The Blue Dragon
A TALE OF RECENT ADVENTURE IN CHINA
BY Kirk Munroe
AUTHOR OF THE "MATES SERIES" THE "PACIFIC COAST SERIES" "FORWARD
MARCH" ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1905
Copyright, 1904, by Harper & Brothers.
_All rights reserved._
Published October, 1904.
[Illustration: "A HORSEMAN FLED BEFORE THEM"]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND 1
II. AMERICA'S UNFRIENDLY WELCOME 10
III. ROB TO THE RESCUE 18
IV. A TRIUMPH FOR JO'S ENEMIES 26
V. THREATENED VIOLENCE 35
VI. THE SHERIFF TAKES PROMPT MEASURES 44
VII. THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT 52
VIII. JO'S ENEMIES PREPARE A TRAP 61
IX. JO FINDS THAT HE IS SOME ONE ELSE 70
X. WHAT HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO CHINA 79
XI. ACCEPT A KINDNESS AND PASS IT ALONG 88
XII. FROM THE GOLDEN GATE TO THE PEARL RIVER 97
XIII. IN THE WORLD'S MOST MARVELLOUS CITY 106
XIV. A TURN OF FORTUNE'S TIDE 116
XV. IN THE HEART OF UNKNOWN CHINA 125
XVI. "FISTS OF RIGHTEOUS HARMONY" 134
XVII. LEAPING INTO UNKNOWN BLACKNESS 143
XVIII. A SUPPER OF SACRED EELS 151
XIX. AN EXHIBITION OF THE RAIN-GOD'S ANGER 160
XX. ROB MAKES A STARTLING DISCOVERY 169
XXI. THE REFUGEES OF CHENG-TING-FU 178
XXII. A CHARGE AND A RACE FOR LIFE 187
XXIII. STEALING A LOCOMOTIVE 196
XXIV. THE TIMELY EXPLOSION OF A BOILER 204
XXV. IN CHINA'S CAPITAL CITY 213
XXVI. WAR CLOUDS 222
XXVII. CHINA DEFIES THE WORLD 231
XXVIII. FIGHTING SIXTY FEET ABOVE GROUND 241
XXIX. JO HEAPS COALS OF FIRE 250
XXX. THE CAPTURE OF PEKIN 260
ILLUSTRATIONS
"A HORSEMAN FLED BEFORE THEM" _Frontispiece_
MAP SHOWING ROUTE FOLLOWED BY AUTHOR _Facing p._ 1
"AS POOR JO LOST HIS FOOTING AND FELL, ROB DASHED INTO THE MÊLÉE" 20
"HIS MADLY YELLING PURSUERS WERE NOW CLOSE UPON HIM" 140
"THE FUGITIVES MADE A CAUTIOUS ENTRY INTO THE SACRED PRECINCTS" 152
"HE WAS ABLE TO GAZE CALMLY AT HER WHEN THEY ONCE MORE WERE ESCORTED
PAST THE CATHEDRAL" 184
"SO THEY DROVE ON, MILE AFTER MILE" 204
"THE SAVAGES FLED IN DISMAY BEFORE THAT CHARGE OF YELLING AMERICANS" 248
TO MY READERS
The Blue Dragon, chosen as a title for this story, is the national
emblem of China, adopted as such by a desire to flatter and propitiate
that spirit of evil considered to be the most powerful. As the dragon
is believed to be big enough and strong enough to overcome and devour
all the other wicked genii who continually vex Chinese life, the wise
men of the "Black-haired People" thought it best to have him on their
side, and consequently accorded him the highest honor in their power
to bestow. As we of America chose the eagle, strongest of visible air
spirits, for our national emblem, so the Chinese chose the most powerful
of invisible spirits in whose existence they believe as firmly as we do
in the existence of things that we can see, hear, or feel.
In the story thus entitled, I have endeavored to give an idea of what
China has been, is, and may become through education and development,
how she is regarded, and how her people are being treated by other
nations, and what causes she has for resentment against those who are
taking advantage of her feebleness to despoil her.
While travelling in China, and trying to gain the Chinese point of
view, I met so many charming people, so many men of intelligence and
liberal education, honorable, broad-minded, and devoted to the uplifting
of their unhappy country, that I became exceedingly interested in their
cause, and anxious to aid it. With this object in view I am striving,
through the medium of a story, to present it to those young Americans
who, in the near future, will be called upon to decide the ultimate fate
of the great Middle Kingdom. With them, more than with any other people,
even including the Chinese themselves, will rest the decision, whether
China shall remain a nation, open to the unobstructed commerce of the
world, or become a series of petty colonial possessions devoted only
to the interests of their several ruling powers. That my young readers
may be guided to a wise and just solution of this great problem, is the
sincere hope of their friend,
KIRK MUNROE.
BISCAYNE BAY, FLORIDA,
_January, 1904_.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING ROUTE FOLLOWED BY AUTHOR]
THE BLUE DRAGON
CHAPTER I
A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
"Chinee! Chinee! Chink! Chink! Chink!"
