Kitabı oku: «Bert Wilson, Wireless Operator», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XV
The Dragon’s Claws
The next morning the boys were up bright and early, ready for their trip through the city.
“By George,” said Dick, “I have to pinch myself to realize that we’re really in China at last. Until a month ago I never dreamed of seeing it. As a matter of course I had hoped and expected to go to Europe and possibly take in Egypt. That seemed the regulation thing to do and it was the limit of my traveling ambition. But as regards Asia, I’ve never quite gotten over the feeling I had when I was a kid. Then I thought that if I dug a hole through the center of the earth I’d come to China, and, since they were on the under side of the world, I’d find the people walking around upside down.”
“Well,” laughed Bert, “they’re upside down, sure enough, mentally and morally, but physically they don’t seem to be having any rush of blood to the head.”
An electric launch was at hand, but they preferred to take one of the native sampans that darted in and out among the shipping looking for passengers. They hailed one and it came rapidly to the side.
“See those queer little eyes on each side of the bow,” said Tom. “I wonder what they’re for?”
“Why, so that the boat can see where it is going,” replied Dick. “You wouldn’t want it to go it blind and bump head first into the side, would you?”
“And this in a nation that invented the mariner’s compass,” groaned Tom. “How are the mighty fallen!”
“And even that points to the south in China, while everywhere else it points to the north. Can you beat it?” chimed in Ralph.
“Even their names are contradictions,” said Bert. “This place was originally called ‘Hiang-Kiang,’ ‘the place of sweet waters.’ But do you catch any whiff here that reminds you of ottar of roses or the perfume wafted from ‘Araby the blest?’”
“Well, not so you could notice it,” responded Ralph, as the awful smells of the waterside forced themselves on their unwilling nostrils.
They speedily reached the shore and handed double fare to the parchment-faced boatman, who chattered volubly.
“What do you suppose he’s saying?” asked Tom.
“Heaven knows,” returned Ralph; “thanking us, probably. And yet he may be cursing us as ‘foreign devils,’ and consigning us to perdition. That’s one of the advantages of speaking in the toughest language on earth for an outsider to master.”
“It is fierce, isn’t it?” assented Bert. “I’ve heard that it takes about seven years of the hardest kind of study to learn to speak or read it, and even then you can’t do it any too well. Some simply can’t learn it at all.”
“Well,” said Tom, “I can’t conceive of any worse punishment than to have to listen to it, let alone speak it. Good old United States for mine.”
At the outset they found themselves in the English quarter. It was a splendid section of the city, with handsome buildings and well-kept streets, and giving eloquent testimony to the colonizing genius of the British empire. Here England had entrenched herself firmly, and from this as a point of departure, her long arm stretched out to the farthest limits of the Celestial Kingdom. She had made the place a modern Gibraltar, dominating the waters of the East as its older prototype held sway over the Mediterranean. Everywhere there were evidences of the law and order and regulated liberty that always accompany the Union Jack, and that explains why a little island in the Western Ocean rules a larger part of the earth’s surface than any other power.
“We’ve certainly got to hand it to the English,” said Ralph. “They’re the worst hated nation in Europe, and yet as colonizers the whole world has to take off its hat to them. Look at Egypt and India and Canada and Australia and a score of smaller places. No wonder that Webster was impressed by it when he spoke of the ‘drum-beat that, following the sun and keeping pace with the hours, encircled the globe with the martial airs of England.’”
“It’s queer, too, why it is so,” mused Bert. “If they were specially genial and adaptable, you could understand it. But, as a rule, they’re cold and arrogant and distant, and they don’t even try to get in touch with the people they rule. Now the French are far more sympathetic and flexible, but, although they have done pretty well in Algiers and Tonquin and Madagascar, they don’t compare with the British as colonizers.”
“Well,” rejoined Ralph, “I suppose the real explanation lies in their tenacity and their sense of justice. They may be hard but they are just, and the people after a while realize that their right to life and property will be protected, and that in their courts the poor have almost an equal chance with the rich. But when all’s said and done, I guess we’ll simply have to say that they have the genius for colonizing and let it go at that.”
