“I will never go away until the land is mine!”
Then the young man rose and he threw back his head proudly and he said,
“Then stay, and spend your life here, for we can bear it!” and without another word he turned back toward the gate.
Then Wang the Tiger felt his old black anger come up in him and he said to himself that he was amazed that an importunate enemy should send so discourteous a messenger, who had not even performed any rites of courtesy, and to himself he thought that this was the most impudent young man he had ever seen, and the more he thought the more angry he grew and suddenly and before he knew it clearly himself he was furious and he called to a soldier,
“Lift me your gun and shoot that fellow!”
The soldier obeyed instantly and he shot very well for the young man fell face down upon a narrow bridge that crossed the moat and his flag fell into the water and the pole floated idly upon the surface of the moat and the whiteness of the flag was sullied with the muddy stream. Then Wang the Tiger commanded his men to run forward and fetch the young man, and they did, running swiftly lest a shot come down from the wall, but not one did come, and Wang the Tiger marvelled a little and wondered what this might mean. But he wondered still more when the young man lay before him dead and fast turning the hue of death, for this young man was not starving at all. No, when Wang the Tiger ordered his clothes to be stripped from him so that he might see his flesh, there the young man lay, not fat but still filled out well so that it could be seen he had been fed with something.
Then was Wang the Tiger somewhat dashed at the sight and he was discouraged for the moment and he cried,
“If this fellow is as fat as he is, what have they to eat that they can last so well against me?” And he cursed and said, “Well, and I can spend my life at this as well as they can!”
Because he was so angry from this day he commanded his soldiers to make themselves easy and to take their comfort, and thereafter when he saw them taking food or goods from the people in the suburbs about that city or from farming folk here and there, he did not stop them as he once would have, and when a farmer came to complain or any came to swear against a soldier that he had come into a private house and done what he should not, Wang the Tiger said sullenly,
“You are an accursed lot, you people, and I believe you are sending food secretly into this city or else how can they be so long fed?”
But the farmers swore they were not and many times one would say piteously,
“What do we care what lord is over us, and do you think we love this old robber who has kept us half starved with his taxes? Sir, if you will only treat us with mercy and keep your men back from evil, we will even be glad to have you in his place.”
But Wang the Tiger grew surly as the summer wore on, and he cursed the heat and the myriads of flies that breeded upon the piles of filth the many soldiers must make, and the mosquitoes that came out of the stagnant moat, and he thought with impatience of the city where his own courts were and where his two wives waited for him, and all his anger made him not so kind as he had been and his men grew very lawless and he let them be so.
There came one night in the time of the great heat, a very hot bright moonlight night and Wang the Tiger walked outside his tent for coolness, for he could not sleep. He walked alone except for his bodyguard who strolled yawning and half asleep behind him as he walked to and fro. And Wang stared as he ever did at the walls of the city and they stood high and black in the moonlight and it seemed unconquerable to him. And as he stared he grew very angry again, and indeed his anger was never cooled in these days, and he swore to himself very bitterly that he would make every man and woman and even the children in the city suffer for all the discomfort of this war he was waging. At that moment he saw a moving spot upon the blackness of the wall, a spot more black and moving downward. He stared and stood still. At first he could not believe he saw it but the longer he stood and stared the more he could see that there was something small and dark moving like a crab among the vines and the dry small trees that clung to that old wall. At last he saw that it was a man. Yes, the man reached the bottom and he dropped and came out into the moonlight and Wang the Tiger saw that he waved a white cloth.
Then Wang the Tiger commanded that one go to meet him bearing a white flag also, and he commanded that the man be brought to him and he stood and waited there and he strained his sight to see what this man was. When the man was come he threw himself at Wang the Tiger’s feet and beat his head on the ground to beg for mercy. But Wang the Tiger shouted,
“Stand him on his feet and let me see him!”
Two soldiers came forward then and lifted the man and Wang the Tiger stared and as he stared he grew so angry that he felt a thickness in his throat, for this man was not yet starved. No, gaunt he was and very thin and black, but he was not starved and Wang the Tiger bellowed,
“Are you come to surrender the city?”
And the man said, “No, the chief will not surrender yet for he still has food, and we who are about him have some food given us every day. The people starve, it is true, but we can let them, and we are able to hold out yet awhile and we hope for help from the south for we have let a man over the wall secretly to go for it.”
At this Wang the Tiger felt very insecure and he said doubtfully, holding back his anger as best he could,
“Why have you come if not to surrender?”
And the man said sullenly, “I do come only for my own sake. The general under whom I serve has used me very ill. Yes, he is only a coarse and hateful creature, wild and untutored, and I am a man of gentle blood. My father was even a scholar and I am used to courtesy. He has put me to great shame before my own soldiers. Now a man may forgive much, but he can never forgive being put to shame and it is insult not only to me but to my ancestors for whom I stand in these times, and his ancestors were, if he knows them at all, such as would be held serfs by mine.”
“But how could he put you to such shame as this?” asked Wang the Tiger, and he was secretly much astonished at this turn.
And the man answered with a sullen passion, “He belittled me for the way I held my gun and this is my greatest skill and I can fell what I aim for without a miss.”
Then a light began to come over Wang the Tiger, for well he knew that laughter and belittling can breed the bitterest hatred in a man’s heart even against a friend, and a man will do anything for revenge if shame is put on him, especially if he be a high proud fellow such as this man was in his looks. And Wang the Tiger said plainly,
“Tell me what your price is.”
Then the man looked about him and here were the soldiers of Wang the Tiger’s bodyguard, listening and their mouths ajar, and he bent and whispered,
“Let me go into your tent with you where I can speak out.”
Then Wang the Tiger turned and strode into his tent and he commanded the man to be brought there and he left no more soldiers with him than five or six or so to guard against possible treachery from this man. But there was no treachery in this one, only revenge, and so Wang the Tiger found, for the man said,
“I am so filled with hatred and rage that I am willing to climb back over the wall and open the gate to you and I ask only one thing, that you will take me under your own banners and the few men who follow me whom I do not hate, and protect us, lest if the robber is not killed, I shall be sought for and killed, for he is a bitter enemy.”
But Wang the Tiger would not have such generous help free and unrewarded with no more than this, and so he said, looking hard at the man as he stood before him between the two soldiers who held him,