These epithets, and many others equally contemptuous, such as "Rat
Eater!" and "Piggy Tail!" were gleefully shouted by a mob of young
ragamuffins who crowded about a single youthful figure, early one summer
morning, on the elm-shaded main street of Hatton. The lad thus hustled
and insulted was a good-looking chap according to the standard of his
own people; though his long-lashed, wide-set eyes were narrower than
those of his tormentors, his clear complexion held a tint of yellow, the
front half of his head was shaved, and the remaining luxuriant growth
of jet-black hair, such as all Chinese have, and of which they are so
proud that they call themselves "the black-haired people," hung in a
thick, glossy braid down his back. He wore a blue gown that fastened
closely about his neck and fell in severely simple lines, without belt
or ornamentation, almost to his feet. Below it could be seen a pair of
black silk trousers, tightly fastened over a narrow section of white
stockings, that in turn were lost to view in black cloth shoes having
embroidered tops and felt soles. He had worn a round, visorless cap of
black silk, surmounted by a crimson knot, but this had been knocked
off, and now was being ruthlessly kicked and trampled underfoot by the
hoodlums who, having discovered a victim that could be abused with
impunity, were making the most of the welcome chance. Nor were they
without encouragement in their cruel sport; for a group of men and young
women, on their way to the great factory that was at once the mainstay
of Hatton's prosperity and an ever-threatening menace, had paused to
enjoy the sight of a crowd of American boys tormenting a helpless
foreigner, and greeted the sorry spectacle with shouts of laughter.
"That's right, kiddies!" cried one of the men. "Down with the
yellowbelly, and teach him that this country ain't no place fer him nor
his kind."
"Dirty, rat-eating scab!" growled another.
"Somehow, it don't seem right, though," said one of the young women,
with a tone of pity in her voice, as the badgered lad was suddenly
jerked backward and nearly thrown to the ground by a violent pull at his
queue. "He does look so like a girl, with his blue dress, his little
hands, and his braided hair."
"Oh, hush up, Mag! You're too soft for anything!" exclaimed another.
"He ain't nothing but just a low-lived heathen Chinee, like them as
runs the laundry over to Adams. They'd take the bread out of honest
working-people's mouths quick as wink, if they was give half a chance."
Just then the factory bell rang with insistent clamor, and the jeering
group of workers moved on. At a meeting held a few evenings before
they had loudly cheered and unanimously passed a resolution to the
effect that the government ought immediately to deport to their own
country, at their own expense, all Chinese found within its territory.
One of the speakers had declared that, if the government was slow in
doing this thing, it was the duty of every American citizen to take
the matter into his own hands, drive out the Chinese wherever found,
destroy their places of business, and hunt them to the death if they
offered resistance. Of course, the children of those men, having heard
this resolution discussed, and its accompanying speeches repeated with
applauding comments, deemed it their privilege to attack, and, if
possible, drive from their virtuous village every representative of
the hated race they might encounter; and, unfortunately for him, poor,
innocent, helpless Chinese Jo was the first to fall into their joyful
clutches.
This was the first experience of his first day in Hatton, which he had
reached after dark the evening before. He had come to America, from
his far-away native land, in company with a dozen others of his young
countrymen. These others had been sent over by the Chinese government
to be educated and taught the ways of Western civilization; and Jo's
father, Li Ching Cheng, a progressive mandarin, who realized the value
of such an education, had seized the opportunity to add his one dear son
to the party, that he might gain the priceless advantage of some years
of study in the same land.
Now it happened that in Mandarin Li's district labored an American
medical missionary, Mason Hinckley by name, who also had an only son.
When this boy was four years old, his parents, desirous that he should
have an American training from the outset, had taken him to the United
States and placed him in charge of his uncle and aunt, the Rev. William
and Mrs. Hinckley, of Hatton, a manufacturing village of the lovely
Connecticut valley. Then, with aching hearts, they had returned to
their lonely post of duty in China, and only twice during the following
fourteen years were they able to visit their boy.
When Mandarin Li announced that he, too, proposed to send a son to
America, and asked if the Hinckleys could not arrange to have him
received into the same family with their Rob, they gladly consented
to do what they could. Their hope for their own boy was that he would
eventually return to China, and they realized the value to him of a
present companionship with a young Chinese of education and refinement.
So a letter was sent to Hatton, and finally everything was arranged for
the comfort and happiness of Mandarin Li's son. Thus he was sent forth
on his long journey, half-way around the world, filled with a joyous
enthusiasm over his prospects.
He and his young friends travelled in charge of a home-returning
American, who had promised to see them safely to their several
destinations in New England. By his advice they adopted English names
for use in the country to which they were bound, and our lad chose
that of Joseph. As his father's surname was Li, which, in Chinese, is
pronounced "Lee," he thus became known to his future teachers and more
precise acquaintances as Joseph Lee; but all his American boy friends
called him "Chinese Jo," or "China Jo," or "Chinee Jo," according to
their several degrees of intelligence, and it is thus that we shall
know him as we accompany him through the various adventures which it is
proposed to record in the following pages.
