The Recluse (Cook)/The Green Porcelain Dog
The Green Porcelain Dog
By H. Warner Munn
Su-rah, Fourth born of the Children of Chan, lived in days when the Sons of Heaven ruled supreme in the East, when China was a power to fear both for her brave warriors and for the ancient wisdom of her men of learning.
Of each of these, the Mandarin Chan knew much, having in his youth, served in the many engagements against the barbarians beyond the Wall, flat faced, snub nosed creatures whose descendants were to over run Europe to such an extent, that in litanies even now may be found the words, “From the Mongols, God protect us!”
So he was not a stranger to battle, altho in the script from which this scrap is torn he is described as a semi-recluse, free from the vanities of life as it was lived in his day, musing over his collected writings and studying out the final path to the Halls of Contentment, along which he must presently pass.
A gentle, kind, old man, we see him thru the medium of the inkbrush of that long dead scribe who traced the tale in a religious work, as a singular miracle proving the infinite Mercy of the Goddess Kwan-Yin. Kind in an odd way, we may believe when we learn that before Su-rah was five days old she was betrothed to a man already in middle age and possessing no apparent merit as far as we know except the wealth the scribe claims was beyond even a poor man’s dreams.
Yet, the unknown, un-named wooer was a friend of Chan’s, a dear friend, which in itsefl explains a good deal, and we will charitably suppose that the Mandarin intended in his own way to insure the future happiness of his only daughter.
So, with an unsuspected surprise hanging over her, Su-rah grew older along with her three brothers and learned to hide her emotions, to be calm always, to be silent in the presence of elders, in short to follow in every way the traditions of the House of Chan, whose records were lost in antiquity when the aurochs roamed in England, before ever the Romans came.
In Shi-kung-su, Chan and his family dwelt in the winter months, safe within the Great Wall’s protection, but when summer came and the world hummed with busy stir of growing things, Mandarin and sons and Su-rah, accompanied by a crowd of servants and private soldiers, moved from the noisome odors of the crowded city out where breezes came over flowers instead of offal, to Chan’s summer palace outside the Wall.
None knew who the original owners or builders were, except that some one in China’s feudal period had constructed a grim stone castle, but whatever it might have been long ago and still seemed from outside, it was no longer anything within but a very beautifully furnished palace and in place of the courtyard was a huge garden, riotous with flowers, sprawling vines and flowering shrubs.
To Su-rah, it was for a long time her idea of what the First Heaven must be like. One might say that she grew up in the garden, only existing in the city, but living when they returned to the palace.
Not always though did life run smoothly even there. Once within her memory and often before that, the Tartars had swung in from the unknown mysterious distances of the Northern Gobi deserts.
Then all was confusion and running to and fro, picking up this bundle and dropping that one and finally taking none at all in the hurry to reach the safety of the Wall, satisfied if they escaped with their lives.
Su-rah’s first great adventure had come before she was three and her only dim impression of it, but one that was never forgotten, was her first sight of a Tartar.
Short, stocky, with a helmet of hide upon his head where seemingly short horns grew, he sat on his horse in a slanting rain, observing the fugitives as they entered the gate and were secure behind the Wall.
Just too late he had been to cut them off from retreat and for a long time after that, Su-rah’s nurse frightened her with stories of the dreadful things the Tartar would have done had he been quicker.
Thus, Su-rah learned that the favorite beverage of the Tartar Hordes was the blood of a Chinese, drunken from a baby’s skull and her fear of them became associated with the man on the horse.
Often in her dreams, he sat and watched her; far away at first, then nearer, steadily regarding her, but unmoving in the dreams, merely appearing closer with each successive night, until one terrible night he stretched out his hairy hand and caught her by the throat.
Just as, in her dream, he swung her from her couch to his saddle, a monstrous thing sprang from the shadows all about, growling horribly and dragged him down.
Snarling, it worried him until the Tartar no longer fought, but lay quietly beneath its emerald paws. Then it lifted its head and she gazed into the glaring red lacquered eyes of the palace guardian, the Fu-dog in the garden—and awoke.
That morning she went out and inspected the Fu-dog with a different interest than ever before.
He lay crouching as if for a spring, as always a motionless piece of statuary, upon his pedestal of white tiles.
All that Su-rah’s nurse knew of the history of the statue, she had told the little girl; how once very long ago, when the world was young and strange beasts roamed that now no longer were seen, the Great Lord Buddha was given badly needed assistance by a passing and friendly Fu-dog. In his gratitude, Lord Buddha caused the animal to become sacred and in consequence, pairs of them will be found carven and sculptured in temples to act as guards against evil spirits.
