Chamber’s premises he paused, of long habit, to look around for Apu his lantern-bearer. Ordinarily Vico, or someone else, would have made sure that Apu had been sent to fetch him – but today was no ordinary day, so he was not surprised to find the courtyard empty of lantern-bearers.
Setting off at a brisk pace, Bahram emerged from the Danish Hong to find himself alone on the Maidan, with a thick fog rolling in from the river. The waterfront was already obscured as was much of the Maidan, but pinpricks of light could be seen in the windows of all the factories.
In the distance, on the far side of White Swan Lake, fireworks were still shooting into the sky. On exploding the rockets created a peculiar effect in the fog, sparking a diffuse glow that seemed to linger in the tendrils of mist. During one of these bursts of illumination Bahram caught sight of a gowned man, some ten paces ahead. He could only see his back but there was no mistaking his walk.
‘Allow?!’
There was no answer and the fog had gone dark in the meanwhile. But then another rocket exploded overhead and Bahram caught sight of him again. He raised his voice: ‘Allow! Chin-chin! What-for Allow no speakee Mister Barry?’
Again there was no answer.
Bahram was quickening his pace when he heard Vico’s voice, echoing out of the fog: Patrao! Patrao! Where are you?
He turned to see a lamp bobbing in the gloom.
Here, Vico!
Stay there, patrao. Wait.
Bahram came to a stop and a couple of minutes later Vico’s lamplit face loomed out of the fog.
I was coming to fetch you, patrao, said Vico. The lantern-walas weren’t around today and what with the fog and all I thought you might need a light. I was on my way to the Club when I heard your voice. Who was that you were speaking to?
Allow, said Bahram.
Who? Vico’s eyes suddenly grew very large: Who did you say?
Allow. He was right in front of me. Didn’t you see him?
No, patrao.
Vico put a hand on Bahram’s arm and turned him in the direction of the Achha Hong.
It couldn’t have been Allow, patrao. You must have seen someone else.
What do you mean, Vico? said Bahram in surprise. I’m almost sure it was Allow. He was just ahead of me.
Vico shook his head. No, patrao. It must have been someone else.
Why do you keep saying that, Vico? I’m telling you. I saw Allow.
No, patrao, you could not have seen him, said Vico gently. See, patrao, Allow had not run away as we had thought. It turns out that he had been arrested.
Oh? Bahram ran a finger over his beard. Have they let him off then? How is it that he was out on the Maidan?
Vico came to a stop and put his hand on Bahram’s arm.
That was not Allow, patrao. Allow is dead. It was he who was to be executed in the Maidan this morning. The authorities have just announced the name: it was Ho Lao-kin – that was what Allow was called, remember? After the riot he was taken to the execution grounds. He was strangled this afternoon.
Part III
Commissioner Lin
Thirteen
January 4
1839!!
Never before has it happened to me, Puggly dear, that I have started a letter in one year and ended it in the next! It could not be helped, however, for the traffic on the river has been frozen all this while. But only this morning there was word that the ban may soon be lifted – and being thus reminded of this unfinished letter, I have retrieved these pages from the drawer in which they have languished since December 12th.
Having now re-read the last entry I have decided to leave intact the interrupted sentence with which it ended: for just as the half-eaten meals on the tables of Pompeii are proof of the unforeseen nature of Etna’s eruption, this little fragment too bears witness to the suddenness with which the riots of December 12th burst upon us in Canton.
Since news needs no boats to travel in, word of those events will, I warrant, have reached you before this letter. Instead of burdening you with my own account of the riots I am enclosing a copy of Mr Slade’s report in the Canton Register. Suffice it to say that the events unfolded in front of my very eyes and in looking back it strikes me that it was a most fortunate turn of kismet that led to my being seated at my desk at the time of their commencement. I was thus preserved from Bodily Injury (which was not the case with some who were wandering abroad in the Maidan); and being granted a privileged point of vantage, I was spared the temptation also of venturing closer to the Scene.
It is surely no secret to you, my dear Puggla’zelle, that your poor Robin does not aspire to be a Hero, so you will not be surprised to learn that I did not stir from my room until order had been restored. In the late afternoon I was informed by Zadig Bey that Captain Elliott, the British Superintendent, had arrived in Fanqui-town and was shortly to address all the foreign residents. Being assured that there was no risk to my Person, I decided to accompany Zadig Bey to the meeting, which was to be held in the British Hong, across the Maidan from Markwick’s Hotel.
The enclave was, by this time, perfectly tranquil, with guards posted everywhere and no sign of the usual vendors and loiterers. Yet, evidence of the recent Upheaval was littered around us; shards of glass glistened in the dust; fence posts lay scattered about, like twigs after a storm, having been uprooted and hurled against the factory walls; and the gates of some of the factories were so badly battered it seemed a miracle their hinges had not given way.
The American Hong in particular had suffered a great deal of damage: this is where Charlie resides and I was shocked to see that the windows of his daftar – the very room where he had been sitting for me – were shattered! I am of course something of a Worrier, Puggly dear, so you will understand how relieved I was when we came upon Charlie shortly afterwards and found him unharmed. He was however in a state of great agitation, having witnessed the riots with a sense of dire foreboding. The disturbances were proof, he said, that the foreign merchants are utterly mistaken in their belief that the populace is not in accord with their rulers on the matter of opium. They are, on the contrary, wholly supportive of the official measures against the drug; indeed there is immense public indignation at the impunity of the foreigner – else the people would not have turned upon us all at once, and we would not have needed police protection against them.
‘The smuggling of opium has lost us the affections of the good, has made us panders to the appetites of the bad, and we may well fear lest we one day suffer by the outbreakings of passions to whose excitement we ourselves have ministered.’
Among the educated classes, many have come to be convinced, said Charlie, that the foreign traders are like children, and are unacquainted with reason (which they call Taou-le). That the mandarins had resorted to the extreme and unprecedented step of ordering an execution in the Maidan was a sure sign, he said, that they had abandoned all hope of being able to communicate with the foreign community through other, more reasonable, means.
We were all agreed, of course, that the method employed was a deplorable one – yet none of us doubted
