FROM THE GOLDEN GATE TO THE PEARL RIVER
"I wonder what that despatch can be about," thought Rob, as he sat
in the comfortable ambulance which, drawn by two big army mules and
with its curtains rolled up, was used as a carriage by the officers of
the post. "He was as excited as though war had been declared against
somebody or other; but I haven't heard that we are likely to go to war
with any one. Perhaps it's Indians, though, and, if so, there's sure to
be something about it in the paper."
Thus thinking, Rob beckoned to a passing newsboy and bought a copy of
the _Oregonian_. Diligently as he searched its columns, he could not
find a word about Indians. Nor were there any war rumors, and he was
more than ever puzzled, until his eye lighted on the heading:
"Battery Z ordered to the Philippines."
Yes, that was it, and Rob began to feel very lonely as he read the
brief announcement to the effect that Battery Z was to leave Vancouver
Barracks at once for San Francisco, where the transport _Logan_ was
already waiting to take it on board.
"That knocks my chance of spending a week, or even part of one, at
the barracks," he said to himself, "and I did want to so much. I don't
suppose I ought to go over, even for a night, because Captain Astley
will be too busy to bother with me. It looks as if he had already
forgotten me, for I must have waited here an hour, and I shouldn't blame
him if he had."
Just here Rob's sombre reflections were interrupted by the cheery voice
of Captain Astley, who sprang into the ambulance from the opposite side
and ordered that it move on.
"Hello, Hinckley!" he cried. "I beg your pardon for leaving you so long,
but I have been rushed breathless by most unexpected orders that have
completely upset all previously arranged plans."
"Then you really are going to Manila?" asked Rob.
"How did you know? Oh! it's already in the paper, is it? Yes, and we've
got to move out of here in a hurry--to-morrow, if we can, or the next
day at the latest. So I've been arranging about trains and a lot of
things that had to be looked after on this side of the river. But,
before I forget to mention it, how would you like to go along with us?"
"I!" cried Rob, too surprised to answer the question.
"Yes, you. I wired to the Presidio for permission to take with me Robert
Hinckley, our Chinese instructor, and it is granted, provided he pays
his own mess bills. They will come to something less than two dollars
per day during the voyage from San Francisco to Manila. From there it
is only a couple of days' run over to Hong-Kong; and by going with us
you can beat that Tacoma ship by at least a week. Besides, you won't
have any fare to pay between here and San Francisco. What do you think?
Is it a go, and may we count on you as a fellow-passenger aboard the
good old _Logan_?"
"I should say you could!" cried Rob, even more excited than the captain
himself. "I never heard of such a piece of undeserved good-luck. Of
course, I'll go with you, and feel everlastingly obliged to you for the
chance, besides. Only, I don't know how I ever can repay such kindness."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the other. "I thought we finally had settled that
question away back in Montana. But here we are, and for the next few
days you'll have enough to do to knock all thoughts of gratitude out of
your head, for I am going to appoint you my A. D. C. Perhaps you don't
know what that is, so I'll tell you. An A. D. C. is a chap who, in
active service like the present, has to work twenty-five hours out of
the twenty-four, and gets no thanks for anything he does. Do you want
the job?"
"Yes," replied Rob, happily, "and I'd take it if it were twice as hard."
So our lad joined the army, and for the next two days, from early
morning until late at night, he was about as busy as a boy well could
be--helping the captain pack, writing his letters, running hither and
thither with orders, and doing whatever was given him to do, with a
cheerful promptness that won for him the good-will of all hands.
At the end of that time he found himself in company with a number of
officers occupying the rear car of a long troop-train on which was
loaded Battery Z--men, horses, guns, and all--headed southward, up the
broad Willamette Valley, and starting on their thirty-six-hour run
towards the city of the Golden Gate. On the following day they skirted
for hours the base of grand old Shasta, one of the mightiest and most
beautiful of American mountains. Then they ran down the exquisite valley
of the Sacramento, which they first saw as a brook and at last crossed
as a mighty river pouring a turbid flood into San Pablo Bay. A little
later came San Francisco, with the bustle and anxious excitement of
debarking, marching through the city, and re-embarking, this time on the
great, white transport that was to bear them away in the track of the
setting sun, across seven thousand miles of Pacific waters.
In all this time Rob, while fully intending to write to Hatton
concerning his adventures and change of plans, had not found a minute
when it seemed possible to do so. Not until the _Logan_, with her
crowded passenger-list, including civil officials, military officers,
troops, government school-teachers and other employés, and her vast
miscellaneous cargo of live-stock, guns, ammunition, machinery, and
stores of every description, had got so far out to sea that the
Farallones were only a blur on the horizon behind her did it occur
to him that he had neglected his last opportunity for sending back a
message until he should reach the distant Hawaiian Islands. Then he sat
down and wrote a long letter that he was able to mail eight days later
at Honolulu, but which did not reach Hatton until a full month from the
date of his departure. In the mean time Mr. Hinckley had cabled to China
that Rob would sail by the _Oriental_ from Tacoma on a certain date,
and when finally he learned of his nephew's changed plans, it did not
seem worth while to cable again, as the lad was already due to arrive at
Hong-Kong, and so could tell his own story.
