Part 23 (1/2)
But I knew that most of these dear friends had been sitting s.h.i.+vering inside the Legations while the sack was going on, because they had no wish to risk their lives; and now that they thought they could safely earn an honest penny in a legitimate affair, they would stoop to anything!
We were soon such a huge cavalcade that I became nervous about the reception L---- would give us. The Russian officers, too, became more and more drunk in the open air, and kept on saying that they hoped there would be fighting, heavy fighting, for they felt just like it. A charge was what they wanted, they said. No one could find out with whom they proposed to fight, as the place we were going to was only a stone's throw away, with not a Chinaman near and a couple of strong companies of Russian infantry inside. The officers became intensely angry when everyone laughed, and said that although they were drunk, they were not like many people without stomachs about whom there had been so much talk. That was a nasty home-blow for some of them.
We found L---- ready enough; indeed, we had kept him waiting. He had most of his staff with him, and the usual escort of Cossacks standing by their horses, making it seem very official. Of course, L---- became furious when he saw the big crowd of people, and asked whether it was going to be a picnic. This word tickled one of the drunken officers so much, that suddenly he let his loose legs relapse and clapped his spurs into his animal, which reared horribly, and in the end sent him on the ground. I thought I should die of laughter. Then everybody became more and more fussy, because they were afraid of L----, but, fortunately, the general started off ahead, muttering to himself, and we rode after him like some procession. It seemed to me very absurd, and at that point I lost all confidence in the success of the expedition. Everyone had become too sanguine, and I fully believe that you cannot have any luck in such affairs with a crowd of idiots.
Other people, who had no business to know of the affair, somehow managed to join us on the way, and when we reached the Board of Revenue we numbered dozens of men, not including the escorts.
There were about two companies of Russian infantry in occupation there, as I have already said, and in the first halls we found armed guards superintending hundreds of small Chinese boys at work stringing together copper cash. There must have been millions and hundreds of millions of these worthless coins either piled up in great mountains or scattered on the floors, and it would take months to sort them out and market them. It was the only thing the cunning j.a.panese had openly left!
L---- now called the officers of the guard, and explained to them that he was about to seize secret treasure which had been so well hidden by the Chinese that the j.a.panese had not been able to find it. He told them to give their a.s.sistance. The new officers, when they heard this, looked so sharply at one another, that everyone began to comment on it, and say that if there was nothing left they knew who was guilty. It was becoming delightful.
We started off in a body with the _ku-ping_, or treasury guards, who were giving the information, leading us. They took us past a good many huge buildings that looked like grimy old warehouses, and then stopped us short at one that appeared to be still barred and bolted. It took some time to open these doors, although the officers of the guard said that they had only been closed after they had taken over the place from the j.a.panese; and when we got inside it was so dark and dank that we could see nothing and could scarcely breathe. Candles had to be lighted, and as they threw feeble flickers of light across the gloom, hideous bats began flying madly about, and das.h.i.+ng to the ground in their fright great shreds of dusty cobwebs that must have been centuries old. n.o.body minded that, however; it seemed just the sort of place where millions could really be found in these prosaic days!
The thing was now interesting, if only from a psychological point of view....
The _ku-ping_ advanced, without hesitation, and brought us to a high wooden paling which shut off one half of this immense hall from the other. Inside the paling, as far as we could see, there were just mountains of empty sacks--hundreds of thousands of them, even millions, I should think.
But the paling was impa.s.sable. A small gate leading through it was still locked with a heavy Chinese padlock, and there was no key. One of the officers gave a wave of his hand, and a couple of the soldiers went out and reappeared with axes. In a few blows they had cleared a broad opening; the _ku-ping_ sprang through, and, like bloodhounds that scent a trail, ran swiftly up the steep slopes of the great ma.s.ses of empty bags, looking eagerly about them. Then, finally calculating aloud, they marked down a spot. They had located the exact place where they would have to begin to work. They stripped themselves to the waist with great rapidity, and, feeling that their reputations were at stake, without any warning they were heaving away among those empty sacks like so many madmen. Faster and faster they worked, throwing away the sacks. Choking clouds of dust, now rising as if by magic, filled the whole vast hall and drove us back coughing and gasping for air, until, fairly beaten, we had to stand outside. As if through a thick vapour we could dimly see those men still working more and more rapidly. I wondered how they could breathe....
In very few minutes, however, they also had had enough, but as they sprang down, and quickly gasping, sought the open air, they brought with them the end of a rope. They had evidently not only located the exact spot they were seeking, but had found the first trace which was necessary to make their search successful. Still, it was impossible to continue work in this way. It would take hours, at such a slow rate, to dig down beneath those mountains of old treasure-sacks. It would take more hours to excavate or open up chambers beneath. So we held a short consultation. There was but one thing to do. We must tear down one side of the building, so as to have more light, and to be able to put more men to work. No sooner decided on, than the thing was done, for in this work the Russians are supreme. They called in fatigue parties from the infantry companies in garrison, and telling them in simple language to break down one side of the building, in a few moments a wonderful scene began. I had seen some rapid work at short intervals during the worst agony of the siege, but never have I seen men who could handle the axe and the crowbar like these rude infantrymen. Everything went down under their blows--brickwork, woodwork, stonework, iron stanchions, everything; and with a rapidity which seemed incredible, gaping s.p.a.ces appeared. Soon, standing outside, from a dozen different points, you could see the Chinese informants inside at work again, in those clouds of choking dust, thras.h.i.+ng up and down, like men possessed.
But energy is not sufficient for some things. Three men were attempting the work of a hundred. We must have more hands.
