S we left the last house of the native city of Tientsin behind us the sun was in the act of rising. Whatever the others may have felt I cannot say, but this I know, that there was at least one person in the party who was heartily glad to bid good-bye to the town. Though we had only been in it a short time we had passed through such a series of excitements during that brief period as would have served to disgust even such a glutton as Don Quixote himself with an adventurous life.
For the first two or three miles our route lay over a dry mud plain, where the dust, which seemed to be mainly composed of small pebbles and camel dung, whistled continuously in the dawn wind. We rode almost in silence.
Nikola, by virtue of his pretended rank, was some yards ahead, I next; Laohwan came behind me, and the baggage ponies and the Mafoos (or native grooms) behind him again. I don't know what Nikola was thinking about, but I'm not ashamed to confess that my own thoughts continually reverted to the girl whom I had been permitted the opportunity of rescuing on the previous evening. Her pale sweet face never left me, and I found that she monopolised my thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. Though I tried again and again to bring my mind to bear upon the enterprise on which we were embarking, it was of no avail; on each occasion I came back to the consideration of a pair of dark eyes and a wealth of nut-brown hair. That I should ever meet Miss Medwin again seemed most unlikely; that I wanted to I will not deny, and while I am about it I will even go so far as to confess that not once but several times I found myself wishing, for the self-same reason, that I had thought twice before accepting Nikola's offer. But one moment's reflection was sufficient to show me that had I not fallen in with Nikola I should in all probability not only never have known her at all, while, what was more to the point, I should most likely have been in a position where love-making would not only have been foolish but quite out of the question.
When we had proceeded something like five miles Nikola turned in his saddle and beckoned me to his side.
“By this time,” he said, “Prendergast and Eastover will have received the telegrams I requested Williams to despatch to them. They will not lose a moment in getting on their way, and by the middle of next week they should have the priest of Hankow in their hands. It will take another three days for them to inform us of the fact, which will mean that we shall have to wait at least ten days in Pekin before presenting ourselves at the Llamaserai. This being so, I shall go to a house which has been recommended to me in the Tartar city. I shall let it be understood there that I am anxious to undertake a week's prayer and fasting in order to fit myself for the responsibilities I am going to take upon me, and that during that time I can see no one. By the end of the tenth day I should know enough to penetrate into the very midst of the monks, and after that it should be ail plain sailing.”
“But do you think your men will be able to abduct this well-known priest without incurring any suspicion?”
“They will have to,” answered Nikola. “If they don't we shall have to pay the penalty. But there, you need have no sort of fear. I have the most perfect faith in the men. They have been well tried, and I am sure of this, if I were to tell either of them to do anything, however dangerous it might be, they would not think twice before obeying me. By the way, Bruce, I don't know that you are looking altogether well.”
“I don't feel quite the thing,” I answered; “but it will pass off.”
“Well, let us push on. We must reach the rest-house to-night, and to do that we have got a forty-mile ride ahead of us.”
It is a well-known fact that though Chinese ponies do nor present a very picturesque outward appearance, there are few animals living that can equal them in pluck and endurance. Our whole cavalcade, harness and pack-saddles included, might have been purchased for a twenty-pound note, but I very much doubt if the most costly animal to be seen in Rotten Row on an afternoon in the season could have carried us half so well on our way as those shaggy little beasts, which stood scarcely more than 13 hands.
In spite of our camping for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, we were at the rest-house, half way to Pekin, before sundown. And a wretched place it proved—a veritable Chinese inn, with small bare rooms, quite unfurnished, and surrounded by a number of equally inhospitable stables.