Part 6

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.

III

A heavy jar followed by a motionless silence awoke the boy at ten o'clock the next morning. The electric fans were still going and he had a thick taste in his mouth, but he had hardly time to notice these things before he dashed up the companionway and out upon the deck. To starboard the water extended to the horizon, to port a thin line of brown, a shade deeper in color than the water, marked the bank of the great river. Alongside helplessly floated a junk with a great gash in her starboard beam. She was loaded with crockery, and several bales of blue-and-white rice bowls had tumbled into the water, their contents bobbing about like a flock of clay pigeons. The boy saw instantly that owing to the fact that the junk was built in compartments she was in no danger of sinking, and could easily reach shore. Her captain, a half-naked man in a straw hat the size of a small umbrella, was chattering like a monkey at Charley Yen, and a Chinese woman, with a black-eyed baby of two years or thereabouts, sat idly in the stern evincing no particular interest in the accident. The man at the wheel explained that the junk had suddenly tacked. The boy felt in his pocket and, pulling out a Mexican dollar, tossed it to the junk man, who, having rubbed it on his sleeve and bitten it, began to chatter anew to Charley Yen.

"What does he say?" asked the boy.

"He say Captain belong number one man--he mucha tanks," answered Yen with a grin. What a waste! he added. The fellow had sailed on the feast day of Sai-Kao because on that day the Likin or native customs were closed. The gods had punished him. He had no complaint to make and had made none. As the _Dirigo_ shot ahead the junk man sprang into the water and began rescuing his rice bowls. They passed no other junk that day, and the leaden sky did not change its shade. Save for the driving of the screw they might have been anchored in the midst of a coffee-colored ocean. Not even a bird relieved the eager search of the eye for relief from the immeasurable brown. The heat continued intense, and was even more unbearable than when the sun's rays created a fictitious contrast of shadow. Early in the afternoon Yen called the boy's attention to a couple of dolphins which were following them, racing first with the _Dirigo_ and then with each other. Indeed, they were all three very much alike, and the majestic sweep and rush of the gray-white sides as they rose from the water inspired him with a sense of companionship. How far would they follow, these faithlessly faithful wanderers of the sea? At sunrise the next morning they picked up Nanking and the river gave more evidence of life, but they kept on and soon the city and its walls faded behind them. At noon they passed Wu-hu, at the same hour next day Kiukiang, and when the boy rose on the morning of the third day out, the black mass of crowded up-country junks on the water front of Hankow, swarming like mosquitoes or water flies about a stagnant pool, loomed into view. The river was full of sampans and fishing boats. The man from Shan-si, who had not spoken since the night in the cabin, raised his arm, and pointing to the pagoda repeated majestically to Yen the words of the ancient Chinese proverb:

"Above is Heaven's Hall, Below are the cities of Su and Hang."

During the day they passed Kia-yu and Su-ki-kan, and late in the afternoon swept into sight of Yo-chow. The Shan-si man announced that Tung-ting was not so very far away. He even volunteered that this was the greatest country under "Heaven's Hall" for the exportation of bristles, feathers, fungus, musk, nutgalls, opium, and safflower. The place presented a crowded, if not particularly ambitious, appearance. The shore was jammed, as usual, with thousands of junks, and above the town the muddy banks were lined with Hunan timber and bamboo rafts. From the bridge of the _Dirigo_ the boy caught from time to time swiftly shifting views of vast swampy plains, with a ragged line of scattered distant mountains. Then they passed beyond the bend in the river and suddenly entered what seemed another ocean, a northwest passage to Cathay. As far as the eye could reach stretched an illimitable void of waters, turbid, motionless. A rocky point, some ten feet higher than the surrounding plain, just gave a foothold for a small temple, a two-story Ting-tse or pavilion, and a lighthouse shaped like a square paper lantern. Ten minutes later it was a black spot in their boiling, brown wake. They were in Tung-ting, that desolate waste of mud, water, and sandhill islands, half swamp, half lake that rises into being by virtue of the expanding spring torrents, and sinks into its spongelike alluvial bed as mysteriously as it comes.

