Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 31, Number 352, 27 January 1907 — Page 9

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'By ft. NOSIER

Lvpyri&nt, 19 j6, Ihemas H. McKte. M AII NENG, the little mother, sat among the cold embers wailing and . scattering handful of ashes over her head, while Fong Quong ran through the streets crying, "Loo Puck! Loo PuckT Oh, little peach blossom of thy father's garden, where art thou?" An hour before she had been playing, her tiny baby brother astride her hip, with a troop of small heathen outside the bazaar door, while her "father-sat inside and sipped sam-shu with his cronies. One moment he looked out and smiled at his merry little girl, with her rosy cheeks set in her shining hair like an Oriental pearl in a clasp of jet. The next moment he looked she was gone! The other youngsters were still playing at their games, laughing; whooping like little fiends of mirthland, scampering hither and yon with pigtails trailing tassels of red silken floss at their heels, the merry imps played as if nothing had happend." Reassured, Pong Quong had calmly questioned them. They flocked about him. '"Oh, she is here I She is there! She is hiding in that old barrel, revered sirel" they had severally chirruped. "I saw the fengshin (earth-devils) catch and eat her," cried one tiny rascal, more imaginative than the rest. Hut she was not here nor there, nor in the old barrel, nor in the cellars, nor the doorways nor the alleys. Loo Puck, the little celestial maiden of thirteen years, whose beauty was like the ripenes of peaches, like the tulips of Hanoi, was gone. And that is why the rice pot yawned empty of chow, and the little mother, Mali Neng, sat in its place among the cold embers crying out her grief, while Fong Quong roamed the alleys calling, calling . mournfully for his lirst-born though she tvere only a girl! When he came back to the bazaar at nightfall Mali Neng still sat at her weeping; did not even raise her head, for she knew that h.s ,-arch had been fruitless. The youthful heir to the nouse of Fong, finding himself neglected, was contenting himself by s-olemnly scutfimg in a corner with the kittens, while three Citing puppies licked his toes and gapped their disapproval of his preferences for feline playmates. lorig picked the little boy up and coddled hini in his arms. 'Hast thou called in the blue-coated, fat-bellies of the white pigs, and hast thou summoned to council the wise" ones oi thy long? , bonie base villians of the ilark alleys hath stolen our Loo Puck and hidden her in a nest of foulness; why. may not wisdom and blood money bring her back?" "I have considered these things The high man of the bluccoats has sent out his best terras. Our mighty ones have sent men with cunning eyes and padded feet into dens where the white pis cannot go but Loo Puck was not in them. cuame the vile po tau tsi (highbinders) have taken i.er to some II ouse of Dreadful fJoom and arc holiing her for ransom, lie! I know. not! except that my bcurt is very sad and I mourn for my lily bud. Loo Puck. Aie! Aie!" " ' . The little mother arose and slipped her fat -;.ct into sandals. ' " , "I go to the temple and beseech Kum Tah Too Yum (Goddess oi Women) foe her help that Loo Puck come to no harm." .."Aid-Aid" cried Pong Quong to himself when she had gone, "had 1 but sold her only two days ago to illustrious Chung Wo, the great one of the Suey Sings, I would now have a thousand yen. But how can one of the Hop Sam Tong sell the flesh of his flesh to a Suey Sing? Besides I have promised her in marriage to our cousin. Hut Lucy Chen will have none of her now, though she be-found again. Aie! .Aie! It is hard, indeed to lose, one's woman-child or a thousand yen !" ' As he .' sat lamenting" with the rolypoly youngster ruddled in the hollow of his arm. the draught from beneath the loosely hung door to die broken chimney wafted a tiny bit of rice paper across the floor. He laid the baby tenderly on a mat and picked up the bit of paper. Spread open, the flimsy billet displayed a line of scraggy Chinese characters rudely brushed in dark green ink., He read:

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THE SHARP POINT OF A KNIFE PRICKED - INTO HIS THROAT "Sed no more thy flozrcring rose lest thou find but a tveei tten of the frost. And finding even this, percfvancs ..iou lose thy son and thine outt head, also. It is spoken? ; T Fong Quong sprang to the door, he looked into the alley. Outside the door he ran against Luey Chen, the young

I IN THIS COMPLETE STORY, I "The Brotherhood of Six," Charles K. Moser has given us a flashlight glimpse that pierces through the s veil of mystery usually shrouding the Chinaman and his darksome haunts from Western eyes. In this 9 story the Chinaman ceases for the moment to be a yellow, incomprehensible automaton. The "ways that O

2, are dark" are illumined and we can understand and S3'mpatrrize with the little celestial maiden, with the bereft father and mother, with the outraged feelings of the .courageous lover, and rejoice in the fate that $ overtakes the illustrious Chung Wo. The author knows Chinatown and its denizens and possesses S power to make them known to his reader. ? Jerome Uhl, the artist who has illustrated The Brotherhood of Six," shares thi3 intimate knowl- $ edge with the author. He uses no lay dummies for his models, but draws from the living, moving figS ures of Chinese in the innermost recesses of the burrows they call homs. The pictures he presents are

fin consequence instinct with the spirit of a people that has always been and seem destined always to remain an unsolvable puzzle to the great body of Caucasians. i -- j 6oo$Jo$$oxo83o!

