The Year of Rice and Salt

'Spread out,' Kheim told his men. 'March right down the road at them, singing "Drunk Again on the Grand Canal" Get all the guns out front, and when I say stop, stop and aim at their leaders whoever has the most feathers on their head. All of you shoot together when I say fire, and then reload. Reload as fast as you can, but don't shoot again unless you hear me say so. If I do, fire and reload yet again.'

So they marched down the road, roaring the old drinking song at the top of their lungs, then stopped and fired a volley, and their flintlocks might as well have been a row of cannon, they had such an effect: many men knocked down and bleeding, the survivors among them running in a complete panic.

It had only taken one volley, and the coastal city was theirs. They could have burned it to the ground, taken anything in it; but Kheim marched them through the streets as quickly as possible, still singing as loudly as they could, until they were on the beach among the Chinese landing boats, and safe. They never even had to fire a second time.

Kheim went to I Chen and shook his hand. 'Many thanks,' he said to him formally before all the others. 'You saved us. They would have sacrificed Butterfly like a lamb, and killed the rest of us like flies.'

It seemed to Kheim only reasonable that the locals would soon recover from the shock of the guns, after which they would be dangerous in their numbers. Even now crowds were gathering at a safe distance to observe them. So after getting Butterfly and most of the men onto the ships, Kheim consulted with I Chen and their ships' provision masters, to see what they were still lacking for a voyage back across the Dahai. Then he took a big armed party ashore one last time, and after the ships' cannons were fired at the city, he and his men marched straight for the palace, singing again and stepping to the beat of their drums. At the palace they raced around the wall, and caught a group of priests and women escaping at a gate on the other side, and Kheim shot one priest, and had his men tie the others up.

After that he stood before the priests, and mimed his demands. His head still pounded painfully, he remained floating in the strange exhil aration of killing, and it was remarkable how easy it was to convey by mime alone a fairly elaborate list of demands. He pointed to himself and his men, then to the west, and made one hand sail away on the wind of the other one. He held up samples of food and the bags of tea leaves, indicated that these were wanted. He mimed them being brought to the beach. He went to the chief hostage and imitated untying him and waving farewell. If the goods didn't arrive… He pointed the gun at each hostage. But if they did, the Chinese would release everyone and sail away.

He acted out each step of the process, looking the hostages in the eyes and speaking only a little, as he judged it would only be a distraction to their comprehension. Then he had his men release all the women captured, and a few of the men without headdresses, and sent them out with clear instructions to get the required goods. He could tell by their eyes that they understood exactly what they were to do.

After that he marched the hostages to the beach, and they waited. That same afternoon men appeared in one of the main streets, bags slung down their backs from lines hung around their foreheads. They deposited these bags on the beach, bowing, and then retreated, still facing the Chinese. Dried meat; grain cakes; the little green leaves; gold discs and ornaments (though Kheim had not asked for these); blankets and bolts of the soft cloth. Looking at it all spread on the beach, Kheim felt like a tax collector, heavy and cruel; but also relieved; powerful in a tenuous fashion only, as it was by a magic he didn't understand or control. Above all he felt content. They had what they needed to get home.

He untied the hostages himself, gestured for them to go. He gave each of them a pistol ball, curling their unresponsive fingers around them. 'We'll be back some day,' he said to them. 'Us, or people worse than us.' He wondered briefly if they would catch smallpox, like the Miwok; his sailors had slept on the locals' blankets at the palace.

No way to tell. The locals stumbled away, clutching their pistol balls or dropping them. Their women stood at a safe distance, happy to see that Kheim had kept his pantomimed promise, happy to see their men freed. Kheim ordered his men into the boats. They rowed out to the ships and sailed away from the big mountain island.