Chapter XI: Part 11

“You and I might do business some day,” quoth O’Shea, “but I am too busy to start a revolution at present.”

He sent a note to Paddy Blake asking him to find a dozen Chinese firemen and sailors and a river pilot, and to muster them ready for signing articles in the afternoon. He believed the old Irishman to be a ripened scoundrel at his own trade, but suspected him of no complicity in the manœuvres of Charley Tong Sin. The comprador had merely used Paddy Blake as a means of making the acquaintance of Captain O’Shea.

Five minutes after noon the shipmaster (he had taken a decided dislike to riding in ’rickshaws) trudged into the headquarters building of Inspector Burke.

“I have a choice collection for you to look over,” said the latter. “They are waiting in another room, and I should call them a worried lot. I sent my men out to pick them up, do you see, and they have not been told the reason why.”

“I cannot afford to be particular, Inspector Burke. Let me at them and I will see whether I am safer ashore among the Chinese or at sea with your exhibit of beach-combers.”

“Oh, they are not as bad as that,” the inspector assured him. “I should scarcely call them desperate characters. However, while I wish you the best of luck, old chap, I shall shed never a tear if you lose your shipmates somewhere beyond Shanghai. Let us call them soldiers of misfortune, if you like.”

He led the way into the large drill-room, where a score or more of men stood in uneasy attitudes and appeared not at all comfortable in this environment. O’Shea let his glance rove in swift, appraising scrutiny and smiled to himself as he recognized one familiar type after another. He had recruited such men as these for unostentatious ventures in the waters of the Spanish Main. Here was the red-faced, burly shipmaster ready with a glib speech and fluent curses to explain how he happened to be without his papers; the shambling ne’er-do-well with the slack mouth and the weak chin who had fled from a scrape at home to lose himself in foreign ports; the tanned adventurer, brave and resourceful, who was fit for nothing else than the life of a rover; the battered old seaman, worn out by the hardships of the forecastle, who had been cast adrift from the hospital; the cashiered army officer with the hall-mark of his caste blurred but still visible; the sharp-featured young man with the furtive eye who lived by his wits and found it very hard living indeed; the bleary tropical tramp who would sell his soul for a drink of brandy.

These and the rest of them were seedy in various ways. They conveyed a sense of failure, of having lost their grip. Their clothes did not signify this so much as what life had written in their faces. Several, in fact, were dressed in clean white duck and linen. They were fighting hard to preserve the guise of self-respect. And yet every man of them had marched to police headquarters at a word from Inspector Burke with the sick fear in his heart that his past had overtaken him, or that he was to be deported for the good of the community, or that he was to be locked up as a vagrant.

Inspector Burke felt pity for them. It was heartless to keep the poor devils in this painful suspense. With a curt nod he addressed them in a group, for they had unwittingly drifted together as if finding some small comfort in solidarity.

“This is not police business,” said he. “I sent for you to oblige my friend Captain O’Shea. He will explain what he wants, and I advise you to play square with him and I’m quite sure he will make it worth while.”

At this the company brightened and looked immensely relieved. The hang-dog manner fled. Shoulders were braced, heads held erect. They were like different men. O’Shea had a less pessimistic opinion of them. He had already concluded to show no finicky taste by picking and choosing. He would take them in a lump, good, bad, and indifferent. Those who were really competent would soon disclose it on shipboard and they could help him hammer the others into shape.

“My speech to you will be short and sweet,” said he. “I need men for a voyage coastwise and me steamer will be ready to sail to-night. You will live well and I expect ye to obey orders. ’Tis not sailors’ work or I should not take on your kind. The fewer questions ye ask the more popular ye will be with me. The pay will be at the rate of five dollars a day gold, but I will give no advances. I want ye to come aboard sober. If you handle yourselves like men I will pay ye a bonus at the end of the voyage. Those that want to go will give me their names.”

Not a man hung back or asked a question. They whispered softly among themselves, as if afraid to make a slip that might break the spell. Captain O’Shea had one thing more to say and they listened with the most devout attention.

“I took note of the small Hotel London down by the water-side. ’Tis a clean, decent place and I have had a word with the landlord. I will give every man me card. If you show it to him he will be pleased to entertain ye at dinner at once, and he will hand ye out cigars and three drinks apiece, no more. And I will meet you there for supper at six o’clock to-night.”

“Excellent strategy,” murmured Inspector Burke.

“By the way,” cried O’Shea to his pleased followers, “I overlooked something. I need a chief engineer. Can any one of you qualify?”

It appeared that none of them was sufficiently acquainted with the internal works of a steamer to pass as an expert, although a young man of a very Cockney accent thought he might do as an assistant.

Inspector Burke made haste to remark:

“I say, let me give you the very man for the job. Kittridge is his name. It’s rather awkward, for he is in clink at present, the British jail. But his time expires to-morrow--he was given thirty days--and I dare say the magistrate will be willing to sign release papers if I explain the situation.”

“I am not asking me men for references,” observed O’Shea, “but, as a matter of mild curiosity, what did ye put this Kittridge away for?”

“He tried to whip my entire Sikh police force, and he made a jolly good beginning. Then his ship sailed away and left him in quod. He was engineer in a Cardiff tramp. A very good man, I understand.”

