“You will have to burn us with it !” they answered. Before he went back to Japan the villagers arranged a dinner for him. “ This is the way Christians treat those who have treated them badly,” they said. The mountain people moved very rapidly to provide their own church building. When the news of V-J Day came through, a tlelegation of Tyals went down to Hwa lien and asked the pastor, “ How do you build a church?” He drew a rough sketch and informed them that he would be coming up that way in a few weeks and they could all go into the matter then. When he came, the church was already completed.
“ If you are Christians,” whispered the new arrival, “ you will help Chi-oang.” One of the guards padded softly to the door of the warehouse and looked in. “ Still asleep,” he reported. “What do you want us to do?” Together they worked out a strategy. Presently the train arrived, and they whisked Chi-oang aboard. As they had instructed her, she went into the lavatory and stayed there until the train had gone on some distance.. But she was not yet out of danger. At Mikasa, six men were waiting to search the train. A young Chris tian, also waiting to board the train, watched the six curiously; it was not difficult to identify those who were in the pay of the police—they had a certain bra vado that set them apart. When the train arrived, the Christian youth swung aboard before it had stopped. Moving through the car, his eyes darted left to right. Then he saw Chi-oang — it must be she the police were after. Sitting down beside her, he said, “ Bend over. Quick, I can’t ex plain!” He whipped a large carrying cloth from one of his parcels and flung it over Chi-oang. He piled his other packages helter-skelter over her legs and feet; Scarcely had he leaned back in his seat when the six men entered the car. Though gone of them looked sharply at the cloth-draped bundle, the lights in the car were dim and Chi-oang crouched very still and small. They walked by, and soon the train lurched pn. Chi- oang smiled her thanks when the youth gently lifted off the covering. “ Just one more stop,” she told him. “Mizuhe.” “ That will be more difficult,” the youth said. “ See, it is growing light.” In the east, the sky was trembling with the first misty signs of dawn. But the light, as the darkness* was working for Chi- oang. Police at Mizuhe reasoned that no one would try to escape in broad daylight, and so did not search the train. Many of the mountain youth paid stealthy visits to Chi-oang’s home near Hwalien for Christian instruc tion. One young man walked twenty miles in the night, once a week for three months, to hear her explain the Bible. “ But you are not to begin preaching until you are fully trained,” she said to him sternly. The boy could not wait. Before the three months were up, he had won twenty-five others. The whole vil lage of Gukutsu became a Christian community, thanks to his zeal and courage. Jim finished his account with a note of sadness: “ Chi-oang died just two months before I returned to the island.” At Tak-kiri, twenty-two believers were forced to kneel while police laid pieces of wood over the calves of their legs, and jumped on the ends of the boards. Four policemen worked in shifts beating other men, stopping only to smoke and rest; one old man died from the beatings. In 1944 an official made the rounds of the villages posing as an evangelist from coastal Hwalien. He called Christians together, preached to them, even took up a collection. When congregations had paid him his round trip traveling expenses, he wrote down their names and left, stopping at the police station on the way. That night, all who had been at the meeting were round ed up and their leaders stripped, kicked, and beaten. Near Mikasa, just after the surrender of Japan, the Christians immediately began to build a church. A po liceman who did not yet realize that he was out of a job watched the men swarm over the bamboo frame. “What are you doing?” he demanded. When they told him, he blustered, “ I’ll burn it down!”
Food and supplies are given out to thosq made homeless in storm-battered area. One story of his survey trip Jim did not tell but Lil heard from others, the story of the day he was walking with a group of aborigines on a precarious path skirting a cliff. The mountain people, exceptionally sure-footed and accustomed to the sheer rise and fall of their moun tains, were bothered by the hazards of cliffs no more than is an American city dweller by heavy motor traffic. But a misstep occurred. A young girl slipped and fell over the edge, her scream following her body down, to be ominously silenced seconds later. The others crept close and peered down; they could not see where the girl had struck. The leader of the group went to the girl’s mother. “ She is surely dead,” he said sympathetically. “ Besides, the way down the cliff is perilous.” Shaken by the expe rience, the group prepared to move on. “ But you can’t just walk away!” Jim protested. “ She is surely dead,” said the leader. But Jim did not stay to listen. Moving carefully to the cliff edge, he found a foothold, then another and another. Slowly, he worked his way down. A rattling pebble drew his atten tion. A young man was following after him. The girl, although a mass of bruises and lacerations, was still alive when Jim reached her. The young man picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and started the climb up. A sigh of relief and wonder went up as the trio pushed over the cliff edge to the trail. Jim ex amined the girl and found no bones broken. Bandaging her cuts, he made her comfortable. Journeying on with Jim to the surrounding villages, the chief began eyery introduction with the story of the white man who went down the mountainside to lead the rescue of an aboriginal girl when everyone else had given up hope. Copyright by Harper and Row, publishers of ANGEL A T HER SHOULDER by Kenneth L. Wilson
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THE KING 'S BUSINESS
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