"Whew!" whistled the boy, "I only hope 'Dooley' knows where he's at. I wish we'd taken on a _lao-ta_ at Hankow. This hole must be a hundred miles long and it's just about ten feet deep!"

In fact, the quartermaster had already called the boy's attention to the long grasses that swung idly upon the top of the water, and to the fact that here and there patches of bottom could be seen.

"Where is Chang-Yuan in all this mess?" he inquired of 'Dooley' who with Yen occupied a place beside him on the bridge.

The Shan-si pointed to a conical-shaped island several miles distant which raised itself steeply out of the water, on which the boy could see through his glasses clung a Chinese village. Flocks of wild fowl speckled the middle distance with a single lone fisherman on the starboard bow.

"He says," interrupted Yen, "Sim-wu have got on that island. This place belong very good for Chinaman--have got plenty of rice. Plenty water summer time. Winter time water all finish. He says he no think enough water for this boat. Little more far--about thirty li--have got 'nother island--after while catchee Chang-Yuan."

"Ask him how fast his bloomin' lake is drying up," directed the boy.

The Shan-si man shrugged his shoulders.

"He says," announced Yen, "if fish belong thirsty they drink water plenty quick. Fish no thirsty plenty water. Sometime fish drink one foot water in four days."

The sun, which up to this time had been visible only as a dim circle in the gray western sky, suddenly broke through with scorching intensity and at the same moment the _Dirigo_ slid gracefully upon a mudbank, half turned, and slid gracefully off again. The boy bit his lips and stared hopelessly at the yellow plain of water all about him. Then he shook his fist at the Shan-si man.

"Tell him," he roared, "that if we get aground in his infernal lake, I'll hang him up by the thumbs and cut off his head."

Yen conveyed the message.

"Even so," replied the Shan-si, through the interpreter, "the will of the Captain is my will and my head is at the Captain's service, but even the gods cannot prevent the fish from drinking up the lake."

IV

"Ugh! What a town!" exclaimed the boy as the _Dirigo_ dropped anchor Sunday morning a hundred yards off the embankment of Chang-Yuan. A broiling sun beat pitilessly upon the deck of the gunboat and upon the half mile of mud and ooze which lay along the water edge of the town. Even in summer Chang-Yuan was well above the water, the shore pitching steeply to the level of the lake. Down this incline was thrown all the waste and garbage of the town, and in the slime grubbed and rooted a horde of Chinese dogs and pigs and a score of human scavengers. Just above the _Dirigo_ hung a house of entertainment, from the rickety balcony of which a throng of curious citizens stared down inquisitively. To the left stood a guild house and a pagoda, and five noble flights of stone steps crowned with archways led from the water to the roadway, but these last were so covered with slime that climbing up and over the muck seemed preferable to risking a fall on their treacherous surfaces.

"Ugh! What a hole!" repeated the boy. "Hah! Get away there you!" he shouted at the _sampans_ which swarmed around the _Dirigo_. "Here you, Yen, tell the beggars to keep off!"

This Yen did, assuring the occupants of the boats that boiling oil would be distributed upon them if they did not retire.

So this was Chang-Yuan! The boy sniffed the malodorous air and wrinkled his nose.

"What though the spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle, Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile!

Gee! I wish the old boy that wrote that could have seen this place! Every prospect pleases! Only _man_ is vile! This town is a sort of human pigsty so far as I can see. And I'll bet there is a fat old _erfu_ hiding in the middle of this rabbit warren who makes a good thing out of it, you bet!"

The crowd on the embankment was growing momentarily larger, a silent, slit-eyed crowd of uncanny yellow faces. Beyond and under the distant line of blue hills thin columns of smoke marked the sites of the towns devastated by the inconsiderate Wu. A friend of Yen's had told the latter all about it. He had come aboard and had breakfasted, and for five hundred cash had been induced to admit that at the present juncture Chang-Yuan was a most unhealthy place for missionaries, that the inhabitants were quite ready to join Wu, and that when he arrived there would be the Chinese devil to pay. He offered for five hundred cash more to act as guide to the _erfu_'s house. On the whole, it seemed desirable to accept his proposition. Half an hour later a boat put off from the _Dirigo_ containing the boy, Yen, the friend, and four bluejackets. The crowd on the embankment almost pushed one another off the edge in their eagerness to watch the white devils climbing up the steps, and hardly allowed room for the boy and his squad to force a way through them.

