CHAPTER XII
FROM THE GOLDEN GATE TO THE PEARL RIVER
"I wonder what that despatch can be about," thought Rob, as he satin the comfortable ambulance which, drawn by two big army mules andwith its curtains rolled up, was used as a carriage by the officers ofthe post. "He was as excited as though war had been declared againstsomebody or other; but I haven't heard that we are likely to go to warwith any one. Perhaps it's Indians, though, and, if so, there's sure tobe something about it in the paper."
Thus thinking, Rob beckoned to a passing newsboy and bought a copy ofthe _Oregonian_. Diligently as he searched its columns, he could notfind a word about Indians. Nor were there any war rumors, and he wasmore than ever puzzled, until his eye lighted on the heading:
"Battery Z ordered to the Philippines."
Yes, that was it, and Rob began to feel very lonely as he read thebrief announcement to the effect that Battery Z was to leave VancouverBarracks at once for San Francisco, where the transport _Logan_ wasalready waiting to take it on board.
"That knocks my chance of spending a week, or even part of one, atthe barracks," he said to himself, "and I did want to so much. I don'tsuppose I ought to go over, even for a night, because Captain Astleywill be too busy to bother with me. It looks as if he had alreadyforgotten me, for I must have waited here an hour, and I shouldn't blamehim if he had."
Just here Rob's sombre reflections were interrupted by the cheery voiceof Captain Astley, who sprang into the ambulance from the opposite sideand ordered that it move on.
"Hello, Hinckley!" he cried. "I beg your pardon for leaving you so long,but I have been rushed breathless by most unexpected orders that havecompletely upset all previously arranged plans."
"Then you really are going to Manila?" asked Rob.
"How did you know? Oh! it's already in the paper, is it? Yes, and we'vegot to move out of here in a hurry--to-morrow, if we can, or the nextday at the latest. So I've been arranging about trains and a lot ofthings that had to be looked after on this side of the river. But,before I forget to mention it, how would you like to go along with us?"
"I!" cried Rob, too surprised to answer the question.
"Yes, you. I wired to the Presidio for permission to take with me RobertHinckley, our Chinese instructor, and it is granted, provided he payshis own mess bills. They will come to something less than two dollarsper day during the voyage from San Francisco to Manila. From there itis only a couple of days' run over to Hong-Kong; and by going with usyou can beat that Tacoma ship by at least a week. Besides, you won'thave any fare to pay between here and San Francisco. What do you think?Is it a go, and may we count on you as a fellow-passenger aboard thegood old _Logan_?"
"I should say you could!" cried Rob, even more excited than the captainhimself. "I never heard of such a piece of undeserved good-luck. Ofcourse, I'll go with you, and feel everlastingly obliged to you for thechance, besides. Only, I don't know how I ever can repay such kindness."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the other. "I thought we finally had settled thatquestion away back in Montana. But here we are, and for the next fewdays you'll have enough to do to knock all thoughts of gratitude out ofyour head, for I am going to appoint you my A. D. C. Perhaps you don'tknow what that is, so I'll tell you. An A. D. C. is a chap who, inactive service like the present, has to work twenty-five hours out ofthe twenty-four, and gets no thanks for anything he does. Do you wantthe job?"
"Yes," replied Rob, happily, "and I'd take it if it were twice as hard."
So our lad joined the army, and for the next two days, from earlymorning until late at night, he was about as busy as a boy well couldbe--helping the captain pack, writing his letters, running hither andthither with orders, and doing whatever was given him to do, with acheerful promptness that won for him the good-will of all hands.
At the end of that time he found himself in company with a number ofofficers occupying the rear car of a long troop-train on which wasloaded Battery Z--men, horses, guns, and all--headed southward, up thebroad Willamette Valley, and starting on their thirty-six-hour runtowards the city of the Golden Gate. On the following day they skirtedfor hours the base of grand old Shasta, one of the mightiest and mostbeautiful of American mountains. Then they ran down the exquisite valleyof the Sacramento, which they first saw as a brook and at last crossedas a mighty river pouring a turbid flood into San Pablo Bay. A littlelater came San Francisco, with the bustle and anxious excitement ofdebarking, marching through the city, and re-embarking, this time on thegreat, white transport that was to bear them away in the track of thesetting sun, across seven thousand miles of Pacific waters.
In all this time Rob, while fully intending to write to Hattonconcerning his adventures and change of plans, had not found a minutewhen it seemed possible to do so. Not until the _Logan_, with hercrowded passenger-list, including civil officials, military officers,troops, government school-teachers and other employes, and her vastmiscellaneous cargo of live-stock, guns, ammunition, machinery, andstores of every description, had got so far out to sea that theFarallones were only a blur on the horizon behind her did it occurto him that he had neglected his last opportunity for sending back amessage until he should reach the distant Hawaiian Islands. Then he satdown and wrote a long letter that he was able to mail eight days laterat Honolulu, but which did not reach Hatton until a full month from thedate of his departure. In the mean time Mr. Hinckley had cabled to Chinathat Rob would sail by the _Oriental_ from Tacoma on a certain date,and when finally he learned of his nephew's changed plans, it did notseem worth while to cable again, as the lad was already due to arrive atHong-Kong, and so could tell his own story.