“He sounds like it. His references are most satisfactory, especially what he did to your turbanned cops,” O’Shea cordially affirmed. “Send this Kittridge to the Hotel London, if ye please, and give him this card of mine, and tell him to wait for me there.”

Through the afternoon Captain Michael O’Shea, now master of the aged river steamer _Whang Ho_, was the busiest and most energetic of men. A hundred and one things presented themselves as necessary to be done. When at length he hurried into the Hotel London shortly before the supper-hour his men were waiting, hopeful, expectant, cheerful, smoking his cigars and with the three drinks apiece tucked under their belts. Among them was a lanky, solemn person with a pair of gray side-whiskers and a leathery complexion crisscrossed by a net-work of fine wrinkles. His whole appearance was eminently decorous and respectable and he seemed to have strayed into the wrong company. It was not far-fetched to conjecture that he might be a missionary from some station in the Chinese hinterland who had kindly concerned himself with the souls of this congregation of black sheep.

Captain O’Shea bowed to him with a puzzled, respectful air, at which the pious stranger remarked:

“Inspector Burke told me to report here and be damn quick about it. I am Kittridge, and I hear you are wanting an engineer.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Kittridge. I came near mistakin’ you for a sky-pilot. And so your favorite pastime is beating up Sikh policemen! I have a job for ye at double the wages you got in your tramp steamer, whatever they were. Are you willing?”

“I would sign on with the devil himself to get clear of this blankety-blank pig-hole of a blistering Shanghai,” promptly exclaimed Mr. Kittridge. “Where’s your ship? Shall I go aboard at once?”

“Please take a look at the engine-room and report to me here. She is the _Whang Ho_, tied up at the China Navigation Company’s wharf. Don’t be too critical, but if there’s work that is absolutely necessary I will send ye machinists to work all night.”

“I know the condemned little hooker by sight,” bitterly quoth Mr. Kittridge with a tug at his starboard whisker. “Very well, sir. I will take a squint at her and make out my list of engine-room stores. Can you get them to-night?”

“The ship-chandler is waiting to hear from me, and I have sent word to the machine-shop,” briefly answered O’Shea.

Paddy Blake had very promptly raked up the required number of Chinese hands and was ready to deliver them on board whenever required. To the Hotel London he came, towing by the arm a most extraordinarily bent and shrivelled anatomy with a wisp of a white queue, whom he turned over to Captain O’Shea with the explanation:

“Here is a river and coastwise pilot for ye that is as wise as Confucius. And by the same token, I have no doubt that he was once pilot aboard the junk of that grand old philosopher himself. Or maybe he was shipmates with Noah.”

The ancient mariner croaked a phrase or two in a grating, rusty voice, and O’Shea dubiously observed:

“If he talks no English at all how will I tell him where I want to go?”

“I have sent ye a Chinese bos’n that can sling th’ pidgin,” said Paddy Blake. “Dearly would I love to know where ye are bound and what bobbery ye are up to, Captain Mike O’Shea, but a man in my business has learned to ask no more silly questions than he can help.”

“Keep that magnum on ice till I come back to Shanghai and I will spin ye the yarn in the little back room of yours, Paddy.”

“May ye come back right side up,” warmly exclaimed the old man. “By th’ look of the friends ye have mustered to go wid you, I wud say that ye are bound out on what th’ Shanghai diplomats call a policy of binivolint assimilation.”

The report of the aggrieved Mr. Kittridge was to the effect that while the engines of the _Whang Ho_ would probably take her to sea without breaking down, a night’s work on the condenser, not to mention a leaky cylinder, would considerably improve her health. Captain O’Shea told him to drive ahead with these repairs; nor was the delay worth fretting about. Things had gone amazingly well thus far and the _Whang Ho_ would be ready to sail in the morning. He had no desire to spend another night ashore, and he would take his company on board at once, assign them to quarters, and make a tentative organization for sea duty.

The _Whang Ho_ had been fitted for passenger service on the Yang-tse, and there were state-rooms on the upper deck to hold twice the number of O’Shea’s recruits. In the Chinese draft sent aboard by Paddy Blake were a cook and a steward trained to their business, and they put things to rights in their quiet, deft way. The mood of Captain O’Shea became normally cheerful and confident. He had a deck under his feet, his word was law, and it was good to hear the lap of salt water and the swirl of the tide against a vessel’s side.

He was awake and about until midnight. The work in the engine-room was progressing rapidly under the vehement direction of Mr. Kittridge. Feeling the need of sleep, for the preceding night had been a broken one, Captain O’Shea set a watch in charge of the burly shipmaster of his company whom he appointed first mate and went to his bunk in the cabin just abaft the wheel-house. At three o’clock Mr. Kittridge, very hot and grimy, rapped on the door and gruffly announced that the machinists had gone ashore and he proposed to turn in and sleep until sailing-time.

At six o’clock Captain O’Shea went on deck in his pajamas to order the steward to fetch him a cup of coffee. He saw no reason why the steamer should not get under way at once. The Chinese steward came not at his call and he betook himself to the galley. A fire was burning in the range, rice and potatoes were cooking in the pots, bacon sliced on the table ready for frying, but there was no cook. O’Shea looked puzzled and started for the forecastle. On the way he met his first mate whose demeanor was distressed and excited.

