Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China
tried the adjacent door-knob and entered Peter's room. When he came
out, he looked perplexed and angry. He slid the dagger into his silk
blouse and looked up the stairway, listening.
His expression of rage passed away; now his look was inscrutable.
Stealing across the vestibule, he approached Miss Vost's door, and
rapped.
Peter ran his fingers along the edge of the table until they
encountered the hilt of a cutlass. He waited.
The Mongolian rapped a little louder. There was no answer. Again he
knocked, imperatively. Peter heard Miss Vost's sleepy voice pitched in
inquiry. Her door opened an inch or two.
The Mongolian forced his way inside!
Miss Vost uttered a short, sharp scream, which was instantly smothered.
As Peter burst into the room, the Mongolian turned with a snarl,
reaching for his silk blouse. Peter clapped his free hand to the
muscled shoulder, and dragged him into the corridor.
Miss Vost, in a long, white nightgown, was framed in the doorway,
staring sleepily. Her hand was clutched to her lips. Her hair tumbled
about her bare shoulders in dark, silky clusters.
Bright steel flashed in the Mongolian's hand. "_Ha-li!_" he muttered.
Peter braced himself, and thrust straight upward, striking with fury.
He drove the sword through the Mongolian's right eye.
Miss Vost, a slender pillar of white, stared down at the floundering
heap. She seemed to be going mad, with the green light of the electric
glittering in her distended eyes.
Bobbie MacLaurin bounded down the steps.
"He tried to come into my room," said Miss-Vost. "He tried to come
into my room!"
"I know. I know. But it's all right," soothed Peter, panting. "You
must go back to bed. You must try to sleep." He talked as though she
were a child. "He was a bad man. He had to--to be treated--this way!"
"You--you look like an Arab. The dark. And that beard. Where is
Bobbie?"
"Right here. Right here beside you!"
"You're not hurt--either of you? You're both all right?"
"Yes. Yes. _Please_ go to bed!" begged Peter.
"Please!" implored Bobbie.
To them there was something unreligious, something terrible, in the
notion of Miss Vost standing in the presence of the grim black heap in
the shadow. Nor were her youth and her innocence intended to be bared
before the eyes of men in this fashion.
As if a chill river wind had struck her, she shivered--closed the door.
The men carried the limp body, which was unaccountably heavy, to the
deck. After a minute there--was a splash. The _Hankow_ had not been
checked. On the Yangtze formal burial ceremonies are seldom performed.
Peter went to bed at once. He tried to sleep. He counted the
revolutions of the propeller. He added up a stupendous number of sheep
going through a hole in a stone wall. Every so often the sheep faded
away, to be replaced by the fearful countenance of the Mongolian, who
was now perhaps ten miles or more downstream.
After a while the engines were checked, turning at half speed for a
number of revolutions, then ceasing as a bell rang. The only sound was
the soughing gurgle of the water as it lapped along the steel plates,
and the distant drone of the rapids.
He heard the splash of an anchor, accompanied by the rumble and clank
of chains, forward; and a repetition of the sounds aft. Directly under
him, it seemed a loud, prolonged scraping noise took place. The fires
were being drawn.
The sounds could only mean that the _Hankow_ had reached the journey's
end. The trip was over; the _Hankow_ was abreast Ching-Fu. She would
lie in the current for a few days, before facing about and making for
tidewater.
To-day would see the last of Miss Vost, a termination of that
serio-humorous love affair of theirs, which, on the whole, had been one
of his most delightful experiences. He wondered whether or not she
would ask him to kiss her good-bye. He rather hoped she would.
On the other hand, he hoped she would do nothing of the kind. Distance
was lending enchantment to Eileen Lorimer. He was sure this was not
infatuation. She was not the first; he had had affairs; oh, numbers of
them! But they were mere fragments of his adventurous life. They were
milestones, shadowy and vague and very far away now. Dear little
milestones, each of them!
Sometime he would go to Eileen, and get down on his knees before her in
humility, and ask her if she could overlook his systematic and hardened
faults! When would he do this? Frankly, he did not know.
He dozed off, and it seemed only an instant later when he was awakened
by a harsh cry.
The port-hole was still dark. Morning was a long way off.
The cry was repeated, was joined by others, excited and fearful.
Peter sat up in bed, and was instantly thrown back by a sudden lurch.
Next came a dull booming and banging. The stateroom was filled with
the hot, sweet smell of smoking wood, the smell that is caused by the
friction of wood against wood, or wood against steel.
Another pounding and booming. Some one hammered at the door. Peter
tried to turn on the electric light. There was no current. He opened
the door.
Bobbie, shoeless and collarless, dressed only in pants and shirt,
towered over the light of a candle which he held in a hand that shook.
"A collision! Junk rammed us! Get up quick! Don't know damage. Call
Miss Vost! Get on deck! Take care of her! My hands filled with this
dam' boat."
Peter snatched his clothes, and before he was out of his pajamas the
_Hankow_ began to keel over. It slid down, until the port-hole dipped
into the muddy current. Water slopped in and drenched his knees and
feet.
He yanked open the door, not stopping to lace his shoes, and called
Miss Vost. She had heard the excitement, and was dressing. The floor
lurched again, and he was thrown violently against a sharp-edged post.