“Speaking of justice and fair play, though,” said Bert, “there’s one big blot on their record, and that is the way they have forced the opium traffic on China. The Chinese as a rule are a temperate race, but there seems to be some deadly attraction for them in opium that they can’t resist. It is to them what ‘firewater’ is to the Indian. The rulers of China realized how it was destroying the nation and tried to prohibit its importation. But England saw a great source of revenue threatened by this reform, as most of the opium comes from the poppy grown in India. So up she comes with her gunboats, this Christian nation, and fairly forces the reluctant rulers to let in the opium under threat of bombardment if they refused. To-day the habit has grown to enormous proportions. It is the curse of China, and the blame for the debauchery of a whole nation lies directly at the door of England and no one else.”
By this time they had passed through the British section and found themselves in the native quarter. Here at last they were face to face with the real China. They had practically been in Europe; a moment later and they were in Asia. A new world lay before them.
The streets were very narrow, sometimes not more than eight or ten feet in width. A man standing at a window on one side could leap into one directly opposite. They were winding as well as narrow, and crowded on both sides with tiny shops in which merchants sat beside their wares or artisans plied their trade. Before each shop was a little altar dedicated to the god of wealth, a frank admission that here, as in America, they all worshipped the “Almighty Dollar.” Flaunting signs, on which were traced dragons and other fearsome and impossible beasts, hung over the store entrances.
“My,” said Ralph, “this would be a bad place for a heavy drinker to find himself in suddenly. He’d think he ‘had ’em’ sure. Pink giraffes and blue elephants wouldn’t be a circumstance to some of these works of art.”
“Right you are,” assented Tom. “I’ll bet if the truth were known the Futurist and Cubist painters, that are making such a splurge in America just now, got their first tips from just such awful specimens as these.”
“Well, these narrow streets have one advantage over Fifth Avenue,” said Ralph. “No automobile can come along here and propel you into another world.”
“No,” laughed Bert, “if the ‘Gray Ghost’ tried to get through here, it would carry away part of the houses on each side of the street. The worst thing that can run over us here is a wheelbarrow.”
“Or a sedan chair,” added Tom, as one of these, bearing a passenger, carried by four stalwart coolies, brushed against him.
A constant din filled the air as customers bargained with the shop-keepers over the really beautiful wares displayed on every hand. Rare silks and ivories and lacquered objects were heaped in rich profusion in the front of the narrow stalls, and their evident value stood out in marked contrast to the squalid surroundings that served as a setting.
“No ‘one price’ here, I imagine,” said Ralph, as the boys watched the noisy disputes between buyer and seller.
“No,” said Bert. “To use a phrase that our financiers in America are fond of, they put on ‘all that the traffic will bear.’ I suppose if you actually gave them what they first asked they’d throw a fit or drop dead. I’d hate to take the chance.”
“It would be an awful loss, wouldn’t it?” asked Tom sarcastically, as he looked about at the immense crowd swarming like bees from a hive. “Where could they find anyone to take his place?”
“There are quite a few, aren’t there?” said Ralph. “The mystery is where they all live and sleep. There don’t seem to be enough houses in the town to take care of them all.”
“No,” remarked Bert, “but what the town lacks in the way of accommodations is supplied by the river. Millions of the Chinese live in the boats along the rivers, and at night you can see them pouring down to the waterside in droves. A white man needs a space six feet by two when he’s dead, but a Chinaman doesn’t need much more than that while he is alive. A sardine has nothing on him when it comes to saving space and packing close.”
At every turn their eyes were greeted with something new and strange. Here a wandering barber squatted in the street and carried on his trade as calmly as though in a shop of his own. Tinkers mended pans, soothsayers told fortunes, jugglers and acrobats held forth to delighted crowds, snake charmers put their slimy pets through a bewildering variety of exhibitions. Groups of idlers played fan-tan and other games of chance, and through the waving curtains of queerly painted booths came at times the acrid fumes of opium. Mingled with these were the odors of cooking, some repellant and some appetizing, which latter reminded the boys that it was getting toward noon and their healthy appetites began to assert themselves. They looked at each other.
“Well,” said Ralph, “how about the eats?”
“I move that we have some,” answered Tom.
“Second the motion,” chimed in Dick.
“Carried unanimously,” added Bert, “but where?”
