Achmed Abdullah

“ I did it on a woman’s instinct——”
“Blessed be woman’s instinct!” said the Levantine. “It’s a much more powerful weapon than man’s logic.” He was out of the room, and a moment later, looking from the window, they saw him cross the back courtyard and swing himself across the Shameen wall into the hotel grounds.
While they waited for his return, the mandarin told her about the power and influence of the little vase—and a queer tale it was, reaching into the dawn of legendary antiquity, stretching on, through the gray, swinging centuries, into the present era. ”

“ For it appeared that, hundreds of years earlier, at the time when Chi Huang-Ti, the ruler of the Chinese feudatory states which laid the foundation of the Celestial Empire, began to build the Great Wall of China and to fortify old Peking as the only means of stopping the marauding Mongol horsemen, a sainted priest was given two tiny vases by a wandering monk—the Buddha himself, the legends told—with the injunction to guard them well. For whoever possessed these vases, Chinese or foreigner, would by the strength of them have dominion over China. ”

“ Hunyagu Khan left, to return a few moments later, ushering in a veiled woman, clad in the height of fashion of the Mongolian plains.
“The narrow-footed one!” he introduced and laughed, while the newcomer took off her face-veil, showing the smiling face of Marie Campbell!
“Hello, everybody!” she said, and to the Levantine: “I always did pity Oriental women—to-day more than ever. ”

“ They cut through the throng as a knife cuts through cheese, shouting insults and defying words at every body, and belaboring with a beautiful impartiality the backs and thighs and heads of merchants and peasants alike. ”

“ And she cut through their excited buzz of expostulations with: “Send some of Hunyagu Khan’s servants with me—Buddhists. I don’t suppose all his people are Moslems. While I am gone, communicate with the Chuen to yan—can you?”
“Yes,” said the Manchu. “One of my spies is quite near. But——”
“Tell the Chuen to yan I have the vase. Then bring him with you to the Temple of Horrors. And—Pavel Kokoshkine—don’t forget to bring him, too, whatever else you do.”
“But what do you expect to do?” demanded Moses d’Acosta.
“Are you a poker player?” ”

“ But it swept over them like a typhoon, and steadily they seemed to crystallize their one purpose—the Shameen—the hated foreigners there! And the mob gathered strength and volume, rolled on relentlessly, and it took all the physical force and all the diplomacy of the Chuen to yan’s picked agents to keep them from their purpose. “Not yet!” the Chuen to yan had ordered. “We will not fight the foreigner—not unless we have to. ”

“ Oh, yes—I told you, that it is strange indeed how the fate of the many millions depends always from a woman’s jeweled earrings. Miss Campbell,” he added, “have I your permission to speak once more about the little Tchou-fou-yao vase?” ”

“ And do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because at times there is an idea——”
“In the jeweled earrings, Miss Campbell?”
“No. In the feminine brains behind the jeweled earrings. You’ll forgive me—won’t you?—if I pat myself on the back.”
She laughed, but when, a few moments later, Moses d’Acosta returned and gave her the little vase, she grew serious. Dominion—she thought, as her fingers touched the cool bit of porcelain—dominion and power in this small piece of glazed clay! $She looked at it, wondered. ”