The Black-Bearded Barbarian - Mary Esther Miller MacGregor (books to read as a couple .txt) 📗

of the missionary’s prayer. They arose from their knees, and he turned to A Hoa with that quick challenging movement his students had learned to know so well.

“Come,” he said, “we are going back to Bang-kah.”

And A Hoa, whose habit it was to walk into all danger with a smile, answered with all his heart: “It is well, Kai Bok-su; we go back to Bang-kah.”

And straight back to this Gibraltar the little army of two marched. It was quite dark by the time they entered. A Formosan city is not the blaze of electricity to which Westerners are accustomed, and only here and there in the narrow streets shone a dim light. The travelers stumbled along, scarcely knowing whither they were going. As they turned a dark corner and plunged into another black street they met an old man hobbling with the aid of a staff over the uneven stones of the pavement. Mackay spoke to him politely and asked if he could tell him of any one who would rent a house. “We want to do mission work,” he added, feeling that he must not get anything under false pretenses.

The old man nodded. “Yes, I can rent you my place,” he answered readily. “Come with me.”

Full of amazement and gratitude the two adventurers groped their way after him, stumbling over stones and heaps of rubbish. They could not help realizing, as they got farther into the city, that should the old man prove false and give an alarm the whole murderous populace of that district would be around them instantly like a swarm of hornets. But whether he was leading them into a trap or not their only course was to follow.

At last he paused at a low door opening into the back part of a house. The old man lighted a lamp, a pith wick in a saucer of peanut oil, and the visitors looked around. The room was damp and dirty and infested with the crawling creatures that fairly swarm in the Chinese houses of the lower order. Rain dripped from the low ceiling on the mud floor, and the meager furniture was dirty and sticky.

But the two young men who had found it were delighted. They felt like the advance guard of an army that has taken the enemy’s first outpost. They were established in Bang-kah! They set to work at once to draw out a rental paper. A Hoa sat at the table and wrote it out so that they might be within the law which said that no foreigner must hold property in Bang-kah. When the paper was signed and the money paid, the old man crept stealthily away.

He had his money, but he was too wary to let his fellow citizens find how he had earned it.

As soon as morning came the little army in the midst of the hostile camp hoisted its banner. When the citizens of Bang-kah awoke, they found on the door of the hut the hated sign, in large Chinese characters, “Jesus’ Temple.”

In less than an hour the street in front of it was thronged with a shouting crowd. Before the day was past the news spread, and the whole city was in an uproar. By the next afternoon the excitement had reached white heat, and a wild crowd of men came roaring down the street. They hurled themselves at the little house where the missionaries were waiting and literally tore it to splinters. The screams of rage and triumph were so horrible that they reminded Mackay of the savage yells of the headhunters.

When the mob leaped upon the roof and tore it off, the two hunted men slipped out through a side door, and across the street into an inn. The crowd instantly attacked it, smashing doors, ripping the tiles off the roof, and uttering such bloodthirsty howls that they resembled wild beasts far more than human beings. The landlord ordered the missionaries out to where the mob was waiting to tear them limb from limb.

It was an awful moment. To go out was instant death, to remain merely put off the end a few moments. Mackay, knowing his source of help, sent up a desperate prayer to his Father in heaven.

Suddenly there was a strange lull in the street outside. The yells ceased, the crashing of tiles stopped. The door opened, and there in his sedan-chair of state surrounded by his bodyguard, appeared the Chinese mandarin. And just behind him—blessed sight to the eyes of Kai Bok-su—Mr. Scott, the British consul of Tamsui!

Without a word the two British-born clasped hands. It was not an occasion for words. There was immediately a council of war. The mandarin urged the British consul to send the missionary out of the city.

“I have no authority to give such an order,” retorted Mr. Scott quickly. “On the other hand you must protect him while he is here. He is a British subject.”

Mackay’s heart swelled with pride. And he thanked God that his Empire had such a worthy representative.

Having again impressed upon the mandarin that the missionary must be protected or there would be trouble, Mr. Scott set off for his home. Mackay accompanied him to the city gate. Then he turned and walked back through the muttering crowds straight to the inn he had left. He stopped occasionally to pull a tooth or give medicine for malaria, for even in Bang-kah he had a few friends.

The mandarin was now as much afraid of the missionary as if he had been the plague. He knew he dared not allow him to be touched, and he also knew he had very little power over a mob. He was responsible, too, to men in higher office, for the control of the people, and would be severely punished if there was a riot.