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"AH. LISTEN NOW. FRAGRANT LITTLE JASMINE FLOWER."

son of his mother's sister. Chen gripped his blouse by the full skirt. "What devil's news is this the street dog bark of the maid thou hast promised me for wife?" "Aie, most noble of kinsmen, it is true what thou hearest. But I swear to thec, by the sacred shade of our grandsire, that mine is not the fault." "How is it that this thing has occurred?" the younger man questioned, and Fong Quong told him. Luey Chen was shrewd. Lnder his smooth, young skin there dwelt an ancient soul that was wondrous wise in the ways of evil, and it was told of him in the cabalistic books of the na-tnan (sorcerers) that in former incarnations he had been a weaseL "Thy maid," he breathed in Fong Quong's ear, "had lips like the cherries for ripeness. Her beauty was as the perfume of violets; which maketh a man catch his breath with its sweetness. Canst be that J, alone of many men, desired her? It seems not so to me. What others have sought of thee" to have her? Speak sortly, cousin, softly." "Aie," answered Fong. "One only, yet. But two days ago, this night, the illustrious Chung Wo, whom thou knowest is mightiest of all the Suey Sings did offer me a a thousand of the white pigs" yen to make her his young wife. But because she was promised to thee and because she was but young and small and the flower of my heart d would not mate her with his gray hairs. Tis thus that 1 have lost at least a thousand silver yen and Loo Puck, too"; and I a poor man !' Luey Chen breathed quickly; the passing breath fanned his eyes to spurts of flame. "Thou wouldst not sell her to him ? "Nay, and the great one waxed a morsel wroth. But afterward we sipped from the teacups of delightful friendship, and he bought of my un worthiness a silken tunic." Aye, he did all that, I will not doubt," and Chen's.lips curled. "He is no fool. But thou thou art a thing of wood and hast no more brains than a tomtom." "Hear me, guileless cousin! Heed thou the warning rice paper and seek no more thy Loo Puck. But keep thy whining tongue , between thy teeth and tell it not" even in thy prayers that thou hast told me this thing. It may be that 1 will tind Loo Puck for thee and thou wilt then give her to me." He turned and slipped through the clanging door into the fi-gozv chamber of the Gate of Fortune. Fong Quong, more quiet in his mind, shuffled to his dingy home behind the bazaar, where Mah Neng and her tiny son slumbered together on the rice mats. But Luey Chen slept not. At the pi-gour table lie slyly touched a gaming youth upon the sleeve: " When the cock , crows twice tha roost . is full, he said very softly. The gambler' did not give him a glance. Sometime after Chen went, he gathered up his w innings and casually strolled out of the den. Five times that night, in five different palaces of pleasure, Luey Chen stealthily touched a youth and whispered under his breath, "When the cock crows twice the roost is full." Not a man seemed to notice him, but afterward each left what business he was doing and disappeared. . At two o'clock in the morning; when all Chinatown

was stuporous with sleep and opium, Luey Chen ana the five chosen striplings squatted together in a little room where only a single candle gleamed. In the center of the huddle of men on the flcor lay a black cock of Shanghai, bound and muffled; a shallow bronze bowl, a heavy keen-bladed knife and hypodermic needle were near the rooster. "Brothers," Luey Chen spoke solemnly, when a bar of iron had been wedged across the door, "there is