“Perhaps we would better get back to the English quarter,” suggested Ralph. “There are some restaurants there as good as you can find in New York or London.”
“Not for mine,” said Tom. “We can do that at any time, but it isn’t often we’ll have a chance to eat in a regular Chinese restaurant. Let’s take our courage in our hands and go into the next one here we come to. It’s all in a lifetime. Come along.”
“Tom’s right,” said Dick. “Let’s shut our eyes and wade in. It won’t kill us, and we’ll have one more experience to look back upon. So ‘lead on, MacDuff.’”
Accordingly they all piled into the next queer little eating-house they came to, but not before they had agreed among themselves that they would take the whole course from “soup to nuts,” no matter what their stomachs or their noses warned them against. A suave, smiling Chinaman seated them with many profound bows at a quaint table, on which were the most delicate of plates and the most tiny and fragile of cups. They had of course to depend on signs, but they made him understand that they wanted a full course dinner, and that they left the choice of the food to him. They had no cause to regret this, for, despite their misgivings, the dinner was surprisingly good. The shark-fin soup was declared by Ralph to be equal to terrapin. They fought a little shy of indulging heartily in the meat, especially after Bert had mischievously given a tiny squeak that made Tom turn a trifle pale; but in the main they stuck manfully to their pledge, and, to show that they were no “pikers” but “game sports,” tasted at least something of each ingredient set before them. And when they came to the dessert, they gave full rein to their appetites, for it was delicious. Candied fruits and raisins and nuts were topped off with little cups of the finest tea that the boys had ever tasted. They paid their bill and left the place with a much greater respect for Chinese cookery than they had ever expected to entertain.
The afternoon slipped away as if by magic in these new and fascinating surroundings. They wove in and out among the countless shops, picking up souvenirs here and there, until their pockets were much heavier and their purses correspondingly lighter. Articles were secured for a song that would have cost them ten times as much in any American city, if indeed they could be bought at all. The ivory carvers, workers in jade, silk dealers, painters of rice-paper pictures, porcelain and silver sellers – all these were many cash richer by the time the boys, tired but delighted, turned back to the shore and were conveyed to the Fearless.
“Well,” smiled the doctor, as they came up the side, “how did you enjoy your first day ashore in China?”
“Simply great,” responded Bert, enthusiastically, while the others concurred. “I never had so many new sensations crowding upon me at one time in all my whole life before. As a matter of fact I’m bewildered by it yet. I suppose it will be some days before I can digest it and have a clear recollection of all we’ve seen and done to-day.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “but, even yet, you haven’t seen the real China. Hong-Kong is so largely English that even the native quarter is more or less influenced by it. Now, Canton is Chinese through and through. Although of course there are foreign residents there, they form so small a part of the population that they are practically nil. It’s only about seventy miles away, and I’m going down there to-morrow on a little business of my own. How would you fellows like to come along? Provided, of course, that the captain agrees.”
Needless to say the boys agreed with a shout, and the consent of the captain was readily obtained.
“How shall we go?” asked Ralph.
“What’s the matter with taking the ‘Gray Ghost’ along?” put in Tom.
The doctor shook his head.
“No,” said he. “That would be all right if the roads were good. Of course they’re fine here in the city and for a few miles out. But beyond that they’re simply horrible. If it should be rainy you’d be mired to the hubs, and even if the weather keeps dry, the roads in places are mere footpaths. They weren’t constructed with a view to automobile riding.”
So they took an English river steamer the next day, and before night reached the teeming city, full of color and picturesque to a degree not attained by any other coast city of the Empire. Their time was limited and there was so much to see that they scarcely knew where to begin. But here again the vast experience of the doctor stood them in good stead. Under his expert guidance next day they visited the Tartar City, the Gate of Virtue, the Flowery Pagoda, the Clepsydra or Water Clock, the Viceroy’s Yamen, the City of the Dead, and the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii. The latter was a kind of Chinese “Hall of Fame,” with images of the most famous statesmen, soldiers, scholars, and philosophers that the country had produced. Before their shrines fires were kept constantly burning, and the place was heavy with the pungent odor of joss sticks and incense.
