"You sent for me, sir?"
Jack Russell stood in the doorway of the Admiral's cabin on the _Ohio_,
cap in hand. The Admiral had been poring over some papers on his desk
and for a moment did not dissect the voice from the whirring of the
electric fan over his head, but as the boy took a step or two forward he
turned and nodded.
"Oh, it's you, Russell. I didn't mean to disturb you on shore, but I've
something for you to do and the sooner you start the better."
The boy awaited his words breathlessly--his first orders.
"It's rather a mean job, but I've nobody else available and, if you make
good--of course, you _will_ make good--in fact, it's rather a chance to
distinguish yourself."
"Thank you, sir."
The Admiral paused as if surely to observe the effect of his words.
"I want you to rescue a couple of missionaries."
The boy's countenance remained immobile.
"I received word this evening," continued the Admiral, picking up a
half-smoked cigar, "that the rebellion has spread into Hu-peh and as far
south as Kui-chan. They have murdered three American missionaries. Most
of the others have escaped and have been reported safe, but nothing can
be learned of two missionaries at Chang-Yuan--very estimable people,
highly thought of in their denomination."
"Yes, sir," said the boy, his eyes beaming on the Admiral.
"You are to start at once--at once, understand, and go up the river past
Hankow and Yochow. At Tung-an you reach the treaty limits, but you
haven't time to explain, and probably explanations wouldn't do any good.
There are two old forts there, and you'll just have to run by
them--that's all. It is six hundred miles to Hankow. With luck you can
be there easily inside of four days, but Chang-Yuan isn't on the
Yang-tse-Kiang--it's on the Yuang-Kiang somewhere on Lake Tung-ting.
You've got to find it first, and the charts are of no use. The trouble
is that the lake dries up in winter and in summer overflows all the
country round. If you can't get a local guide who knows the channel you
will have to trust to luck. The fact that it's in the forbidden
territory adds one more difficulty, but if I know Jack Russell's
son----"
"Oh, thank you, sir!" cried the boy. "What a chance!" he added half to
himself.
"Yes, it is a chance," answered the Admiral, "and I'm glad you've got
it, but if you get aground among the rioting natives!--well, it's got to
be done."
"I have no interpreter, sir," said the boy.
"Smith has secured one," replied the Admiral, "and through him we have
found a Shan-si-man who says he knows the river above Hankow and is
willing to act as guide. They are on the lower deck waiting. You will,
of course, have the government pilot as far as Hankow. Now, good luck to
you. I expect to be here for two weeks and you will report to me at
once on your return your success or failure." He held out his hand.
"Good luck to you again."
The boy shook hands with the Admiral but still remained standing beside
him.
"Well?" said the Admiral. "Is there anything else?"
"Yes," replied the boy apologetically, "you have not given me
the--gentleman's name."
"Bless my soul! So I haven't!" exclaimed the Admiral, fumbling among his
papers, then raising one to the light: "The Rev. Theophilus Newbegin,"
he read slowly, "and wife."
The boy saluted his Admiral and retired with a respectful "Good night,
sir." Once in the privacy of the wardroom companionway, however, he
began to giggle, which giggle speedily expanded into a loud guffaw on
his reaching the main deck. It sounded vaguely like "Newbegin." He
leaned against the forward awning pole, shaking with laughter.
"I say, what's the joke?" inquired the midshipman approaching him from
the shadow of the main turret. "Let a fellow in, won't you?"
But the boy still shook silently without replying.
"Oh, go on! What's the joke?" repeated the other. "Did 'Whiskers' give
you a 'Laughing Julip'?"
"Newbegin!" exploded the boy. "Newbegin!"
"New begin what?" persisted the midshipman irritably. "Have you gone
dotty? I hope you didn't act that way in 'Whiskers'' cabin. I believe
you're drunk!"
The boy suddenly jerked himself together.
"Look here, Smith, you shut up. I'm your rankin' officer and I won't
have such language. I'll tell you the joke--when I know whether it is
one or not."
Smith made a face at him.
