Part 7

"Oh, they're all right!" said the boy, shaking hands with Mrs. Newbegin, and wondering what sort of a queer old guy this was whom he had been sent to rescue. "Beastly hot, isn't it? Do you have it like this often?"

"Eight months in the year," said Mrs. Newbegin, "but we're used to it."

At this moment the boy became conscious of the presence of one whom he at first took to be the prettiest Chinese girl he had ever seen.

"Let me present my niece--Ensign Russell," said Newbegin.

The boy held out his hand but the girl only smiled.

"It is very good of you to come so far to help us," said the girl.

"Oh, no trouble at all!" exclaimed the boy without taking his eyes from her face. "I'm glad I got here in time," he added.

"Did you come on a ship?" asked the girl.

"Just a little gunboat," he answered, "but that makes me think. This plagued lake is sinking all the time. I got aground in half a dozen places. We've got to start right along back. I'm by no means sure we can get out as it is, but it's better than staying here. You'd oblige me by packing up as quickly as possible."

"Eh?" said the Rev. Theophilus, with something of a start, "what's that?"

"Why, that we've got to start right along or we'll be stuck here and won't be able to get away at all."

"But I can't abandon the mission!" said Newbegin in wonder.

"Certainly not!" echoed his wife placidly. "After all these years we cannot desert our post!"

"But the rioters!" ejaculated the boy. "You'll be murdered! Wu will be here before night, they tell me, and there was a precious crowd of ruffians at the gate as I came along. Why, you can't stay to be killed!"

Newbegin shook his head.

"You do not understand," he said slowly. "We came out here to rescue these people from idolatry. Some of them have adopted Christianity. There are forty women and children converts. There are others who are almost persuaded; if we abandon them now we shall undo all our labor. No! we must stay with them, and die with them, if necessary, but we cannot go away now."

"Great Scott!" cried the boy, "do you mean to say that----"

"We cannot desert our post," repeated Mrs. Newbegin, looking fondly at her husband.

"But--but--" began the boy.

"Even if we die, there is the example," said Newbegin.

The boy was puzzled. Of missionaries he had a poor enough opinion in general, and this one looked like a great oaf and so did his fat wife, but in the most ordinary way and with the commonest of accents he was talking of "dying for the example." Then his eyes returned to the girl who had been watching him intently all the time.

"But," he exclaimed, "certainly you won't place your niece in such danger?"

"No," said Newbegin, "that would not be right."

"No," repeated the wife, "she had better go back."

"I will not go back," cried the girl, "unless you go, too! This is my home. Your work is my work. I cannot leave Om and Su and their babies."

"Good God!" muttered the boy hopelessly. "Don't you see you _must_ come? You _can't_ stay here to be murdered by the rioters! I can't _let_ you! On the other hand, I can only stay here an hour or two at the most. The _Dirigo_ is almost aground as it is and we shall have the dev--deuce of a time getting out of the lake."

"Well," said Newbegin calmly, "I have told you that we cannot accept your offer. We are very grateful, of course, but it's impossible. It would not do; no, it would not do. A missionary expects this kind of a thing. I wish Margaret would go, but what can I do, if she won't go? I can't make her go."

"I want to stay with you," said Margaret, taking his hand. "I will never leave you and Aunt Henrietta."

The boy swore roundly to himself. The crowd of Chinese had returned to the gate, and the air of the compound stank in his nostrils. He took out his watch.

"It's eleven o'clock," he said firmly. "At five I shall leave Chang-Yuan; till then you have to make up your minds. I will return in an hour or so."

Newbegin shook his head.

"Our answer will be the same. We are very grateful. I am sorry not to seem more hospitable. Have you seen the temple and the pagoda?"

"No," answered the boy. "I suppose I might as well do the town, now I'm here."

"I will show you the temple," said Margaret timidly. "They know me there, I nursed the child of the old priest. I will take you."

"Yes," said Newbegin, "they all like Margaret, and I seem to be unpopular now. Will you not take dinner with us?"

"Thank you," said the boy, "take dinner with _me_. Perhaps Mrs. Newbegin would like to see the gunboat, and I have some photographs of the new cruisers."

Margaret gazed beseechingly at her.

"Very well," said Newbegin, "if you will stop for us on your way back from the temple we shall be quite ready, but I must return at once after dinner in order to assemble the members of the mission."

The girl led the way to the gate.

"I'm sure you will not need the soldiers," she said; "it is but a short distance." The crowd, observing that the bluejackets had remained inside the compound, crowded close at the boy's heels as they threaded the streets to the temple.

"I spend a good deal of time here," said the girl; "sometimes it is the only cool place."

The boy paid the small charge for admission and followed his guide up the dim, winding stairs. It was dank and quiet; the priest had remained at the gate. From the blue-green shadows of the recesses upon the landings a score of Buddhas stared at them with sightless eyes. Suddenly they emerged into the clear air upon the platform of the top story and the girl spoke for the first time since they had entered.

