The Black-Bearded Barbarian by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor (latest books to read .TXT) 📕

So Mackay dismounted and tried the plan of pulling him forward by the bridle while some of the boys pushed him from behind. Lu-a resented this treatment, especially that from the rear, and up went his heels, scattering students in every direction; and to discomfit the enemy in front he opened his mouth and gave forth such loud resonant brays that the ravine fairly rang with his music.

A balking donkey is rather amusing to boys of any country, but to these Formosan lads who had had no experience with one the sound of Lu-a’s harsh voice and the sight of his flying heels brought convulsions of merriment. “He’s pounding rice! He’s pounding rice!” shouted the wag of the party, and his companions flung themselves upon the grass and rolled about laughing themselves sick.

With his followers rendered helpless and his steed continuing stubborn, Mackay saw the struggle was useless. He could not compete alone with Lu-a’s firmness, so he gave orders that the obstinate little obstructer of their journey be trotted back to his pasture.

“And to think that any one of us might have carried the little rascal over!” he cried as he watched the donkey meekly depart.

His students looked at the little beast with something like respect. Lu-a had beaten the dauntless Kai Bok-su who had never before been beaten by anything. He was indeed a marvelous donkey!

So the journey to the Kap-tsu-lan plain was made on foot. It was a very wearisome one and often dangerous. The mountain paths were steep and difficult and the travelers knew that often the headhunters lurked near. But the way was wonderfully beautiful nevertheless. Standing on a mountain height one morning and looking away down over wooded hills and valleys and the lake-like terraces of the rice-fields, Mackay repeated to his students a line of the old hymn:

Every prospect pleases and only man is vile.

Around them the stately tree-fern lifted its lovely fronds and the orchids dotted the green earth like a flock of gorgeous butterflies just settled. Tropical birds of brilliant plumage flashed among the trees. Beside them a great tree raised itself, fairly covered with morning-glories, and over at their right a mountainside gleamed like snow in the sunlight, clothed from top to bottom with white lilies.

But the way had its dangers as well as its beauties. They were passing the mouth of a ravine when they were stopped by yells and screams of terror coming from farther up the mountainside. In a few minutes a Chinaman darted out of the woods toward them. His face was distorted with terror and he could scarcely get breath to tell his horrible story. He and his four companions had been chipping the camphor trees up in the woods; suddenly the armed savages had leaped out upon them and he alone of the five had escaped.

At last they left the dangerous mountain and came down into the Kap-tsu-lan plain. On every side was rice-field after rice-field, with the water pouring from one terrace to another. The plain was low and damp and the paths and roads lay deep in mud. They had a long toilsome walk between the rice-fields until they came to the first village of these barbarians of the plain. It was very much like a Chinese village,—dirty, noisy, and swarming with wild-looking children and wolfish dogs.

The visitors were received with the utmost disdain. The Chinese students were of course well known, for these aborigines had long ago adopted their customs and language. But the Chinese visitors were in company with the foreigners, and all foreigners were outcaste in this eastern plain. The men shouted the familiar “foreign devil” and walked contemptuously away. The dirty women and children fled into their grass huts and set the dogs upon the strangers. They tried by all sorts of kindnesses to gain a hearing, but all to no effect. So they gave it up, and plodded through the mud and water a mile farther on to the next village.

But village number two received them in exactly the same way.

Only rough words and the barks of cruel dogs met them. The next village was no better, the fourth a little worse. And so on they went up and down the Kap-tsu-lan plain, sleeping at night in some poor empty hut or in the shadow of a rice strawstack, eating their meals of cold rice and buffalo-meat by the wayside, and being driven from village to village, and receiving never a word of welcome.

And all through those wearisome days the young men looked at their leader in vain for any smallest sign of discouragement or inclination to retreat. There was no slightest look of dismay on the face of Kai Bok-su, for how was it possible for a man who did not know when he was beaten to feel discouraged? So still undaunted in the face of defeat, he led them here and there over the plain, hoping that some one would surely relent and give them a hearing.

One night, footsore and worn out, they slept on the damp mud floor of a miserable hut where the rain dripped in upon their faces. In the morning prospects looked rather discouraging to the younger members of the party. They were wet and cold and weary, and there seemed no use in going again and again to a village only to be turned away. But Kai Bok-su’s mouth was as firm as ever, and his dark eyes flashed resolutely, as once more he gave the order to march. It was a lovely morning, the sun was rising gloriously out of the sea and the heavy mists were melting from above the little rice-fields. Here and there fairy lakes gleamed out from the rosy haze that rolled back toward the mountains.