That the Fu-dog would ever be supposed to be merely a mythological animal, part lion, part unicorn, neither Su-rah nor the nurse, of course, could have suspected, regarding him as a being very real.
Su-rah gazed at his shaggy mane, the globe beneath his foot, his short stub of a unicorn’s horn, the tip missing and wondered at the little dog which hung from his flank.
She knew from the stories of her nurse, that the inscription upon the pedestal told how a very holy man had built with his own hands this statue and endowed it with supernatural qualities.
With mingled respect and fear, she stood before it, remembering while she did so, the tale her nurse had told, concerning a robber who once entered the garden at night to steal the palace treasures and how in the morning he was found horribly mangled and quite dead in the pool near the statue. And nurse said that there had been blood on the Fu-dog’s fangs!
As she eyed his wide open mouth, gleaming red inside and equipped with sharp white porcelain teeth, four inches long, in each jaw, the pieces of red lacquer which formed his eyes, set loose in their sockets as in most old pieces of pottery, so they would wobble about, turned suddenly toward her and they stared at one another, face to face and eye to eye!
Bravely, remembering that in her dream he had saved her from the barbarian, she stood her ground, though her small knees quaked beneath her.
“Big dog,” she squeaked, “I am not afraid of you, but do not look at me like that!”
“What would you do, big dog, if the Tartars should come to eat me up?”
The muzzle of the dog seemed to crinkle up, baring the white fangs even farther and all the surface of its back writhed with running motion as though the shaggy hair was rising. The hideous face was dark and overcast with an ugly look.
The little girl screamed and ran from the garden, for it appeared that the Fu-dog was about to spring.
A rushing sound went by her in the trees and a wind tossed the willow tops. Perhaps, it was their shadows on the surface of green porcelain that had given the fearsome look, but at three years old, little girls do not think much of that.
Curiosity, conquering fear, sent her back to peep around the pillar of the gate arch.
Motionless, the Fu-dog crouched on his pedestal of white tiling and a trick of fading light from a suddenly cloud obscured sun, gave his eyes a sly humorous look as though he winked, knowingly, benignantly, at the little girl.
From then on, the statue and the child shared a secret together, for none but they, knew that the Fu-dog really lived.
And after that there were no more dreams.
2
Time passed, summer succeeding summer, but the garden remained the same. The Fu-dog crouched for his spring as patiently as of old, biding his time to leap. The wind in the willows still made shadows on his porcelain back and body when the sun was right and the poppies in the flower bed around the base of his pedestal might have been the very same as far as appearances went, but Su-rah had changed and for her this morning the world was also new.
Ten years had passed since the understanding with the statue and Su-rah was at an age which means little here, but much in a land where children are betrothed at birth.
For the last two years she had known that sometime she would marry the fat, greasy, old merchant whose wealth was fabulous and had been gained in tea.
What did it matter if he was a very good friend of her father’s and that the marriage was a matter of policy between the men? He was fat and greasy just the same!
But Su-rah had not objected. It was her fate, it was best for her, of course, or Father Chan would not have made the plans.
Now—all was changed and her heart seethed with rebellion, for Arslan, an archer of the palace guard and an utter nobody, had dared to smile at her as he passed in the corridor that morning.
Boldly had he smiled, with no respectful down drooping of the eyes!
And Kwan-Yin aid her!—her cheeks flushed as she thought of it!
She—Su-rah—of the House of Chan—had smiled back!
Being quite honest with herself, alone in the garden, she admitted that he was good to smile at. What broad shoulders he had, to be sure, and such a comely face!
Somehow she could not be as angry at Arslan as she ought; instead, her wrath had become strangely turned about and she was thinking in hard terms of a certain tea-merchant back in Shi-kung-su.
Summer waned and became autumn, but she did not forget and when autumn merged into winter she was still angry when the Tartars came down like a wolf pack from the North and there was furious fighting for some time upon the Wall.
As far as Su-rah could see, the plain was black with horsemen and a dull thunder of hoofs and guttural shouting made a rumbling undercurrent of dread that cast a blight and a shadow upon even the bravest attempts at gayety in the city.
They sang horirble war-chants, threatening and clanging, to the clash of cymbals and rattling of the nakirs or kettledrums.
Then the attack came and for an entire day the Tartars surged against the wall like the waves of a living sea!
Wave after wave of horsemen washed up, a footman running by the side of each galloping horse and carrying a section of ladder. Arrived at the base of the Wall, they fitted the sections together, dropping like flies beneath the sleet of arrows pouring down from above.