He was indeed in a very bad way when he heard that the troublesome missionary had come back, and he followed him to the inn to try to induce him to leave.

He found Mackay with A Hoa, quietly seated in their room. First he commanded, then he tried to bribe, and then he even descended to beg the “foreign devil” to leave the city. But Mackay was immovable.

“I cannot leave,” he said, touched by the man’s distress. “I cannot quit this city until I have preached the gospel here.” He held up his forceps and his Bible. “See! I use these to relieve pain of the body, and this gives relief from sin,—the disease of the soul. I cannot go until I have given your people the benefit of them.”

The mandarin went away enraged and baffled. He could not persuade the man to go; he dared not drive him out. He left a squad of soldiers to guard the place, however, remembering the British consul’s warning.

In a few days the excitement subsided. People became accustomed to seeing the barbarian teacher and his companion go about the streets. Many were relieved of much pain by him too, and a large number listened with some interest to the new doctrine he taught concerning one God.

He had been there a week when some prominent citizens came to him with a polite offer. They would give him free a piece of ground outside the city on which to build a church. Kai Bok-su’s flashing black eyes at once saw the bribe. They wanted to coax him out when they could not drive him. He refused politely but firmly.

“I own that property,” he declared, pointing to the heap of ruins into which his house had been turned, “and there I will build a church.”

They did everything in their power to prevent him, but one day, many months after, right on the site where they had literally torn the roof from above him, arose a pretty little stone church, and that was the beginning of great things in Bang-kah.

And so Gibraltar was taken,—taken by an army of two,—a Canadian missionary and a Chinese soldier of the King, for behind them stood all the army of the Lord of hosts, and he led them to victory!

CHAPTER IX. OTHER CONQUESTS.

Away over on the east of the island ran a range of beautiful mountains. And between these mountains and the sea stretched a low rice plain. Here lived many Pe-po-hoan,— “Barbarians of the plain.” Mackay had never visited this place, for the Kap-tsu-lan plain, as it was called, was very hard to reach on account of the mountains; but this only made the dauntless missionary all the more anxious to visit it.

So one day he suggested to his students, as they studied in his house on the bluff, that they make a journey to tell the people of Kap-tsu-lan the story of Jesus. Of course, the young fellows were delighted. To go off with Kai Bok-su was merely transferring their school from his house to the big beautiful outdoors. For he always taught them by the way, and besides they were all eager to go with him and help spread the good news that had made such a difference in their lives. So when Kai Bok-su piled his books upon a shelf and said, “Let us go to Kap-tsu-lan,” the young fellows ran and made their preparations joyfully. A Hoa was in Tamsui at the time, and Mackay suggested that he come too, for a trip without A Hoa was robbed of half its enjoyment.

Mackay had just recovered from one of those violent attacks of malaria from which he suffered so often now, and he was still looking pale and weak. So Sun-a, a bright young student-lad, came to the study door with the suggestion, “Let us take Lu-a for Kai Bok-su to ride.”

There was a laugh from the other students and an indulgent smile from Kai Bok-su himself. Lu-a was a small, rather stubborn-looking donkey with meek eyes and a little rat tail. He was a

present to the missionary from the English commissioner of customs at Tamsui, when that gentleman was leaving the island.

Donkeys were commonly used on the mainland of China, and though an animal was scarcely ever ridden in Formosa, horses being almost unknown, the commissioner did not see why his Canadian friend, who was an introducer of so many new things, should not introduce donkey-riding. So he sent him Lu-a as a farewell present and leaving this token of his good-will departed for home.

Up to this time Lu-a had served only as a pet and a joke among the students, and high times they had with him in the grassy field behind the missionary’s house when lessons were over. In great glee they brought him round to the door now, “all saddled and bridled” and ready for the trip. The missionary mounted, and Lu-a trotted meekly along the road that wound down the bluff toward Kelung. The students followed in high spirits. The sight of their teacher astride the donkey was such a novel one to them, and Lu-a was such a joke at any time, that they were filled with merriment. All went well until they left the road and turned into a path that led across the buffalo common. At the end of it they came to a ravine about fifteen feet deep. Over this stretched. a plank bridge not more than three feet wide. Here Lu-a came to a sudden stop. He had no mind to risk his small but precious body on that shaky structure. His rider bade him “go on,” but the command only made Lu-a put back his ears, plant his fore feet well forward and stand stock still. In fact he looked much more settled and immovable than the bridge over which he was being urged. The students gathered round him and petted and coaxed.

They called him “Good Lu-a” and “Honorable Lu-a” and every other flattering