The valley of eyes unseen
At last, two ranks of light like the lamps of a long street began to
blink out of the grey shadows ahead, and we came into a great expanse
of water swarming with craft of every conceivable build, from liner and
ocean-going tramp down to the lorchas and wupans and crazy houseboats
of the amphibious population of these parts. To the right of us lay
Hankow, with its long bund and its hulks running out into the river
and its opulent business houses behind; on the southern bank, the
battlemented, sombre city of Wuchang.
We drew opposite a small native wharf on the south side, then turned
and ran straight in.
'Luckily,' said Philipson to me, 'I have good and discreet friends
hereabouts. Otherwise it would be awkward. The boat will have to go up
on the slips.'
I gave him a look of surprise.
'Put your hand down here,' said Philipson quietly.
He had stooped into the well and lifted out a small bit of
bottom-boarding. I felt below it, and drew up my hand wet to the wrist.
There were four or five inches of water inboard of us.
'It is obviously small,' he muttered, 'but we must overhaul the boat
before we go on. It will never do to try the rapids higher up with a
gap in our strakes.'
The yard we had come to was capitally suited to our ends, being shut
in on all sides except for a narrow water frontage; and even that was
still further secluded by two timber partitions running out like the
walls of a fives-court. The place, moreover, afforded easy and secret
access to a native inn outside the city wall, where Philipson told us
we were to spend the night. The proprietor of the yard had clearly had
truck with Philipson before, since he greeted him with marked respect
and more than a shade of fear.
'The good Charon seems to know you, Philipson,' said Poyning, as we
stood together on the jetty, while three coolies hauled the launch out
of the water with a small capstan of native pattern.
'He does,' replied our leader. 'I had the good fortune to save him
from the headsman some years ago, under circumstances that will not
bear repeating. He has shown his gratitude by helping me several times
since. Now, to business. You two can be of no use to me here. You had
better get along with Lo Eng to our quarters for the night. He will
give you a meal, but do not wait for me. I shall possibly be late.'
Philipson was. We had finished our meal and smoked many pipes before he
arrived, a little after midnight.
'Rather worse than I thought,' he said, setting ravenously about a cold
chicken and a bottle of hock.
'What's wrong with her?'
'A leak just under the forefoot. We must have started a plank when we
struck the other boat in Whangpu River, and gradually opened it out
while we drove up stream. There is a good deal of sunken driftwood in
the river at most times--I expect you heard her bump against it?'
'Time and again, but never very hard.'
'Exactly. It would not hurt a sound boat, but with the strake already
loose it is only a matter of keeping on long enough to develop a nasty
hole. Luckily we spotted it in time.'
'All right now?'
'I fancy so; but it is impossible to say, working with their wretched
lamps. I must go over her thoroughly by daylight. Better turn in now,
Mirlees, as I shall want you at dawn. It becomes necessary for me to
cross to the Hankow side, on business which I shall certainly get
through more safely in native garb. Also I should be glad of a reliable
companion in case of accidents, and as a European and a Chinese moving
about together are likely to attract a degree of notice we can very
well do without, I shall be glad if you will don that Chinese costume
which suits you so well. Poyning will meanwhile keep to this side and
watch out of window for any suspicious boat on the river.'
He rose from the table, threw off his clothes, wrapped himself in a
long cotton gown, and was at once asleep on the couch in his corner
of the room. Poyning and I--we were all three sleeping in the one
chamber--had soon followed suit. There was a deal of noise in and
about the inn, but I don't think we heard much of it: certainly I
did not. It seemed to me I had only just lain down when I was shaken
by the shoulder, and saw Philipson standing by my bed, fully dressed
in the rig in which I had first seen him. I hastily made up to match
from a bundle Lo Eng had brought from the launch, and after swallowing
biscuits and a cup of wine we went down into the yard together. Here I
got something of a shock. Our launch was gone, and another had taken
her place.
Philipson squeezed my arm. 'We had to paint the new plank we put in
last night,' he whispered, 'and I thought it would be advisable to do
the rest of the hull while we were at it--in another colour. Those
dummy wash-streaks forward, too, they transform her considerably, do
they not? If there is a description of us about, it may be as well not
to answer to it. Hullo, here is our boat. Not another word of English
now till we are alone again!'
We entered the sampan he had engaged, and were sculled out across the
two miles of stream through a wonderful morning, fine and clear, with
a fresh easterly breeze. Even as early as this there was a loud hum of
activity abroad; the daily round of the great river port had already
begun, and the bustle was still further increased by the arrival of a
river steamer which had drawn up to her hulk just as we pushed in to
the north bank. We saw the gangplanks swing down and a throng of native
passengers surge across them. Philipson had been scanning the crowd,
but he suddenly dropped his eyes to the bottom of the boat and muttered
an order to the boatman. We turned up stream, taking advantage of any
and every craft that lay there or passed, to keep ourselves hidden from
the shore, and at last reached a jetty about a quarter of a mile from
the point where we had originally purposed landing. Here my companion
ordered the sampan to wait, and we sprang ashore and straight into two
native "chairs"--capital conveyances for a furtive mission, since they
were completely closed in--and were borne into the dense warrens of the
native city of Hankow by a twisting route that soon robbed me of all
sense of direction. I felt my chair set down, and stepping out found we
were in a squalid courtyard walled in on three sides by native houses.