Wave after wave retreated to the unceasing stridulations of the nakirs, while the war trumpets of the Chinese blared defiance at them.
Wave after wave left a dark spray behind them on the ground, but steadily the ladders rose with each successive charge.
And then they topped the Wall!
At the section defended by Su-rah’s three brothers and their palace guard, there was a watch tower and in this place of seming safety sat Su-rah and some other of the women who were acutely interested in the fight.
They had not dreamed that the Tartars could storm a high defended wall, and supposed that they could see all the fighting without the slightest danger. So it was that through an arrow slit, Su-rah saw the defenders push the ladders away, clustered with climbing men, saw the ladders totter and reel like a drunken giant and falling, slash a trough in the army below.
But there were Tartars on the Wall and the fighting was hand to hand.
One of the older women began serving out knives to the women in the tower and although no word was spoken, all knew what they were for.
If the Tartars should win!
Steadily the enemy grew fewer, however, as no reinforcements came, and the danger passed. Su-rah, staring through her arrow-slit, gasped. Who was that, whom the giant barbarian held high and helpless above his head, striding toward the edge of the parapet?
Surely it was—yea, it must be—Arslan! With no warning she unbarred the door and slipped into the midst of the fighting. The Tartar strode by; with all her puny might she drove her blade between his shoulders.
He coughed and fell. Arslan dropped upon the stones.
The archer did not rise at once from his knees, but caught the edge of her embroidered robe and pressed it to his forehead.
“Daughter of Chan,” he said, haltingly, “you are as brave as a warrior. My life is yours to use.”
For a breath, she smiled at him, then her face hardene;d she was a daughter of the House of Chan, he was an offspring of the gutter; she wondered if he even knew his father’s name!
She twitched the silks from his fingers and spoke in a hard tone that stung the sensitive boy like a slash of a whip.
“I would have done the same for any other cur of the streets!” she said coldly, and swept back to the tower, holding her robes close about her to avoid the sullying touch of the dead men all around.
Perhaps that would teach him his proper place, she thought, and it had, for he hurled himself like a madman into the scattered remnants of the battle, hoping for death to wipe out his shame.
Not again during the day, did the barbarians win to the top of the Wall and at dusk they withdrew and a truce was mutual.
Su-rah should have been delighted with the manner in which she canceled the insult of that smile which she had answered, but that night there was the sound of sobbing in her chamber.
When the nurse entered with a light, Su-rah was asleep, oh, very soundly so!—but there was a tiny halt in her breathing and the nurse, who had seen and heard the events upon the Wall, did not believe that Su-rah’s cheeks were wet for pity of the tea-merchant’s fate if the Tartars had entered Shi-kung-su.
The next morning that vast army had disappeared in search of some weaker section which might fall to their power, and only their dead remained.
But during the night when she fitfully dozed, tormented by thoughts which would not let her rest, a sentry on the watch tower saw a dark shape lunge out from the Wall, heard a splash and a commotion far below in the deep hollow where the sewage of the city flowed toward the Hwang-ho through gratings in the masonry, and he beheld the flickering of torches as Tartars helped their fellow to safety.
And Su-rah woke from her troubled slumbers with a start. Again the dark horseman rode through her dreams and though he had been very close before she awoke, no protecting Fu-dog was near to save.
Houlagou, the Tartar, had not been killed when the girl’s dagger turned upon a boss of his hide armor, but he had been wounded sorely.
Slyly he had marked her features and her rank and swore that her pride should be broken. Houlagou had in all his life allowed no injury to go unpaid.
That winter her comings and goings were watched by many eyes within the city, for Houlagou was something of a noble in his own way and could command spies, none of which were Tartars.
3
When Chan and his family moved out of the city in the spring time, they found the summer palace gutted and partially destroyed, but in the garden where the Fu-dog stood, as usual, things were intact and unharmed.
Su-rah ran to him and caressed him as a long lost friend and afar off, Arslan gazed enviously, madly jealous of the unfeeling statue which could not appreciate its good fortune.
But when a breeze stirred the red eyes so they roved about, Arslan went away somewhat hurriedly. Of course, he was not superstitious, but there was something about that statue which he did not fancy in the least.
From the city that night a swift runner entered the hills and from a spot where those in the palace could not see the light a signal fire blinked its message to the North.
And in the North another distant gleam in the hills answered and yet farther into the mysterious plains and deserts of the Gobi, the message sped upon its way.
The next night and a night thereafter the fires glowed bright and dim, over the sand dunes, so dim far away that they could not be seen at all by those near the first signal.
And the fourth night, the runner returned to Shi-kung-su, heavy laden with a chinking bag, his work accomplished.