They walked along the shore in the pink dawn-light and marched up toward a fishing village. They had visited it before and had been driven away, but Kai Bok-su was determined to try again. They were surprised as they came nearer to see three men come out to meet them with a friendly expression on their faces.

The foremost was an old man who had been nicknamed “Black-face,”

because of his dark skin. The second was a middle-aged man, and the third was a young fellow about the age of the students. They saluted the travelers pleasantly, and the old man addressed the missionary.

“You have been going through and through our plain and no one has received you,” he said politely. “Come to our village, and we will now be ready to listen to you.”

The door of Kap-tsu-lan had opened at last! The missionary’s eyes gleamed with joy and gratitude as he accepted the invitation. The delegation led the visitors straight to the house of the headman.

For the Pe-po-hoan governed their communities in the Chinese style and had a headman for each village. The missionary party sat down in front of the hut on some large flat stones and talked over the matter with the chief and other important men. And while they talked “Black-face” slipped away. He returned in a few moments with a breakfast of rice and fish for the visitors.

The result of the conference was that the villagers decided to give the barbarian a chance. All he wanted it seemed was to tell of this new Jehovah-religion which he believed, and surely there could be no great harm in listening to him talk.

In the evening the headman with the help of some friends set to work to construct a meeting-house. A tent was erected, made from boat sails. Several flat stones laid at one end and a plank placed upon them made a pulpit. And that was the first church on the Kap-tsu-lan plain! There was a “church bell” too, to call the people to worship. In the village were some huge marine shells with the ends broken off. In the old days these were used by the chiefs as trumpets by which they called their men together whenever they were starting out on the war-path. But now the trumpet-shell was used to call the people to follow the King.

Just at dark a man took one, and walking up and down the straggling village street blew loudly— the first “church bell”

in east Formosa.

The loud roar brought the villagers flocking down to the tent-church by the shore. For the most part they brought their pews with them. They came hurrying out of their huts carrying benches, and arranging them in rows they seated themselves to listen.

Mackay and the students sang and the people listened eagerly. The Pe-po-hoan by nature were more musical than the Chinese, and the singing delighted them. Then the missionary arose and addressed them. He told clearly and simply why he had come and preached to them of the true God. Afterward the congregation was allowed to ask questions, and they learned much of this God and of his love in his Son Jesus Christ.

The wonder of the great news shone in the eyes upturned to the preacher. In the gloom of the half-lighted tent their dark faces took on a new expression of half-wondering hope. Could it be possible that this was true? Their poor, benighted minds had always been held in terror of their gods and of the evil spirits that forever haunted their footsteps. Could it be possible that God was a great Father who loved his children? They asked so many eager questions, and the story of Jesus Christ had to be told over and over so many times, that before this first church service ended a gray gleam of dawn was spreading out over the Pacific.

It was only the next day that these newly awakened people decided that they must have a church building. And they went to work to get one in a way that might have shamed a congregation of people in a Christian land. This new wonderful hope that had been raised in their hearts by the knowledge that God loved them set them to work with glad energy. Kai Bok-su and his men still preached and prayed and sang and taught in the crazy old wind-flapped tent by the seashore, and the people listened eagerly, and then, when services were over, every one,—preacher, assistants, and congregation,—set bravely to work to build a church. Brave they certainly had to be, for at the very beginning they had to risk their lives for their chapel. A party sailed down the coast and entered savage territory for the poles to construct the building.

They were attacked and one or two were badly wounded, though they managed to escape. But they were quite ready to go back and fight again had it been necessary. Then they made the bricks for the walls. Rice chaff mixed with clay were the materials, and the Kap-tsu-lan plain had an abundance of both. The roof was made of grass, the floor of hard dried earth, and a platform of the same at one end served as a pulpit.

When the little chapel was finished, every evening the big shell rang out its summons through the village; and out from every house came the people and swarmed into the chapel to hear Kai Bok-su explain more of the wonders of God and his Son Jesus Christ.

Mackay’s home during this period was a musty little room in a damp mud-walled hut; and here every day he received donations of idols, ancestral tablets, and all sorts of things belonging to idol-worship. He was requested to burn them, and often in the mornings he dried his damp clothes and moldy boots at a fire made from heathen idols.

For eight weeks the missionary party remained in this place, preaching, teaching,