"By the way, smarty," continued the boy, "have you got two Chinks for
me? If you have, send 'em along. I'm off to the _Dirigo_ on the launch."
"Yes, I got 'em at the English consul's. Say, what's up? Can't you tell
a feller?"
"Mr. Smith, send those two Chinks to the gangway!" thundered the boy.
The midshipman turned and walked hastily around the turret.
"Here you, Yen, come out of there!" he called.
Two Chinamen arose from the deck where they had been sitting
crosslegged, leaning against the turret, and shuffled slowly forward.
"Here are your Chinks!" growled Smith, still aggrieved.
The ensign paid no further attention to him but pushed the nearest
Chinaman toward the gangway.
"Get along, boys," he remarked, "your Uncle William is in a hurry." As
the smaller of the two seemed averse to haste he gave him a slight
forward impetus with his pipe-clayed boot. The two descended more
rapidly and he followed. A sudden regret took possession of him as he
thought of the possibility of his never seeing Smith again--of his dying
of thirst, aground in a dried-up lake--or of being tortured to death in
a cage in a Chinese prison.
"Good-by, Smithy," he called over his shoulder. But there was no answer.
The launch was bobbing at the foot of the steps, its screw churning the
water into a boiling froth that reflected a million strange gleams
against the warship's water line. The Chinamen hesitated.
"Get along, boys," he repeated, stepping into the stern sheets. "We've
got a long way to go and we might as well begin--Newbegin."
The Chinamen huddled under the launch's canopy, the boy gave the word to
go ahead, the bell rang sharply and the launch started on its long trip
up to Shanghai.
Slowly the _Ohio_ receded from him, somber, implacable, sphinxlike. On
her bridge a man was wigwagging to the _Oregon_ with an electric signal.
The searchlights from the war vessels arose and wavered like huge
antennæ feeling for something through the night, now and again paving a
golden path from the launch to the ships. The illusion was that the
vessels were moving away from the launch, not the launch from them. Out
of the zone of the searchlights the water was black and lonesome. Just
as soon as the ships got far enough away to appear stationary the launch
seemed racing through the water at a hundred miles an hour. Other
launches shrieked past bearing to their ships officers who had just come
down by train to Woosung. Up the Whompoa River the ten-mile-distant
lights of Shanghai cast a dim, nebulous glow against the midnight sky.
Two hours later the little _Dirigo_ seemed to loom out of the darkness
and come rapidly toward them as the launch ran up to her gangway.
"Is that you, McGaw?" called the boy sharply. "Here are two Chinks, an
interpreter and another one. Fix 'em up somewhere. We start up the
Yang-tse as soon as you can get up steam. I want to make Nanking by day
after to-morrow sunrise. Send ashore and get the pilot. Don't waste any
time, either."
"All right, sir," answered the midshipman, "we can start in half an
hour, sir."
The boy ran up the ladder, followed slowly by the Chinamen. At the cabin
companionway he paused and looked at his watch. It was half after one
o'clock.
"Here you, boys," he shouted after the Chinamen, "come down into my
cabin, I want to speak to you."
He led the way down into his tiny wardroom and threw himself into a
wicker chair placed at the focus of two electric fans. The thermometer
registered ninety degrees Fahrenheit, but it was almost as hot on deck
as below, and below various thirst alleviators were at hand. He poured
out a whisky and soda and beckoned to the Chinamen to draw nearer. The
first was short, fat, and jovial, with chronic humor creases about his
mouth, and his hair done in a long orthodox cue which hung almost to the
heels of his felt slippers. The other, the Shan-si man, was tall and
square-shouldered, and he carried his chin high and his arms folded in
front of him. His cue was curled flat on his head, and on his face was
the expression of him who walks with the immortal gods.
"What's your name?" asked the boy, waving the Manila cheroot he was
lighting at the fat Chinaman. The little man grinned instantly, his face
breaking into stereotyped wrinkles like an alligator-skin wallet.
"Me--Yen. Charley Yen. Me belong good fella," he added with confidence.
"Mucha laugh."
"Who's the other chap?" inquired the boy. "He no mucha laugh, eh?"
