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40         THE CRISIS

come with me?" I answered: "Honorable sir, I am with you." We threaded the packed aisles, the people giving way before him as before a demi-god. My heart bumped like a fire-engine. My cheeks seemed scalded with the blood in them. I knew that every speaker left behind envied me, that each one had planned a sentence or so that he had expected to roll out with special eloquence and make a hit with that Golden Man. Now I was stealing their audience.

How soft and cool was the night air. Under the dingy street-lamps of the white man's quarter there was a sad and radiant dignity about my companion that put a childish and aching and choking in my throat. I said in my heart, as his measured words came to me like balm: "I would be willing to be skinned alive just like to be him. He justifies the ages." Yet he was simple enough in conversation. He said: "I was anxious to hear your Lin-Kon's birthday celebration, and compare it with our own. I have been deeply gratified at the tone of your address."

I was silent. I did not know how to thank him. With just the right deliberation we entered the brilliant celestial streets, as though crossing that invisible line were crossing no line at all. I had an eye for the pageantry, and Lin-Kon's name in golden letters everywhere. The sage by my side was saying: "Servant, I was anxious to hear the rest of your speakers, but an due at the other banquet. I feel sure that the other men on your programme will adopt the same exalted tone that you used in your address."

"Master, they will, they will," I said hastily, and then blushed. "I mean they will not say anything violent or incendiary. They will"---

"I understand what you mean," he said with the greatest kindness. "I am going to proclaim, at our banquet to-night, as the watchword of reconstruction that saying of Lin-Kon: 'The superior man shows malice toward none and charity for all.' In addition I shall read them, if you are willing, the section of your manuscript in which you counsel 'Sweet Christianity.' It is good for both races to know such a word has been given to-night."

I said: "I will feel a terrible shame, master, if you become absurd for my sake." He made a gesture as though my words of self-depreciation were tossed aside. His face glowed with a determination to be just. He casme of the oldest and the proudest of the Chinese clans. Aspirations lofty and immemorial had formed his forehead and purged his eyes of cunning and scorn. But I went on: "You cannot make me a hero in your assembly. You will lose face, and more than lose face. You and I will be misunderstood and vilified, now and hereafter. Whatever we say on Lin-Kon's birthday, we know a white criminal is made more famous in a day in the gold newspapers, than a white preacher can become by endless talk of 'Sweet Christianity.'"

We paused before the statue of Equality. She was a vast Sphinx-like creature. The animals beneath her claws, supposed to represent Prejudice, and slain Tyranny, were carved like those on the avenue to the Ming Tombs. Her half-shut-eyes held unfathomable thought. Many men who passed by saluted her gravely, so I presumed it was a custom. But my noble friend did more than that. He turned and put both hands on my shoulders, made me look him in the eyes, and shook me by the hand. His inner exultation must have been tremendous to overcome his natural shrinking from my white and ghastly skin. I gave him the manuscript. I regretted it the moment it had left my hand. 
VII. I Almost Wake Up, Yet Dream On.

We were at the door of the banqueting hall. We passed through long lines of white lackeys who bent respectful eyes on my companion, and supercillious eyes on me. I began to tremble. Indeed I loved the man for his unworldliness, but I wanted to get my manuscript from him before he absent-mindedly led me into the very presence of the revellers themselves. He was expounding to me his views of the Anglo-Saxon talent for Drama, glossing over the faults of Shakespeare and showing his real native worth. He was talking rather loudly in his generous excitement.

AND NOW HE HAD DONE IT. I WAS PROFANING THE INNER SANCTUARY WHERE NO WHITE MAN DARED TO GO UNLESS ATTIRED AS A SERVANT. There were the dazzling revelers. I had a confused picture of an enormous feast, many men drunk. And all those men at those long tables turned from their god-like nectar-drinking to stare at us. I could not but note that my companion was the most majestic presence there. But they scarcely saw him. They gazed at me as



41     THE GOLDEN-FACED PEOPLE

though they would never take their eyes away. I was the cynosure of a thousand reproving and astonished glances. There were fascinated as they would have been had a giant jungle elephant suddenly risen from the earth. And just as they could not take their eyes away, so I could not help gazing at the endless phosphorescent crystals on the sword-hilts of these gentlemen. For every one was armed with that death-dealing electrical blade that only the pure Chinese are permitted to carry.

I seemed to be waking up. I struggled to cry out.  I resolved to take any means possible to wake myself completely and irrevocably---as one often does in the midst of a nightmare. I felt, in the foolish logic of nightmares, that if I could get my manuscript I could break the spell. I took it hastily from the hands of my companion as he was bidding me farewell. Instantly it changed to my own bundle of laundry. I said to myself: "I am awake at last."

But instead, I faced the most terrible part of my dream. The face of my dear friend, that philosophic spirit, that guide through darkness, underwent a complete degradation. It shrivelled like a leaf in a fire, it became petty and full of hate. Uttering inarticulate cries he struggled with me for the bundle, and fell on one knee. He was thoroughly angry because he had fallen, and because his robe of honor was flecked with dust. I still had the victory.

"Would you put me into contempt, robber?" he breathed. "You shall be punished." Then, turning in a voice that brought the whole company to their feet with grave and sobered concern, and finally set their swords whirring in the air, he cried: "This is a robber, an insulter, and an incendiary. He has just been addressing a mob of his people. He has said: 'The White Race or the Chinese must perish. The whole white quarter will be armed in an hour.'"

As he spoke, every face in that company shrivelled to the pettiness and fury of his own. "Burn him alive!" they shouted. "Burn him alive!"

I was fleeing through those time-worn splendid streets with the speed which we can only accomplish in dreams. I had the wild hope that I could reach my own people and warn them that the mob was coming. It seemed to me I could hear the whole yellow race roaring just behind. I reached our assembly hall. The man on the platform was at the climax of his oration "Lin-Kon has often been compared to Confucius,"... But even now blood was flowing. My Chinese friend who had once been so lofty and so kind was shouldering up the aisle right and left with hie fearful magic sword. Immediately behind him came a company of the banqueters, cutting and thrusting like mad. The leader was on the platform in a flash. He struck the miserable speaker on the mouth with the flat of his hand, and then beheaded him.

The swordsmen appear to grow impossibly emaciated and tall, yet with broad, square shoulders. They leaned over the audience like reapers. They mowed down my wailing people like weeds.

I turned. I wrenched desperately at the rings in those iron doors by which, early in the evening, I came to this place. Now I was in the yellow fog once more, crawling in the iron-floored passageway. I felt if I could get to the other end I could awake. My feet and hands were like magnets, clinging to the floor.

VIII. The White Race Still Supreme.

"Well, well, you brought him to, doctor. I thought that broom had finished him."... I was back in the twentieth century, in the laundry-shop. I was on the counter by the window. Friends in festive attire were flocking round me, good fellows all, the blooded youth of the town. I said to myself: "I an awake at last."

Three or four policemen held the door. Outside the mob howled and peered. Across the street dangled four men, hanged by the neck till they were dead. An officer pointed to the nearest.

"That's your Chinaman," he said.

"Who hung him?"

"The mob."

"Who is the next man?"

"That is a Japanese."

"Who is the next?"

"That is just a Greek."

"What did he do?"

The Irishman laughed. "I dunno," he said, 'these foreigners have to keep out of the way, I suppose." Then by way of information he added: "The Greeks are an awful ignorant people."

"Who is the fourth man?"

"Oh, that's just a nigger."

"Why did they hang him?"