Chapter II: The Yellow Cord

"Excellent youth," said the Chinaman, "you pronounce my name. How is this?"

"I'm Motor Matt," answered the king of the motor boys, "and this is my chum, Joe McGlory. You asked us to come, and here we are. There's your letter to me."

Matt opened the written sheet and held it in front of Tsan Ti's face. The Celestial's face underwent a change. A flicker of hope ran through the fear and consternation.

"_Omito fuh!_" he muttered, rising slowly to his feet. "The five hundred gods have covered me with much disgrace, this last hour, but now they bring me a gleam of hope from the clouds of despair. By the plumes of the sacred peacock, I bow before you with much gratefulness."

He bowed--or tried to. His ponderous stomach interfered with the manoeuvre, and he caught a crick in his back--the direct result, probably, of his recent spill.

"You are here to be of aid to the unfortunate mandarin, are you not, illustrious sirs?" went on Tsan Ti, leaning against a tree, and rubbing his right sandal up and down his left shin. Quite likely the left shin was barked, and the right sandal was affording it consolation.

"First aid to the injured, Tsan," grinned McGlory, getting a good deal of fun out of this novel encounter.

The cowboy had met many Chinamen, but never before one of this sort. The experience was mildly exciting.

"Wit," chanted Tsan Ti, "is the weapon of the wise, the idol of the fool; a runaway knock at laughter's door; arrows from the quiver of genius; intellectual lightning from the thunder clouds of talent; the lever of----"

"Sufferin' cats!" exploded McGlory. "What is he talking about? In that letter, Tsan, you speak about insulting us with a thousand plunks and expenses. Was that a rhinecaboo or the real thing?"

Without changing his countenance by so much as a line, Tsan Ti lifted the bottom of his blouse, and unbuttoned the pocket of a leather belt around his huge girth. From the pocket he took five gold double eagles in good American money.

"Have I the understanding," he asked, "that you will be of help to my distress?"

"Tell us, first," answered Matt, a little bewildered by the mandarin's queer talk and actions, "what it is you want."

"What I want, notable friend, is the Eye of Buddha, the great ruby which was stolen from the forehead of the idol in temple of Hai-chwang-sze, in the city named Canton. I, even I, now the most miserable of creatures, was guardian of the temple when this theft occurred. I fled to find the thief, and Kien Lung, by order of the Son of the Morning, our imperial regent, fled after me with that invitation to death, the yellow cord."

Tsan Ti pointed to the ground where the cord was lying. His flabby cheeks grew hueless, and he caught his breath.

"An invitation to death?" repeated Matt, staring at the yellow cord.

"It is so, gracious youth," explained Tsan Ti. "When our regent wishes one of his officials to efface himself, he sends the yellow cord. It is the death warrant. The card tells me that I have two weeks before it is necessary that I should strangle myself. This happy dispatch must be performed unless, through you, I can recover the Eye of Buddha. So runs the scroll."

"Speak to me about this!" muttered McGlory. "But look here, old man, you don't have to strangle yourself because some High Mucky Muck, a few thousand miles off, sends you the thing to do it with, do you?"

"Unless it is done," was the calm response, "I shall be disgraced for all time, and my memory reviled."

"Oh, blazes! I'd rather be a live Chinaman in disgrace, than a dead one with a monument a mile high."

"You converse without knowledge," said Tsan Ti.

"That's horse sense, anyhow."

"Let's get at the nub of this thing, Tsan Ti," said Matt, feeling a deep interest in the strange Chinaman in spite of himself. "You were in charge of a Canton temple in which was an image of Buddha. That image had a ruby set in the forehead. The ruby was stolen. You ran away from China to find the thief, and this Kien Lung, as you call him, trailed after you with the yellow cord from the regent. The cord was accompanied by a written order to the effect that, if you did not succeed in recovering the ruby in two weeks, you must strangle yourself. Before the cord was delivered to you, you sent that letter to me."

"What you say is true," answered Tsan Ti. "I have been for a long period endeavoring to keep away from Kien Lung. I knew what he had to give me, and I did not want it. Now that I have the cord, you can understand, out of courtesy I must slay myself--unless, through you, I regain the Eye of Buddha."

"How did you come to pick _me_ out for an assistant?" went on Matt. "What you ought to have is a detective. This part of the country is full of detectives."

"I cannot trust the detectives. The ruby is valuable, and I am a discredited mandarin in a far country. The detectives would keep the ruby, and then there would be for me only death by the cord. I read in the public prints generous and never-to-be-forgotten things about Motor Matt, and my heart assures me that you are the one, and the only one, to come to my aid."

"You tune up like a professor," remarked McGlory. "Where'd you corral so much good pidgin, Tsan?"

