The Fortune of the Indies/Chapter 18
CHAPTER VXIII
"SOMETHING HAPPENS"
MARK'S policy of "keeping on going till something happens" had so far been the one they had followed during this adventure, and so far it had worked, if not rapidly, fairly well. There really seemed to be nothing else to do. If they had been equipped with knowledge of the country and the language, or either separately, the plan of action could have been very different.
Mark thought it all out again, soberly, as he sat on watch beneath the stars. The baby, he admitted, certainly didn't simplify matters, but then, she was very unassuming, apparently, and surely could be easily disposed of in that "big town" which Mark forever hoped to reach.
The Sham-Poo swung a little, pointing her stumpy mast to first one star, then another. Mark looked up affectionately at her dark, furled sail and her curving prow. They had tidied her up a good bit since taking command of her, and had begun to feel the sweet pride of ownership. Mark next looked toward his latest charge, who had waked and again was weeping, beating her heels upon the mat and waving her hands, entangled in the still too long sleeves of the blue linen jacket.
"Hush, then!" said Mark, sibilantly.
As no effect was produced by these words, he cast a stealthy glance within, where Alan slept heavily, and picked up Ping-Pong in a hit-or-miss fashion by whatever arm or leg came handy. But he soon discovered that she fitted very naturally into one position on his arm, her head over his shoulder. Holding her thus, it so came to him that an obvious thing to do was to pat her on the back, which he did, heartily and rhythmically, so that her sobs were jolted out of her in a sort of four-four time.
"My stars, I wish I knew how to say 'Hush' to you in Chinese," he murmured. "I don't think I even know how to stop a simple United States baby from crying. There, there, now! What's the idea, anyway?"
With another look toward his brother, Mark presently began to sing in a muffled voice:
A Yankee ship came down the river,
Blow, boys, blow!
Her masts did bend and her sails did shiver,
Blow, my bully boys, blow!
If ever there was an incongruous picture, here it was! This unkempt Ingram, cross-legged beneath the stars on the deck of a native boat moored in the wilds of a Kechiang creek, singing to sleep a Chinese baby with the strains of a sail-setting chantey! The aunts, the dear little gray aunts, could they have seen or even imagined it, would have raised their hands and swooned. Mark, deeply absorbed in his occupation, never thought of the absurdity of it. If he had, he would have roared with mighty laughter.
What do you think they had for dinner?
Blow, boys, blow!
Sea-water soup, but somewhat thinner!
Blow, my bully boys, blow!
So crooned Mark's baritone, leashed in to a murmur. Ping-Pong's small golden fist clutched his lapel; her head slipped lower and lower upon his shoulder; her long black eyelashes quivered and at length lay heavily upon her porcelain cheeks. She was asleep.
Mark was about to put her down again upon her mat, but decided that it looked rather hard and chilly and that if he did she'd doubtless wake and howl again. So he sat with her in his arms, his back against the yulow-pivot, looking at the moon rise over her drooping dark head. Alan, rousing before his watch, looked out and saw him thus.
"Well, I'll be everlastingly dumfisticated!" he said to himself vehemently, and lay down again, marveling.
After breakfast the next morning, while the Sham-Poo flitted down the interminable sluggish reaches of the stream and Ping-Pong disported herself in the sunshine at the stern, Alan suddenly made frantic gestures of despair and sat down beside the mast.
"What in the world ails you?" Mark asked him. "Am I to have a maniac on my hands now?"
"It's you that's the maniac," Alan protested. "Honestly, you know, this is fantastic, perfectly and teetotally fantastic. It can't go on. Even you will have to give in when the rice gives out."
"There's loads of rice," Mark rejoined. "If we wait long enough, something's bound to happen."
"I've heard you say that before. If we wait long enough, we're all bound to die some day. We were idiots not to turn back toward Nangpoo when we got away from that beastly haunted city."
"Yes, and have Chun Lon come boiling after us hot-foot, with murder in his eye. It's the thing he'd think we 'd naturally do."
Alan pondered for a moment.
"I never thought of that," he conceded.
"I did," Mark said.
"But really," Alan went on, "we can't keep sailing around with this Chinee kid."
"We can't chuck her overboard, either."
"We could put her on the shore near one of these villages. Somebody'd be sure to find her."
"Oh, she's not hurting you," Mark retorted. "If she turns out to be 'bad joss pidgin,' we'll do something. Wait till it happens."
"I'm waiting," Alan agreed hollowly.
Ping-Pong crawled and toddled about the Sham-Poo, amusing herself with things she found or lying on her back blowing bubbles at the sky. She was very unexacting in her attitude toward life in general. Already she was beginning to develop an Oriental placidity remarkable to behold.
"You see how philosophically she takes it," Mark pointed out. "Employ your time profitably in contemplating all the wisdom of the East as embodied in Ping-Pong—and put a little more beef into that yulow-ing."
Alan merely shied a mat at his brother, and they both grinned.
And then, presently, Mark's policy was more or less justified. Something did happen. What happened was the Sien Kang River, with Changhow itself strung steaming along the water-front above a slowly moving swarm of every sort of boat.
"Well, here we are," Mark said breezily.
"Here we are where?" Alan queried.
"Somewhere definite. This is a big place. We can dig up some English-speaking person here, and get on a bit."
