A HAZARD OF HEARTS by Frances Burke Read Free Book Online Page B

gnarled tree stump of
a man totally at home in his setting, was able to provide an answer. It was one
that, at first, added a load to Pearl’s weighted heart. Her brother had heard
about the great gold strikes in a land of the Red Hairs far to the south and
had gone to make his fortune.
    ‘Left China!’ Pearl sank down on her haunches
and laid her forehead on her knees.
    Thomas tittered. ‘He heard that gold hung from
the trees in this land, this Ostrahleeah. He told me he would come home with a
sackful to buy the house of a mandarin and live in it and forget that he ever
bore the mark of slavery.’
    Gold that hung from trees? Pearl shook her head.
Li Po would be disappointed. But at least she now knew where to find him. She
rose and thanked Thomas for his help, then turned to his mistress.
    ‘I will follow my brother to this Ostrahleeah. How
do I get there?’
    Edna Horbury allowed herself a superior smile. ‘My
dear, the place is practically off the map, thousands of miles away. You could
never travel such a distance.’
    ‘Others do. Where can I find a ship to take me?’
When the woman hesitated, Pearl moved impatiently. ‘I’ll find out for myself. Could
I please stay with you for a few days until I make my arrangements? I want to
leave Nanking before the Tai Ping come.’
    Hospitality being offered and accepted, Edna
Horbury set herself to explain to this half pagan child just how she had misjudged
the God-worshipping Tai Ping leader. Pearl listened, argued, then gave up in
the face of such monumental assurance. However, she had not been alone in appreciating
that the river made a swift highway. The rebels also had taken to the water,
and within three days were at the city walls. Pearl had left it too late to
leave.
    ~*~
    By dusk the rampage had ended. Certain by
then that whatever was left of the city had quietened, Pearl picked her way
cautiously through the narrow streets blocked with clay bricks, shattered tiles
and shards of timber. These were remains of narrow houses butted hard against
one another yet not strong enough to withstand deliberate attack. The air was
thick with smoke and the sweet smell of roasted flesh, overlaid with charred
wood. Even the inevitable miasma that cloaked China in an ancient stinking pall
– decayed garbage, over-flowing sewers, faeces spread in the paddy fields, putrefied
remains floating in the canals – even this had been temporarily overcome.
    Accustomed as she was to unpleasant smells,
Pearl wrinkled her small nose and covered it with her sleeve. She remembered
these streets as busy arteries leading to the markets where all the world
gathered to gossip and haggle over the produce brought in from the countryside;
where rickshaws jostled chairmen transporting high-nosed mandarins to the
palaces for audience with equally high-nosed officials; and street urchins and
beggars blocked passage to the many temples, whining, importuning.
    Pearl’s eyes filled with tears, the first she
had allowed herself to shed since war swept away her world. The tears became a
torrent and, shaking too much to continue, she crept into shelter under some
fallen pillars to give way to her grief. She didn’t weep for the destruction,
or for the mass death surrounding her, but for herself and the loss of two good
people who had cared enough about their fellow men to leave home, comfort and
loved ones to bring an important gift of knowledge to a country lacking that
knowledge. It didn’t matter whether they were unwelcome, that their message had
little relevance for the people they tried to help, physically and spiritually.
They had ignored the very real risks they ran and in the end had given their
lives for their beliefs. All that Pearl knew of goodness and self- sacrifice
came from them, so she wept for her loss.
    ~*~
    Two weeks later HMS Hermes , carrying
the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir George Bonham, docked at Nanking. While the representative
of Her Britannic Majesty was frustrated in his