*CHAPTER I*
*A mere Chinaman*
Flotsam--A Commercial Correspondent--A Story of the Sea
The P. and O. liner _Sardinia_ was some twenty hours out of Shanghai,making a direct course for Nagasaki. Few passengers were on deck: it wasdrear and cold this January afternoon, the sky grey and sullen as withcoming snow, the sea rolling heavily under a stiff north-easter thatblew cuttingly through the Korea Strait. But beneath the bridge,somewhat sheltered from the wind, sat three figures in a group, talkingearnestly. The eldest of the three, John Morton by name, a big shaggyEnglishman of forty-five, sat enwrapped in a heavy ulster and atravelling rug, his legs propped on a deck-chair before him. Every fewseconds a voluminous cloud of smoke issued from his lips, and floatedaway like a pale miniature copy of the vast black coil from the funnelabove. John Morton was correspondent of the _Daily Post_. At his leftsat a round little Frenchman, with fine-drawn moustache and neatimperial, a comforter about his neck, a cigarette in his mouth. ArmandDesjardins was also a correspondent, representing the _Nouveau Figaro_.The third member of the group was much younger than his companions. Hewas a tall, slim young fellow, with bright hair and frank blue eyes, hischeeks tanned the healthy brown of outdoor life at home no less than bythe winds of four weeks' sea travel. The collar of his long friezeulster was turned up to his ears; a low cloth cap was perched on theback of his head. Nobody could have mistaken Bob Fawcett for anythingbut a Briton.
He had just answered, smilingly, a remark of the vivacious littleFrenchman, when the attention of the group was attracted by thequarter-master clambering hurriedly up the ladder to the bridge, theship's biggest telescope under his arm. He handed it to the captain,who, with the chief and third officers, was looking intently towards aspot a few points on the port bow. After gazing for a minute or twothrough the telescope, the captain handed it without remark to the chiefofficer, who looked in his turn and passed it also in silence to thethird. The three men below rose to their feet and went to theport-rail, scanning the horizon for the object of the officers'curiosity. Nothing was to be seen save a limitless expanse of dark,green billows, heaving with the swell.
There was a short colloquy on the bridge, after which the third officerran down the ladder on his way aft. He was intercepted by the littlegroup, who raked him with a gatling-fire of questions.
"Only a raft, or wreckage, or sea-serpent, or something," he said inreply. "Perhaps sea-weed."
"But you vill examine?" said Desjardins. "De sea-serpent is a subjectof im-mense interest to de savants of all nations."
The officer laughed.
"Well, monsieur," he said, "get a good glass and you'll have a chance ofseeing for yourself; we shall pass it within a short mile."
By this time a speck was visible far ahead, which gradually discloseditself, as the vessel drew nearer, as a half-submerged spar with atangled mass of rigging. Bob Fawcett and his companions had ceased totake any interest in what appeared to be merely floating wreckage, whenthey were surprised at hearing the clang of the engine-room bellsignalling successive orders. The steamer slowed down, then with helmhard a-starboard crept up to within a hundred yards of the object, andcame to a stop. A boat was speedily lowered, and the passengers, drawnfrom below by the sudden stoppage on the high sea, crowded into thebows, and looked on with breathless curiosity as the third officersteered gingerly up to the spar. It was possible now to make out ahuman figure rising and falling with the heave of the sea, its outlineshalf-hidden by the surrounding cordage. The quarter-master was seen toopen his huge clasp knife and cut several strands that apparently lashedthe castaway to the mast, and the men who had supported the inert bodywhile this was being done lifted it gently into the boat. Thepassengers heard the third officer's voice shout the order to give way,and in less than three minutes the boat was being swung in upon thedavits, and the _Sardinia_ was again forging ahead at full speed.
The castaway, an inert, sodden, unconscious figure, was lifted out ofthe boat and carried below, to be handed over to the ship's doctor.
"Is there any life in him?" asked Bob Fawcett, pressing forward to thethird officer.
"As dead as mutton, sir, in my belief. But we'll do what we can for thepoor beggar."
