The City in the Clouds

The yellow men neither gambled nor got drunk, that was perfectly obvious. There was never a suspicion of opium from first to last, nor was there a single instance of a brawl or a fight. Indeed the local police-inspector, an excellent fellow with whom I had many a talk, expressed himself as being both surprised and delighted at the way in which I had the aliens in hand.

Nearly two months had gone by, and I was curbing the raging fires of impatience and longing as well as I could when two incidents occurred which greatly precipitated action.

Rolston came to me one day in a state of great excitement.

At last, he said, he was beginning to become acquainted with some of the actual officials of the towers – at last, quite separate from those who worked below. They were interested, or beginning to be so, and he urged me at once to open a smaller, inner room as a select meeting-place for such of them as he could inveigle to the "Golden Swan."

We did so at once, hanging the walls with a drapery of black worked with golden dragons, which I bought in Regent Street, a Chinese lantern of copper hanging from the ceiling, and around the wall we placed low couches. Here, in twos and threes, but in slowly increasing numbers, a different type of Oriental began to assemble, Ah Sing attending to all their wants, ingratiating himself in every possible way, and keeping his extremely useful ears wide open – very wide open indeed.

It was now that tiny fragments of personal gossip – more precious to me than rubies – began to filter through. I had established no communication with the City in the Clouds as yet, but I seemed to hear the distant murmur of voices through the void.

One evening about eight o'clock I felt cramped and unutterably bored. I felt that nothing could help me but a long walk and so, with a word to the Honest Fool, Sliddim and Rolston, I took my hat and stick and started out.

It was a brilliant moonlight night, calm, still, and with a white frost upon the ground, as I descended the terrace and made my way down to the side of the river. Here and there I passed a few courting couples; the hum of distant London and the rumbling of trains was like the ground swell of a sea, but peace brooded over everything. The trees made black shadows like Chinese ink upon silver, and, in the full moonlight it was bright enough to read.

When I had walked a mile or so, resisting a certain temptation as well as I could, I stopped and turned at last.

There, a mile away behind me, yet seeming as if it was within a stone's throw, was the huge erection on the hill. Every detail of the lower parts was clear and distinct as an architectural drawing, the intricate lattice-work of enormous cantilevers and girders seemed etched on the inside of a great opal bowl. I can give you no adequate description of the immensity, the awe-inspiring, almost terror-inducing sense of magnitude and majesty. I have stood beside the Pyramids at night, I have crossed the Piazza of Saint Peter's at Rome under the rays of the Italian moon, and I have drunk coffee at the base of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but not one of these experiences approached what I felt now as I surveyed, in an ecstasy of mingled emotions, this monstrous thing that brooded over London.

The eye traveled up, onward and forever up until at length, not hidden by clouds now but a faint blur of white, blue, gold, and tiny twinkling lights, hung in the empyrean the far-off City of Desire.

Could she hear the call of my heart? God knows it seemed loud and strong enough to me! Might she not be, even at this moment, a lovelier Juliet, leaning over some gilded gallery and wondering where I was?

"Was ever a woman so high above her lover before?" I said, and laughed, but my laughter was sadness, and my longing, pain unbearable.

… There was a slight bend in the tow-path where I stood, caused by some out-jutting trees, and from just below I suddenly heard a burst of loud and brutal laughter, followed by a shrill cry. It recalled me from dreamland at once and I hurried round the projection to come upon a strange scene. Two flash young bullies with spotted handkerchiefs around their throats and ash sticks in their hands were menacing a third person whose back was to the river. They were sawing the air with their sticks just in front of a thin, tall figure dressed in what seemed to be a sort of long, buttoned black cassock descending to the feet, and wearing a skull cap of black alpaca. Beneath the skull cap was a thin, ascetic face, ghastly yellow in the moonlight.

… One of the brutes lunged at the man I now saw to be a Chinese of some consequence, lunged at him with a brutal laugh and filthy oath. The Chinaman threw up his lean arms, cried out again in a thin, shrill scream, stepped backwards, missed his footing and went souse into the river. In a second the current caught him and began to whirl him away over towards the Twickenham side. It was obvious that he could not swim a stroke. There was a clatter of hob-nailed boots and bully number one was legging it down the path like a hare. I had just time to give bully number two a straight left on the nap which sent him down like a sack of flour, before I got my coat off and dived in.

Wow! but it was icy cold. For a moment the shock seemed to stop my heart, and then it came right again and I struck out heartily. It didn't take long to catch up with the gentleman in the cassock, who had come up for the second time and apparently resigned himself to the worst. I got hold of him, turned on my back and prepared for stern measures if he should attempt to grip me.

