Melville Davisson Post

“ Colonel Swank went on:
“And it was carved in tiny English letters around the base with a legend, not badly worded for a pagan imitation of the Scriptures: ‘Inasmuch as you turned your head to save us, may He turn His head to save you’... No, I didn’t steal it. How could I steal it? There was a Chinese runner on each side of the chair. I was never out of sight of them, and they each had a knife. I delivered it to the Major.”
“Well, he didn’t get much for his trouble,” said Bow Bell. “It’s no good to be good!” ”

“ All the red chairs in the province had been commandeered to bring in the young daughters of the high Chinese residents, to the protection of the Viceroy. They sent what they had. Yellow is the Royal color in China. The Viceroy couldn’t use it.”
Bow Bell interrupted with a sort of vehemence.
“Damn it, man, get on. You’re the slowest brute I ever saw to get into a story. It was night when you set out with Major Dillard in the red chairs. How far was it to the monastery?” ”

“ Major Dillard explained that the Monastery was under the protection of the American Division; that it must not be disturbed; and requested the German officers to withdraw. They replied with a courtesy in which there was a high contempt; that as the American Division had passed on, and the German Company arrived on the ground, the Monastery was under the protection—they got a sneering, contemptuous note in the word—of the German Expeditionary Force, and they must insist on their right of control. ”

“ The whole country for a considerable distance on either side of the line of march was denuded of every article of value, even the venerated images of Buddha in the holy temple of Ten Thousand Ages were broken to pieces with dynamite, under the impression that they concealed articles of value. Of course, the Chinese population stowed away everything they could; but they could not hide the women, and they were not always able to conceal their treasures; such as carved ivory, cloisonné, vases, silks, furs, and the like. ”

“ Their jaws dropped; their very eyes bulged. The drunken ones were instantly sober. They recognized the black eagle and the signature of the German High Command. Every vestige of human initiative vanished out of them. Von Waldersee’s order was an ukase of the All Highest—the direction of the Emperor—a command of the War Lord. They formed in a line before the American, clicked their heels, and saluted. And he set them about the outside of the Monastery as a guard; and went away in his chair.”
Bow Bell threw himself forward from the iron drum of the tramp with a great cackle of laughter. ”

“ He did not wish the common soldiers to know what the monastery contained. I had some difficulty to convince Major Dillard; but as I have said, he had faith in my cloth.”
“Gawd,” said the gunman, and he spat violently on the deck. “Suppose he had been on to you, you damned old renegade. My word, you were in luck! ... Did they send a yellow chair?”
The placidity of Swank was unmoved.
“No,” he said, “as it happened, the chairs were red. It was some of the chairs in which the women had been brought in. You know, a bride in China is always sent to the house of her husband in a red chair. ”

“ Swank continued, “it was a discourse about the exaggerated value which devotees of a religion place upon their symbols. They all seem to feel that the sacredness of these symbols is an ample payment for any immensity of service. It is a very strange and universal belief. The English resident of a native state in India once received a gold Buddha for saving a Rajah’s life, and it was not even gold. ”

“ And, thus, this order put the German advance guard, of which these Prussians were officers under the command of the American General. It was the Emperor’s gracious return for the grant of the supreme command to von Waldersee. Major Dillard made no comment. He gave a curt order as though he were addressing a sergeant’s squad:
“The Prussians were to remain and guard the Monastery during the whole of the Allied occupation; nothing should be disturbed; they would be held responsible for every life and every article, and for the rigid preservation of order. ”

“ Colonel Swank continued in his dreary, monotonous voice.
“The Viceroy was too ill to rise; but he made a salute in the German fashion with his hand when Major Dillard entered; and he began at once to address the American through the Chinese official who accompanied us, and whose English was as good as my own. He asked for protection to the Monastery, and a guard; and extending his hand to the great storeroom through which we had passed, he offered the American anything that he wished in payment for this protection. ”

“ She must either wreck the majestic legend of her father, or degrade herself! As she had carried the thing along by various shifts since her father’s death, she could easily make it appear that she had, herself, embezzled this trust fund. ”

“ Marion Dillard replied with some polite appreciation of the thoughtfulness of the police for her security, and went on. At the end of the bronze fence, as she passed, she observed another figure crouched against the wall as though it also kept guard on her house; but it moved away as she approached, as though to conceal itself around the turn of the wall inclosing the spacious grounds. She smiled grimly. The watch kept on her would be efficient ”

“ Stay on for a little of the loot the American wouldn’t take?”
Colonel Swank resumed his narrative as though there had been no interruption.
“I remained,” he said, “though not entirely at my own initiative. The old Viceroy had drawn the conclusion from some remarks of Major Dillard that the white cross which the monks had put up before the gate of the Monastery was a protecting symbol of the great Christian religions, and that in some manner its effect on Major Dillard had produced the result which followed. ”

“ It was a carving in ivory representing the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth as I had described it, wrapped in a piece of black silk embroidered with a white cross, not worth a pound and six pence. The carving, a mediocre work of art, might have been worth a hundred dollars in America. ”

“ The base represented the roots of the tree spread out, so that the thing would stand in balance. Broken limbs represented the cross pieces to which the hands of the figure were nailed. The feet were spiked together on the trunk; the head thrown back, and encircled with a crown of thorns, made the entire top of the carving, that is to say, the top of the tree.”
“Well, for Gawd’s sake,” said Bow Bell. “A piece of carved elephant’s tusk for a job like that! ... ”