He passed on; and, catching a glimpse of the castaway as he was bornedown the companion-way, Bob noticed that he had but one ear. In a fewminutes the passengers had resumed the occupations and amusements whichthe incident had interrupted. The curiosity of the most of them finallyevaporated when it became known that the figure saved from the sea wasnothing more romantic than the body of a Chinaman. Bob Fawcett was nota sufficiently hardened traveller to take the matter so lightly. Butlearning on enquiry that the doctor had little hope of the man'srecovery, and that in any case his resuscitation would take some time,he went back to his companions, and found that they had been joined byanother passenger--a stranger to him. The new-comer was a stout,brown-bearded, spectacled man, with cheeks puffy and sallow. He leantheavily on a stick, and every now and then rammed his soft wide-awakedown upon his head, evidently in apprehension of its being swept away bythe breeze.
"Feel better?" Bob heard Morton say as he approached.
"Ach ja!" was the reply. "I do feel better, zairtainly, but not vell,not vell by no means."
"You'll be all right soon. Fawcett, let me introduce you to HerrSchwab; don't think you've met. He came on at Shanghai, and--well,hasn't been visible since. My friend Mr. Fawcett--Herr Schwab."
"Glad to meet you, sir," said Bob, lifting his cap. The German was asecond or two behind in the salutation, not from lack of nativecourtesy, but because his hand had to skirt the limp brim of hiswide-awake and come perpendicularly on to the crown, which he raisedbetween finger and thumb.
"Most delighted," he said with guttural urbanity. "I lose much zroughmy so unlucky disbosition to sea-illness; it keep me downstair all zetime since ve leave Shanghai. Ze loss of food, zat is nozink; it is zegombany. Vy, I regollect, ven first I voyage to Zanzibar it lose me vunbig order for bianofortes. At Massowa zere come on board a Somali sheikvat vas fery musical. I vas below--fery ill. Vat could I? Ze sheik,he buy concertina from ze rebresentative of concertina house. Now zeSomali, zey all blay concertina; zey might haf blayed biano!"
"And are you in pianos now, sir?" asked Bob, smiling.
"Vell, yes, but primarily I am in literature. I haf ze honour torebresent ze _Duesseldoerfer Tageblatt_, a journal of fery videcirculation in Werden, Kettwig, Muelheim, Odenkolin,Grevenbroich--zobsgribtion, twenty-zree mark fifty, payableinadvance."
He handed Bob a card with these particulars duly set forth, and pausedas if for a reply.
"Unfortunately," said Bob with a smile, "my screw is payable in arrears;I'm afraid I shall have to wait a little."
"You say screw!" responded Herr Schwab instantly. "I haf also ze honourto rebresent ze solid house of Schlagintwert: ve can ship you bestassorted screw f.o.b. Hamburg at truly staggering price."
He drew from the pocket of his ulster a sheaf of papers and looked themrapidly through.
"No," he murmured, "zis is botato spirit; zis is batent mangle; zis isedition de luxe _Stones of Venice_; ha! ve haf it: best Birminghamscrew. Allow me, vid gombliments."
Bob caught Morton's eye as he pocketed the price list, and strenuouslypreserving his gravity, said:
"Thank you, sir; I shall know where to come. But I fear that with warin the air your journey may not be profitable."
"Ah! Zere you mistake, my friend. If it is peace, I sell botato-spiritBirmingham screw Ruskin edition de luxe batent mangle; if it is var--zenI rebresent ze _Duesseldoerfer Tageblatt_; ve circulate in Werden,Kettwig, Muelheim, Odenkolin--"
"Magnifique!" exclaimed Desjardins. "You save de price of passage inall case. To compete vid you Germans, it is impossible."
Herr Schwab smiled indulgently.
"Business are business," he said. "In peace, ze Chinese, z
e Japanese,ze Russian--zey are all vun to me. But in var, I am instructed by myhouse--ach! I should say, my journal--to agompany ze Japanesefield-army."
"By all accounts," said Bob, "it'll be a case of the patent mangle andnot the pen this time. A fellow in the smoking-room has just beensaying that there's no earthly chance of war. He had it from a nativemerchant in Hong-Kong, and somehow or other they're always the first toscent out news."
"No var!" exclaimed Desjardins. "Vat den shall I do? Vat shall I writefor de _Figaro_! I have no patent-mangle!"