Yen shrugged his shoulders and, looking straight in front of him, held
voluble discourse with his comrade.
"He no say," he finally replied. "He velly ploud. He say his ancestors
belong number one men before Uncle Sam maka live. He say it maka no
diffence. You maka pay, he maka show. Name no matter."
"Well, I'm sort of proud myself," remarked the boy, hiding a smile by
sucking on his cheroot. "Tell this learned one that I know just how he
feels. Tell him I'm going to call him 'Mr. Dooley' after the most
learned man in America."
Yen addressed a few remarks to the Shan-si man who murmured something in
reply.
"He tanka you."
"I suppose you're a Christian?" asked the boy, suddenly recollecting the
object of his expedition.
"I belong Clistian, allasame you," answered Yen, assuming a quasi-devout
expression. "Me believe foreign man joss allight."
The boy regarded him thoughtfully.
"Me b'lieve Chinee joss pigeon, too," added Yen cheerfully. "Me mucha
b'lieve. B'lieve everyt'ing. Me good fun."
"Yes," said the boy, "how about 'Dooley'?--is he a Christian?"
Yen turned, but at his first liquid syllable the man from Shan-si drew
himself up until it seemed that his shoulders would touch the cabin
roof, and burst forth into a torrent of speech. Yen translated rapidly,
scurrying along behind his sentences like a carriage dog beneath an
axletree.
No, he was no Christian. The sword of Hung-hsui-chuen had slain his
ancestors. Twenty millions of people had perished by the sword of the
Taipings. The murderous cry of "Sha Yao"[1] had laid the land desolate.
He was faithful to the gods of his ancestors.
[Footnote 1: "Slay the Idolaters."]
"Tell 'Dooley' I lika him. Say I think he's a good sport," said the boy,
nodding at the Shan-si man.
"He say mucha tanks," translated Yen.
"Ask him if he knows Lake Tung-ting."
Mr. Dooley conveyed to the boy through Yen that he had been once to
Chang-Yuan. The lake was wide in summer and he had been there at that
time. He took pleasure in the service of the American Captain. But the
Captain must be patient. He was a musk buyer, buying musk in western
Szechuan on the Thibetan border. Two years ago he had saved five hundred
taels and returned home to bury his family--nine persons counting his
wife--all of whom had perished in the famine. The famine was very
devastating. Then he married again one whom he had left at home. He
allowed her ten taels a year. She could live on one pickle of wheat and
she had the rest to spend as she liked. He preferred better the musk
buying and returned. He gave the Captain much thanks.
"That is very interesting," said the boy. "You may go."
There was a tremendous rattling of chains along the sides, the steam
winch began to click, and the two Chinamen vanished silently up the
companionway. The boy leaned back in his wicker chair and gazed
contemplatively about him at the shotgun and sporting rifle over the
bookcase, the piles of paper-covered novels, the pointer dog coiled up
on the transom, the lithographs fastened to the walls, and the
photographs of his father and mother. He took another sip of whisky and
water and, putting down the glass, thought of how proud his father would
have been to see him in his first command. He had the happy
consciousness of having done well, and he was going to make good--the
Admiral had said so. He had had a bully time in the East so far, away
ahead of what he had dreamed when at the Naval Academy. That winter at
Newchwang, racing the little Manchurian ponies over the springy turf of
the polo ground, shooting the big golden pheasants, wandering on leave
through the country, stopping at the Chinese inns and taking chances
among the Hanghousers. It had been great. Hong Kong had been great. It
had been good fun to play tennis and drink tea with the
pink-and-white-faced English girls. Well, he was off! His naval career
had really begun. He lit another cheroot and strolled leisurely on deck
to superintend the operation of heaving up the anchors.
Slowly the _Dirigo_ floated away from the lights of Shanghai, felt her
way cautiously down the Wompoa to Woosung and into the broad expanse of
the Yang-tse. Anchored well out lay the _Ohio_ black against the coming
dawn. A band of crimson clouds swept the lowlands to the east and
between them the tide flowed in an oily purple flood.