The Little Girl Lost Part 2

Ku Nai-nai said that the sun did the same thing where she lived in the country when she was a girl, and it used to set behind different trees at different times of the year.

'When you are as old as I am, An Ching, you will know more about things,' said she. 'You would know more now if you spent less time in looking into the gla.s.s.'

And then they certainly would have quarrelled, if Hung Li had not appeared and scolded them for not being ready; at which Ku Nai-nai turned upon him and asked in a loud voice what he meant by being rude to his parent in a public inn. As no Chinaman likes to appear disrespectful to his mother, Hung Li said no more.

At last they were ready to start again. Nelly could scarcely climb into the cart, so stiff and sore was she with her long cart ride of yesterday and two nights on a stone kang with only a wadded quilt to lie upon. But she did manage to get in, though not without shedding some tears at the thought that she was going farther away from her parents. And somehow the cart did not seem to b.u.mp so badly to-day, and the stiffness wore off instead of growing worse as she had expected. She was getting used to it.

They went along very slowly all day, and put up again that night at another inn. This time it was a small village, and there was no open s.p.a.ce in front. The children were too tired even to talk. They both went to sleep almost as soon as they arrived, and slept until rather late the next morning, for Hung Li did not now seem to be in such great haste to reach Yung Ching. When they woke they were quite fresh, and Little Yi was anxious to be off once more; for An Ching said that there was a river to cross, which she seemed to think rather exciting.

In about two hours' time they came to this river, which was after all only a muddy stream with steep banks. There was a flat ferry-boat with two men to manage it. These men, the carter, and Hung Li took the mules out of the carts and made the women and children sit well back in them.

Then they slid the carts slowly down the incline and on to the boat, and took them over, after which they fetched the mules and harnessed them again. Then came the difficult part, to get the mules to pull the carts up the incline at the other side, with the men pus.h.i.+ng behind and shouting and screaming at each other and the poor mules, enough to deafen you. The children's cart was tilted so high that they were looking up at their toes all the time: at least Nelly and Little Yi were, for An Ching's toes had become claws some years ago. At last, with a mighty pull from the st.u.r.dy mules, they got up the bank, and the other cart was not long in following.

Two hours more and they were at Yung Ching. As they entered the town Hung Li came and pulled down the curtain, but not before Nelly had peeped round the opening and noticed that the roads were not black, like those of Peking, but proper dust colour. Everything had a brownish look, she thought, and it certainly was not a large city such as Peking.

'Here we are at last,' said An Ching, and the carts turned under an arch and Hung Li knocked at a large door, which was opened by a middle-aged woman, who was the only servant of the Ku family, Nelly learnt afterwards. This woman stared very hard upon seeing the children, but Ku Nai-nai told her in a low voice not to ask any questions while the carter was there, and said she would tell her all about them when he was gone, which she did, promising a portion (very small) of the reward they were to get for the children when they were taken home.

The compound seemed clean and well kept, and Nelly thought that the Kus ought to be far too respectable and well-off people to steal children for money. 'But they are only heathen,' she said to herself.

Nelly and Little Yi were given a small room adjoining Ku Nai-nai's in the centre or chief building of the compound. An Ching and her husband had their quarters at the right, across the court. The children were sorry that they were no longer to be with An Ching, but, as she said, it was only at nights that they need be separated.

Nelly was the only European in Yung Ching among thousands of Chinese.

She never thought of that. Had she done so she must have felt glad that she was shut up in a compound, away from curious eyes and fingers.

CHAPTER V

THE SEARCH

Chu Ma was the first to miss Nelly in the Legation. She rushed about as fast as her little feet would allow, calling, 'Ni-li! Ni-li! Ni-li!

Ku-niang!' (Ku-niang means 'Miss' or 'girl'). She overturned Arthur Macdonald's top in her flurry, just when he had lashed it up into a beautiful spin. Arthur was cross about the top, but he could not help laughing to see solid Chu Ma in such a fuss. 'She is hopping about like a hen on a rail,' he thought. 'What is the matter?' he asked.