Before he reached the city gate, a thin jingling of metal accoutrements with now and then a whispered curse as horses stumbled in the dark, made a murmur which seeped down from the hills and poured along the plains toward the summer palace. When the gate had closed behind him, the metallic whisper was very near the palace.
A sleepy guard patrolled the palace grounds; a guard who became awake instantly when an ill-trained horse commenced a whinny not far away. If it had been a full, complete sound the guard might have thought it one of the stabled horses, but it was cut suddenly short and he knew too well what that might mean.
He sprang to the parapet. Yes, it was true! Before the gate, were twenty or more men, bearing a heavy log and coming at a trot.
He seized a mallet and began hammering on the gong by the guard’s quarters.
“Up, bowmen!” he howled, in the intervals of pounding, “Up, spearmen! The Tartars are upon us!”
And then, the log struck the gate, wood whining in complaint and a few bricks fell. Again and again the stunning impact followed and too late, the guard rushed out, not in force but singly; not properly armed, but with what weapons came first to hand; not in armor but clothed only in their night garments; and one by one they dashed into the foe storming through the broken gate, one by one falling before the Tartar’s bows and iron tipped maces.
Arslan and another man, being at the opposite side of the palace on duty as guards at the moment of attack, were the only ones in armor.
A moment of horror, of surprise, of indecision held them, then the other man cried, “Quick! Let us leap down from the Wall, get horses and bring help from the towers. We can trap them all!”
“Do it if you can,” agreed Arslan, “I am for the palace!” and he started at a run for the nearest door.
On this side was the garden and as he ran beneath the low branches of a tree, he collided with something limp and swinging as though a full sack hung there. Beside the dangling object stood a well known shape, dim in the darkness, tying a knot about her throat with trembling fingers.
As she stepped off the stool, he cut through the sash above her head and she fell to the ground. Quickly he cut the other cord and the nurse also dropped and lay as one dead, behind a rose bush.
He unfastened the noose from the girl’s throat.
“There is no merit to be gained in that death, oh Maiden!” he said, grimly.
“It is an honorable death,” exclaimed Su-rah, “Shall a daughter of Chan know the polluting touch of a Tartar?”
“Perhaps there will be no need of it,” said the archer. “Fo Tung has gone for help and if we can hide for a little, we will be rescued.”
“Too late!’ she moaned, “too late! You should have let me die!” and she pointed to the garden wall.
Two short steel tipped horns had risen there while Arslan spoke and now the full face appeared below the hide helmet.
Broad and flat it was, and most indescribably dirty. For a second the Tartar stared down at the couple in the garden and then opened his mouth to shout.
As he did so, an arrow flew and the man’s leer changed to a look of stupid wonder, just before he disappeared, pierced through the throat.
Arslan was not an archer of the guard for nothing.
4
In the palace, men had sold their lives dearly and there would be sorrow in many a Tartar tent for that night’s work.
Before the palace was taken, Ulatai, second in command, fell to rise not again, followed by Bassalor Danek, Bayan and Cogatai, all nobles of the Horde.
But there was many another to take their place and Chan the venerable, Chan the old and very wise, went down at last, knife in hand and his three sons trampled unknowingly upon him in the press.
And singly they followed him to the Halls of Contentment and the House of Chan, whose deeds of fame had been a golden example to men for a thousand years, was now no more.
Freed from any obstacle, Houlagou and his men hurried through the corridors and rooms of the palace, but did not find that for which they sought until they entered the garden.
Even then, the fugitives might have been overlooked in the dim starlight had it not been for the aged nurse, whose throat pained mightily as she recovered consciousness. Her groan turned every head toward the sheltering tree.
An ululation rose then that called all of the attackers to the spot. But as those in the garden advanced, stinging arrows sang across the pool from out of a flowering bush and took their toll of men.
They spread out and fell flat behind any shelter that offered, coaxing the arrows, knowing that the unknown fighter’s supply must be small.
Wriggling along through the bushes and vines, they neared the archer, coming slowly while his arrows lasted, for he could keep them back in spite of the overwhelming numbers for a time. But his stock was few and none returned that he might use again, for Houlougou was certain that the girl he had sworn to take was behind yonder warrior.
Now, no arrows came from the bush and the men came closer. The flowers nodded and shook as Arslan plunged through and hurled himself at the leader.
“Not while I live, oh Tartar!” he shouted and then a mace struck him dumb and senseless and his knife sank only into dirt and grass roots.
“Kill him not,” ordered Houlagou, “he is a bold warrior and we will take him with us.”
