraping and a creaking followed; and, of a sudden, the floor beneath the young lieutenant's feet gave way, and he shot down into space. He tried to save himself, but his descent was too sudden. He struck upon a muddy surface, and his head came into contact with a brick wall. Then, for the time being, he knew no more.