They wound up with a visit to the execution ground and the prisons, a vivid reminder of the barbarism that foreign influence has as yet not been able to modify to any great degree. The boys were horrified at the devilish ingenuity displayed by the Chinese in their system of punishment.
Here was a poor fellow condemned to the torture of the cangue. This was a species of treebox built about him with an opening at the neck through which his head protruded. He stood upon a number of thin slabs of wood. Every day one of these was removed so that his weight rested more heavily on the collar surrounding his neck, until finally his toes failed to touch the wood at the bottom and he hung by the neck until he slowly strangled to death.
“Yes,” said the doctor, as the boys turned away sickened by the sight, “there is no nation so cruel and unfeeling as the Chinese. Scarcely one of these that pass by indifferently, would save this poor fellow if they could. They look unmoved on scenes that would freeze the blood in our veins.”
“This is bad enough,” he went on, “but it is nothing to some of the fiendish atrocities that they indulge in. Their executioners could give points on torture to a Sioux Indian.
“They have for instance what they call the ‘death of the thousand slices.’ They are such expert anatomists that they can carve a man continuously for hours without touching a vital spot. They hang the victim on a kind of cross and cut slices from every part of his body before death comes to his relief.
“Then, too, they have what they name the ‘vest of death.’ They strip a man to the waist and put on him a coat of mail with numberless fine openings. They pull this tightly about him until the flesh protrudes through the open places, and then deftly pass a razor all over it, making a thousand tiny wounds. Then they take off the vest and release the victim. The many wounds coalesce in one until he is practically flayed and dies in horrible torment.”
The boys shuddered at these instances of “man’s inhumanity to man.”
“Life must be horribly cheap in China,” observed Tom.
“I wonder if such terrible punishment really has any effect as an example to criminals,” said Ralph.
“I don’t believe it does,” put in Bert. “We know that formerly in Europe there were hundreds of crimes that were punishable with death. In England, at one time, a young boy or girl would be hung for stealing a few shillings. And yet crime grew more common as punishment grew more severe. When they became more humane in dealing with offenders, the number of crimes fell off in proportion.”
“Yes,” assented the doctor. “The modern idea is right that punishment should be reformatory instead of vindictive. But it will be a good while before China sees things from that standpoint.”
“It is possible of course that the culprit here does not suffer so cruelly as a white man would under similar conditions. The nervous system of a Chinaman is very coarse and undeveloped. He bears with stolidity torture that would wring shrieks of agony from one more highly strung.”
“Perhaps so,” said Bert, “but I don’t know. We say that sometimes about fish. They’re coldblooded, and so it doesn’t hurt them to be caught. I’ve often thought, though, that it would be interesting if we could hear from the fish on that point.”
“No doubt,” returned the doctor. “It’s always easy to be philosophical when somebody else is concerned. But we’ll have to go now,” looking at his watch, “if we expect to get to the boat in time.”
“Well, fellows,” said Bert that night as, safe on board of the Fearless, they prepared to tumble in, “it certainly is interesting to go about this land of the ‘Yellow Dragon,’ but it’s a cruel old beast. I’d hate to feel its teeth and claws.”
Was it a touch of prophecy?
CHAPTER XVI
The Pirate Attack
“Not very pretty to look at, is he?” asked Ralph, indicating by a nod the huge Chinaman who had slipped noiselessly past them on his way to the galley.
“He isn’t exactly a beauty,” assented Tom, looking after the retreating figure, “but then what Chinaman is? Besides he didn’t sign as an Adonis, but as an assistant cook. What do you expect to get for your twelve dollars a month and found?”
“Well, I’d hate to meet him up an alley on a dark night, especially if he had a knife,” persisted Ralph. “If ever villainy looked out from a fellow’s face it does from his.”
“Don’t wake him up, he is dreaming,” laughed Bert.
“I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this one thing I know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,”
quoted Dick.
“Come out of your trance, Ralph, and look at these two junks just coming out from that point of land over there,” rallied Tom. “Those fellows handle them smartly, don’t they?”
It was a glorious evening off the China coast. The Fearless had hoisted anchor and turned her prow toward home. Every revolution of the screws was bringing them nearer to the land of the Stars and Stripes. The sea was like quicksilver, there was a following wind, the powerful engines were moving like clockwork, and everything indicated a fast and prosperous voyage.
