Mortmain Part 9

"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 c.h.i.n.ks 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 c.h.i.n.ks 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 c.h.i.n.ks!" 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 antennae 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 c.h.i.n.ks, 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 ash.o.r.e 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 G.o.ds.

"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."