It took them some time to "get on" very far. First there was the broad, yellow reach of the Sien Kang to tack across, then the great jam of water-traffic to penetrate. By dint of much manœuvering they wormed the boat at last to a landing-place below the wall, adding their shouts to the strident yells of the other boatmen in what seemed to be the current fashion.
"You stand by the boat," Mark ordered. "I'm going ashore to find out something."
"You'll never remember the way back," Alan protested.
"Oh yes I will. I've booked three or four landmarks already. If we both go, we'll probably lose the boat, and besides, we don't want to lug the box all over town."
With which he departed, pushing his way through a crowd of beggars and loafers gathered at the waU. When he had disappeared, Alan dropped his chin upon his hand and stared gloomily toward the city. At least, he and Mark had kept together thus far in their adventures. He felt singularly alone now. He scowled at Ping-Pong, who gazed unwinkingly back at him.
It was extremely hot. The bustle and din of the water-front was penetrating—likewise the smell of it. The boat's only timepiece had gone off in Mark's pocket, and it seemed to Alan that hours went by, though how many he could not tell. Presently he became aware of some added stir among the shipping, and saw, gliding up, a blue-canopied boat full of Chinese clad in gorgeous, if somewhat spectacular, uniforms. It was a river police-boat, and it drew in beside the Sham-Poo. The official in command stood up in the bow, looked piercingly at Alan and his singular outfit, and then hailed him in Chinese. To this Alan replied, in English, that he did not speak the language. At that the official clambered into the bow of the Sham-Poo and gazed again about the boat and its personnel.
"Where you come?" he asked.
"Nangpoo," Alan answered, hugely relieved to hear something like English from this theatrically attired gentleman. The officer raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Where go?" he inquired.
"Shanghai-side."
The other eyebrow went up, and the officer peered incredulously at Alan.
"One boy; no coolie?"
"No coolie."
"No can do!" The captain was decisive. He shook his head.
'My brother is with me. He's gone ashore," Alan supplemented, wondering if his questioner understood statements so complicated as this. He did not seem to. Instead, he pointed at Ping-Pong.
"Where got?" he demanded.
"Found her on the river," Alan explained. "No want. Give her away pretty quick."
"Hgh," said the official, as nearly as Alan could make out. The expression seemed to indicate disbelief.
"Why you go one boy?" he asked. "Coolie cost cheap. Melican no work, Chineeman work for him."
He was evidently suspicious of the Sham-Poo and her ill-assorted crew.
"He probably thinks we're smuggling something," Alan thought, for he had heard tales of illicitly carried salt and devious dealings among the junk-masters.
But before he could frame a simple version of his story two men from the police-boat boarded the Sham-Poo and began diligently searching her dim cabin. It took little enough seeking to reveal the treasure box—and "Aiya!" squeaked the startled official as he flung back the lid and drew aside the wrappings.
"Now the jig's up," Alan thought desperately. "They'll think we've stolen it. I don't look exactly like a wealthy merchant."
He wheeled on the official. Anything to gain time, to let Mark get back.
"Wait!" he begged. "My brother will come back. We want to get to Shanghai, Shanghai-side, you know. It's all right, really; you'll see."
The police captain apparently thought, however—if, indeed, he understood the information at all—that this matter had passed beyond his authority and that Alan's tale should be for higher ears than his own. So the treasure-chest was swung to the brawny shoulder of one of the force, and Alan could not but follow then. The captain, however, pointed an accusing finger toward the boat.
"You take," he said sternly, indicating Ping-Pong, who was yawning small bored yawns in the shade of the matting-roof.
"No, no!" exclaimed Alan hastily, seeing an excellent chance to part company from his brother's protégee.
"Yes, yes!" cried the official, wholly unwilling that any evidence in the case should be left behind.
So Alan, with a groan, bundled Ping-Pong under his arm, and the whole procession set forth through shiny waterside streets. At the first turn Alan cast back toward the Sham-Poo one despairing look. She lay quietly, her half-furled sail looped over her deck-house, the idle yulow inboard. He knew very well that he would never see her again.
And presently they arrived at the yamen, gray and austere in its courtyard, where scribes and students hurried to and fro. The treasure-box was plumped down and opened before the eyes of high authority, and Alan was pushed forward. The magistrate, in his round cap and large spectacles, looked solemnly down and listened to a long tale which the police captain gabbled in swift Chinese—how wrongly told Alan had no means of knowing. His own story, when he was allowed to tell it, was listened to in silence. He explained as much of the original purpose of the expedition as he thought any one would believe, outlined the subsequent happenings, and begged that Tyler, Bolliver & Tyler, Inc., of Shanghai, be notified at once.
Bespectacled interpreters, with wooden pens behind their ears, were called from inner rooms; big books were seriously consulted; and at length the magistrate agreed that Tyler, Bolliver & Tyler might exist. But such a story! And what about the baby?
"Drat the baby!" thought Alan. She really had nothing to do with it, he explained. She was merely an incident, an accident. She in no way influenced the state of the case. Like all excited people, Alan talked too much. He confused his statements and made himself unintelligible to his Chinese hearers. But he thought that he had wholly gained his point when the magistrate at last consented to send a telegram to Tyler, Bolliver & Tyler.