The boys were gathered at the rail, and, as Tom spoke, they gazed with interest at the two long narrow junks that were drawing swiftly toward them. All sails were set and they slipped with surprising celerity through the water.
“They both seem to be going in the same direction,” said Ralph. “It almost looks as though they were racing. I’ll bet on the – What was that?”
The ship shook from stem to stern as though her machinery had been suddenly thrown out of place.
The captain rushed down from the bridge and the mates came running forward. The boys had leaped to their feet and looked at each other in dismay. Then, with one accord, they plunged down in the direction of the engine-room. Before they reached it they could hear the hoarse shouts of MacGregor and his assistants as they shut off the steam, and the ship losing headway tossed helplessly up and down.
“What is it Mr. MacGregor?” asked the captain.
“I canna’ tell yet,” answered Mac. “Something must have dropped into the machinery. And yet I’ll swear there was nothing lying around loose. But I’ll find out.”
A minute or two passed and then with a snarl and an oath, he held up a heavy wrench.
“Here’s the thing that did it,” he yelled, “and it didn’t get there by accident either. I ken every tool aboard this ship and I never set eyes on this before. Somebody threw it there to wreck the engines.”
“To wreck the engines,” repeated Captain Manning. “Why? Who’d want to do anything like that?”
“I dinna’ ken,” said Mac stubbornly. “I only know some one must ha’. I’d like to get these twa hands of mine on his throat.”
“Has any one been here except you and your men?” asked the captain.
“No one – leastwise nane but the Chink. He stopped to say – ”
Bert jumped as though he had been shot. The Chinaman of the villainous face – those junks putting out from land! Like a flash he was up the ladder and out on the deserted deck. His heart stood still as he looked astern.
The two junks were seething with activity and excitement. The decks were packed with men. All pretense of secrecy was abandoned. The stopping of the ship had evidently been the signal they were expecting. All sails were bent to catch every breath of air, and long sweeps darted suddenly from the sides. The prows threw up fountains of water on each side as the junks made for the crippled ship like wolves leaping on the flanks of a wounded deer.
Bert took this in at a single glance. He saw it all – the Chinese accomplice, the carefully prepared plan, the wrecking of the machinery. His voice rang out like a trumpet:
“Pirates! Pirates! All hands on deck!”
Then, while the officers and crew came tumbling up from below, he rushed to the wireless room and pressed the spark key. The blue flames sputtered, as up and down the China coast and far out to sea his message flashed:
“Attacked by pirates. Help. Quick.”
Then followed the latitude and longitude. He could not wait for a reply. Three times at intervals of a few seconds he sent the call, and then he sprang from his seat.
“Here, Howland,” he shouted, as his assistant appeared at the door. “Keep sending right along. It’s a matter of life and death. Let me know if an answer comes.”
Then he grabbed his .45 and rushed on deck. A fight was coming – a fight against fearful odds. And his blood grew hot with the lust of battle.
Short sharp words of command ran over the ship. The officers and crew were at their places. The women passengers had been sent below and an incipient panic had been quelled at the start. The officers had their revolvers loaded and ready and the crew were armed with capstan bars and marlinspikes beside the sheath knives that they all carried. There was no cannon, except a small signal gun on board the ship, and this the pirates knew. The battle must be hand to hand. The odds were heavy. The decks of the enemy swarmed with yelling devils naked to the waist and armed to the teeth. They were at least five to one and had the advantage of the attack and the surprise.
The boys were grouped together at the stern toward which the junks were pulling. All had revolvers, and heavy bars lay near by to be grabbed when they should come to hand-grips with the pirates. They looked into each others eyes and each rejoiced at what he saw there. Together they had faced death before and won out; to-day, they were facing it again, and the chances were against their winning. Yet they never quailed or flinched. The spirit of ’76 was there – the spirit of 1812 – the spirit of ’61. They came of a fighting stock; a race that could face and whip the world or die in the trying. They glanced at Old Glory floating serenely above their heads, and each swore to himself that if he died defeated he would not die disgraced. Their fingers tightened on the butts of their weapons, their teeth clinched and their eyes grew hard.
