The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays Part 16

_Makuro_

That was five years ago. From all parts of the earth come powers fulfilling your fear. Leagued with our own purblind princes and dwellers in the dusk, they hover over China, waiting for war and bribery to dismember her. And you say your work is done. Yu Tai Shun, where have you buried my master?

_Ching_

In the heart of the Princess Wong Fe.

_Shun_ (_rallying_)

May we not be too stern in our judgment of the lords of steam and iron?

Lei Kung Sang and the British minister of the So-nan mineral beds have built houses for the people.

_Ching_

And have taken their land. Men who plucked their own fruit, and took food from their own gardens, now cannot eat until they have torn new treasure out of the earth for the kind Briton and the good Lei Kung Sang.

_Shun_

Their days of work were always long and weary.

_Ching_

But they toiled as free men in the sun, and as free men sang from the river-boats when the moon rose. In America, where there is still much land and few people, there are places where children go down into the mines and never see the sun except on the day they call "holy." How will it be with China's four hundred millions, when there are not even waste places where those who would flee may gather? For even her great untilled s.p.a.ces are being covered by the foreign hand.

_Makuro_

Slavery will be born again with depths the ancients never knew.

_Shun_

But the spirit of brotherhood is growing.

_Makuro_

Power has no brothers! It was you who taught me that, Yu Tai Shun.

_Shun_

Do you forget that we built our republic with the aid of these same princes of power?

_Ching_

We forget nothing. They let us beat down the throne because they could not use it--a rigid tradition--but the republic--_they_ are the republic!

_Shun_

Can we not trust a little? In our greatest need, alien hands have reached out to help us. And we have true hearts among our Chinese lords. Not all have joined with the invader to herd the people into slave-yards. Pei Chen-Ping and Sa Yi are most liberal. You, Prince Ching, and those you gather to you, have hearts like the rising sun. And the n.o.ble princes of the house of Wong--have they not given me my bride?

_Ching_

Ay, when your sighs had blown around the world for seven years, they yielded her. You were a power to be checked, and they set a woman in your path.

_Shun_

No!

_Ching_

It was a j.a.panese from the Fushun collieries, a Russian prince of the Northern railways, a French buyer of Yunnan copper, a British s.h.i.+p-baron of Hongkong, and the Chinese owners of the unworked gold veins of Szechuan, who went to the brothers of Wong Fe and said: "Give Yu Tai Shun his bride."

_Shun_

It was you who spoke for me!

_Ching_

You had no father, and in my heart you were my son. I spoke for you because I believed in you. I did not think that any bribe could lure you from us. Yours was a soul that we thought would be a torch to every nation of earth. And you choose to go out like a candle in the breath of a woman.

(YU TAI SHUN _is bowed and silent._ MAKURO _touches his sleeve._)

_Makuro_

Come with us, master.

_Ching_

In half an hour the boat will stop at the orchard pier for Makuro. He starts for j.a.pan. It is there you are needed.

_Makuro_

I come from our friends with their summons. j.a.pan's oligarchy of traders, with every means known to power--school, religion, racial pride and hate--is fostering the spirit of war. All the seeds of the jungle are being deliberately sown once more in men's hearts. They are preparing j.a.pan to hold the largest share of an industrially broken China and weld her millions into one instrument of hate against the West.

_Shun_

A pigmy's dream!

_Ching_

A dream that will come true if our giants continue to sleep.

_Makuro_

It is the menace of America that j.a.pan holds before her people till their hearts roll with fear, their brains grow sick with rage. America, who has insulted us with exclusion--who has s.n.a.t.c.hed an island chain from our Eastern waters, and shot, starved, imprisoned thousands ignorant enough and brave enough to resist her. _That_ is the America my people are taught to believe in. But you know a different America, where people love honor and hate war--whose religion is love thy neighbor as thyself. Come, teach them of that America! You are known in a million homes of j.a.pan. You have taught us to love you, and where we love, we listen.

_Shun_ (_with great effort_)

I cannot go. If I part from Wong Fe the blood will leave my veins and flow back to her.

_Makuro_