Pearl Buck - Sons

His nephew had followed him and stood in the shadow by the door. But Wang the Tiger flung him aside, without a word, and never seeing that in the strength of his anger he threw the lad down cruelly upon the sharp stones of the road.

He strode back to his courts on the wings of his anger, and as he went he took his sword out of its sheath, the Leopard’s fine steel sword, and he wiped it upon his thigh as he walked.

He went straight into the room where the woman lay in her bed, and she had not drawn the curtain because of the heat. There she lay, and the full moon of that night had risen over the wall of the court and its light fell upon her as she lay upon the bed. She lay naked for coolness and her hands were flung out and one lay curling and half open upon the edge of the bed.

But Wang the Tiger did not wait. Although he saw how fair she was and fair as an image of alabaster in the moonlight, and underneath his rage he knew there was a pain in him worse than death, he did not stay. For the moment he remembered willfully how she had tricked him and how she would have betrayed him, and in this strength he lifted up his sword and he drove it down smoothly and cleanly into her throat, upturned as her head hung over her pillow. He twisted it sharply once, and then he brought it out and wiped it on the silken coverlid.

There came a single sound from her lips but the blood choked it so he did not know what she said and she did not move except that the instant his sword was in her throat, her arms and legs flew up and her eyes burst open. Then she died.

But Wang the Tiger would not stop to think what he had done. No, he strode out into the court and he shouted, and his men came running, and he threw his commands at them harsh and sure in his anger. He had to go now without a moment’s delay to the succor of the Hawk and see if he could not reach the guns before the robbers did. All his men left he took with him except two hundred whom he left under the captaincy of his harelipped man and he led the others out himself.

As he passed through the gate he saw the old man who watched there come out of his bed yawning and dazed at all the sudden commotion and Wang the Tiger shouted at him as he rode by on his horse,

“There is something in my room where I sleep! Go and carry it out and fling it into a canal or some pond! See to it before I return!”

And Wang the Tiger rode on very high and proud and nursing his anger. But inside his breast it was as though his heart dripped blood secretly into his vitals and however he brooded and blew upon the flame of his anger, his heart dripped steadily and secretly within. And he groaned restlessly of a sudden, although none heard it in the dull thudding of horses’ feet upon the dusty road. Neither did Wang the Tiger himself know that he groaned over and over again.

All over that countryside did Wang the Tiger roam with his men that night and the next day, seeking the Hawk, and the sun beat down upon them for the day came windless. But Wang the Tiger would not let his men rest because he had that within himself which could not rest and toward the evening upon the highway that ran north and south he met the Hawk at the head of his band of walking soldiers. At first Wang the Tiger could not be sure if these were his own men for the Hawk had done what he had been told to do, and he had told his men to wear their ragged inner garments and tie a towel about their heads and Wang the Tiger had need to wait until they came near to see who they were.

But at last Wang the Tiger saw these were indeed his own men. He dismounted then from his red horse and sat down under a date tree that was there beside the road, for he was exceedingly spent from within, and he waited for the Hawk to come near. The more he waited the more afraid he grew that his anger might die down, and he forced himself to remember, with a furious pain, how he had been deceived. But the secret of his pain and anger was that although the woman was dead, yet he still loved her; although he was glad he had killed her, yet he longed for her with passion.

This angry pain made him very surly and when the Hawk was come Wang the Tiger growled at him, scarcely lifting his eyes, and his eyes nearly hidden under his brows,

“Well, I will swear you have not the guns!”

But the Hawk had a voluble good tongue of his own in that peaked face of his and he had a very ready and proud temper and this temper made him brave and he answered with heat, and without any courteous words,

“How did I know the robbers would have been told of the guns? They had been told by some spy or other and they went before us. How can I help it if they were told before you told me?” And as he spoke he threw his gun upon the ground and folded his arms on his bosom and he stared mutinously at his general, to show he would not be put down.

Then Wang the Tiger, seeing justice still, rose wearily from the grass where he sat and he stood under the date tree and leaned against its rough trunk, and he unbuckled his belt and drew it more tightly about him before he spoke. But at last he said wearily and with a great bitterness,

“I suppose all my good guns are gone, then. I shall have to fight the robbers for them. Well, if we must fight we will!” He shook himself impatiently and spat and roused himself and went on with more vigor, “Let us go and find them and press hard on them, and if half of you lie dead after the fray, why, then you are dead and I cannot help it! My guns I must have and if a gun costs me ten men or so, why, I will find ten men more for every gun and the gun is worth it!”

Then he mounted his horse again and held the beast hard when it danced to and fro with impatience that it was taken from the succulent grass that was there, and the Hawk stood there moodily watching and at last he said,

“I know well enough where the robbers are. They are gathering together in the old lair and I can swear they have the guns with them. Who their leader is I do not know, but they have been busy for a few days now, and have given the countryside peace while they gathered together, as though they were ready to choose a leader.”

Now Wang the Tiger knew well who their leader was to have been but he said no more except to give his men orders to march against that lair and he said,

“We will go there and you are to fire at them. When the firing is over, I will parley and every man who brings a gun may join my ranks. For every gun you see and pick up and bring to me you shall have a piece of silver.” And so saying, he mounted his horse once more.

Once more Wang the Tiger rode over the winding valley paths and over the low foothills until he came to the double-crested mountain, and his men came raggedly behind him. The farming folk looked up from their fields and wondered and the soldiers shouted,

“We go against the robbers!”

To this sometimes farmers made answer back heartily, “A good deed!” But more there were who said nothing and they looked sourly at the soldiers as they tramped into their fields of grain and cabbages and melons, because they did not believe that any good could come of soldiers, they were so weary of them.

Once more did Wang the Tiger ascend the foothills and at the base of the double-crested mountain where the pass wound up between cliffs, he dismounted and led his horse and so did all his men who rode. But he paid no heed to them. He walked along as though he were alone, his body bent to the mountain, and he thought of the woman and how strangely he had come to love her and he loved her still so that he was weeping in himself and he could scarcely see the mosses of the steps. But he would not repent that he had killed her. No, in spite of his love he understood in some dim part of him that such a woman who could deceive him so perfectly as she had when she accepted with smile and with frankness his passion, such a woman could only be true if she were dead, and he muttered to himself,