This time the dozens of small boys stringing cash in the outer courtyards were called in and told to fall to; and forming lines which oddly resembled those made by firemen, they were soon bundling out the empty sacks to the open at the rate of thousands a minute. Faster and faster they worked, as if the same frenzy had spread to them; wider and wider moved the rings of floating dust, until they hung high above everything and made the day seem dull and threatening. Then suddenly the _ku-ping_ inside gave a shout. They had got low enough for the time being--they wanted to be able to see. The squads of sweating soldiers and the dozens of grimy little boys desisted and stood open-eyed to see what was to follow. They were beginning to appreciate the significance of it all.
We waited patiently and watched the great clouds melt away and settle on our clothes and silt into our eyes; and then finally, when it was clearer, a man inside struck a match, lit a candle and handed it down into a great hole which had been dug through the very centre of these decade-old bullion coverings. How deep the hole was I could not see, but the three men slipped in and were entirely lost to our view.
They seemed a long time down there without giving a single sign or making any noise, and we all became a little nervous. Perhaps the thing was really miscarrying. Soon I felt certain that it had miscarried, and bitterly regretted taking the matter in hand. Then one man came up gruntingly and began cursing and swearing as soon as he saw us. He did that because he was afraid. I feared the worst. On his shoulders there was one single great lump of silver and nothing else, and as he clambered out to where we stood he tilted it with a dull thud to the ground, and said sullenly that that was the only thing left, and that others had been there before us. He repeated this several times, so that there should be no mistake; there was only this enormous piece of silver and nothing else. The smile's left everybody's face. Never have I seen such a sudden change. However, to me it was _kismet_....
In some trepidation we at length approached L---- and told him what had been said, and then there was another storm. He said that it was impossible--that there must be some mistake--that the men had said that the bullion was there, and there it must be. As he spoke his anger rose again, and coming up and kicking the ma.s.sive silver ingot, he asked again and again in a few words of French, which I believe he had learned especially for the occasion, ”_Mais ou est l'or? mais ou est l'or?_” It was almost pitiful to hear him repeat these words again and again like a child. He believed we were cheating him....
The position had now become suddenly ridiculous, and I did not know what to do. Everyone soon took up L----'s att.i.tude, and felt that they had been cheated by some one. Indeed, they acted as if they had lost valued possessions. They all clambered around me, and said that it was disgraceful, and that something should be done to punish the men who had brought the false information. They became so excited that it was necessary to create a diversion by going down into that hole ourselves to see exactly what it meant. That proved the last straw.
It was the dirtiest and most uncomfortable descent I have ever made.
Sliding down through those piles of sacks led one to a false floor, some planks of which had been forced up by the Chinese informants.
Beneath this was a short ladder, and, stepping down, one found one's self in an immense underground chamber. The air was so thick and dank here that it was almost impossible to breathe, and in the flickering light of the candles we could just see a confused ma.s.s of chests and boxes ranged round. Everyone of these had been battered open. The cunning j.a.panese must have been there first and taken everything.
Alone that big lump of silver had been left because of its weight.
But there was something I missed. These _ku-ping_ had been emphatic about the valuable weights we would find hidden--the standard weights of China in pure gold, which were centuries old, they said, and were the same as had been used during the Ming dynasty hundreds of years before. I asked for them--where were they kept? Perhaps we might at least have these.
Alas! they led me to a smaller chamber, with a curious little door formed of a single slab of stone, and pointed once again disconsolately to more rifled boxes. These outer chests covered smaller boxes, which were of the size of the weights themselves. I had always heard that the biggest weight of all was a square block of gold equal to the weight of a full-grown man. I would like to have seen that, but everything was gone. It was useless wasting any more time.
We came up again carrying some of those silk-lined boxes as explanations and souvenirs. But our friends were now all standing round some soldiers, who had accidentally knocked aside some flags of stone, and had found a deep hole underneath. They were now jerking away violently at some last obstruction, and finally they swept aside everything and bared some steep steps. As we stood wondering what had been discovered, and our hopes were almost revived, far down below appeared a grimy face, and a man at last ran up, rapidly exclaiming from surprise, as he mounted to the surface. It was one of our Chinese informants! Then suddenly we saw the point, and in spite of our discomfiture began laughing. The soldiers of the fatigue parties, slower than us to understand, at length followed our example; then the hundreds of small Chinese boys; then everyone else, until we were all laughing. For we had been fooled and well fooled by those clever little j.a.panese. When they had seized the Treasury, they had not only discovered the general stores of silver, but had managed to find this hidden entrance or some other near by. Without any trouble they had gone down and taken everything, swept the place clean, and left, probably as a supreme sarcasm, that one enormous lump of blackened silver.... We were indeed well sold. It was immense.
At that particular moment I do not think any one was very bitter at this absurd anti-climax after those great expectations. That is, excepting the old general. Somehow, he became convinced by our preparations that there would be much gold found as a just reward. Now once again he accused us all of making a fool of him, of knowing from the beginning that it was a wild-goose chase. I thought sarcastically about his telegram and the desire he had had in the first place to haggle about the terms; and I let him mutter on. It is always the one who laughs last who laughs best. I made a little plan.
We retired from the Chinese Treasury with rather indecent haste. L---- did not even look at the guard which turned out as we pa.s.sed the entrance. When we had entered they had hurrahed him, and hoped that his health was good, in a chorus after their custom; and he had made a little speech in return, trusting that his children were also well! It was amusing if you happened to be able to appreciate that kind of wit.
Most of my companions, however, did not. And yet with the clouds of dust which had settled on us and covered us from head to food with dirt it was impossible to look even dignified with success. And all my friends, who had been so cordial and admiring in the morning, how cold and distant they had become! They had not made anything--was not that a sufficient excuse for any behaviour?