"There is Chang-Yuan," she said.

The boy gazed down curiously. Below them blazed thousands of highly finished roofs, picturesque enough from this height, while beyond the town the soup-colored waters of the lake stretched limitless to the horizon. He could see the embankment and the little _Dirigo_ at anchor, the _sampans_ still swarming around it. To the south lay a country of swamps and of paddy fields; to the north the line of hills and the smoke of the burning towns.

They sat down on a stone bench and gazed together at the uninviting prospect. He was beset with curiosity to ask her a thousand questions about herself, yet he did not know how to begin. She solved the problem for him, however.

"I have lived here since I was eight years old," she remarked, apparently being unable to think of anything else to say.

The boy whistled between his teeth.

"Do you enjoy it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied, "I don't know anything else. Sometimes it seems dull and one has to work very hard, but I think I like it."

"But what do you do," he inquired, "to amuse yourself?"

"I read," she said, "and play with Om and Su. I have taught them some American games. Do you know parchesi and the Mansion of Happiness?"

"Yes, I've played them," he admitted cautiously. "But do you never see any white people except your uncle and aunt?"

"Why, no," she said. "Two summers ago, after the cholera, we visited Dr. Ferguson at Chang-Wing--that is over there. He is a medical missionary, but I did not like him because he asked me to marry him. He was sixty years old. Do you think it was right?"

"Right!" cried the boy. "It was a wicked sin."

"Well, he is the only white man I have met except you," said the girl. "Of course, I can remember a little playing with boys and girls a long, long time ago. Where is your ship?"

"That little white one down there. Can you see?" said the boy, pointing.

"Oh, is that it?" she asked. "Where are its sails?"

"There aren't any," he answered; "it goes by steam."

"I have read the 'Voyage of the Sunbeam,'" she said, "it is a beautiful book. It came out last year in a box. I have nearly twenty books in all."

The boy bit his lips. He was getting angry--angry that an American girl should have been imprisoned in such a hole all her young life--such a girl, too! What right had an elderly man and woman, even though they enjoyed the privilege of consanguinity, to exile a beautiful child from her native country and bring her up for the glory of God in a stewing, stinking, cholera-infested, famine-ridden Chinese village?

"It is strange to find you here," he said finally. "I expected only some freckle-faced, jimmy-jawed, psalm-singing woman, who would tumble all over herself to get away."

She looked at him puzzled for a moment and then burst into a ripple of laughter.

"What funny things you say!" she cried. "I suppose it is strange to find me here, but why should I have freckles or a--what did you call it--a jimmy-jaw? I do sing psalms. But my being here is no stranger than that you should be here. I have often wished some young man would come. You are the first I have known. I am tired of only women."

For a moment he was almost shocked at the open implication, but her frank eyes and matter-of-fact tone told him that the girl could not flirt. It was out of her sphere of existence.

"Would you like to get married?" he hazarded.

"Oh, yes!" she cried. "To a young man!"

"But suppose you had to go away?"

She looked a little puzzled for a moment.

"Of course, I should not like to leave Om and Su, and I wouldn't leave uncle and aunt, but sometimes--sometimes I have wondered if one couldn't serve God in a pleasanter place and do just as much good."

"Are there any men converts?" he asked.

"Only Chi," she replied, "and I am quite sure he is an idolater at heart. Besides," she added, with a droll look in her eyes, "Chi is a gambler and is always drinking _samshu_. He had been drinking it this morning. I have often spoken to uncle about it, but he has not got the heart to send him away."

The boy laughed.

"I have a certain amount of sympathy with Chi," said he. "If I lived here I should be as bad as he is. I should think you would die of the heat and the smells, and never seeing anybody."

"Oh, it's not so bad," she said spiritlessly. "You see, I have to work pretty hard. There are nearly twenty families now where there is sickness, and in case of anything contagious I go there and nurse. Sometimes I get very tired, but it keeps me occupied and so I suppose I don't think about--other things."

"It's terrible to think of leaving you here," he said. "Can't you persuade your uncle and aunt that their duty does not require them to lay down their lives needlessly?"

"No," she answered, "nothing would persuade them that it was not their duty to remain; nothing could persuade _me_ of that."

"And you would not leave them?" he urged, almost tenderly.

"Oh, how _could_ I? I must stay with them! Don't you see?" She took hold of his hand and held it. It was quite natural and totally unconscious. "That is what missionaries are for."

A thrill traveled up the nerves of his arm and accelerated the motion of his heart.

"That is not what _you_ are for," he said quietly.

"I must! I must!" she repeated. "Oh, I should like to go with you, but I can't."