"You'll have to write poetry," said Morton; "geishas, plum blossom, andthat kind of thing. You'll be all right. But I'm helpless. Couldn't doit to save my life; if I could, _Daily Post_ wouldn't take it. Fawcettwill come off best of the lot."
"I'm afraid not. They wouldn't have sent for me to help with theirrange-finders unless they expected a rumpus, and soon. If there's nowar, I shall get a month's notice and my passage home.--Hi, steward,how's the castaway?"
The steward came up in answer to Bob's hail.
"Doin' well, sir; most surprisin'. Doctor himself can't make it outnohow. Says the Chinee must have the constitootion of a elephant.Captain's with him this very minute, interviewin' of him; he can't speakEnglish, but there's another Chinee in the steerage that's doin' theinterpretin'. He's a big ruffian of a fellow, the castaway, a regularhooligan to look at--and only one ear and all. I've just sent somevittles for'ard for him, sir."
The steward passed on. A little later, when it became known that theinterpreter had returned to his quarters, Bob announced that he wasgoing to see the man, and was at once joined by Monsieur Desjardins andHerr Schwab, the former in eagerness to get material for a paragraph,the latter in obedience to his motto, "Business are business". Mortonrefused to budge.
"Saw plenty of Chinamen, dead and alive, in the war, ten years ago; allalike," he said.
Accordingly the other three made their way to the steerage, and, findingthe Chinese interpreter, were soon assured of his willingness to tellall he knew for a consideration. It was Bob who paid.
The man who had so narrowly escaped drowning was, it appeared, a ManchuTartar--a big muscular fellow nearly six feet high. When once heregained consciousness he had made a surprisingly rapid recovery fromhis long immersion, and had told his story with great readiness. He hadbeen making the voyage from Chemulpo to Yokohama in a Korean junk, whichhad been capsized by a sudden squall, and had gone down, he feared, withall hands. Luckily he himself had managed to cling to a considerableportion of wreckage, and to hold on long enough to lash himself to themast. He was sorry now that he had not waited for a steamer; it wasonly his strong family affection that had prompted him to sail in acrazy junk, and he would certainly never do so again. He had a brotherin Tokio, the owner of a small curiosity shop. News had reached him inChemulpo that his beloved brother was at the point of death, and withoutdelay he had embarked on a rice-laden junk that happened to be sailingfor Tokio, in the hope of reaching that town in time to see his brotherbefore he died.
"'Plenty muchee velly good piecee man," concluded the interpreterapprovingly.
"Extraordinaire!" exclaimed Desjardins in admiration. "Dat is sentiment;it is noble, it touch my 'art."
He laid his hand on that section of his rotundity which might be takento conceal the organ in question, and sighed with enjoyment.
"Ach! it is not sentiment," said Schwab, "it is business. Ze brozer hafcuriosity shop--vell, ze ozer brozer vish to inherit imme'ately, vizoutdrouble. He must be on ze spot."
"Come now, Herr Schwab, don't spoil our little romance," said Bob."Poor fellow! he's had a rough time anyhow. I wonder how he lost hisear."
"Bad time indeed," said Desjardins. "Pauvre diable! Ve must make him acollection, and you, Monsieur Schwab, you are business man, you shallcollect de moneys."
Herr Schwab, who had evidently foreseen that the Frenchman's sympathymight take this practical form, began to decline the proffered honour,but the chorus of amused assent left him no option. Then, finding thathe had himself to pay the tax, with German thoroughness he devotedhimself heartily to the task of seeing that no one else escaped, and bythe time the vessel opened up the lights of Nagasaki quite a respectablesum had been gathered for the Chinaman's benefit.
Bob, being on official business, had instructions to proceed direct fromNagasaki to Tokio. Most of the passengers, however, among them hisrecent companions, were remaining on the _Sardinia_ as far as Kobe, withthe object of seeing the world-famed beauties of the inland sea. Thelast words Bob heard as he went down the side after the final farewellswere a guttural protest from Herr Schwab, with whom his enforcedcontribution to the Chang-Wo fund was still rankling.
"Business, my dear sir, are business; sentiment is sentiment. Zeyshould nefer be mix. Damit basta!"