“I was about to call you, sir,” he exclaimed, his red face working with emotion. “You will think I’ve made a hash of my first night on duty, but this insane business happened like a shot out of a gun, sir. Not ten minutes ago the Chinamen, every last one of ’em, came boiling on deck and went over the side to the wharf like so many rats. And they never did stop running. They were scared; it was a panic; but they didn’t stop to jabber. They just flew, and most of ’em left their dunnage behind.”

“The divil you say,” muttered O’Shea, and he rubbed his head in slightly bewildered fashion. “That must have been just before I stepped on deck, Mr. Parkinson. And ye have no idea at all what it was about?”

“Not the slightest, sir. I hope you don’t blame me. I’d have sailed into the thick of them with my fists, but it was like chasing so many greased pigs. They vanished before you could more than wink.”

“What about the fires?” snapped the captain. “Have you been below?”

“Yes, sir. The first thing I did was to find Mr. Kittridge. He is in the engine-room, and he told me to send down half a dozen of our white men to keep up steam.”

“Good enough! Now sing out for a volunteer cook, and I will investigate this comical performance. Did anybody get aboard to talk to these Chinamen?”

“Not a soul, sir. I’m sure of it. I had a reliable man at the gangway, and another on the wharf.”

“I believe you. While I look around a bit, get the ship ready to go to sea, Mr. Parkinson. ’Tis not in me mind to be hung up in port very long.”

A sailing junk was attempting to reach with the morning breeze across the wide stretch of river. Hauling close to the wharf at which the _Whang Ho_ was moored, the junk attempted to come about, but missed stays in lubberly fashion and hung in the wind as she slowly drifted past the steamer’s stern. The Chinese who clung to the long tiller, and the others who stood upon the poop or hauled on the cordage, were gazing with signs of excitement at the _Whang Ho_. Several of them gesticulated, and their fingers were aimed at the rounded, overhanging stern of Captain O’Shea’s vessel. He caught sight of those antics and walked aft.

There was no good reason why the crew of the passing junk should make such a fuss over this commonplace river steamer. Their singular interest in her might be worth trying to fathom. Without delaying to seek the gangway, he threw his leg around a tautened hawser and slid down to the wharf. Running out to the end of it, he commanded a clear view of the stern of the _Whang Ho_. Upon the white woodwork, just above the counter, was painted in broad strokes of bright vermilion the sprawling Chinese character which had been gashed in the back of the sailor named Jim Eldridge.

Captain O’Shea hastily returned on board and climbed over the after rail, belaying a loose end of heaving-line and resting his foot in the loop so that he was able to let himself down until he could touch the uppermost smear of vermilion paint. It rubbed off on his hand, fresh and wet, and must have been applied during the night. His Chinese crew had discovered it there. Perhaps some one had sung out the information from a passing junk or sampan. At any rate, this was what had made them quit the steamer. A charge of dynamite could have made their exodus no more expeditious. The word had flown from mouth to mouth, and they fled from the ship as from the plague. Even the incredibly aged pilot had hobbled away with the rest of them, fear restoring an agility long since departed.

“The hoodoo again!” reflectively exclaimed O’Shea. “I thought I had got clear of it. ’Tis not so much to frighten me this time as to delay the voyage. Somebody is anxious to send word up the coast ahead of me to let some one else know I am coming. That is a guess, and ’tis as good as the next one.”

He would find Paddy Blake at once and discuss the matter with him. Perhaps he could ship another crew and leave port before the news had time to spread among the Chinese seafarers. Telling Mr. Parkinson to see to it that the vermilion paint was instantly removed, he set out on foot along the water-front. At this early hour, there was no stir of business among the foreign shipping-houses. Passing a substantial brick building, Captain O’Shea’s eye was held for an instant by the brass sign on one of the doors, “Jordan, Margetson & Co.” He happened to be thinking quite assiduously just then of the courteous comprador, Charley Tong Sin. He halted and stared hard at the door in front of him which was ajar.

It was too early for any of the clerks to be about. With an impulse which had no definite purpose behind it, Captain O’Shea pushed open the door and quietly stepped into the hallway and thence into the main office with its row of desks. The room was empty, and he moved in the direction of the smaller, detached offices in the rear, still treading softly. Yes, the shrewd and zealous comprador, so faithful to his employers’ interests, was already at work. When the visitor caught sight of him he was bending over a table littered with papers, intent on arranging and filing them. Possibly his ears were as quick as his wits and he had heard Captain O’Shea before seeing him. Unruffled and smiling, with an air of delighted surprise, the comprador exclaimed, advancing with hand outstretched:

“How glad I am to see you again! The top of the morning! Were you looking to find me? Ah, I am the early bird, you bet.”

“I expected to sail by now, but there has been a bit of trouble with me native crew,” replied the shipmaster, wary as a hawk. “I saw your place was open and I dropped in on the chance of bidding ye farewell. You mentioned the other night that you sometimes came down early.”

“That is the deuce of my business, Captain,” easily returned Charley Tong Sin. “Trouble with your crew? Can I help you? Do you need men? I am sorry you didn’t come to me in the first place.”

“I wish I had. ’Twas old Paddy Blake I first turned to as one Irishman to another. And maybe I was wrong in not asking your advice about the steamer.”