"I was educated in one of your institutions of learning," was the reply. "But, illustrious sirs, shall we return to the hotel on the mountain top? I have this go-devil machine to pay for. It did not belong to me. A dozen of the machines were near the porch of the hotel, where I was drinking tea. I saw Kien Lung coming toward me along the porch, and I left my tea and sprang to one of the machines. I learned to ride while I was educating myself in this country. Kien Lung was also able to ride, but that I did not know until I saw him later. Shall we go on to the hotel? I am bruised and in much distress."

"We might just as well find out all you can tell us about the Eye of Buddha before we go to the hotel," returned Matt. "We are by ourselves, here, and I'd like to get all the information possible."

Tsan Ti picked up the card and the yellow cord. Thoughtfully he twisted the cord around and around his fat palm and tucked it into the black box. On the cord he placed the card, and over all closed the box lid. With a rumbling sigh, he dropped the black box into the breast of his blouse.

"Foreign devils," said he, once more bracing himself against the tree trunk, "call the temple of Hai-chwang-sze the Honam Joss House. It is by the beautiful river, in the suburb named Honam. Around the temple there is a wall. The avenue of a thousand delights leads from the great gate to the temple courts, and noble banyan trees shade the avenue. At vespers, some weeks ago, two foreign devils were present. The hour was five in the afternoon. One of the foreign devils was English, and wore a tourist hat with a pugree; the other had but a single eye. Lob Loo, a priest, told me what happened.

"The Englishman threw a shimmering ball upon the temple floor. Odors came from it, quick as an eyeflash. Quick as another eyeflash, the priests reeled where they stood, their senses leaving them. Lob Loo tells me the foreign devils had covered their faces suddenly with white masks. Then, after seeing that much, Lob Loo lost his five senses, and wandered in fields of darkness.

"When Lob Loo opened his eyes, he saw glass fragments on the floor, and a ladder of silk swinging from the neck of the god. The image, renowned sirs, is twenty feet in height, and to reach the ruby eye the foreign devils had to climb. The eye was gone. When Lob Loo told me these things, I was seized of a mighty fear, and fled to Hongkong. There the five hundred gods favored me, and I learned that a man in a tourist hat with a pugree, and another with a single eye, had sailed for San Francisco. Quickly I caught the next steamer, after sending cable messages to the leaders of a San Francisco _tong_ who are Cantonese, and friends of mine. When the ship brought the thieves through the Golden Gate, some of the _tong_ watched the landing. The thieves were in San Francisco three days, and Sam Wing followed them when they left for Chicago, then for New York, and then for these Catskill Mountains. When I reached San Francisco, the leading men of the _tong_ had telegrams from Sam Wing. By use of the telegrams, I followed, and arrived here. Wing had left a writing for me at the hotel, telling me to wait. I waited, but Wing had disappeared. I kept on waiting, and out of my discouragement, remarkable sir, I wrote to you. That is all, until this morning, when Kien Lung came with the yellow cord. Two weeks are left me. If the Eye of Buddha is not found in that time, then"--and Tsan Ti tapped the breast of his sagging blouse--"all that remains is the quick dispatch."

Both Matt and McGlory had listened with intense interest to this odd yarn. Although a heathen, and lately keeper of a heathen temple, the mandarin was nevertheless a person of culture and of considerable importance. The sending of the yellow cord was a custom of his country, and it was evident that he intended to abide by the custom in case the Eye of Buddha was not recovered within two weeks.

"Shall we turn the trick for him, pard?" asked McGlory. "This palaver of his makes a bit of a hit with me. I'd hate like Sam Hill to have him shut off his breath with that yellow cord. If----"

The hum of an approaching automobile reached the ears of those at the roadside. The machine was coming from above, and Matt pulled the broken bicycle out of the road.

The boys and the mandarin stood in a group while waiting for the car to pass. Tsan Ti, seemingly wrapped up in his own miseries, gave no attention to the car, at first.

There were two passengers in the car--the driver, and another in the tonneau.

The car, on the down grade, was coming at a terrific clip, and the man in the tonneau was hanging on for dear life and yelling at the top of his voice:

"Avast there, mate, or you'll have me overboard! By the seven holy spritsails----"

The voice broke off and gave vent to a frantic yell. Although the driver had shut off the power and applied a brake, the car had leaped into the air when it struck the root.

The man in the tonneau shot straight up into the air for two or three feet, and Matt and McGlory had a glimpse of a grizzled red face with a patch over one eye, a fringe of "mutton-chop" whiskers, and a blue sailor cap.

"The mariner!" came in a clamoring wheeze, from Tsan Ti.

As the automobile whirled past, the mandarin flung himself crazily at the rear of the tonneau, only to be knocked head over heels for his pains.

As he floundered in the dust, Matt rushed for his motor cycle.

"Is that one of the two men who stole the ruby?" cried Matt.

"What fortune!" puffed Tsan Ti. "Pursue and capture the villain! If he has the Eye of Buddha----"

But the rest of it was lost. Matt, followed by McGlory, was tearing away on the track of the automobile.