"But think of yourself!" he cried harshly. "Your uncle and aunt can die for the glory of God if they choose, but they've no right to let you die, too, just out of loyalty to them. It's cruel and wrong. It makes me sick to think of you penned up here in this nasty, yellow place all these years when you ought to have been going to school, and riding and sailing, and playing tennis, and having a good time."

"Oh!" she protested.

"No, hear me out," he insisted, "and having a good time! You can serve God and yet be happy, can't you? And your place isn't here in the midst of cholera and famine and malaria. It's different with people who have lived their lives, but with you, so young and fresh and pretty."

"Oh!" she cried joyfully, "do you think I am pretty? I'm so glad!"

"Do I!" he replied hotly. "Too pretty to be allowed to go wandering around these crooked Chinese streets--" he checked himself. "I say it's a shame! And now to stay here, after all, to be butchered!" He jumped to his feet and ground his teeth.

She gazed at him, startled, and said reproachfully:

"I don't think it is right for you to say things like that. 'Whoso loseth his life for my sake shall find it.' Don't you remember?"

He made no reply, realizing the hopelessness of his position.

"Come," he said, "let us go back."

She was afraid she had offended him but was too timid to do more than to take his hand and let him lead her gently down the winding stairs.

At the gate of the temple they found the crowd augmented by several hundred persons, who closed in behind and marched along to the compound.

Mr. and Mrs. Newbegin were waiting on the veranda and the marines had been having a little _samshu_. The boy was by no means sorry to have the company of his escort for the rest of their walk, and the party made good time to the _Dirigo_. The _bund_ was alive with spectators and so was the whole long line of shore. There were Chinese everywhere, on the beach, on rafts, in _sampans_, swimming in the water, all around, wherever you looked there were a dozen yellow faces--waiting--waiting for something. Even in the broil of that inland sun the chills crept up the boy's spine.

The Rev. Theophilus and his wife were much pleased with the gunboat and sat in the cabin in the draught of the two electric fans sipping lemonade, while the boy showed the girl over the _Dirigo_. He had made one last passionate appeal to the missionary and his wife, who had again flatly refused to leave the city. Margaret had likewise reasserted her determination not to desert them. The boy was in despair and cursed them to himself for stupid, bigoted fools. He was showing the girl his little stateroom with its tiny bookcase and pictures and she had paused fascinated before one which showed a group of young people gathered on a smooth lawn with tennis rackets in their hands. All were smiling or laughing. Margaret could not tear herself away from it.

"How happy they look!" she whispered. "How fresh and clean and cool everything is! What are those things in their hands?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"The round things that look like nets," she explained.

The boy gasped.

"Tennis rackets! Do you mean to say you've never seen a tennis racket?"

"I don't think so." She hesitated. "Perhaps ever so long ago when I was a little girl, but I've forgotten."

The boy's anger flamed to a white heat as he glanced out through the stateroom door to where the Rev. Theophilus and wife sat stolidly luxuriating in the artificial draught.

"When I was a child we lived for a while in Shanghai. My father's ship was there," she added.

"Your father in the navy?" cried the boy hoarsely. "What was his name?"

"Wellington," she answered. "He was a commander. He died at Hong Kong ten years ago."

"Wellington! Richard Wellington? He was in my father's class at Annapolis!" cried the boy. Then he groaned and bit his lips. "Oh!--oh! it's a crime!"

He dropped on one knee and took her hands.

"Poor little girl!" he almost sobbed, "poor little girl! Think of it! Ten years! Poor child!"

Margaret laid one hand on his head.

"I am quite happy," she said calmly.

"Happy!" He gave a half-hysterical laugh and shook his fist at the door. Then he leaned over and whispered eagerly:

"You're tired, dear. Lie down for a few minutes and rest. Do--to please me."

She smiled. "To please you," she repeated, as she leaned back among the cushions which he placed for her, and he closed the door.

"Your niece is going to take a little nap," he explained to the missionary. "Here are some prints of the new battleships. I must ask you to excuse me for a moment. Saki will serve dinner directly."

"Oh, certainly--of course," murmured Newbegin, recovering from semi-consciousness.

The boy sprang up the hatch.

"Here, McGaw!" he ejaculated, rushing to where his midshipman stood watching the swarm of _sampans_ that covered the lake around the _Dirigo_. "Get up steam! Do you hear? Get up steam as fast as you can! I'm going to hike out of this!"

"All right, sir," replied McGaw in a rather surprised tone. "We can't get off any too soon to please me. Did you ever see such a hole? Hello! What's all that?" He pointed to a highly decorated _sampan_ coming rapidly toward them, before which the others parted of their own accord, making a broad line of water to the _Dirigo_.

"By Godfrey! It's the mandarin!" cried the boy. "Where's Yen? Here you, Yen! Go make mucha laugh for the _erfu_!"

The _sampan_, however, turned out not to contain the _erfu_. A small, fat Chinaman in the mandarin's livery stood up and bawled to Yen through his hands.