If this were a fencing-match, then O’Shea had scored the first point. His bold, ingenuous features expressed not the slightest change of emotion, but in an instant he had discovered that which clinched and drove home his suspicions of Charley Tong Sin. The comprador put a fresh cigarette to his lips and held a lighted match between his fingers, unaware that the flare conveyed a fleeting translucence. Underneath the beautifully polished nails of his thumb and forefinger there showed a line of vermilion which the most careful scrubbing had failed to eradicate. It was the color of the paint which had been smeared on the stern of the _Whang Ho_ in the form of a sprawling Chinese character.

The luck of Captain Michael O’Shea so ordered it that he should observe this phenomenon before the flare of the match died out. Thereupon he lied swiftly and plausibly, the purpose hot in his heart to find a pretext that should coax the comprador to accompany him on board the _Whang Ho_. To a sympathetic query Captain O’Shea smoothly made answer:

“I am the kind of a man that will own up to his own mistakes. I thought I could go it alone when I ought to have been glad and thankful for the help of a man like yourself. Between us, I am not anxious to go to sea in this old tub that I have chartered from the China Navigation Company. And now that I am delayed for lack of a crew, maybe you can show me a way to slip out of the bargain. My chief engineer finds the vessel is not at all what she was represented to be. I took her subject to certain conditions and she cannot make good.”

“I told you you would be stung in Shanghai without me,” laughed Charley Tong Sin in the greatest good-humor. “Better chuck up the _Whang Ho_ and let me find you a steamer.”

“That I will do, and gladly,” affirmed O’Shea. “Have ye time to step aboard with me now and I will show you how I have been buncoed. Then ye can advise me how to break the charter. I have a good case.”

“Of course I will,” cried the comprador. “Pooh, we will bluff the China Navigation Company out of its boots. I will make them look like thirty cents.”

“You are the smartest comprador between Tientsin and Singapore, according to Paddy Blake, and I have no doubt of it,” sweetly murmured Captain O’Shea.

“That’s what everybody says,” affably rejoined Charley Tong Sin as they walked into the street. “What is the trouble with your crew?”

“You can search me. I cannot find out for the life of me. They up and jumped ship without warning.”

“I will get more men for you. Leave it to me. You have come to the right place this time, Captain O’Shea.”

Chatting amiably, the twain came to the wharf and climbed the gangway of the _Whang Ho_. That anxious first mate, Mr. Parkinson, pitiably afraid lest he lose his billet and be turned adrift because he had failed to prevent the desertion of the crew, brightened perceptibly at sight of Charley Tong Sin and concluded that this influential young man had been persuaded to mend the troubles.

“Come to my room, if ye please,” said Captain O’Shea to the smiling comprador, “and I will summon my chief engineer. He will tell you that the steamer is not fit to make three knots an hour, and then we will go below.”

The shipmaster beckoned Mr. Parkinson to follow. The trio were passing through the wide hall of the main cabin when Captain O’Shea halted. Swinging on his heel, he stood facing Charley Tong Sin, who started slightly, for the visage of Captain O’Shea was stern and lowering.

What followed was instantaneous. The shipmaster’s fist shot out and collided with the jaw of the comprador, who measured his length on the floor and appeared to be wrapped in slumber. Only the toes of his neat patent-leather shoes oscillated gently. The expression of his face was singularly peaceful. The oblique eyelids were closed.

The aghast Mr. Parkinson sputtered in great dismay:

“My God, sir, what have you done? We’ll all go to jail for this. This is Jordan, Margetson’s right-hand man.”

“I have given him a sleeping-powder,” said O’Shea. “Take him by the heels while I carry the other end of him and we will lock him in a spare state-room. Put a guard over him. If he squeals, hit him again and keep him quiet.”

The mate was about to renew his protests, but his voice died in his throat. Perceiving that he wavered miserably, Captain O’Shea spoke once more, and his accents were hard:

“You can make your choice, Mr. Parkinson. Ye sail with me and you play my game or you can go ashore to rot and starve on the beach, same as when I picked ye out of the gutter. I have given this dirty young Chinese blackguard a taste of what is coming to him. Will ye fall to or shall I kick you out of the ship?”

“I--I will take your orders, sir,” stammered the other.

“Then help me get this steamer to sea. We will wait for no more Chinese sailors. Muster all hands on the upper deck.”

They came piling up from the hold and the dining-room abaft the galley, where most of them had been at breakfast. The inanimate comprador was no longer visible.

“Will you sail with me at once or lose the chance of making the voyage?” demanded O’Shea. “Some of you will have to shovel coal and others wash dishes and do seamen’s duty on deck. But I will pay ye extra for it, and we will take this old box of a steamer to where we want to go.”

The response was hearty and unanimous. The adventurers could think of no worse fate than to be once more stranded in Shanghai. They were well fed, they had slept in clean beds again, and their employer was a man who could be trusted to deal with them fairly. With a spirited cheer they scattered to their various stations. The chief engineer spoke briefly, his gray whiskers standing out in the morning breeze:

“Nobody but a wild Irishman would have the nerve to take this painted coffin to sea with a gang of misbegotten greenhorns to man her. I have steam enough to give her steerage-way whenever you’re ready to cast off, Captain O’Shea.”

“Then let go, fore and aft,” roared the master. “Are ye pilot enough to take her down the river, Mr. Parkinson?”

“I could do it with both eyes shut, but I’m not so familiar with the coast to the north’ard.”