Chang-Yuan was a typical example of an inland Chinese town, with dirty, narrow streets, swarming with human vermin. A throng followed close at the Americans' heels as they marched to the _erfu_'s house, but quailed before the bodyguard who rushed out threateningly at them. It took half an hour before the _erfu_ could receive them and then they were ushered into a dim room where a flabby old man, with a sly, vacant face sat crosslegged before a curtain. Through Yen, the boy explained that he had called as an act of official courtesy, and that he had come to remove certain American missionaries from danger which he understood existed by virtue of the proximity of the rebel Wu. The _erfu_ listened without expression. Then he spoke into the air.

He was much honored at the visit of the American naval officer. But what could a poor old man like himself do against the great Wu? He had no soldiers. The townsfolk were ready to join the rebels. It was only a question of time. He could do nothing. He regretted extremely his inability to furnish assistance to the Americans.

The boy asked if it was true that the rioters were on their way and might reach the town that afternoon. The _erfu_ said it was so. Then, after warning him that the United States Government would hold him responsible for the lives of its citizens, the boy retired, convinced that the sooner he got his missionaries away the better it would be for them.

V

The Rev. Theophilus Newbegin had just concluded divine service upon the veranda of the mission. Beyond the iron gateway a crowd of twenty or so onlookers still lingered, commenting upon the performance which they had witnessed, and jeering at the Chinese women who had just hurried away. Two of the women were carrying babies and all had had the cholera the season before. Because they had not died they attended service and were objects of hatred to their relatives. The Rev. Newbegin closed his Bible and wiped his broad, shining forehead with a red silk handkerchief. He was a large man who had once been fat and was now thin. Owing to the collapse of his too solid flesh his Chinese garments hung baggily upon his person and gave him an unduly emaciated appearance.

Mrs. Newbegin was still stout. Ten years of mission life had not disturbed her vague placidity and she sat as contentedly upon the veranda in Chang-Yuan as she had sat in her garden summer-house in distant Bangor, Maine, whence she and her husband had come. The fire of missionary zeal had not diminished in either of them. The word had come to them one July morning from the lips of an eloquent local preacher, and full of inspiration they had responded to the call and departed "for the glory of the Lord."

And China had swallowed them up. Twice a year, sometimes oftener, a boat brought bundles of newspapers and magazines, and a barrel or two containing all sorts of valueless odds and ends, antiquated books, games, and ill-assorted clothing. These barrels were the great annoyance of their lives. Often as he dug into their variegated contents the meek soul of the Rev. Theophilus rebelled at being made the repository of such junk.

"One would think, Henrietta," sadly sighed Newbegin, "that the good people at home imagined that we spent our time playing parchesi and the Mansion of Happiness, and reading Sandford and Merton."

Once came a suit of clothes entirely bereft of buttons, and most of the undergarments were adapted to persons about half the size of the missionary and his wife, but the Rev. Newbegin had a little private fortune of his own and it cost very little to live in Chang-Yuan.

The crowd at the gate had been bigger than usual this Sunday, and during the service had hurled a considerable quantity of mud and sticks and a few dead animals which now remained in the foreground, but this was due entirely to the new hatred of the foreign devils engendered by the rioters, and many of those who to-day howled at the gate of the compound had been glad enough six months before to creep to the veranda and beg for medicine and food. Now all was changed. The victorious Wu was coming to drive these child eaters from the land. Already he had laid the country waste for miles to the north and west, and had slain three witch doctors and hung their bodies upon pointed stakes before the temple gates. He was marching even now with his army from Tung-Kuan--a distance of fifteen miles. Nominally loyal to the dynasty, the inhabitants of Chang-Yuan eagerly awaited his coming. The white devils pretended to heal the sick but in reality they poisoned them and caused the sickness themselves. Those who survived their potions had an evil spirit. The crowd at the gate licked its lips at what would take place when Wu should arrive. There would be a fine bonfire and a great killing of child eaters. Their hatred even extended to the daughter of the foreign devil--her whom once they had been wont to call "The Little White Saint," who had nursed their children through the cholera and brought them rice and rhubarb during the famine. Wu would come during the day and then--! The uproar at the gate grew louder. Newbegin laid his moist hand upon that of his wife and looked warningly at her as there came a rustle of silk inside the open door and their niece made her appearance.