Philipson took my arm and led me through a low doorway in one of the
walls, thence along a narrow winding alley, from the end of which we
ascended a flight of rickety wooden stairs. There was a door at the
head of these, upon which Philipson knocked softly, and I noticed that
the signal he gave was his own peculiar five taps. A house boy came, to
whom my companion muttered something in the vernacular which I couldn't
catch; then the servant took us through a bare ante room, and withdrew
deeper into this queer, secret dive.
Philipson put his mouth to my ear. 'Treat this man with the profoundest
respect,' he whispered. 'He possesses ideas that would do credit to any
European revolutionary. The Manchu Dynasty have had a price upon his
head for years.'
The door opened, and a small wizened Chinaman appeared in the aperture.
Taking cue from Philipson I bowed low to him, and we exchanged
compliments in the official dialect of Peking, which he spoke with a
musical perfection. He drew my companion through into the inner room,
closing the door behind them; and there I heard the pair in an agitated
mutter of conversation for the best part of twenty minutes. Whatever
it was Philipson wanted, he had apparently prevailed upon the rat-like
little fellow to give him, for when he came out he was carrying under
his arm something wrapped in cloth, angular, the size of a largish
attaché case, and apparently heavy. We took an elaborate ceremonial
leave, got downstairs and regained our chairs, and within half an
hour were harking back across the river, again taking advantage of
every floating thing that could screen us from the bank. Ah Sing was
standing watch at the yard when we arrived, peeping through the holes
in a curtain of old tarpaulins he had rigged up. Philipson ordered me
to join Poyning in the inn and get breakfast while he overhauled the
launch, promising to follow as soon as he had finished.
We were still at the meal when Philipson came in.
'All's well,' he cried cheerfully. 'She is tight now--tighter, in fact,
than she was before!'
Poyning didn't appear to share the exultation of our chief. He was
rolling his eye round the bare room of the inn with an expression of
boredom. 'A simple, homely interior,' he said 'but already I find its
charm beginning to pall. When do we tempt the deep again, Philipson?'
'Dusk to-night,' replied the leader briskly. 'I had not intended to
leave this place by daylight in any case, less still now that I know
our enemies have reached Hankow.'
'You've seen them?'
'I have; and they may have seen me, though Mirlees will tell you that
I did my best to avoid this by sheering off on another tack. It is
possible, Poyning, that you do not yet fully realise the determination
of that company. They are not to be put off by temporary setbacks.
After your brush with two of their number on the permanent way in
Shanghai it was only a matter of time for them to track us to Nanking,
and from Nanking here. Moreover, it now becomes more than a question
of stealing my papers and my secret. Every victory we have gained will
only aggravate their hostility. The agents detailed to destroy us
will fail to do so at peril of their own lives from the organisation
behind them, and they will leave no chance neglected. They will ransack
this neighbourhood for us; their sentry may be watching our yard with
a glass at this moment--in which case he will not see much. But if
we move out in daylight, our boat is bound to be observed, and will
certainly be followed. If, on the other hand, we succeed in getting
away from here unobserved, we are now coming to parts of the river
where it will be more and more difficult for them to follow, or to get
warnings on ahead of us by telegraph. I am convinced that the delay
will be worth while in the long run.'
We accordingly sat down to wait, not even venturing outside our room,
while Ah Sing kept to his spying post in the yard. Never have I known a
day drag so; it would be hard to say which of us was most relieved when
night fell, and we could throw down the canvas screen from the launch
and heave her down into the water.
We slunk darkly away up stream. If there were watchers, we seemed to
have eluded them. By nine o'clock the long lights of Hankow were fading
in our wake, and by half-past we had come to a reach strangely deserted
and silent after the bustle of the great hub of Chinese riverine
traffic. We drove ahead at full speed, Philipson steering.
Suddenly he pricked up his ears. 'What's that?' he cried.
We all sat listening. I heard nothing, but about a minute later there
came, carried far across the still water, a distinct gunshot, and
another after about the same interval.
'Odd!' muttered Philipson. 'If we were at sea you might say somebody
was trying to make distress signals.'
Poyning had stood up, and was peering over the edge of the wash-streaks
forward. 'There's a curious light in the river straight ahead,' he
cried. 'Great Scott, it's a boat on fire!'
We all looked now, and there, sure enough, was a big sailing junk
drifting down upon us, broadside on and plainly out of control. Dense
smoke bellied from her midships, and by the tongues of flame that
licked up through it we caught momentary flashlight glimpses of her
crew crowding into stem and stern in a panic to get away from the heat.
They kept up the minute guns till we were within hail, then raised a
chorus of piteous yells.