“I have a pilot for the part of the coast and the river we are bound for,” grimly returned O’Shea. “He is locked in a spare state-room just now. He will know that part of China very well, for ’tis me opinion that he has been there before.”

V

Over a mournful, muddy expanse of the China Sea wallowed a top-heavy river steamer whose engines raised protesting clamor like an assemblage of threshing-machines. The gods of the air and water were in a kindly mood or else she would have opened up and foundered ere now. In the spray-swept wheel-house stood Captain Michael O’Shea, swaying easily to the crazy roll and lurch of the _Whang Ho_ and scanning the low dim coast with a pair of glasses. Clinging to the window ledge beside him was a young man of a Chinese countenance whose raiment, the handiwork of a fashionable British tailor, was sadly rumpled and soiled. The whole aspect of the young man was rumpled, in fact, not to say excessively forlorn, and now and then he pressed his hand against a painful jaw. It was difficult to imagine that he had been an ornament of clubs, a pattern for the gilded youth, and the smartest comprador between Tientsin and Singapore.

The plight of Charley Tong Sin was made poignantly distressing by the fact that in the process of acquiring the vices of the Occident he had lost his grip on the essential virtues of the Orient. His native stoicism had been sapped and the fatalistic attitude of mind which meets death without so much as the flutter of an eyelid was eaten with dry-rot. In other words, the comprador was willing to pay any price to save his own skin, although his father before him would have suffered himself to be sliced to death by inches sooner than “lose face” in the presence of a foreigner.

Captain Michael O’Shea’s method of extracting information from this kidnapped passenger had been brutally simple and direct. Charley Tong Sin was informed that he could make a clean breast of it or be thrown overboard. And the shipmaster, when he was thoroughly in earnest, had a way of conveying the impression that he meant what he said. He believed that he knew his man. The comprador was strongly reluctant to have his head lopped off by the sword of a native executioner, which was very likely to happen if this terrible O’Shea should turn him over to the Chinese authorities. Given the promise of immunity in exchange for a confession, he could flee to Japan or the Straits Settlements and live handsomely in the society of other Chinese exiles with the funds that he had piled up during his brief and brilliant business career. Likewise there would be opportunities in shipping and commerce for a comprador of his uncommon ability.

“I would honestly enjoy killing you, Charley,” said Captain O’Shea as they stood together in the wheel-house of the _Whang Ho_. “You are a smart lad, but ye got too gay with me, and you overplayed your game when ye slipped under the counter of this steamer in a sampan in the dark of the night and got busy with the red paint. That sort of silly jugglery was the Chinese of it, I suppose. Now, I have tried to make it plain that your life is not worth a pinch of snuff to any one of us. There is not a man in the ship that wants to lay eyes on Shanghai ever again. They will be only too glad to quit the country if they have the price in their pockets, and I will give them the price. So ye must not hold to the notion that we are afraid of getting in trouble on your account.”

“I am worth more to you alive than if I am dead,” sullenly muttered Charley Tong Sin. “Is it not so? You think I will be handy as a pilot, as an interpreter? I have been doing a deuce of a lot of thinking. I am no fool, Captain O’Shea. I know pretty well when I am licked. I made a botch of it in Shanghai. You went blundering about like a buffalo, and I thought it was a cinch to get you out of the way.”

“’Twas the luck of the Irish that pulled me through,” said O’Shea. “Now we understand each other, Charley, me lad. I am staking all I have--me life and me money--to get to the bottom of this infernal secret society you have mixed yourself up with. ’Tis an instrument I am for the good of humanity. And if ye turn state’s evidence to enable me to make a clean, thorough job of it, I think I am justified in giving you a chance to hot-foot it out of China.”

“Let us call it a bargain, Captain O’Shea. As we used to say in New York, I am up against it good and plenty. To commit suicide, as many Chinese would do in a fix like this, is all tommy-rot. Charley Tong Sin could have no more gin cocktails--what?”

“You can begin the confession right away,” exclaimed the shipmaster.

“One thing at a time,” cheerfully replied the comprador. “I will take you to the River of Ten Thousand Evil Smells and the village of Wang-Li-Fu. Then you will find many very interesting things to ask me to talk about.”

“And ye hope to give me the slip in the meantime,” and Captain O’Shea showed no ill-will. “Very well, Charley. One thing at a time. Now take these glasses and have a look at the coast. By my reckoning, we are far enough to the north’ard to begin to haul inshore.”

The _Whang Ho_ was laboring abeam of a monotonous expanse of marshy islands and ragged shoals made by the silt of river floods. The shifting channels were poorly charted, for trade sought the inland water-ways. The fact that the _Tai Yan_ steamer, with McDougal and Jim Eldridge on board, had somehow found a passage leading from the sea convinced Captain O’Shea that he could do likewise with a considerably smaller vessel. Charley Tong Sin had admitted that he knew the way in, and he was no more anxious to be drowned than the rest of the company.

“With good luck we can scrape over the sandbars on the afternoon tide,” said the comprador, “and anchor in deep water for the night. I cannot show you where to go in the dark. There are no lights.”

The _Whang Ho_ edged steadily nearer the coast. Her crew gazed ahead at the frothing breakers that tumbled over the far-extended shoals, and appeared unhappy. By a miracle their steamer was still under them after struggling through rough winds and high seas, and now they were to be wrecked, so all signs indicated, in a God-forsaken region of sand and swamp and mud. However, there was no whimpering. Captain O’Shea, their overlord, had a trick of knocking a man down and then listening to his complaints. And he was as ready with a word of commendation as he was with his disciplinary fists.