The captain, cool and stern, as he always was in a crisis, had divided his forces into two equal parts. He himself commanded on the port side, while Mr. Collins took charge of the starboard. A long line of hose had been connected with the boiling water of the engine room, and two sailors held the nozzle as it writhed and twisted on the rail. Had there been but one junk, this might have proved decisive, but, in the nature of things, it could only defend one side of the ship. The pirates were proceeding on the plan of “divide and conquer.” As they drew rapidly nearer, they separated, and while one dashed at the port side of the ship, the other swept around under the starboard quarter. Then a horde of half-naked yellow fiends with knives held between their teeth swarmed up the sides, grabbed at the rails and sought to obtain a foothold. A volley of bullets swept the first of them away, but their places were instantly taken by others. The boiling water rushed in a torrent over the port side, and the scalded scoundrels fell back. But it was only for a moment and still they kept coming with unabated fury.
Bert and his comrades fought shoulder to shoulder. Their revolvers barked again and again and the snarling yellow faces were so near that they could not miss. Many fell back dead and wounded, but they never quit; and when the revolvers were emptied, a number of the pirates got over the rail, while the boys were reloading. Then followed a savage hand-to-hand fight. Iron bars came down with sickening crashes; knives flashed and fell and rose and fell again. The pirates were gaining a foothold and the little band of defenders was hard pressed. But just then reinforcements came in the form of MacGregor and his husky stokers and engineers. They had been trying desperately to repair the engines, but the sounds of the fight above had been too much for them to stand, and now they came headlong into the fight, their brawny arms swinging iron bars like flails. They turned the tide at that critical moment and the pirates were driven back over the sides. They dropped sullenly into the junks and drew away from the ship until they were out of range of bullets. Then they stopped and took breath before renewing the attack. They had suffered terribly, but they still vastly outnumbered the defenders.
The boys reloaded their revolvers, watching the enemy narrowly.
“I wonder if they have enough,” said Dick as he bound a handkerchief around a slight flesh wound in his left arm.
“I don’t think so,” answered Bert, “their blood is up and they know how few we are as compared with themselves. They certainly fought like wildcats.”
“They’re live wires sure enough,” agreed Tom. “They – why Bert, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed as Bert sprang to his feet excitedly.
But Bert had rushed to the captain and was eagerly laying before him the plan that Tom’s words had unwittingly suggested.
The captain listened intently and an immense relief spread over his features. He issued his orders promptly. Great coils of heavy wire were brought from the storeroom and under Bert’s supervision were wound in parallel rows about the stern of the ship. At first sight it looked as though they were inviting the pirates to grasp them and thus easily reach the deck. It seemed like committing suicide. The work was carried on with feverish energy and by the time the pirates swung their boats around and again headed for the ship, there was a treble row of wires about a foot apart on both the port and starboard side.
The revolvers had all been reloaded and every man stood ready. But the tenseness of a few minutes before was lacking. For the first time since the fight began Captain Manning smiled contentedly.
“Don’t fire, men, unless I give the word. Stand well back from the rail and wait for orders.”
On came the pirates yelling exultantly. The silence of the defenders was so strange and unnatural that it might well have daunted a more imaginative or less determined foe. Not a shot was fired, not a man stirred. They might have been dream men on a dream ship for any sign of life and movement. The crowded junks bore down on either side of the ship, and as though with a single movement, a score of pirates leaped at the rails and grasped the wires to pull themselves aboard.
Then a wonderful thing happened. From below came the buzz of the great dynamo and through the wires surged the tremendous power of the electric current. It was appalling, overwhelming, irresistible. It killed as lightning kills. There was not even time for a cry. They hung there for one awful moment with limbs twisted and contorted, while an odor of burning flesh filled the air. Then they dropped into the sea. Their comrades petrified with horror saw them fall and then with frantic shrieks bent to the sweeps and fled for their lives.
And so it befell that when the good ship Fearless drew up to the dock at San Francisco, the young wireless operator, much to his surprise as well as distaste, found that his quick wit and unfailing courage had made of him a popular hero. But he steadfastly disclaimed having done anything unusual. If he had fought a good fight and “kept the faith,” it was, after all, only his duty.