Margaret Wellington, now eighteen years old, had lived with them at Chang-Yuan for ten years. Her father, a naval officer, had died the year they had come out from America and they had picked up the little girl, the daughter of Newbegin's deceased only sister, at Hong Kong and brought her with them. Since then she had been as their daughter, working with them and entering enthusiastically into all their missionary labors. Sometimes they regretted not being able to give her a better education, and that she had no white companions but themselves, but the girl herself never seemed to miss these things and they believed that what was best for them was best for her. Were they not earning salvation? And was she not also? Was it not better for her to live in the Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness? Great as was their love for her it was nothing to their love for the Lord Jesus. For that they were ready and eager to lay down their lives--and hers.

"Chi says the rioters are coming," said Margaret. Her hair was done in the Chinese fashion, and she was clad in Chinese dress from head to foot, for she had outgrown all her English clothes years ago and there were no others to take their place.

"Yes, dear," answered her aunt, "I am afraid they are."

"He says they will kill us," continued the girl. She articulated her English words in a way peculiar to herself, due to her strange up-bringing, but there was no fear in her brown eyes, and the paleness of her face was due only to the heat.

The mob at the gate set up a renewed yelling at sight of her.

"Dear, dear!" said her uncle irresolutely, "I don't believe it will be as bad as that. They will calm down by and by." He really felt very badly about Margaret. To be killed was all in the day's work so far as Henrietta and he were concerned. They had anticipated it sooner or later almost as a matter of course, but Margaret----

A stick hurtled across the compound and fell on the veranda at his feet. He knew that it would take but little to excite the mob at the gate to frenzy, but he had made no preparations to defend the compound, for it would have been quite useless. In that swarming city what could one aged missionary and two women do to protect themselves? Chi, the only male convert, was hardly to be depended upon and all the rest were women. No, when the time came they would surrender their lives and accept martyrdom. It was for that that they had come to China. Newbegin's mind worked slowly, but he was a man of infinite courage.

"Dear, dear!" he repeated, looking toward the gate.

"Cowards!" cried the girl, her eyes flashing. "Ungrateful people! They will kill us, and Chi, and Om, and Su, and the other women and their babies. We must do something to protect them."

"Dear me! Dear me!" stammered her uncle again, rubbing his eyes. The crowd at the gate had fallen back and a strange vision had taken its place. Involuntarily he removed his hat. The girl uttered a cry of astonishment as the gate swung open and a young man in a white duck uniform entered the compound followed by four erect figures also in white and carrying rifles on their shoulders.

"Bless me!" exclaimed Newbegin, "it looks like a naval officer!"

The boy came straight to the veranda and touched his cap.

"Are you the Rev. Theophilus Newbegin?" he inquired.

"I am," answered the missionary, holding out his hand.

"I am John Russell, ensign in command of the U. S. gunboat _Dirigo_. I have been sent by Admiral Wheeler to assist you to leave Chang-Yuan."

"Bless me!" exclaimed the Rev. Theophilus. "Very kind of him, I'm sure! And you, too, of course, and you, too! Henrietta, let me introduce you to Ensign Russell. Er--won't those--er--gentlemen come inside and sit down?" he added, staring vaguely at the squad of bluejackets.

"Oh, they're all right!" said the boy, shaking hands with Mrs. Newbegin, and wondering what sort of a queer old guy this was whom he had been sent to rescue. "Beastly hot, isn't it? Do you have it like this often?"

"Eight months in the year," said Mrs. Newbegin, "but we're used to it."