He didn't. He was the easiest johnny to rescue possible, and in another five minutes I'd got him safely to the bank and scrambled up.

There was nobody about, worse luck, and I started to pump the water out of him as well as I could, and after a few minutes had the satisfaction of seeing his face turn from blue-gray to something like its normal yellow under the somewhat ghastly light of the moon. His teeth began to chatter as I jerked him to his feet and furiously rubbed him up and down.

I tried to recall what I knew of pigeon English.

"Bad man throw you in river. You velly lucky, man come by save you, Johnny."

I had the shock of my life.

"I am indeed fortunate," came in a thin, reed-like voice, "I am indeed fortunate in having found so brave a preserver. Honorable sir, from this moment my life is yours."

"Why, you speak perfect English," I said in amazement.

"I have been resident in this country for some time, sir," he replied, "as a student at King's College, until I undertook my present work."

"Well," I said, "we'd better not stand here exchanging polite remarks much longer. There is such a thing as pneumonia, which you would do well to avoid. If you're strong enough, we'll hurry up to the terrace and find my house, where we'll get you dry and warm. I'm the landlord of the 'Golden Swan' Hotel."

He was a polite fellow, this. He bowed profoundly, and then, as the water dripped from his black and meager form, he said something rather extraordinary.

"I should never have thought it."

I cursed myself. The excitement had made me return to the manner of Piccadilly, and this shrewd observer had seen it in a moment. I said no more, but took him by the arm and yanked him along for one of the fastest miles he had ever done in his life.

I took him to the side door of my pub. Fortunately Ah Sing was descending the stairs to replenish an empty decanter with whisky – my yellow gentlemen used to like it in their tea! I explained what had happened in a few words and my shivering derelict was hurried upstairs to my own bedroom. I don't know what Rolston did to him, though I heard Sliddim – now quite the house cat – directed to run down into the kitchen and confer with Mrs. Abbs.

For my part, I sat in the room behind the bar, listening to the Honest Fool talking with my patrons, and shed my clothes before a blazing fire. A little hot rum, a change, and a dressing-gown, and I was myself again, and smoking a pipe I fell into a sort of dream.

It was a pleasant dream. I suppose the shock of the swim, the race up the terrace to the "Swan," the rum and milk which followed had a soporific, soothing effect. I wasn't exactly asleep, I was pleasantly drowsed, and I had a sort of feeling that something was going to happen. Just about closing time Rolston glided in – I never saw a European before or since who could so perfectly imitate the ghost walk of the yellow men.

I looked to see that the door to the bar was shut.

"Well, how's our friend?" I asked.

"He's had a big shock, Sir Thomas, but he's all right now. I've rubbed him all over with oil, fed him up with beef-tea and brandy and found him dry clothes."

"He's from the towers, of course?"

As I said this, I saw Bill Rolston's face, beneath its yellow dye, was blazing with excitement.

"Sir Thomas," he said in a whisper, "this is Pu-Yi himself, Mr. Morse's Chinese secretary, a man utterly different from the others we have seen here yet. He's of the Mandarin class, the buttons on his robe are of red coral. In this house, at this moment, we have one of the masters of the Secret City."

I gave a long, low whistle, which – I remember it so well – exactly coincided with the raucous shout of the Honest Fool – "Time, gentlemen, please!"

A thought struck me.

"The other Chinese in the large and small rooms, do they know this man is here?"

"No, Sir Thomas; I am more than glad to say I got him up to your own room when both doors were closed."

"What's he doing now?"

"He's having a little sleep. I promised to call him in an hour or so, when he wishes to pay you his respects."

He listened for a moment.

"The others are going downstairs," he said. "I must be there to see them out, and I have one or two little transactions – "

He felt in a villainous side pocket and I knew as well as possible what it contained, and what would be handed to one or two of the moon-faced gentlemen as they slipped out of the side door on their way home.

Bill came back in some twenty minutes.

"Now," he said, "I'm going upstairs to wake Pu-Yi and bring him down to you. You must remember, Sir Thomas, that I am only a dirty little servant. I am as far beneath a man like Pu-Yi as Sir Thomas Kirby is above Stanley Whistlecraft, so I cannot be present at your interview. My idea was that I should creep into the bar – Stanley will have had his supper and gone to bed – and lie down on the floor with my ear to the bottom of the door, then I can hear everything."

"That's a good idea," I said, for I was beginning to realize what an enormous lot might depend upon this interview. Then I thought of something else.

"Look here, Bill, you must remember this too. I fished the blighter out of the Thames and no doubt he will be thankful in his overdone, Oriental fashion. But to him, a man of the class you say he is, I shall be nothing but a vulgar publican, and I don't see quite what's going to come out of that!"