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Updated: May 28, 2025
He pointed along the path to where, far off, a tall, stooping figure paced slowly toward the town, his long robe a moving strip of color, faint in the twilight. "The Sword-Pen dropped some remarks in passing." The others nodded moodily, too breathless for reply. Nesbit's forehead bore an ugly cut, Rudolph's bandage was red and sopping.
The suit is certainly brought by Fang the scholar, whom they call the Sword-Pen." "That much," said Heywood, "I could have told you." Wutzler glanced behind him fearfully, as though the flickering shadows might hear. "But there is more. Since dark I ran everywhere, watching, listening to gossip. I painted my skin with mangrove-bark water. You know this sign?"
Heywood turned to leap down. "The Sword-Pen looks to set off his mine to-morrow morning." He clutched the wall in time to save himself, as the bamboo frame leapt underfoot. Outside, the crest of the slope ran black against a single burst of flame. The detonation came like the blow of a mallet on the ribs. "Let him look! Let him look!"
Hence his nickname the Sword-Pen." Dr. Earle sharpened his heavy brows, and studied the floor. "Fang, the Sword-Pen," he growled; "yes, there will be trouble. He hates us. Given this chance Humph! Saul of Tarsus. We're not the Roman Church," he added, with his first trace of irritation. "Always occurring, this thing."
Above, on the crest of the field, where a band of men had begun to scramble at the sentinel's halloo, there sat on a white pony the bright-robed figure of the tall fanatic, Fang the Sword-Pen. "He did it!" Heywood's hands opened and shut rapidly, like things out of control. "Oh, Wutz, how did they Saint Somebody the martyrdom Poussin's picture in the Vatican. I can't stand this, you chaps!"
There fell a silence. Suddenly, in the pale face of the black image seated before the shrine, the eyes turned, scanning the company with a cold contempt. The lips moved. The voice, level and ironic, was that of Fang, the Sword-Pen: "O Fragrant Ones, when shall the foreign monsters perish like this cock?" A man in black, with a red wand, bowed and answered harshly:
The Sword-Pen had written something in the dark. "I go find out"; and Wutzler was away, as keen as a village gossip. "Trouble's comin'," Nesbit asserted glibly. "There's politics afloat. But I don't care." He stretched his arms, with a weary howl. "That's the first yawn I've done to-night. Trouble keeps, worse luck. I'm off seek my downy."
"That," said Heywood, turning into their former path, "that was Fang, the Sword-Pen, so-called. Very clever chap. Of the two most dangerous men in the district, he's one." They had swung along briskly for several minutes, before he added: "The other most dangerous man you've met him already. If I'm not mistaken, he's no less a person than the Reverend James Earle."
A few twilight shapes were pattering through the narrow street a squad of Yamên runners haling a prisoner. "The Sword-Pen remains active," said Heywood, thoughtfully. "That dingy little procession, do you know, it's quite theatrical? The Cross and the Dragon. Eh? Another act's coming." Even Rudolph could spare a misgiving from his own difficulty while he watched the prisoner.
"I I did not know," he stammered, "that old man was your friend." Very quiet, and a little flushed, he took his seat among the others. "I like him no end." Still more quiet, Heywood appealed to the company. "Part for his hard luck stuck down, a three-year term, in this neglected hole. Enemies in power, higher up. Fang, the Sword-Pen, in great favor up there. What?
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