Stolen Idols. E. Phillips Oppenheim

his arm like a ring of iron.

      “Wait!” Wu Ling ordered. “There shall be light.”

      And immediately there was. From some unseen switch the dark chamber was flooded with the illumination of many electric bulbs. Ballaston gasped as he looked around. It was almost as though he had found his way into some Aladdin’s cave. On shelves of red, highly polished wood were ranged lumps of jade and quartz, bowls of ancient china of which even his inexperience could gauge the pricelessness, silk coats, faded but marvellously embroidered, barbaric stones in open trays, a great circlet of Malay pearls, and, on a shelf alone, staring at him, bland and unmistakable, the other of the twin Images which he and his friend had dragged down from their pedestals in the Temple. Ballaston stared at it speechless. The face itself had a touch of sphinxlike mysticism, the remoteness of a god, the benevolence of a kindly spirit. The work in it seemed so slight; the result so prodigious. Ballaston found words at last.

      “The other Image!” he cried. “Where did you get it?”

      “In this city,” Wu Ling explained, “nothing of this sort is sold unless it come first to us. Three nights since there appeared a messenger. I sought the man from whom he came at his hiding place in the city. With him I traded for the Image.”

      “You purchased it!” the young man gasped.

      “Whom else?” was the composed reply. “In this country, from the dark forests of Northern Mongolia, the temples of Pekin, or the mines on the Siberian borders, all that there is for which men seek gold comes here. We pay. They sell.”

      “But you can’t keep it,” Ballaston exclaimed, “not in this country. The priests will hear. You will be forced to return it. If it belongs to any one——”

      He stopped short. Wu Ling read his thoughts and smiled.

      “The priests of the temple, which you and your accomplice ravaged,” he announced, “live no longer. They were murdered by the people many days ago, for their sin in permitting you to enter the temple. Furthermore, the Images are now defiled. The hand of the foreigner has touched them. They can never again take their place by the side of the Great Buddha. You bought with blood, and I with gold.”

      There was the sound of shuffling footsteps close at hand. An elderly man, dressed in shabby European clothes, stood behind them. He looked over their shoulders at the Image, and there was for a moment almost a glow in his worn and lined face.

      “This,” Wu Ling confided, “is a man of your race. He is of the firm—a partner—not because of business, but because he is a great scholar. He reads strange tongues, manuscripts from the monasteries of Thibet, the archives of ancient China. He was once a professor at one of your universities—Professor Endacott. He is now of the firm of Johnson and Company.”

      The newcomer acknowledged indifferently the young man’s greeting.

      “You are looking at a very wonderful piece of carving,” he said. “I once spent a year in Pekin to see that and its companion Image.”

      “Young man has other,” Wu Ling explained blandly. “He and friend stole both from temple. This one come here—you know how. The other he has on ship, taking with him to England.”

      Endacott’s whole frame seemed to stiffen. He frowned heavily. His tone carried a far-off note of sarcasm, which might have belonged to the days of his professorship.

      “The young man has chosen as he would,” he remarked. “He possesses the Body, and here, still in the land which gave it immortality, remains the Soul. Now they are separated. What will you do with your Image, young man, if you reach your country safely?”

      “There is a legend of hidden jewels,” was the eager reply. “You perhaps know of it.”

      “I know the legend well,” the other admitted. “There is treasure in one, perhaps in both. Which do you think might hold the jewels—the Body or the Soul?”

      “I am hoping that there are some in mine, anyhow,” Ballaston answered.

      “That may be,” was the tranquil comment. “On the other hand, we may find the whole story to be an allegory. You may discover nothing but emptiness and disappointment in the Body. Here, at least, in the Soul, you find reflected by the divine skill of the craftsman, the jewels of pure living and spiritual thought. You were of Oxford, young man?”

      “Magdalen.”

      “You have the air. Nearly all of your age and small vision scoff in your hearts at any religion which may seek to express the qualities for which that Image stands. It is your ill-fortune that you have the Body. When you are home you will unpack your case, you will place the Image amongst your treasures, and I can tell you, even though it is thirty years since I saw it, what you will see. You will see a brooding face and eyes cast down to the dunghills. You will see thick lips and coarse features. You will see expressed as glaringly as here you see the triumph of the spirit, the debasement of the body. You will watch your Image and you will sink. You will never look at it, you or others, without conceiving an unworthy thought, just as you could never look upon this one without feeling that some one has stretched down his hand, that somewhere there is a murmur of sweet voices speaking to you from above the clouds.”

      “But the jewels!” the young man persisted.

      “Bah!” Endacott muttered, as he turned on his heel.

      Ballaston, with wondering eyes, watched the erstwhile professor disappear.

      “Looney!” he murmured, under his breath.

      “I desire pardon,” Wu Ling interpolated politely.

      “A madman!”

      Wu Ling smiled.

      “He is a personage of great learning,” he declared. “He is a friend of Chinese scholars who have never spoken to any other foreigner. He has great knowledge.”

      “What are you going to do with that?” Ballaston asked, motioning towards the Image.

      Wu Ling sighed. He stood for a moment in silent thought, his eyes fixed upon his treasure. Then gently and almost with reverence he turned away, beckoned his companion to precede him, passed out and locked the door.

      “Who can tell?” he ruminated. “We have a great warehouse here filled with strange goods, as you see, another and larger in Alexandria, an agent in New York. All the things come and go. We do not hurry. We have jade there which we have not even spoken of for twenty years, silk robes from the chests of him who was emperor, ivory carvings from his Summer Palace, denied even to the great merchants. Perhaps we sell. Perhaps not.”

      “You must be rolling in money,” the young man sighed.

      “I desire pardon,” Wu Ling rejoined, mystified.

      “You must be wealthy—very rich.”

      Wu Ling smiled tolerantly. He turned back, swung open once more the door, and turned on the light. He pointed to the Image, serene and benevolent.

      “What counts money?” he murmured.

      They were about halfway through the outer warehouse on their way to the lighter room beyond, when a thing happened so amazing that Ballaston stopped short and gripped his companion by the shoulder. Returning towards them was Endacott, and by his side a girl. She was dressed simply enough in the white clothes and shady straw hat which the climate demanded, but there were other things which made her appearance in such a place curiously incongruous. She broke off in her conversation and looked at Gregory Ballaston in frank astonishment. It was certainly an unusual meeting place for two young people of the modern world.

      “I am taking my niece to see our new treasure,” Mr. Endacott observed, a little stiffly. “Will you lend me the key, Wu Ling, or will you take us back yourself?”

      “I will return,” Wu Ling replied gravely. “The young gentleman will excuse.”

      “If I too might be permitted one more glimpse,” Ballaston begged.