“Mr. Kittridge, if we hit bottom, put it to her and jam her over,” he remarked to the chief engineer. “A chum of mine by the name of Johnny Kent that sailed with me and held your berth used to clamp his safety-valves when he had urgent need of steam. Did ye ever try it?”

“God forbid!” fervently ejaculated Mr. Kittridge; “but in this crazy tub a man will do anything. If you find yourself flyin’ to glory with a section of a boiler pokin’ in the small of your back, don’t lay it against me, sir.”

“I like the way ye talk, Mr. Kittridge. Stand by your engines, if ye please, for we will be in the white water before long.”

The _Whang Ho_ sheered to one side and shouldered past the outermost shoals. O’Shea took the wheel, and Charley Tong Sin, cool and quick-witted, told him how to follow the turbid, twisting channel that wound its course between the sea and the wide mouth of the estuary. More than once the steamer scraped the oozy bottom, hung and shivered while the breakers pounded her, and then stubbornly forged ahead, timbers groaning, boilers hissing, propeller kicking up clouds of mud astern. It was evident that the channel had shoaled in places since any other steamer had made the passage, and it was not at all certain that the _Whang Ho_ could stand the strain of forcing her way to sea again.

“I have not been here since two years ago,” said the comprador. “It is worse than I expected, you bet! Ai oh, a man that sails with you dies a dozen deaths, Captain O’Shea.”

“I find it more comfortable than living in the best hotel in Shanghai,” very pointedly returned the shipmaster as he climbed the spokes of the big wooden wheel with hands and feet and wrenched the _Whang Ho_ clear of a hungry sand-spit. By now she was fairly in the midst of the marshy islands that extended from the watery main-land. The violence of the surf was broken and the tide moved in broad, sluggish currents. Mr. Parkinson, who was swinging the sounding lead, shouted that the channel had deepened to five fathoms. The steamer had survived the passage.

Two miles farther inland she let go anchor in a wide lagoon. The afternoon had waned. A cloudy twilight was closing down. On every hand stretched a flat, unbroken region of swamp and creeks and rivers. No villages were visible nor groves of trees against the sky-line to mark the situation of a temple. A few small fishing-boats with ragged sails fled at sight of the foreign steamer. The comprador waved his hand to starboard and exclaimed:

“Yonder it is, the River of Ten Thousand Evil Smells, as you call it in English. Wait till the tide goes down, and you will find out pretty quick why the Chinese give it that funny name.”

“’Tis a filthy-looking country,” quoth Captain O’Shea. “It looks like one great big sewer, with the yellow water and the sludge and the slime on the banks.”

“It was all very well drained one time, long ago,” explained Charley Tong Sin. “Then there were many people and towns. The Tai Pings destroyed the canals and played the dickens with everything. And nothing has been repaired, so the people don’t live here any more.”

“And where is this place called Wang-Li-Fu?” demanded O’Shea.

“Six miles up that stinking river. You think you will see the Painted Joss to-morrow, Captain?”

“The Stinking River and the Painted Joss! You are loosening up, Charley. I am near the end of me journey when you say things like that. I have heard of them before.”

“Two other foreign men--only two--have seen the Painted Joss, and it was unfortunate for them.” The comprador said this softly and with an evil grin. He had overstepped the mark. Captain O’Shea gripped him by the neck and shook him savagely as he thundered in his ear:

“Any more of that, and I will forget the bargain we made. One of those men was a friend of mine, and by rights I ought to drill ye with a bullet as a favor to him.”

Between chattering teeth Charley Tong Sin, suddenly abject, begged for his life. Presently he moved restlessly from one deck to another, but always a man followed and kept watch of him, as Captain O’Shea had ordered. The ship’s company, most of them off duty and wearied with the stress and hardships of the voyage, gathered under an awning stretched between the deck-houses and talked in low tones. This melancholy, empty landscape had a quality curiously depressing. With the falling tide the swamps and the muddy banks were laid bare and the air became foul and heavy with the smell of decayed vegetation, of ooze, of dead fish. The ebb and flow of salt-water failed to cleanse and sweeten these sluggish streams and stagnant lagoons and abandoned canals.

The men who had followed Captain O’Shea to this place were no longer so many vagabonds and failures struggling for survival. They had been welded together, in a way. They were an organization with something like _esprit de corps_ and could be depended on to act as a unit. Such a feeling as this brings to life dead self-respect and shattered confidence. They knew not at all what the morrow might bring forth, but every one of them was anxious to play the man, to stand the test, to redeem himself in his own sight, to justify Captain O’Shea’s faith in him.

It was not a night to invite sleep. The adventurers felt the immense loneliness of this loathsome anchorage. It was unlike the populous China which they had hitherto known. One might believe, with the natives, that ghosts and demons had power to curse and blast a region in which some violation of the _fung-shui_, or sacred rites of wind and water, had angered the supernatural influences. The breeze died to a dead calm. The lifeless air reeked with the stenches from the mouth of the River of Ten Thousand Evil Smells.

It was drawing toward midnight when Mr. Kittridge came on deck and said to Captain O’Shea, who was sitting with a group of his men:

“I shall have to start the pumps, sir. The vessel is leakin’ much worse than when I first reported it.”