They began, as already has been seen, with his very first morning in the
new home that he had reached the evening before, tired from his long
journey, bewildered by the multitude of strange sights and experiences
that had crowded thickly about him from the moment of landing at San
Francisco, and terrified at the great loneliness that had come to him
with the departure of his comrades, who had been left, by twos, at other
places before Hatton was reached. At the last of these points, only a
few miles away, the gentleman who had escorted them from China had been
obliged to send him on alone, after notifying the Hinckleys by telegraph
of his coming.
Rob met him at the Hatton station, looked after his luggage of queer
camphor-wood boxes, and took him to the pleasant parsonage that was to
be his home in the strange land. Although Jo talked only broken English,
while Rob had very nearly forgotten the Chinese of his childhood,
they managed to converse after a fashion, and took to each other from
the very first. Rob, eighteen years old, brown, broad-shouldered, and
sturdy, offered a striking contrast in appearance to the slender lad
who walked, with noiseless, felt-shod feet, beside him, and Jo at once
conceived a liking for the young American, who greeted him so cordially,
took charge of him and his affairs with such an air of authority, and
even could speak a few words of intelligible Chinese.
Rob also was pleased with the foreign lad, whose appearance recalled a
happy childhood spent in company with many such blue-clad figures on the
other side of the world. At the same time he was glad that Jo had not
reached his destination a few hours earlier; for he realized that the
strangeness of his companion's costume and his general make-up would
have attracted much unpleasant attention from the village boys had they
been revealed by daylight. He determined to urge upon his uncle the
advisability of confining Jo to the house on the following day, or until
he could be provided with an outfit of American clothing, and persuaded
to wear his hair in accordance with American ideas.
A warm welcome and a good supper awaited the young traveller at the
parsonage; and under their cheering influence his homesickness was,
for the time being, forgotten. His boxes were promptly delivered at
the house, and from them he took the most marvellous array of gifts
for various members of the Hinckley family that ever had been seen
in Hatton. To Mrs. Hinckley he presented several superb pieces of
embroidered silks from Canton, a centre-piece for a table of pale-blue
grass linen, drawn work from Swatow, a cloisonné teapot from Pekin,
and half a dozen tiny teacups of exquisite Foo-Chow porcelain. For Mr.
Hinckley he had wonderful ivory carvings in the shape of chessmen, and
a wadded silk dressing-gown; while to Rob, in addition to several jars
of Chinese confections, including sugared ginger-root, bamboo-tips,
water-melon rind, edible sea-weeds, and palm-leaf buds, he gave a
complete suit of Chinese clothing, such as is worn by the sons of
wealthy mandarins, and selected from his own wardrobe. It was in
striking contrast to the simple scholar's gown of light-blue cotton
cloth that he had adopted as an inconspicuous travelling costume; for
its dark-blue skirt was heavily embroidered with gold thread; it had a
jacket of light-blue silk, with wide, flowing sleeves, a wine-colored,
sleeveless over-jacket of the same rich material, black silk trousers,
with plum-colored over-trousers, a light-blue silk cap, with a crystal
button on top, silken socks, and gold-embroidered felt shoes.
Rob gasped with amazement when the various parts of this superb
costume were unfolded before him, and was inclined to regard it with
contemptuous amusement.
"All these silk petticoats and things for a boy!" he sniffed. "Catch me
ever wearing such a lot of girl's stuff! And, I say, Uncle Will, that
reminds me--don't you think we'd better get him into American clothes,
and have his pig-tail cut off, before he is turned loose on the street.
He'll jump into no end of trouble if he shows outside in anything like
these, or even as he is now. It looks funny even to me, and I'll bet he
couldn't walk down Main Street without being mobbed."
"I myself think that the sooner he conforms to the dress and customs of
the country in which he is to reside for some time to come, the better
it will be for him," replied Mr. Hinckley. "But, Rob, I don't like the
way you seem inclined to treat his gift, and I am very glad he could not
wholly understand what you just said about it. A gift of any nature,
offered as a token of friendliness and good-will, should be accepted
in the same spirit, even though it may not be just what you would have
chosen. I do not know of anything that hurts one's feelings more keenly
than to have a friendly overture contemptuously rejected."
"Of course, I wouldn't hurt his feelings for anything, Uncle Will,"
replied Rob, with a contrite flush mounting to his forehead. "I already
like him too much for that, and I wouldn't have said what I did about
his present if I had thought. I do thank you ever so much," he added,
turning to Jo, "for all this silk stuff. I'm awfully glad to have it,
and I'll put it away to wear at my first fancy-dress ball, if I ever go
to one. Anyway, whenever I look at it, I'll be reminded that Chinese Jo
is my friend, and that I am his."
Although Jo did not understand all the words thus spoken, he was so
fully satisfied with their tone and the smile that accompanied them
that, a little while later, when he went to bed, he was happy in the
consciousness of having gained a friend of his own age in this strange
land of strangers.