"He say," translated Yen over his shoulder, "Wu no come. Viceroy soldier man make big fight--kill plenty--Wu finish. Allight now everybody. Missionary come back. Wu no make smoke, anyway. He long, long way off. This fella lika Melican naval officer maka lil _kumsha_[2] for good news. _Kumsha_ for maka mucha laugh."

[Footnote 2: Present, gratuity.]

"What!" roared the boy. "Pay him! Tell him to go to hell!"

McGaw watched the boy as he stamped up and down the deck running his hands through his hair and wondered if he had a touch of sun. The mandarin's messenger still remained in an attitude of expectancy in the bow of the _sampan_. Suddenly the midshipman saw his superior officer rush to the side of the _Dirigo_ and throw a Mexican silver dollar at the Chinaman, who caught it with surprising dexterity.

"Tell him," shouted the boy to Yen, "to say to the _erfu_ that he could not find us, that we had gone away before he could deliver his message!"

The fat Chinaman prostrated himself in the _sampan_.

"He say allight," remarked Yen.

"Do you believe what he said?" demanded the boy threateningly of McGaw.

"Sure," said the midshipman, "that's right enough! That old friend of Yen's was out here again about an hour ago, snooping around, drunk as a lord. He'd been loading up on _samshu_ ever since he went ashore. He says that Wu was killed over a month ago, that his head is on a temple gate five hundred miles north of here, and that the smoke over there is caused by burning brush on the hillsides. The rebellion is all over until next year. It's a great note for us, isn't it?"

But the boy made no reply. He was staring straight through McGaw out across the lake. Suddenly he stepped close to the midshipman and muttered quietly:

"Say, old man, for the sake of old times, can you forget all that?"

"Sure," gasped McGaw, convinced that his previous suspicions had been correct.

"Then forget it and get up steam!" said the boy, turning sharply on his heel.

VI

The click of the anchor engine was followed by the throbbing of the _Dirigo_'s screw, but both the Rev. Theophilus and wife supposed them to be the whirr of an unseen electric fan. Saki's dinner was exceptionally good, and there was a cold bottle of vichy for the missionary, who lingered a long time after the coffee to tell about the ravages of the cholera the year before. When at last they ascended to the deck there was nothing to be seen of Chang-Yuan but a glare of tile roofs on the distant horizon.

"Bless me!" remarked the Rev. Theophilus, gazing stupidly at the coffee-colored waves about them. "What is the meaning of all this? Where are we going? I must go ashore. I have no time for pleasure sailing!"

"Certainly not!" echoed his wife. "Kindly return at once! Why, we are miles from Chang-Yuan!"

And then it was, according to McGaw, that the boy more than rose to the occasion and verified the prophecy of the Admiral, though under a somewhat different interpretation, that he would "make good," for, standing by Margaret's side, he saluted the missionary and with eyes straight to the front delivered himself of the following preposterous statement:

"I exceedingly regret that my orders do not permit me to exercise the discretion necessary to return as you request. The Admiral commanding the Asiatic squadron specifically directed me to proceed at once to this place and rescue the Rev. Theophilus Newbegin and wife. I was given no option in the matter. I was to _rescue_ you, that is all. I received no instructions as to what to do in the event that you preferred not to be rescued, and I interpret my orders to mean that I am to rescue you whether you like it or not. Everything will be done for your entire comfort and Saki has already prepared my stateroom for Mrs. Newbegin. I trust that you will not blame me for obeying my orders."

"Bless me!" stammered the Rev. Theophilus. "Dear me! I really do not know what to say! I am exceedingly disturbed. It seems to me like an unwarrantable interference--not on your part, of course, but on that of the Government. But," he added apologetically, "we cannot blame you for obeying your orders, can we, Henrietta?"

But Mrs. Newbegin's ordinarily vacuous face bore a new and radiant expression.

"I see the hand of Providence in this, Theophilus!" she said.

"Yes--yes!" he answered, wiping his forehead. "God moves in a mysterious way--in an astonishing way, I might say." He looked regretfully over his shoulder toward the fast-vanishing Chang-Yuan.

Margaret slipped her hand into his and laid her head on his arm. "I am so glad, uncle!" she whispered. He patted her cheek.

"Yes, yes, it is probably better this way," he sighed. "Henrietta, let us retire to the cabin and consider what has happened. My young friend, be assured we bear you no ill will for your involuntary action in this matter."

* * * * *

Four evenings later under the snapping stars of the midsummer heaven Margaret Wellington and Jack Russell sat side by side in two camp chairs on the bridge of the _Dirigo_. The gunboat was sweeping round the great curve of the Yang-tse above Hankow and to starboard the pagodas of Wu-chang rose dimly through the lights of the city. Below in the hot cabin sat the Rev. Theophilus and his wife reading "The Spirit of Missions."