Adventure Magazine Cover — page 115: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TREASURE seemed that he paused in choosing what kind of lie to tell; then he said: “No. Her mother was, as you call it, a toy-woman. ‘The man she loved would not heed a mere woman’s words when she prayed against his enemies. She knew one time there was poison in his wine cup, and that he might be saved and warned, she rushed from the women’s quarters while he sat at dinner with friends who were enemies. She snatched the cup from his uplifted hand. For such rude manners there was only death. She drank the wine that was on the way to his lips, and died. He was a pow- erful man in the land and so killed many enemies that her spirit might be made happy and his own life more secure. But whom the Manchus hate must die before his time, so the father of Po-Shu died. The mother’s name was Po-Shu, which is to say, great treasure. The girl-child of such a woman must too have a great treasure-heart. Do you not think so?” “That’s her tale,” said Heddon. “T guess a Chink girl can lie as well as a white—little better from what you’ve just said. Has more imagination. If all that’s true, where’d she learn her English? And how get toSydney? And into the hands of that snake charmer?”’ T’eeay Layeen nodded gravely; however he may have been irritated by the rudeness of this big barbarian who showed scant cour- tesy, but something very like bold honesty, the Chinaman’s composure did not for a mo- _ment flicker. “In China,” he said slowly, ‘some China government men make it that some little girls be taught to sing, to dance, to play music, to speak English. Foreign-devil officials, though good Christian men, like pretty Chinese girls, and put them into pretty houses where nobody can see, visit them often and talk. The girl listens and if a clever girl, coaxes. What the foreign- devil official tells her, she tells to the China government man. Po-Shu was to be such a one. But a China government man thought it better to have her for himself. As he was an evil man who kept the tax money, the gods who rule over the punish- ment of men gave his junk to me. All the gold he could get his friends to send for the ransom was no more than enough to buy his own head from under the sword. Sol kept the girl Po-Shu. “In the foreign devil city of Sydney, 109 among the gifts I made to the half-white Chinaman who there was my comprador, was the treasure-hearted Po-Shu, for though half-white the comprador was not dishon- est. White devil men who serve the law broke into his house at night to find the Chinese girl they had heard was there, and in running to hide as she was told, Po-Shu opened the wrong door and went out into the darkness. She was frightened. She turned this way, that way, and was lost. “A man and a woman saw her in the shadows by the side of the street. The wo- man said, ‘Come with us, and we will take you to your friends.’ It was that woman who has the snake. Po-Shu was frightened when she saw they were not to be friends. To make them afraid to keep her, Po-Shu told them the comprador was an English agent who had brought her from China as a gift to a prince in India. ‘The child had heard of India, but did not know it was far off. She said that great search would be made. That they must take her back to the comprador. Instead they made her body black like a negro’s body and took her with them from one ship to another.” “You know,” said Heddon, thoughtfully piecing together with this story what he re- called that Madame had told him of Po- Shu, ‘I almost believe that tale.” ‘““A woman’s heart is like the little needle. One may point it this way, that way, and it stays as you point it until it comes near the lodestone. Then it turns. You may hold it as you wish, but you can not keep from it the desire to go to the lode- stone. If there is one who can explain this, that one maybe can explain why Po-Shu has the desire to be your slave. She does not know why. She feels only the desire. As her mother drank of the snatched wine cup, so would she die for you. The woman who has the treasure-heart has no desire to live longer than she can serve her lord. She has asked,” said the imperturbable Chinaman, “af Tam willing you can buy her from me.” “Buy her!” said Heddon explosively. “What for? What with? What would I do with her? I don’t want her. Haven’t said ten words to her. If this sort of thing’s go- ing on behind my back, I won’t even look at her again. ———! what would I do with her even if I wanted her? And I don’t!” “And I have told her,” said T’eeay Lay- een, just as if he had not listened to Hed- don’s protest, “that the one moment we COMICOoOokKSs C©