Pearl Buck - Sons

Thus they waited, and not a sound came out of that city, and there was no sound of guns upon the city wall. Then as the sun swung upwards into its place in the zenith, Wang the Tiger stood stiff and watching, and he saw that great iron gate swing a little and one stooped and peered and there was a little crack of light along its top. He shouted once, and they rushed forward and Wang the Tiger with them and they pressed against the gate and burst it wide and they poured into the streets of that city like water freed from a dam, and the siege was ended.

Then Wang the Tiger did not stand a moment, but he commanded to be led instantly to the palace where the robber chief lived, and he shouted and roared at his men that they were not free yet and not until he had found the old chief. Then swiftly because of the haste of their greed his men hurried him to that palace, asking as they went and laying ruthless hold on any terrified man they saw. But when Wang the Tiger entered the courts of that palace with a great flourish of drums and bugles it was empty, for the robber chief had fled. How he had known of the betrayal could not be said, but as Wang the Tiger’s men had poured into the north gate the old robber and his loyal followers escaped out of the south gate and were fleeing across the countryside. Wang the Tiger hearing this from soldiers who had not gone with him rushed upon the south wall of the city and looked out and far in the distance he could see but a flying cloud of dust. He was in two minds for a while whether or not to pursue it, but it came to him that he had what he wanted and it was the city and the key to this region, and what did a robber and his few men mean?

So he went down then and back into the deserted palace, and there the many soldiers of the enemy who were left came to do obeisance and to beg his protection. He was pleased to see their number, for they came to him as he sat in the chief hall, and they came in tens and in twenties, the thinnest, most haggard men he had ever seen except in famine years. But they had their weapons and when they knelt before him and held out their hands to show their submission, Wang the Tiger accepted them and ordered that every man be fed as much as he was able to eat and that he be given five pieces of silver. But when the man who had betrayed the robber chief came in at the head of his company Wang the Tiger gave him the two hundred pieces of silver he had promised him and he gave it with his own hands and he commanded that captain’s garb be brought and given to the man, too. Thus did Wang the Tiger remember what the man had done for him, and he rewarded him and took him into his own ranks.

When this was all finished then Wang the Tiger knew that the time had come when he must redeem his promise to his men, for he had held them as long as he could and they would not be longer held. And Wang the Tiger gave the command for their freedom, wishing he need not while he did. It was a strange thing that now that he had what he wanted his anger against the people was gone, and he shrank from making them suffer. Yet he must keep his word, too, to his men, and when he had given them their freedom for three days he shut himself into the palace and closed the gates and he was alone except for his bodyguard. Yet even these hundred men or so were very restless and demanded their turn, and at last Wang the Tiger had to tell them off and call others back in their place, and when these others came in with their eyes all red and lustful and their faces dark and flushed so that they could not subdue their wild looks, Wang the Tiger turned his eyes away and he would not think of what was going on in that city. When his nephew, whom he kept always by him, grew curious to go out and see what was to be seen, Wang the Tiger burst out on him, glad of one on whom he could with reason fix his anger, and he roared, “Shall my own blood go ravening out like these coarse and common men?”

And he would not let the young man move out of his sight, and kept him busy about his person fetching this or that to eat or to drink or some change he must have in his garments, and when weak cries came through even into the fast closed courts, Wang the Tiger was more imperious and more angry than ever with his nephew, so that the youth was kept all in a sweat with his uncle’s temper, and he did not dare to answer him a word.

The truth was that Wang the Tiger could not be cruel unless he was angry, and indeed this was a weakness in a lord of war that he could only kill in anger, whose means to glory is death, and he knew it was his weakness that he could not kill coldly or carelessly or for a cause. And he thought it weakness that he could not keep his anger against the people and he told himself he ought still to hate them because they had been so dull and stubborn and had not thought of a way to open the gates to him. Yet when his soldiers came sheepishly to ask for their food, he cried at them in a confusion of fury and pain,

“What, must I feed you even when you loot?”

To this they made answer, “There is not a handful of grain in this whole city and we cannot eat gold and silver and silks. These we find but no food, for the farmers are still afraid to come in with their produce.”

And Wang the Tiger suffered and was sullen because he saw that what they said was true and he could not but order them fed, although when he did, he shouted in his surliest tones. But once he heard a hearty rude fellow cry coarsely,

“Yes, and the wenches are all so thin they are liked plucked fowls and there is no pleasure in them at all!”

Then suddenly Wang the Tiger could not bear his life and he went away into a room by himself and he sat and groaned for a while before he could harden himself again. But he did harden himself once more. He thought of the fair lands and he thought how he had enlarged his power and how he had in this war more than doubled the country over which he ruled, and he told himself that it was his trade and his means of greatness and last and best he thought of the two women he had and how from one of them surely his son would be born, and he cried to his own heart,

“Cannot I for that one bear that others should somewhat suffer for three little days?”

Thus he hardened himself for the three days and he held himself to his promised word.

But on the dawn of the fourth day he rose up early from his restless bed and he ordered signals given and horns blown everywhere and it was a sign to all his soldiers that their looting was over and they must come back to his commands. And because he rose up that morning more than usually fierce and black in his looks and his black brows darted up and down over his eyes, none dared to disobey him.

No, none except one. As Wang the Tiger strode out of the gate that had been fast locked these three days he heard a feeble crying in an alley near by, and being made oversensitive to these cries now, he turned his long steps there to see what it was. In that alley he saw a soldier of his on his way back to the ranks, but he had seen an old woman pass and on her finger was a thin, gold ring, a poor, small, worthless thing, too, for the old woman was only some working wife, and she could not have any great good thing. But the soldier had been overcome with a sudden desire for the last bit of gold and he wrenched at the old woman’s hand and she cried out at him, wailing,

“It has been on my finger nigh upon thirty years and how can I loose it now?”

And the soldier was in such haste, for the bugle was blowing, that there before his own eyes Wang the Tiger saw the man whip out his knife and cut off the old woman’s finger clean, and her poor scanty blood had still strength enough to spurt out in a feeble stream. Then Wang the Tiger gave a great roaring curse, for the soldier had not seen him he was in such haste, and Wang the Tiger sprang at the soldier and he drew out his keen blade as he sprang and drove it straight through the man’s body. Yes, although it was his own man Wang the Tiger did it, because his anger came up in him so to see this wretched, starved creature dealt with as she had been before his very eyes. The soldier fell without a sigh and his own blood gushed out in a hearty, red stream. As for the old woman she was terrified at such fierceness, even if it was to succor her, and she wrapped her smarting stump in her old apron and ran and hid herself somewhere and Wang the Tiger did not see her again.