window. The four panes, each no wider than a hand's breadth, were grimy with dirt, the accumulations of years. All the windows that spotted the square court, like flyspecks on kaolin walls, were similar; here and there a little painted face peered out through the iron bars, smiling sometimes, a sad, wistful smile. But this window was high up; a face pressed against it could not be seen from the yard below. The room itself was not so bad, save that its finery was frayed and soiled with the musty odor of aging tilth. In one corner there was a low couch covered with mats. On the mats lay a little girl. She was weeping softly, her head buried in her arms. The heavy door swung back on its hinges without a warning creak, and a man came into the room a fat old man with mirthful features, an upper lip like the foreshortened snout of a tapir, eyes that glistened like polished shoe buttons and huge creases under his chin. He wore breeches of green satin, tightly bound at the ankles, a blouse of wine-colored silk, and an iron-gray queue swung from below his conical cap with its red button, signifying his rank as a mandarin. "Art still playing the storm-cloud and splashing us with rain, little golden fairy?" he said, noting the girl's tears. "Come, come, Miss Bright Eyes, it is high time for the sun to shine. Lift up thy face and let me see thy smiles." The trembling figure in the girlish tunic of blue made no answer. "Ah, listen now, fragrant little jasmine flower. Hear the words of one who liast much love for thee, and give thyself over to happiness. Behold, I have brought bracelets of jade lor tnec and silver bangles to tinkle -.pretty tunes against thine ankles! And here are golden butterflies and star-pins for thy hair, which hath the glory of the night in it already. Wilt thou not accept of these miserable offerings from thy lord?" "I would have only my mother, Mah Neng, most noble lord," she said between her sobs. "Foolish one! 1 am thy father and mother also. There is no other; hait it not yet come to thee thou art the slave of Chung Wo and art bound to his will?" Loo Puck slipped on her knees at his feet: "Oh, gracious lord, I pray thee let me go to Mah Neng. illustrious one, i shall die here, I shall die here! I pray thee, it is that 1 want the little mother, Mah Neng I" For answer, Chung Wo caught her under the arms and swung her up to the level of his breast. Instantly the pleading child turned into an infuriated little beast- She screamed like a tortured kitten and flung her pointed nails into his leering yellow face with -.11 her furious strength". ' 1 5 Chung W6 hurled her from him to the heap of matting, and cooly walked to the door. His skin smarted with the sting of her scratches, but he w-as smiling. It was late that night when Chung Wo sat in the inner sanctum of the. Suey Sing Tong, smoking the pipe of peace with himself. None but his secretary guarded the .antechamber, but, in the secret gathering hall, where the blood-clan met in its grisly councils, a ' score of hatchet wielders played fan-tan within sound of his voice. . :' ThCsecretary pushed aside the green baize curtain and stood in the pvcsrnce oi the mighty one. He kow towed twice, touching his head to the door: "Exalted greatness ' he said, "a dog of a coolie stands without the door; lie craves to infect the air thou breathest with his diseased bones." Chung Wo frowned. "What doth he want?" "He hath a complaint, graciousness." "Well, let him enter, i will feed his eyeballs to the ravens if he hath not sufficient cause.' The coolie entered, a young man in faded overalls, clogs and a jumper that smclled of fish and seawater. Three times he kowtowed before the great one of earth. "What wilt thou, base-born? "Oh. illustrious one, 1 am a poor man as thou dost see. Alas ! My father is dead and his bones lie in this iand of the iniidels. My mother weepeth for them by ihe waters of Tes Kiang. and Aie I I have no money to send them. I supplicate" "But thy father was not of the Suey Sing? "Nay, heaven-born, but " The secretary entered again and kowtowed: "Another vile coolie with a tale of woe, graciousIt

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LOO PUCK. THE LITTLE CELESTIAL MAIDEN.

grave business before us this night, and, mayhap, for many nights. Let us take the great oath, that our hearts may be strong and beat together as the heart of but one." . The five youths nodded assenting heads, but not a word passed their lips. Luey Chen caught the black rooster in his hand and whipped the head 'rom its body with a single knife blow. He caught the spurting jets .of blood in the bronze bowL . The Brotherhood of Six then took the hypodermic needle and each extracted from the ball of his thumb a single drop of his own blood and mingled it with the rooster's. Then, one-by one, they quaffed from the bowL ... ; H The light front the coort outside filtered-in between the interstices o the . iro1 bars that .guarded the tiny

"Fling him down the stairs V roared Chong. "1 am hearkening to the howls of one cur now." , But the supplicator fell on his knees again, imploring: "It is my brother, wonderful one. He hath brought his tears to aid my prayers that the divine-sprung Suey Sings may they have an hundred thousand sons I help us entomb our father under the sacred peao tree!" The second coolie, looking much like the first entered and fell on his knees beside his brother. His prayers were not less fervent. Chung Wo sat considering; the matter. There came upon his chain of meditations the subdued sounds of a scuffle in the antechamber. They ceased quickly and a third coolie appeared beneath the baize curtain. Chung: Wo, instantly suspicious, sprang to his feet "Who let thee in, scum?"

