Pearl Buck - Sons

But Wang the Tiger grew surly as the summer wore on, and he cursed the heat and the myriads of flies that breeded upon the piles of filth the many soldiers must make, and the mosquitoes that came out of the stagnant moat, and he thought with impatience of the city where his own courts were and where his two wives waited for him, and all his anger made him not so kind as he had been and his men grew very lawless and he let them be so.

There came one night in the time of the great heat, a very hot bright moonlight night and Wang the Tiger walked outside his tent for coolness, for he could not sleep. He walked alone except for his bodyguard who strolled yawning and half asleep behind him as he walked to and fro. And Wang stared as he ever did at the walls of the city and they stood high and black in the moonlight and it seemed unconquerable to him. And as he stared he grew very angry again, and indeed his anger was never cooled in these days, and he swore to himself very bitterly that he would make every man and woman and even the children in the city suffer for all the discomfort of this war he was waging. At that moment he saw a moving spot upon the blackness of the wall, a spot more black and moving downward. He stared and stood still. At first he could not believe he saw it but the longer he stood and stared the more he could see that there was something small and dark moving like a crab among the vines and the dry small trees that clung to that old wall. At last he saw that it was a man. Yes, the man reached the bottom and he dropped and came out into the moonlight and Wang the Tiger saw that he waved a white cloth.

Then Wang the Tiger commanded that one go to meet him bearing a white flag also, and he commanded that the man be brought to him and he stood and waited there and he strained his sight to see what this man was. When the man was come he threw himself at Wang the Tiger’s feet and beat his head on the ground to beg for mercy. But Wang the Tiger shouted,

“Stand him on his feet and let me see him!”

Two soldiers came forward then and lifted the man and Wang the Tiger stared and as he stared he grew so angry that he felt a thickness in his throat, for this man was not yet starved. No, gaunt he was and very thin and black, but he was not starved and Wang the Tiger bellowed,

“Are you come to surrender the city?”

And the man said, “No, the chief will not surrender yet for he still has food, and we who are about him have some food given us every day. The people starve, it is true, but we can let them, and we are able to hold out yet awhile and we hope for help from the south for we have let a man over the wall secretly to go for it.”

At this Wang the Tiger felt very insecure and he said doubtfully, holding back his anger as best he could,

“Why have you come if not to surrender?”

And the man said sullenly, “I do come only for my own sake. The general under whom I serve has used me very ill. Yes, he is only a coarse and hateful creature, wild and untutored, and I am a man of gentle blood. My father was even a scholar and I am used to courtesy. He has put me to great shame before my own soldiers. Now a man may forgive much, but he can never forgive being put to shame and it is insult not only to me but to my ancestors for whom I stand in these times, and his ancestors were, if he knows them at all, such as would be held serfs by mine.”

“But how could he put you to such shame as this?” asked Wang the Tiger, and he was secretly much astonished at this turn.

And the man answered with a sullen passion, “He belittled me for the way I held my gun and this is my greatest skill and I can fell what I aim for without a miss.”

Then a light began to come over Wang the Tiger, for well he knew that laughter and belittling can breed the bitterest hatred in a man’s heart even against a friend, and a man will do anything for revenge if shame is put on him, especially if he be a high proud fellow such as this man was in his looks. And Wang the Tiger said plainly,

“Tell me what your price is.”

Then the man looked about him and here were the soldiers of Wang the Tiger’s bodyguard, listening and their mouths ajar, and he bent and whispered,

“Let me go into your tent with you where I can speak out.”

Then Wang the Tiger turned and strode into his tent and he commanded the man to be brought there and he left no more soldiers with him than five or six or so to guard against possible treachery from this man. But there was no treachery in this one, only revenge, and so Wang the Tiger found, for the man said,

“I am so filled with hatred and rage that I am willing to climb back over the wall and open the gate to you and I ask only one thing, that you will take me under your own banners and the few men who follow me whom I do not hate, and protect us, lest if the robber is not killed, I shall be sought for and killed, for he is a bitter enemy.”

But Wang the Tiger would not have such generous help free and unrewarded with no more than this, and so he said, looking hard at the man as he stood before him between the two soldiers who held him,

“You are a very proper man not to bear insult and no good fellow will. I am glad to have so good and brave a man with me. Go back, then, and tell your fellows and all the soldiers that I will take them under my own banners, all who surrender themselves and their guns, and not one of them shall be killed. As for you, you shall be a captain in my army, and I will give you two hundred pieces of silver and five pieces to every man with his gun that you bring also.”

Then the man’s twisted face lightened and he cried warmly, “You are such a general as I have been searching for all my life long, and I will surely open the gate to you at the moment when the sun is at its zenith on this very day now dawning!”

With this the man turned abruptly and went back and Wang the Tiger rose and went out of his tent and watched the man as he climbed nimbly and skillfully over the wall, catching hold of the roots and the gnarled trees as a monkey might, and so he climbed and disappeared over the wall.

By now the sun rose like a copper rim over the edge of the fields and Wang the Tiger commanded his men to be roused but quietly and without any noise lest some enemy see a commotion and suspect a new plan. But many of the men knew already that one had come out of the city and they had risen in the night and made ready without lighting a single torch. And indeed the light of the moon had been so bright that it was like a pale sun and the men could see such things even as how their triggers were set and where a string should pass through the eyelet of a shoe. By full sunrise every man was in his place and Wang the Tiger gave orders that to each meat should be given to eat and a full deep drink of wine to make his heart warm and brave, and thus fed and comforted the soldiers waited for the drum to beat that would send them forward.

Then as the sun rose high and full and beat down with a breathless heat upon the plain where the city lay, Wang the Tiger shouted from where he stood and his men gathered as they had been told to do in six long lines and when they heard their general shout every man shouted also, and the noise ran like an echo among them. And as they shouted every man lifted his weapon in his hands, each man a gun and a knife, and they all ran forward. Some crossed the moat by the bridge, but many ran across the shallow moat and clambered dripping up the further bank and they pressed against the city wall and clustered about the north gate. But the captains would not let Wang the Tiger stand too near the front, for they did not know at this last moment whether the man would be true or not or whether there would be treachery. Yet Wang the Tiger trusted the man because he knew that revenge is the surest sort of hatred.