Pearl Buck - Sons

Thus Wang the Tiger let his men talk as they would and they did as ignorant men will, telling all they heard and guffawing and making merry, for they were full of high hopes and they had faith in their captain, and everyone was fed and pleased with the land and with the hamlets they had passed through. For although the people had to feed these two, the Leopard and the magistrate, still they had enough left to feed themselves well enough, too, for it was such a goodly land and much was left them. And Wang the Tiger let them talk, and if much they said was no worth, still they often let fall something he wanted to know and he could sift the wheat from the chaff, for he was much wiser than they.

As this fellow ceased his piping, Wang the Tiger laid hold on the last thing he had said, that the magistrate feared lest he lose his place and he thought deeply on this, and it seemed to him that here was the secret of the whole venture, and through this weak old man he might seize the power over these lands. The more he listened to his men the more sure he grew that the Leopard was not so strong as he had thought, and after a time he made up his mind that he would send a spy to the very strongholds of the robbers’ lair and see what men were there and all the Leopard had for strength.

He looked about his men as they sat that night at their evening meal, sitting on their haunches and every man with a roll of hard bread to gnaw and a bowl of grain gruel to sup, and for a time he could not decide which of them to send and none seemed clever and wise enough. Then his eye fell on his nephew, the lad he kept near him, and he was at this instant gorging himself, his cheeks puffed and full with food. Wang the Tiger did but walk away to his own room and the lad followed him instantly as it was his duty to do, and Wang the Tiger bade him close the door and stand to hear what he said, and he said,

“Are you brave enough for a certain thing I shall tell you?”

And the lad said sturdily, still chewing his great mouthful, “Try me, my uncle, and see!”

And Wang the Tiger said, “I will try you. You are to take a little sling such as lads use to kill birds and you are to go to that double-crested mountain and go about evening time and pretend you have lost your way and are afraid of the wild beasts on the mountain, and you are to go crying at the gates of the lair. When they let you in then say you are a farmer’s son from the valley beyond and you came up the mountain to look for birds and you did not see how swiftly the night came down and you are lost and beg a night’s shelter from this temple. If they will not let you stay then beg them at least for a guide to the pass and use your eyes — see everything and see how many men there are and how many guns and what the Leopard is like and tell me everything. Can you be so brave as this?”

Wang the Tiger fixed his two black eyes on the youth and he saw the lad’s ruddy face turn pale so that the pocks stood out like scars on the skin, but he spoke up well enough and he said, although somewhat breathless,

“I can do it.”

“I have never asked you anything,” said Wang the Tiger sternly, “but perhaps your clownishness can be of some use now. If you are lost and do not use your wits or if you betray yourself it is your own fault. But you have that merry, silly face and I know you look more simple than you are, and so I have chosen you. But play the part of a simple witless lad and you are safe enough. If you are caught — can you be brave enough to die and be silent?”

Then the good red came surging back into the boy’s face and he stood there sturdy and strong in his coarse clothes of blue cotton, and he said,

“Try me, my captain!”

Then Wang the Tiger was pleased with him and he said, “Brave lad! It is the test and if you do well you are worthy to move higher.” And he smiled a little as he stared at the boy and his heart that so seldom moved at anything except his gusts of anger now moved a little toward this boy, yet not for the boy’s sake either for he did not love him, but it moved with some vague yearning and he wished again he might have a son of his own; not like this lad, either, but a strong, true, grave son of his own.

So he bade the boy put on such clothes as a farmer’s son wears and girdle a towel about his waist and he had him put on old worn shoes on his bare feet, for he had a long way to go and rough rocks to clamber over. The lad made a little sling then such as all boys have and made out of the small forked branch of a tree and when it was made he ran lightly down the mountainside and he disappeared into the woods.

Then during the two days he was gone Wang the Tiger ordered his men as he planned he would and he apportioned out the work to them all so that none could be idle and mischievous. He sent his trusty men out into the countryside to buy food and he sent them separately and they bought meat and grains in small quantities so that none might suspect they bought for a hundred men.

When the evening of the second day was come Wang the Tiger went out and he looked down the rocky steps to see if the lad was come. Deep in his heart he feared for the lad and when he thought of him perhaps cruelly dead he found some strange, compassion and remorse in his heart and as night came on and the new moon rose he looked toward the Double Dragon Mountain and he thought to himself,

“I should have sent a man I could spare, perhaps, and not my own brother’s son. If he is cruelly dead, how shall I meet my brother? Yet I could only trust my own blood, too.”

He watched on after his men slept and the moon came clear of the mountains and swung high in the heavens, but still the lad did not come. At last the night wind grew very chill and Wang the Tiger went in and his heart was heavy because he found what he had not known before, that he would miss the lad a little if he never came back, because he had such merry tricky ways and he could not be angered.

But in the small late hours of the night as he lay awake he heard a little beating on the gate and he rose himself and in haste and he went out. There the lad was when Wang the Tiger had drawn away the wooden bar, and he looked very weary and spent but still good humored. He came limping in and his trousers were torn from his thigh and blood had streamed down his leg and dried. But he was still in high humor.

“I am back, Uncle,” he cried in a spent small voice, and Wang the Tiger laughed suddenly and silently in the way he had if he were truly pleased and he said roughly,

“What have you done to your thigh?”

But the lad answered lightly, “It is nothing.”

Then Wang the Tiger made one of the few jokes he ever made in his life, because he was so pleased, and he said,

“I hope the Leopard did not claw it!”

The lad laughed aloud at this for he knew his uncle meant it for laughter, and he sat down on the step into the temple and he said,

“No, he did not. I fell upon a briary tree, for the moss is damp with dew and slippery, and the tree scratched me like this. I am starving, Uncle!”

“Come and eat then,” said Wang the Tiger, “eat and drink and sleep before I hear your tale.”

And he told the lad to come into the hall and sit down and he roared out for a soldier to bring food and drink for the once to serve this lad. But the noise of it woke this man and that and one after the other waked and they came crowding into the court lit by the light of the high moon and they all wanted to hear what the lad had seen. Then Wang the Tiger, seeing how after the lad had eaten and drunk, that he was so important and excited with the success of his venture that he was far from sleep, and seeing that dawn was now near, he said,

“Tell it all now, then, and afterwards go to your sleep.”