Miss Vost's door was flung open, and she stumbled down the sloping
floor, bracing her hands against his chest to catch herself.
"We're sinking," she said without fear.
To Peter it was evident that Miss Vost had never been through the
capsizing of a ship before. He fancied he caught a thrill of eager,
almost exultant, excitement in her voice. In that vestibule, he knew
they were rats in a water-trap, or soon would be.
He still felt weak and limp from his fall against the post, and he was
trying hard to regain his strength before they began their perilous
ascent to the deck.
Miss Vost misunderstood his hesitancy.
"I am not afraid, not a bit!" she declared, holding with both hands the
folds of his unbuttoned shirt. "I am never afraid with _you_! When I
am in danger, you--you are always near. It--it seems that you were put
here to--to look after me. But there is no danger--is there?" She
shook him almost playfully.
"Cut out your babbling," he snapped. "Get to that stairway!"
He heard the breath hiss in between her teeth. But she clung to his
arm obediently. They sprawled and slipped in the darkness to the
stairs. Clinging to the railing, they reached the deck, which was
inclined so steeply that they clung to the cabin-rail for support.
In the dark on all sides of them coolies shouted in high-pitched
voices. Heavy rain was falling, drumming on the deck. The odor of
wood rubbing against steel persisted. They could see nothing. The
world was dark, and filled with contusion.
A sharp explosion took place in the bows. Chains screamed through the
air and clanged on metal and wood. One of the forward anchor-chains
had parted.
The deck was tilted again. Bobbie MacLaurin was not in evidence.
Peter shouted for him until he was hoarse. Then he left Miss Vost and
groped his way to the starboard davits. The starboard life-boat was
gone!
Suddenly the rain ceased. A dull red glow smouldered on the eastern
heaven.
Miss Vost was praying, praying for courage, for help. She clung to
him, and sobbed. By and by her nerves seemed to steady themselves.
There was nothing to do but wait for daylight--and pray that the
gurgling waters might not rise any higher.
The glow in the east increased, and permitted them to see the vague
outlines of a looming shape which seemed to grow out of the bows. As
dawn came, Peter made out the form of a huge junk, which had pinioned
and crushed the foredeck rail under her brawny poop.
Then the remaining anchor-cable snapped like a rotten thread. Dimly
they saw the end of the chain whip upward and crash down. A coolie,
paralyzed, stood in its way. The broken end struck him in the face.
He screamed and rolled down the deck until he lodged against the rail.
Bobbie shouted their names, and scrambled and slipped down.
"We're trying to get up steam. Our only chance. Both forward anchors
gone. We'll swing around with the current and lose this damn junk. If
the after anchor holds till steam's up--we're safe!" He sped aft.
The steamer shuddered, and they felt her swinging as the scattered
shore lights moved from left to right. The junk was acting as a drag.
The shore lights became stationary. A gang of coolies with grate bars
were trying to pry up the junk's coamings.
Peter was aware then that Miss Vost's arms were clinging about his
neck, and that she was whimpering softly in his ear.
Up-river boomed another explosion. The deck seemed to fall from under
his feet. Water splashed up over his toes. In the gold-speckled dawn
he could see the waters foaming and swirling, and rising higher.
He knew it was suicide to swim the Yangtze rapids, knew the whirlpools
which sucked a man down and held him down until his body was torn to
shreds. There was no alternative. And the water was now half-way to
his knees. He dragged the unresisting girl to the rail.
"Can you swim--at all?"
"A--a little," she chattered.
"Hold to my collar and swim with one hand. Only try to keep afloat."
They slipped into the racing current, were seized, and spun around and
around. Above the drone of the waters he heard the roar of a
whirlpool, coming rapidly nearer. The firm clutch of Miss Vost's hand
on his collar was not loosened. Occasionally he heard her gasp and
sputter as a wave washed over her face.
They were swept down. On they went, spinning, snatched from one eddy
to another. The roar of the whirlpool receded, became a low growl and
mutter.
Now they could see the churning surface covered with torn bits of
wreckage. A body, bloated and discolored, spun by, and was caught and
dragged under, leaving only an indescribable stench.
After a while the northern shore, a low, brown bank, crept out toward
them, like a long, merciful arm. In another minute Peter's bare feet
came in contact with slimy, yielding mud. They were in shoal water!
He picked up Miss Vost in his arms, and carried her ashore; and she
clung to him, shivering and moaning. He did not realize until
afterward that she was kissing him over and over again on his wet lips
and cheeks.
Coolies found them, and carried them to a village, and deposited them
in a little red clay compound behind a building of straw. A bonfire
was kindled. The sun came up, a disk that might have been cut out of
red tissue-paper.
Some time later a tall man came into the clearing with a little group
of coolies who were pointing out the way. A white patriarchal beard
extended nearly to his waist.
He saw Miss Vost and shouted. She leaped up, was enfolded in his arms.
Peter stared at them a moment with a look that was somewhat dazed. He
picked himself up, and skulked out of the compound, in the direction of
the foaming river.
His mind was not in a normal state just then, or he would not have
wanted to cross to Ching-Fu in a sampan. But he did want to cross. In