Then with a swoop of an arm he captured the second to emerge from the bush, as Su-rah strove to reach the body of Arslan, weeping to behold his bloody head.
“Ho, brothers,” he cried, “here is the maid, our prize. A shining vessel of desire! A very pearl in truth! Is she not worth the fight?”
He swung her around so they could see her frightened face and a chorus of grunting appreciation went up from the onlookers.
Su-rah’s limbs grew weak and she could scarcely stand with the disgrace of his defiling touch.
She felt his dirty hand upon her throat and was conscious of the disagreeable, pungent odor of the unwashed, as she was drawn closer to him. That she, one of the high-born, one of the illustrious line of Chan, should submit to such indignities! The prospect was unthinkable, but there seemed no alternative.
As she resisted weakly, amid the hoarse hooting of the Tartars in the garden and the jeers of those who sat, watching, upon the wall, she lifted her face toward the Dog on the pedestal.
If only her childhood dreams could come true now, when she needed help so much! If only the Fu-dog would come to life and rage among the barbarians!
Merciful Buddha! Was it possible? Could it be?
Her eyes dilated with horror.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the eyeballs of the huge porcelain statue were turning toward her and slowly a rosy flush suffused those cold eye sockets—and there was no sun to cause that ruddy glow!
Then suddenly, wickedly, they glared forth upon her, twin orbs of flame and fury, and the Fu-dog seemed awake, waiting the word to spring.
The mists that herald unconsciousness dropped before her eyes and veiled the garden. Straight from her heart rose a little faltering prayer to the Goddess of Mercy whose chief office is to succor women.
“Kwan-Yin aid me!” she breathed and pushed the Tartar away with all her strength.
He had not expected the sudden thrust from this easy prey and stepping back, his heels came abruptly against the low stone border about the poppy bed.
Wildly his arms flailed the air while he sought to regain his balance and he brought up hard against the pedestal of the dog.
Events came swiftly then, thru the ever thickening haze upon the garden. Abruptly the ancient and crumbling pedestal was not and the figure of the dog for a split second hung in air, accompanied by an awful grinding roar as though all the hounds of hell were baying down their quarry!
The mist grew thicker, but she knew that the Fu-dog had not failed her; that he had launched into the spring for which he had crouched thru the centuries. And as the derisive yelping on the wall changed to yells of amazement and fear, she tried to smile and collapsed upon the corpse of Arslan.
They would be together now; he had fought a good fight and failed; a heroic failure, fighting to the last, but now another would fight for them; the Fu-dog was awake!
Somewhere, worlds away, the Fu-dog was fighting,—was fighting—fighting—” and darkness closed down upon her.
5
All the garden was filled with men, pitying and gentle, some with tears upon their cheeks, while, weeping unrestrainedly the aged nurse knelt by her.
“Alas,” wailed the old woman, “she has mounted the golden dragon and has been carried beyond the stars, through the Gates of Contentment.
“Our lives shall be a long woe and a great sorrow.”
Su-rah stirred and opened her eyes. The keening hurt her head. Why must they torture her?—and then she saw all around her the gaudiness and glitter of the soldiers’ showy painted armor.
Saw too, that the Tartars all were gone and saw that he who bent over her, his face set with pain and stained from an ugly scalp wound—was Arslan!
With a soft coo of delight, she lifted her arms to him and he caught her close.
A moment he held her thus and she was thinking swiftly, planning for the future.
Her father and three brothers were dead; she knew and felt deep sorrow for them. Much honor and many prayers there should be to their memory. But not all was lost. Now she was able to choose a lover for herself. Now she was the only one remaining of the House of Chan!
Now the door was open to happiness!
“I love you,” she whispered softly and with the words passed through the door.
It was most unmaidenly, but Arslan would understand.
They bore her tenderly to a litter, past the bed of poppies and she shuddered at the thing that lay there and turned her head away.
Now the poppies were stained a deeper red, on stem as well as petal and broken shards of green porcelain were thick among the flowers. In the corner of the bed lay the Tartar, with his arm wide flung, but the upper part of his body and head was hidden beneath the fore-quarters of the Fu-dog.
The fangs were driven deep thru the Tartar’s skull and all the cavity of its wide open jaws was an oozing pulp of blood and brains.
She felt his fixed regard upon her when they placed her in the litter and while they were carrying her from the garden. She felt as though she must look back and doing so, just before they reached the gate, she cried out.
They turned, startled, to look where her pointing finger gestured.
At the angle in which she was staring a smear of Tartar blood upon the dog’s head appeared as though his eye had slowly closed, but the others had not seen, nor could they see, the seeming wink.