'I can't find Nelly anywhere,' replied Chu Ma. 'Do you know where she is?'

'I don't know,' said Arthur, 'but I should think that she is playing some girl's game with Little Yi and her dolls.'

Chu Ma had not thought of Little Yi. She at once tottered off to the girl's house, only to find that Lin Nai-nai, Little Yi's mother, was wondering what had become of her.

Lin Nai-nai, seeing that Chu Ma was scarcely able to hobble any farther, offered to go and look for both the children. She, being a Manchu, had unbound feet, and soon inquired about the children at every house in the compound, but she was obliged to return to Chu Ma without them. The two women then went back to Mrs. Grey's house, and there made further search and inquiries. Mrs. Grey was dressing to go to dine at the American Legation with Mr. and Mrs. Bates. Chu Ma knocked at her room door to see if Nelly were there. Of course she was not. Then Chu Ma told Mrs. Grey that Little Yi could not be found either. Just then Mr. Grey arrived and was told too. Remembering that Nelly had come out to meet him the day before, he at once went to question the gatekeeper as to whether the gate had been left open again. The man declared that it had not, that he had never left it a moment, and that only Little Yi had been near it that afternoon. She, he said, he had seen walking towards her own home. This was not true, as we know, for the gatekeeper had left the gate open while he went to buy some rice, and it was then that the children had slipped out.

Mr. and Mrs. Grey became quite uneasy, for they knew that the children could not be hiding such a long time, as Arthur Macdonald suggested.

Mrs. Grey declared that she could not think of going out to dine until they were found, and Mr. Grey then went himself to each house in the compound. After another hour's fruitless search, Mrs. Grey wrote a note to Mrs. Bates, explaining why she could not come, and asking if by any chance Bob and Bessie knew anything about Nelly. Bob persuaded his mother to allow him to go back with the coolie who had brought the note and help to look for Nelly. When he arrived at the British Legation, he and Arthur Macdonald set to work to look in all the places that they had ever hidden in when playing hide-and-seek together. They insisted also upon going into all the Chinese and students' quarters, and looking into places where it would have been impossible to hide.

'You forget, Arthur, that we are looking for girls, not a thimble,' said Bob, when he saw Arthur rummaging in a small pigskin trunk of Chu Ma's.

And now it was quite dark, and still there was no news of the girls. Mr.

Grey went to all the Legation and Customs' people, but no one knew anything about the missing ones. The search had to be given up for that day, and Bob went back to Bessie, who was sitting up, anxious to hear the news.

After a sleepless night Mr. and Mrs. Grey rose early and began the search again. Mrs. Grey wrote notes to all the missionaries, and Mr.

Grey went out to inquire among the Chinese. Perhaps if he had turned to the right up Legation Street, as Nelly and Little Yi had done, he might have heard something about the foreign child who had gone with a woman into a Chinese house near. But he went over the bridge in the other direction.

That afternoon, when Bob Bates set out for his usual ride with his ma-fu, he decided to make inquiries among the Chinese. The ma-fu suggested that they should ask at some of the shops in Legation Street near them, and sure enough they soon heard that a crowd had been seen following a European and a Chinese child in the streets the evening before. Bob was very persistent, and gave cash (small coins) for everything which appeared to be reliable information. At length, by means of questions and cash, he found some one who had seen Nelly and Little Yi follow Ku Nai-nai into the native house. He at once left his pony with the ma-fu, found the house, and knocked hard without any result. He could get no answer at all. Then Bob went breathlessly to the British Legation with the news that he believed that Nelly was shut up in a house close by; but Nelly, as we know, was asleep in the cart on her way to Yung Ching. Mr. Grey was still out, and Bob had to wait until he returned. They went together to the house and knocked again. This time the old woman of whom we have heard admitted them, and when questioned, said:

'Yes, the children did step in here with a woman who comes to see me sometimes, but they only stayed until the crowd had gone. Then they set off home.'

This was all that old Ku Tai-tai would say. She declared she knew no more, and did not know where the woman lived. Her name was w.a.n.g, she said.