He strode toward the door.... The sharp pein. of a knife pricked into his throat and he stopped. "One whisper, and thou shalt rot ocsule Uiy lathers! . r breathed the coolie that had entered first, pressinn the ' kmte point in till a drop of biowd trickled down the blade. Chung Wo's yellow face turned a mottled brown and white; lie shivered and his hands dropped helplessly at his sides. Another coonc drew a swfc.cn giruie roru under his blouse, and, with the help ct the third knotted the great mans hands to his hips. "Come with us, and hold thy breatn lest thou sicken suddenly," the knue-wtciuer whispered, swuciiuig Ins weapon into the small ot Chung's (pack. 'lftey passed through the axuciwui, where two mere coolie tcre truig 10 iuit the bound and tfag&ed secretary uuo a t.oct three izc Ivhj muaU tut lhese left ium. &im the party kiippcu tigwu tlwe (um ou pud Jed ok- lu tne ircct a crruge with curvam drawu and the uoor opcued awaitca tUciii. Cnuug Xu was thrust iu and uirce of hi captors vluub , with him, white the others uiouaicd the bwx. "Now," aid the nun with tuc kmic, as the carriage rolled noisily over the paving siuuc. "where lust thou hiaucu Ijoo tuck? bpeak utciiiy and tea Uul tnou pck. no lies, icat we catvc thy body uiu usA ban." Chung W o was stubborn and crafty. He knew they would not take his lite until he revealed Uie pfiwii of Loo fuck and if he couid gain a talk umc the hatchetmcn would discover the kctrcUry and cvuie 4 his rescue. "1 know not of whom ye speak nor where any Low Puck may be," he said. . ihe coolies hung themselves upon htm and pinmd their knee into lu puugy umch, One caugut the old mans gray queue, w tapped it around his neck and twisted it into a hp-knvi. iben he pulied 11 taut, uuter, tauter tdl until Chung VVo chvkcd tid ln late tell torward on his urease ... "Aotw knowest ihou ot whom we speak and where she may be found t" , ihe tannest bouiiing of the sunken bead anweie4 them, i he noose was loosened until the iat president could catch his breath in quick gp. "Have mercy, O strong-liearveu oucs," he gurgled through his returning breath. he sicepeth in Sullivan xviley, where Uie houses are high ana ihr r na doors and the white ptgs lose their way in the barrows of the rats. Spare my miserable booes, ye scourge oi the gods, and I will take ye to her." They drove to the close, narrow mouth of Sullivan Alley, into which so many countless crunej have poured dark and bloody secrets. Strolling as nonchantly as though on a mission of pleasure, the party went naif the kngth of the alley, slipped into a cellar and threaded a maue of foul-smelling passages under neath the ground. They emerged into a gloouiy, crumbling, oid building, its hallway lighted by a tuckering tin lamp. A grim-visaged heathen eyed them suspiciously from a snadowy ooorway. "Give him the proper signal or thou knowest the price," one of the coolies whispered in Chung Wos CAT lie murmured a word and the heathen faded away. Up one flight of stairs and down another, through corridors and winding passages where the sun never gleamed, the old man led them. There were no lights to guide them, and secret doors, traps and blind halls were passed through or evaded only by the old man's keen sense of direction. Ah, gladly would he havo played them false had he dared. But these were, indeed, desperate men. ... . At length he paused. "She is beyond Uus door." he said. "ad the key ia ia this pocket"

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-WHAT DEVIL'S NEWS IS THIS THE STREET DOGS BARK?" A coolie took the big brass key from Chung Wo's I 'ousers, fitted it into the lock by the flare of a mate!: aid flung open the door. The room was dark and there was no sound. They li.jhted more matches and saw Loo Pack lying on the mts asleep. There were teardrops still wetting her laihes. The man who had held his knife against the old man's spine now withdrew his weapon and .went oer to the little girl. He laid a gentle hand on her hair and she awakened instantly, cowering as if in fear. ' "Loo Puck, little one!" he said softb, and by the flaring of a fresh .match she saw him; "Oh, Luey Chen! Luey Chen!" she cried, and flung her arms about him. "Take me to Mah Neng: 1 want my little mother!" - "Hush, little red rose," her young cousin answered tenderly; "Thou art safe now and soon Mah Neng shall hide thy head in her bosom," He released himself from the girl's arms and walked calmly over to Chung Wo. Seizing the old man roughly by the queue, he dragged him to the window. Here he once more whipped the queue into a slip-knot around the old man's ceck and tied its tassel to one of the iron bars. "Now yell, thou devil, and pull on thy halter till the breath is choked out of thy body, if thou choose. See if the beggars in the street will hear thy cries and give thee help. Here shalt thou stay until some of thine out bloodhounds track thee to this hole. He picked Loo Puck up in his arms and the Brotherhood of six passed out. ... Sitting with Loo Puck on the rice mats while Mah Neng. the litte mother, puttered about cackling like a joyous hen, Luey Chen placed in the girl's hands a tiny pair of golden-threaded sandals. She laughed like any pleased child and held up to his lips a porcelain bowl filled with rice wine. He sipped it solemnly. And thu were they betrothed.

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