Rob enjoyed every minute of his twenty-four hours' stay in beautifulHonolulu. He was enchanted by its wealth of strange flowers, itstropical foliage, and by the many new fruits that he now tasted for thefirst time. He drove out to the Pali, the frightful mountain precipice,five miles back from the city, over which, in the old savage days,King Kamehameha I. drove to their deaths an army of his enemies. Heexperimented with surf-riding on a slender board at Waikiki beach,ate poi, which he didn't like, and enjoyed poha jam. He wanted toclimb Diamond Head and to visit the great sugar plantations of Ewaand Waialua; also he would dearly have loved to sail to the island ofHawaii, one hundred and fifty miles away, and gaze upon the mightyvolcanoes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa; but there was not time, and allthese had to be left for another visit.
The next chance for going ashore came two weeks later, when the _Logan_stopped for a few hours at the lonely but lovely island of Guam,destined a few years later to become a most important way-station of theAmerican Pacific cable. After Guam came five days more of uneventfulsailing, and then Manila Bay, with Corregidor Island standing sentry atits entrance.
"I wonder what Corregidor means?" asked Rob of Captain Astley, as theystood together gazing at this outpost, from which the first warning gunhad been fired when Dewey's fleet slipped through the gray of dawn intoManila Bay.
"Some one told me," replied the army man, "that in olden times everySpanish city was governed by a regidor, assisted by councilmen, one fromeach division, or ward, called corregidors. So if we were to Americanizethe name we would call it 'Alderman Island.'"
"Or 'City Father Island,'" laughed Rob.
It was intensely interesting to sail up that broad, mountain-borderedexpanse of water, and recall the stirring events of May-day, 1898, whenDewey and his men did the same thing, only with the terrible differencethat at any moment they were liable to run into a deadly nest oftorpedoes. As they approached the head of the bay they saw Cavite onthe right; then the shipping anchored in the roadstead; and then Manilaitself lying on both sides of the sluggish Pasig, the old walled city onthe right and the more modern town on the left as they faced them.
At Manila, Rob sorrowfully parted with the comrade whom he first had metin far-away Montana, and who ever since had been at once dear friend,guide, instructor, and pupil; for a steamer, on which he promptlyengaged passage, left fo
r Hong-Kong the day after the _Logan's_ arrival.
During the month they had spent together Captain Astley had soassiduously devoted himself to the study of Chinese that now hepossessed a fair working knowledge of the Southern or Canton dialect,while every man in the battery, thanks to Rob, could express himselfwith a certain fluency in pidgin (business) English. All of them were onhand to see their young instructor off, and as the launch that was tocarry him to his new steamer backed out from the crowded landing, theirfarewell cheers reminded him of Hatton, and he felt quite as lonely ashe had on that first day of his eventful journey. Now, too, that he nolonger had friends and regular duties to divert his mind, and with Chinaonly two days' sail away, all his anxiety concerning his parents cameback with redoubled force. Would he find himself fatherless?--or wouldthe dear face still be there with its smiling welcome? So impatient washe that the two days between Manila and Hong-Kong seemed as long asany previous two weeks of his journey, and he found himself straininghis eyes for a glimpse of the China coast hours before there was anypossibility of sighting it.
Finally, a number of high, rock-bound islands came into view. Thenthe ship, passing through a narrow entrance between two of them,threaded a tortuous, strongly fortified channel that opened into thebroad, splendid harbor of Hong-Kong. On the right was the recentlyacquired British territory and new settlement of Kowloon, with wharves,dry-docks, godowns, and barracks. On the left rose Hong-Kong island,with the fine city of Victoria nestled at the base of a peak eighteenhundred feet high and climbing its wooded slopes. The moment the shipdropped anchor amid a fleet of great merchant steamers and men-of-warflying the flags of all the maritime nations of the world, Rob signalledone of the innumerable sampans, "manned" by Chinese women, that swarmedalongside. He already had learned that a Pearl River steamer wouldleave for Canton within an hour, and so anxious was he to reach hisdestination, which still lay some two hundred miles beyond that city,that he was determined to go on by the very first conveyance. For thisreason he had his trunk and himself taken by the sampan directly fromone steamer to the other, and in a short time, without having goneashore at Hong-Kong, he found himself again under way, on board theside-wheeled, American-modelled steamer _Fatshan_, bound for Canton,eighty miles distant.
As Rob sat on deck watching with fascinated interest the queer-lookingjunks with lofty poops, low prows, and sails of matting, the sampans,Chinese guard-boats, and numberless other quaint craft slipping to andfro over those placid inland waters, with sails outlined against thedark background of the Tai-Mo-Shan Mountains, a stranger sitting nearhim remarked:
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes," replied Rob, promptly. "I don't believe there can be a morefascinating river-scene in all the world."
From this the two easily drifted into conversation; and at length thestranger, who proved to be a business-man from Amoy, said:
"New to this part of the world, aren't you?"
"Yes," replied Rob; "it all is new to me now, though I was born here;but my parents took me away nearly fourteen years ago."
"Indeed! May I ask where you were born?"
"Wu Hsing, up on the Si Kiang."
"You don't mean the place where the missionaries were killed the otherday?"
"Missionaries killed!" repeated Rob, mechanically, and with blanchingcheeks. "How were they killed? How many? What were their names?"
"Killed by a mob of natives, as usual; but the city tao-tai and fifteenof the ringleaders were executed yesterday in Canton, so everything isquiet up there now. Their names? Why, I don't seem to remember; but allwho were at the station were killed. Nobody escaped. Of course, none ofyour friends were there, though, seeing that you moved away so long ago."
"My father and mother were there," groaned poor Rob. And for him thelight of life seemed to go out with the setting sun that just then sankfrom sight in the blood-red waters of the Dragon's Mouth.