Rob enjoyed every minute of his twenty-four hours' stay in beautiful
Honolulu. He was enchanted by its wealth of strange flowers, its
tropical foliage, and by the many new fruits that he now tasted for the
first time. He drove out to the Pali, the frightful mountain precipice,
five miles back from the city, over which, in the old savage days,
King Kamehameha I. drove to their deaths an army of his enemies. He
experimented with surf-riding on a slender board at Waikiki beach,
ate poi, which he didn't like, and enjoyed poha jam. He wanted to
climb Diamond Head and to visit the great sugar plantations of Ewa
and Waialua; also he would dearly have loved to sail to the island of
Hawaii, one hundred and fifty miles away, and gaze upon the mighty
volcanoes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa; but there was not time, and all
these had to be left for another visit.
The next chance for going ashore came two weeks later, when the _Logan_
stopped for a few hours at the lonely but lovely island of Guam,
destined a few years later to become a most important way-station of the
American Pacific cable. After Guam came five days more of uneventful
sailing, and then Manila Bay, with Corregidor Island standing sentry at
its entrance.
"I wonder what Corregidor means?" asked Rob of Captain Astley, as they
stood together gazing at this outpost, from which the first warning gun
had been fired when Dewey's fleet slipped through the gray of dawn into
Manila Bay.
"Some one told me," replied the army man, "that in olden times every
Spanish city was governed by a regidor, assisted by councilmen, one from
each division, or ward, called corregidors. So if we were to Americanize
the name we would call it 'Alderman Island.'"
"Or 'City Father Island,'" laughed Rob.
It was intensely interesting to sail up that broad, mountain-bordered
expanse of water, and recall the stirring events of May-day, 1898, when
Dewey and his men did the same thing, only with the terrible difference
that at any moment they were liable to run into a deadly nest of
torpedoes. As they approached the head of the bay they saw Cavité on
the right; then the shipping anchored in the roadstead; and then Manila
itself lying on both sides of the sluggish Pasig, the old walled city on
the right and the more modern town on the left as they faced them.
At Manila, Rob sorrowfully parted with the comrade whom he first had met
in far-away Montana, and who ever since had been at once dear friend,
guide, instructor, and pupil; for a steamer, on which he promptly
engaged passage, left for Hong-Kong the day after the _Logan's_ arrival.
During the month they had spent together Captain Astley had so
assiduously devoted himself to the study of Chinese that now he
possessed a fair working knowledge of the Southern or Canton dialect,
while every man in the battery, thanks to Rob, could express himself
with a certain fluency in pidgin (business) English. All of them were on
hand to see their young instructor off, and as the launch that was to
carry him to his new steamer backed out from the crowded landing, their
farewell cheers reminded him of Hatton, and he felt quite as lonely as
he had on that first day of his eventful journey. Now, too, that he no
longer had friends and regular duties to divert his mind, and with China
only two days' sail away, all his anxiety concerning his parents came
back with redoubled force. Would he find himself fatherless?--or would
the dear face still be there with its smiling welcome? So impatient was
he that the two days between Manila and Hong-Kong seemed as long as
any previous two weeks of his journey, and he found himself straining
his eyes for a glimpse of the China coast hours before there was any
possibility of sighting it.
Finally, a number of high, rock-bound islands came into view. Then
the ship, passing through a narrow entrance between two of them,
threaded a tortuous, strongly fortified channel that opened into the
broad, splendid harbor of Hong-Kong. On the right was the recently
acquired British territory and new settlement of Kowloon, with wharves,
dry-docks, godowns, and barracks. On the left rose Hong-Kong island,
with the fine city of Victoria nestled at the base of a peak eighteen
hundred feet high and climbing its wooded slopes. The moment the ship
dropped anchor amid a fleet of great merchant steamers and men-of-war
flying the flags of all the maritime nations of the world, Rob signalled
one of the innumerable sampans, "manned" by Chinese women, that swarmed
alongside. He already had learned that a Pearl River steamer would
leave for Canton within an hour, and so anxious was he to reach his
destination, which still lay some two hundred miles beyond that city,
that he was determined to go on by the very first conveyance. For this
reason he had his trunk and himself taken by the sampan directly from
one steamer to the other, and in a short time, without having gone
ashore at Hong-Kong, he found himself again under way, on board the
side-wheeled, American-modelled steamer _Fatshan_, bound for Canton,
eighty miles distant.
As Rob sat on deck watching with fascinated interest the queer-looking
junks with lofty poops, low prows, and sails of matting, the sampans,
Chinese guard-boats, and numberless other quaint craft slipping to and
fro over those placid inland waters, with sails outlined against the
dark background of the Tai-Mo-Shan Mountains, a stranger sitting near
him remarked:
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes," replied Rob, promptly. "I don't believe there can be a more
fascinating river-scene in all the world."
From this the two easily drifted into conversation; and at length the
stranger, who proved to be a business-man from Amoy, said:
"New to this part of the world, aren't you?"
"Yes," replied Rob; "it all is new to me now, though I was born here;
but my parents took me away nearly fourteen years ago."
"Indeed! May I ask where you were born?"
"Wu Hsing, up on the Si Kiang."
"You don't mean the place where the missionaries were killed the other
day?"
"Missionaries killed!" repeated Rob, mechanically, and with blanching
cheeks. "How were they killed? How many? What were their names?"
"Killed by a mob of natives, as usual; but the city tao-tai and fifteen
of the ringleaders were executed yesterday in Canton, so everything is
quiet up there now. Their names? Why, I don't seem to remember; but all
who were at the station were killed. Nobody escaped. Of course, none of
your friends were there, though, seeing that you moved away so long ago."
"My father and mother were there," groaned poor Rob. And for him the
light of life seemed to go out with the setting sun that just then sank
from sight in the blood-red waters of the Dragon's Mouth.