“Um-m, I was hoping we could lay her on a beach after we have finished our business up the river and calk her plates,” replied the master of the _Whang Ho_. “Is she making water faster than you can handle it, Mr. Kittridge?”

“She acts to me as if a plate dropped clean out of her a few minutes ago, sir. The pumps may help, but I have a notion that the whole rotten, blankety river is runnin’ into her.”

Captain O’Shea jumped below and was promptly convinced that the gloomy diagnosis of the chief engineer had a large basis of fact. The water was fairly rushing into the holds and gurgling over the ballast. Likely enough, the battering passage in from sea had sheared and wrenched away enough rusty rivets to weaken the junction of two or more plates, and they had been unable any longer to withstand the pressure. It really made no difference whether or not this theory was the correct one. The fact was that the venerable _Whang Ho_ had suddenly decided to lay her bones in the mud with six fathoms of water above her keel. Mr. Kittridge pensively caressed his gray whiskers and remarked with a sigh:

“I mentioned the pumps from force of habit. It’s really ridiculous to stay below any longer, Captain. We gave the bloody old tub more than she could stand, and she’s peacefully chucked it up. She’s sinkin’ very quiet and decent, I’ll say that for her.”

“’Tis time we said good-by to her,” quoth O’Shea. “Draw your fires, if you can, Mr. Kittridge, and I will get the boats ready.”

“I do seem to find trouble wherever I go,” sadly murmured the chief engineer.

The men on deck took the news with no great show of excitement. This was the kind of voyage which one could not reasonably expect to be commonplace. To have to escape from a sinking steamer was an episode, not a disaster. In few words, Captain O’Shea assured them that he had no intention of letting this uncomfortable little happening interfere with the business for which he had employed them. The insurance underwriters would be out of pocket, but who cared a rap for them, anyhow? Thereupon he issued orders, swiftly, intelligently, with masterful vehemence. The two boats which appeared most serviceable were swung outboard and held ready to launch. They would hold a dozen men each without crowding. Water-kegs were filled, the galley and store-room ransacked for tins of meat and biscuit, bags of potatoes and rice. The fire-arms and cutlasses were served out and the cases of ammunition divided between the two boats. Meanwhile the _Whang Ho_ continued to sink with a certain dignity and decorum. One could find nothing dramatic in this shipwreck. Every one moved with haste, but there was no outcry.

Only one mischance marred the exodus from the _Whang Ho_. All hands were absorbed, and quite naturally, in delaying their departure as little as possible. Delay meant something worse than wet feet. In fact, the main deck was almost level with the water when the boats were ready to shove clear. For once the _Whang Ho_ had moved rapidly, although in a lamentable direction. With so much to do in so short a time, it was not extraordinary that the vigilant espionage which surrounded Charley Tong Sin should be relaxed, not to say forgotten, for a moment. Even Captain O’Shea neglected to keep an eye on him, the business of abandoning ship on a dark night at excessively short notice being calculated to tax the resources of the most capable commander.

The comprador took advantage of these distractions to erase himself from the scene. The boats were held against the side of the steamer, while the captain took tally of the men in them, scrambling from one boat to the other with a globe lantern swinging in his fist. Charley Tong Sin was indubitably missing. O’Shea leaped on board the moribund _Whang Ho_, which was now sobbing and gurgling tremendously, and made a flying search of the cabins and state-rooms. It was obvious that this elusive young Chinese had not vanished below decks, where by now nothing but a fish could exist. And unless Captain Michael O’Shea wished to join the fishes, it was time for him to go.

Chagrined and anxious, he returned to his boat, and the men frantically plied oars. A moment or two later the _Whang Ho_ went under with very little fuss, meeting her end with the calm of a Chinese philosopher. The boats rocked in the waves that rolled away from the place where she had been, and the rays of the lanterns revealed many large and greasy bubbles.

Captain O’Shea wasted no time in sentimental regrets. The _Whang Ho_ was a dead issue. What vitally concerned him was the whereabouts of that valuable passenger, Charley Tong Sin. It was absurd to suppose that he had fallen overboard and given up the ghost. A rascal of his kidney had as many lives as a cat. It was much more plausible to surmise that he had unostentatiously laid hold of a life-belt, slipped over the stern, and made for the nearest shore. The boats moved to and fro, looking for him, but the darkness, misty and opaque, made it hopeless to discover the head of a swimmer who by this time might have left the water and concealed himself in the marsh.

“I misdoubt that me policy was sound,” said Captain O’Shea to Mr. Kittridge. “Maybe I ought to have shot him, anyhow.”

“It would ha’ been a good job,” grunted the chief engineer. “And now he’ll streak it for this village of Wang-Li-Fu and give an alarm.”

“Precisely that. But unless he can pick up a sampan or a fishing-boat he will make slow headway flounderin’ through the swamps and swimming the creeks. ’Tis up to us to beat him to it.”

Mr. Parkinson, who was in command of the other boat, was ordered to steer alongside for consultation. It was promptly agreed that the party should first find the mouth of the River of Ten Thousand Evil Smells and then move up-stream without delay. It would be slow and blundering navigation, but if three or four miles could be traversed before daylight they might tie up to the bank and reconnoitre within striking distance of their goal.

