Throne of Jade Page 0,138

he said, as the diplomat came to his side, Sun Kai with him.

"Captain Laurence, I beg you to listen to me," Hammond said urgently. "We had much better go with Sun Kai at once. These attackers he expects are young bannermen, members of the Tartar tribes, who from poverty and lack of occupation have gone into a sort of local brigandage, and there may be a great many of them."

"Will they have any artillery?" Laurence asked, paying no attention to the attempt at persuasion.

"Cannon? No, of course not; they do not even have muskets," Sun Kai said, "but what does that matter? There may be one hundred of them or more, and I have heard rumors that some among them have even studied Shaolin Quan, in secret, though it is against the law."

"And some of them may be, however distantly, kin to the Emperor," Hammond added. "If we were to kill one, it could easily be used as a pretext for taking offense, and casting us out of the country; you must see we ought to leave at once."

"Sir, you will give us some privacy," Laurence said to Sun Kai, flatly, and the envoy did not argue, but silently bowed his head and moved some distance away.

"Mr. Hammond," Laurence said, turning to him, "you yourself warned me to beware of attempts to separate me from Temeraire, now only consider: if he should return here, to find us gone, with no explanation and all our baggage gone also, how should he ever find us again? Perhaps he might even be convinced that we had been given a treaty and left him deliberately behind, as Yongxing once desired me to do."

"And how will the case be improved if he returns and finds you dead, and all of us with you?" Hammond said impatiently. "Sun Kai has before now given us cause to trust him."

"I give less weight to a small piece of inconsequential advice than you do, sir, and more to a long and deliberate lie of omission; he has unquestionably spied on us from the very beginning of our acquaintance," Laurence said. "No; we are not going with him. It will not be more than a few hours before Temeraire returns, and I am confident in our holding out that long."

"Unless they have found some means of distracting him, and keeping him longer at his visit," Hammond said. "If the Chinese government meant to separate us from him, they could have done so by force at any time during his absence. I am sure Sun Kai can arrange to have a message sent to him at his mother's residence once we have gone to safety."

"Then let him go and send the message now, if he likes," Laurence said. "You are welcome to go with him."

"No, sir," Hammond said, flushing, and turned on his heel to speak with Sun Kai. The former envoy shook his head and left, and Hammond went to take a cutlass from the ready heap.

They worked for another quarter of an hour, hauling in three of the queer-shaped boulders from outside to make the barricade for the riflemen, and dragging over the enormous dragon-couch to block off most of the entryway. The sun had gone by now, but the usual lanterns did not make their appearance around the island, nor any signs of human life at all.

"Sir!" Digby hissed suddenly, pointing out into the grounds. "Two points to starboard, outside the doors of the house."

"Away from the entry," Laurence said; he could not see anything in the twilight, but Digby's young eyes were better than his. "Willoughby, douse that light."

The soft click-click of the guns being cocked, the echo of his own breath in his ears, the constant untroubled hum of the flies and mosquitoes outside; these were at first the only noise, until use filtered them out and he could hear the light running footsteps outside: a great many men, he thought. Abruptly there was a crash of wood, several yells. "They've broken into the house, sir," Hackley whispered hoarsely from the barricades.

"Quiet, there," Laurence said, and they kept a silent vigil while the sound of breaking furniture and shattering glass came from the house. The flare of torches outside cast shadows into the pavilion, weaving and leaping in strange angles as a search commenced. Laurence heard men calling to each other outside, the sound coming down from the eaves of the roof. He glanced back; Riggs nodded, and the three riflemen raised their guns.

The first man