At this moment the boy became conscious of the presence of one whom he at first took to be the prettiest Chinese girl he had ever seen.

"Let me present my niece--Ensign Russell," said Newbegin.

The boy held out his hand but the girl only smiled.

"It is very good of you to come so far to help us," said the girl.

"Oh, no trouble at all!" exclaimed the boy without taking his eyes from her face. "I'm glad I got here in time," he added.

"Did you come on a ship?" asked the girl.

"Just a little gunboat," he answered, "but that makes me think. This plagued lake is sinking all the time. I got aground in half a dozen places. We've got to start right along back. I'm by no means sure we can get out as it is, but it's better than staying here. You'd oblige me by packing up as quickly as possible."

"Eh?" said the Rev. Theophilus, with something of a start, "what's that?"

"Why, that we've got to start right along or we'll be stuck here and won't be able to get away at all."

"But I can't abandon the mission!" said Newbegin in wonder.

"Certainly not!" echoed his wife placidly. "After all these years we cannot desert our post!"

"But the rioters!" ejaculated the boy. "You'll be murdered! Wu will be here before night, they tell me, and there was a precious crowd of ruffians at the gate as I came along. Why, you can't stay to be killed!"

Newbegin shook his head.

"You do not understand," he said slowly. "We came out here to rescue these people from idolatry. Some of them have adopted Christianity. There are forty women and children converts. There are others who are almost persuaded; if we abandon them now we shall undo all our labor. No! we must stay with them, and die with them, if necessary, but we cannot go away now."

"Great Scott!" cried the boy, "do you mean to say that----"

"We cannot desert our post," repeated Mrs. Newbegin, looking fondly at her husband.

"But--but--" began the boy.

"Even if we die, there is the example," said Newbegin.

The boy was puzzled. Of missionaries he had a poor enough opinion in general, and this one looked like a great oaf and so did his fat wife, but in the most ordinary way and with the commonest of accents he was talking of "dying for the example." Then his eyes returned to the girl who had been watching him intently all the time.

"But," he exclaimed, "certainly you won't place your niece in such danger?"

"No," said Newbegin, "that would not be right."

"No," repeated the wife, "she had better go back."

"I will not go back," cried the girl, "unless you go, too! This is my home. Your work is my work. I cannot leave Om and Su and their babies."

"Good God!" muttered the boy hopelessly. "Don't you see you _must_ come? You _can't_ stay here to be murdered by the rioters! I can't _let_ you! On the other hand, I can only stay here an hour or two at the most. The _Dirigo_ is almost aground as it is and we shall have the dev--deuce of a time getting out of the lake."

"Well," said Newbegin calmly, "I have told you that we cannot accept your offer. We are very grateful, of course, but it's impossible. It would not do; no, it would not do. A missionary expects this kind of a thing. I wish Margaret would go, but what can I do, if she won't go? I can't make her go."

"I want to stay with you," said Margaret, taking his hand. "I will never leave you and Aunt Henrietta."

The boy swore roundly to himself. The crowd of Chinese had returned to the gate, and the air of the compound stank in his nostrils. He took out his watch.

"It's eleven o'clock," he said firmly. "At five I shall leave Chang-Yuan; till then you have to make up your minds. I will return in an hour or so."

Newbegin shook his head.

"Our answer will be the same. We are very grateful. I am sorry not to seem more hospitable. Have you seen the temple and the pagoda?"

"No," answered the boy. "I suppose I might as well do the town, now I'm here."

"I will show you the temple," said Margaret timidly. "They know me there, I nursed the child of the old priest. I will take you."

"Yes," said Newbegin, "they all like Margaret, and I seem to be unpopular now. Will you not take dinner with us?"

"Thank you," said the boy, "take dinner with _me_. Perhaps Mrs. Newbegin would like to see the gunboat, and I have some photographs of the new cruisers."

Margaret gazed beseechingly at her.

"Very well," said Newbegin, "if you will stop for us on your way back from the temple we shall be quite ready, but I must return at once after dinner in order to assemble the members of the mission."