Mr. Grey was obliged to return to his wife with no news but this. He went to the Chinese magistrate, who thought the children were being kept in hiding until a sufficient reward was offered for their release, and advised him to have bills printed and stuck up, announcing how much he would pay to any one who brought back the little girls.

When this was done, Nelly's and Little Yi's parents could only wait, which is often the hardest thing we have to do.

CHAPTER VI

IN CAPTIVITY

By the time that Nelly and Little Yi had been at Yung Ching a month, Nelly and An Ching had become great friends. Poor Nelly would have been very miserable but for An Ching, who used to cheer her by constantly talking about Mr. and Mrs. Grey and when Nelly would be back in Peking.

And An Ching used to tell Nelly about her own childhood, which must have been very dull, Nelly thought; her marriage to Hung Li when she had seen him only twice, and how she was carried in a red chair from her parents' house to Ku Nai-nai's. She told Nelly that Hung Li was very greedy, and would do anything for money. It was he who prevented his mother from taking the children home the evening they left the Legation, as she at first fully intended to do; but Ku Nai-nai was herself rather fond of money, and did not require much persuasion.

An Ching taught Nelly to sew backwards in Chinese fas.h.i.+on, using a thimble without an end, like a thick ring, on her finger; and she cut out and helped her to make a little blue cotton coat which they thought would fit Baby Buckle. Nelly used to kiss and pat that little coat, and loved it quite as much as any doll she had ever had. In return Nelly taught An Ching to knit, with some chopsticks, which they pointed at the ends, for needles.

The children were rarely allowed to go outside the Kus' compound, and never alone, but they could play out of doors as much as they wished.

The larger court had the houses or set of rooms in it, and there was a smaller court which was entered through a queer gateway just like a large round hole in the wall. This court was at the side of Ku Nai-nai's rooms, and had no windows looking into it. An Ching, Nelly, and Little Yi used often to go and sit there with their work, and the children sometimes played at jumping through the hole. They saw no one but the Kus and their servant. Even when the barber came to shave Hung Li's head they were shut up out of sight, and their hair was kept short with Ku Nai-nai's scissors.

Little Yi was becoming almost reconciled to life in Yung Ching, for although she was fond of her parents, she did not love them as Nelly did hers. She missed the large compound of the British Legation, and would have been very pleased to know at any moment that she was to be sent home. But she ate, slept, and was just as contented all day long as she had always been.

But Nelly, poor child, was no longer the merry little hopping and skipping creature she had been in Peking. She never had a fit of the giggles now, and she was thin and pale; still, she was not absolutely miserable, for she felt sure she was going to leave Yung Ching soon, especially after she overheard a conversation which took place in Ku Nai-nai's room one night after she and Little Yi were in bed.

Hung Li began by telling Ku Nai-nai he had been cheated out of some money by a man with whom he had done business that day; and he added:

'It is time these children went home now. I must have more money. I shall go and see the barber when next I go to Peking, and arrange with him to give them up to their parents.'

'How do you mean to do it?' asked Ku Nai-nai. 'If the barber goes to the Ying-Kua-Fu (British Legation) he will certainly be arrested, and then he is sure to tell about us.'

'Do you think I shall let him go to the Legation?' replied Hung Li, scornfully. 'No,' he went on; 'I shall write a letter to the foreign girl's father, asking him to send some one alone with the money to the Chien Men (centre gate). I will be there to meet the messenger, and the barber will be outside with the children in some retired place. I shall take the messenger to see the children, and then he will hand over the money. The barber can slip away afterwards.'

'Yes,' grunted Ku Nai-nai, 'and what's to prevent the child telling her father where to find us in Yung Ching?'

'And what if she does?' replied Hung Li. 'No one has seen the children.

The mandarin of this district is my friend, and I can make it all right.

You don't suppose I want to adopt the children? You (turning to An Ching) would like to keep that pale-faced little foreign imp, I suppose, but you shan't do it.'

An Ching did not reply, but next day, when Nelly told her that she had been awake and heard the talking in the next room, she said: