Evening star., 1925-03-08


hostility of four loutish creatures
ready to beat out his brains at
the behest OF a witeh-like old
J woman. He did this by bursting
! into laughter. Little Precious
Pearl, granddaughter of the
old woman, begged for his life on
the ground that his laughter
showed him insane and that his
spirit would haunt the village
| forever.
He was then welcomed and
feasted. and, as a climax, Little
Precious Pearl was formally be-
slowed upon him. Mr.. Dingle
extricated himself from an awk-
ward situation by sending her to
mission school to be educated.
BY EDWIN J. DINGLE. f. r.. G. $.
~ ECENTLY there was divulged
- to me the whole. grim truth
IN of a secret which, in it's final
Il details, and, so far as l knew,
had lain sealed for years.
This had remained the most profound
and tragic mystery of all my expe-
rience in China.
1t had happened toward the end
of the Chinese revolution. l was
engaged in Red Cross work and was
directing the burial of the dead. We
We're deeply stained and feld-weary,
fatigued to exhaustion. We had
been burying week after week Ny
coolies were known by number-in
order of seniority and dependability.
Where's Number One" l asked
near the close of a particularly hard
day-asked almost by instinct, of my
yawning coolies nearby. No one re-
piled. l began again to total the
number of bodies of which we had
disposed A miscalculation evidently !;
or else some person had altered my
total. This could have happened
when 7 left my dirty little notebook
on stool in the middle of the mar
row cobbly street.
At all events, my figures and those
of the Chinese unit did not agree
for in my records Grave No. "a
showed an aggregate of 266, while
the Chinese claimed 267. My total
had obviously been changed by some
body to the latter figure.
As ] sat there going over these
conflicting figures. I awaited with
some irritation the arrival of my
Number One. He was fine upstand-
Ing Chinese. who was sufficiently
old-fashioned still to wear his queue
curled up in the nape of his neck
! had known him intimately since the
revolution began. and we had been
through many a scrape together.
Unlike most of his race, he was
a good horseman, and by clever rid
ing both of US had miraculously es-
capped death only three days before
when under fire together. He had
received a wound in his left arm
and 1 had had my right shin grazed
by a bullet.
| knew that he had entered the
house near whose rickety front
porchway we were now seated. He
had gone in and out of all the houses
up and down that whole bullet-ridden
area. Systematically hanging out the
flags. One color meant death, an
other meant seriously wounded and
helpless cases, another meant less
seriously wounded, and the duty of
the following coolie gang was to
carry out the bodies and attend.
under the direction Of a Chinese
doctor, to the less serious cases. Bad
cases were invariably left to die.
I began to sense a peculiar air of
suspicion among the coolies. When
went down the line and asked each
of them where Number One had
gone, they either skillfully lied or
scratched the other cara trick the
Chinese have when they turn their
heads so that they ostensibly shall
not hear what you are talking about.
Perhaps perhaps he's
gone to sleep" volunteered one, grin
ming as he spoke and looking away,
thinking that 1 had not seen his grin.
a r that moment an evfl-eyed hy-
brid of about % years crept up
TO the Number Two. He said moth
ing, but with a scowl he pointed
at the left which led to an upper
apartment of a little Chinese house.
The squaint-eyed hybrid smiled, but
still said nothing, and one by one
my coolies essayed to depart in a
mutual search for the chief of the
gang. The hybrid interested me: he
was obviously a treacherous fellow.
Turning to him, 1 asked him
whether he had seen me before. He
answered in Chinese that he had. For
three days, he told me (never look
ing straight at me, and shading his
face with his hand, he had been
watching the burying work that we
had been carrying out. With glee
he related his experiences in robbing
the dead, pulling from undeS his
ragged gown all kinds of personal
trinkets.
Il know where your Number One
has gone he wandered into the
'women's quarters >. he will come
soon," and he leeringly pointed with
his chin, by an upward movement
of his tousled head, repeating that
Number One would soon come now.
He then skunk away.
At that moment I heard the excited
voice of Number Two above the
others, and saw his head through
space where the upper window should
have been. He shouted to me that
they had found him-Number One. 1
felt relieved, and my pony, whose
bride was thrown over my right
shoulder, seemed to know now that he
would soon be fed. So l lit my pipe
and waited in better spirits, thinking
that my trusty man was attending to
the wounds of some poor war
stricken devil.
l did not move from where l sat, but
] bade coolie go and deliver
special personal message that l
wished Number One to hurry. unless
the case was serious, in which case l
also would come. But the messenger
had not reached the foot of the stair
way before l heard a half dozen men
shouting together in their usual
course sing-si they carried their
burden
Now we are coming, now we are
coming. You take his head. mind
his feet. swing his feet right round
-. come on, hurry along"
at once knocked out my pipe,
hitched my horses bride to a tree
and made preparations to superintend
this little affair. when the hybrid
mysteriously appeared again. He
srinned at me, looked toward the
stairs, glanced at me again, as if to
speak, and then walked quickly from
me, calling back over his shoulder in
Chinese. Il told We. great foreign