“I do not know what kind of a mess we will hop into,” O’Shea told them before the boats separated. “We may have to fight our way, thanks to that slippery divil of a comprador, and I am not asking ye to go anywhere that I will not go meself. Some of you are not trained to use weapons, but if ye will cut loose and blaze away and not think too much about your own skins, we can make it uncomfortable for a slather of Chinese. There is plenty of ammunition, so don’t scrimp yourselves.”

The boats slid slowly into the entrance of the wide, sluggish stream. The lanterns were extinguished. The only sound was the cadenced thump of the thole-pins. If any of the men felt the prickly chill of cowardice, they kept it to themselves. Now and then the keels furrowed the mud, and when the boats stranded hard and fast, the crews waded overboard and shoved them ahead. Thus the little flotilla progressed until dawn flushed the eastern sky and the vapors, streaming upward from the marshes, curled and drifted like filmy clouds. Higher ground and the green, checkered squares of tilled fields were discernible a short distance beyond.

The boats turned into the mouth of a tiny creek where the tall rushes curtained them from observation. This was a favorable halting place, and a cold breakfast was hastily eaten. O’Shea had a poor opinion of fighting on an empty stomach. He addressed himself with marked deference to a very neatly dressed man with iron-gray hair who had said little during the voyage. His face was haggard and his eyes were tired with weariness of living.

“You have seen service, sir, and ye have led drilled men,” said O’Shea. “The cards are dealt, but from now on you can play them better than I. I will be obliged to ye for advice.”

The cashiered officer looked grateful. This kind of recognition had power to move him. With a diffident manner, as if his professional opinion had long since ceased to interest any one, he replied:

“Most Chinese villages are walled. There will be at least one gate facing the river and two or three on the inland side. It is often awkward to make a landing under fire from boats. I suggest we divide our force. If you approve, Captain, I will take ten of the most active men and disembark here. We can fetch a wide circuit of the town, and it will not be difficult to make our way across the rice fields and ditches. You can put the rest of them in one boat and row up in front of the town, waiting in the stream until we are in a position to make a rush. Then we will drive home a simultaneous attack in front and rear.”

“Napoleon could not beat it,” heartily exclaimed O’Shea. “And if ye shoot fast enough and kick up a terrible racket, they will think ye are an army. What will the signal be?”

“Three rifle shots.”

“Ay, ay, Mr. Bannister. ’Tis the sensible plan that ye take command of the army while I hoist the rear-admiral’s pennant over the navy. We have no reserves, but many a famous victory would have been missing from history if the lads that won them had waited for the reserves to come up.”

The chosen ten forsook the boats and tramped off behind their soldierly leader. A few minutes later the expedition of Captain O’Shea got under way, his boat hugging the muddy shore and dodging behind its ragged indentations. It was not long before a wide curve of the river disclosed to view the tiled roofs, the crumbling brick wall, and the towered gate-ways of a village. In front of it were several rickety wharfs, or stagings, built of bamboo poles lashed together. At the outer end of one of these lay a two-masted junk, her hawse-holes painted to resemble two huge eyes. The tide had begun to ebb, and the junk was already heeled so that her deck sloped toward the river. This craft appeared to be deserted. No pigtailed heads bobbed behind the immensely heavy bulwarks. If the army officer had been a Napoleon, Captain O’Shea showed himself a Nelson.

“Pull like blazes for the junk yonder,” he shouted to his men. “We will pile aboard her and take cover.”

The junk was directly in front of the gate-way in the village wall, and perhaps a hundred yards distant from it. The intervening space was beach, a miry roadway, and a disorderly row of shanties made of drift-wood, with a few boats hauled out for repairs. The heavy timbers of the junk made her a nautical fortress, and the high sides would be difficult of direct assault.

The men swung lustily at the oars, and the boat shot out into the open river. O’Shea steered wide of the village until he could turn and make directly for the junk. It was an admirable bit of strategy, but wholly wasted on this sleepy, shabby Chinese village. There was never a sign of a hostile demonstration. As an anticlimax the thing was absurd. A crowd of men, women, and children streamed out through the gate in the wall and stared with much excited chatter at the foreign invaders. Apparently their behavior meant no more than a harmless curiosity. Several garrulous old gentlemen squatted upon fragments of timber and pulled at their bamboo pipes while they discussed the singular visitation with the oracular demeanor of so many owls.

The bold O’Shea grinned sheepishly. His sensations were those of a man who beheld a heroic enterprise suddenly turned into low comedy. He glanced at the amused faces of his followers and said:

“’Tis not what ye might call a desperate resistance. Let us promenade ashore and look the town over.”

They quitted their fortress and moved along the narrow, swaying staging of bamboo, their rifles ready for use in the event of an ambuscade. The Chinese crowd promptly retreated in noisy confusion. O’Shea ordered a halt. After some delay, three signal shots came down the wind from Major Bannister’s force. He was about to attack the village from the landward side. Now the shopkeepers and coolies scuttled madly away from O’Shea’s party to seek shelter within the walls and discover what all this extraordinary excitement could mean.

Behind them tramped the naval brigade into streets from which the inhabitants were vanishing as rapidly as possible. Somewhere near the centre of the town O’Shea and Major Bannister joined forces. This pair of valiant leaders eyed each other with mutually puzzled chagrin.

“We just walked in without the slightest trouble,” confessed the army man. “What do you make of it?”