The valley of eyes unseen
good spurt we might now show our enemies a clean pair of heels. Much to
my surprise, Philipson ordered Ah Sing to throttle down to half speed.
'It is risky, admittedly,' he said, 'but it will be safer in the long
run.'
A hoarse shout of triumph announced that the other launch had sighted
us. They came on cock-a-hoop, gaining fast and firing as they came.
Philipson now opened our throttle bit by bit, and we drew away, heading
south-east. In five minutes our speed was at full again, in fifteen the
sounds of pursuit were dying in the distance, until we could hear them
no longer. My companion now took a sharp turn, doubling back north-east
for a minute or two, then shut off our engine altogether; and there we
lay, rising and falling gently on the dark swell of the outer sea.
'You know where we are, Mirlees?' said Philipson suddenly.
'I should say off the south point of the old Quarantine Island,' I
replied.
'Exactly. And where do you suppose the other boat is?'
'God knows. But what are we hanging about here for?'
'In order to give our pursuers a good lead on their totally false
scent. As soon as they are well past we will get along. What were they
to suppose when I allowed them to view us making for the south end of
the island? Obviously that we intended to go down coast--Ningpo, I
fancy, is the port that will occur to them, as there is no likelihood
of weather. They will pursue for some way on the chance of our petrol
giving out. Then, when they find they do not pick up the sound of us
again, they will assume we are clear away south. They will return at
once to headquarters and warn Ningpo by telegraph--they have agents
there, never fear. Meanwhile, it behoves us to select some other
destination.'
'Where d'you propose?'
'What do you say to Nanking?'
'That must be a day's run, even at the best pace we can screw out of
her.'
'Why not? We have the fuel, and you may depend I have not been so
careless as to come away without food. Also, the farther afield
we go, the less likely are we to be available for the inevitable
inquiry into that awkward affair of to-night. Nanking appeals to me
as the ideal place for our purpose. It is a huge straggling city with
miles of country within its walls. It offers every facility for a
sudden departure by rail or water, should we have warning of pursuit.
The police will hardly look for us there, since the only people in
a position to give information regarding our movements will be of
opinion--for the time at least--that we are down coast. You, should you
find that the shooting affray has blown over, may return to Shanghai by
train at any time you like. I would advise you not to be in a hurry,
though. I am afraid, Mirlees, that by your magnanimous rescue of me
to-night you have made yourself obnoxious to some of the most dangerous
people in Asia. Were you to return to Shanghai now, I frankly could not
promise you a peaceful life--or for that matter life at all.'
It wasn't a particularly comforting argument, but it struck me as being
sound. 'Nanking be it then,' I said. 'We'll see to the future later.'
'And a wise decision, in my view,' said Philipson cheerfully, opening
the throttle and turning the boat's head north.
We skirted the Quarantine Island on its seaward shore, then headed
west for the estuary of Yangtze River. Philipson steered by the stars
and checked his course roughly by a pocket compass, but he would have
needed to be a pretty lubberly navigator to miss that enormous mark.
Suddenly he looked up.
'Forgive me, Mirlees,' he said. 'The rush of events has caused me to
forget my duties as host. Just go into the cabin and help yourself to a
meal. Ah Sing will give you everything you want.'
Now ravenously hungry, I didn't wait for a second invitation. The cabin
of the launch I found to be a surprisingly roomy apartment, with a
handy collapsible table amidships and broad lockers lining the sides.
Ah Sing was evidently schooled to do more than run engines, for he had
put up a capital collation of fresh cold meats and salad and white
wine, laid out amongst spotless napery and dainty table furniture.
In the roof of the cabin there was an electric globe which Ah Sing
switched on after carefully shutting the after door, and I noticed
mattresses and sheets and pillows rolled up on the ends of the lockers
against bed-time. Altogether, this launch would have been a cosy home
for a holiday, let alone a craft to run for your life in. I fell to,
ate like a savage, then put on a pipe and went aft to relieve Philipson
at the tiller.
All night we sped up into that greatest of China's waterways, the three
of us standing successive tricks of two hours each, and by daybreak
we had pierced the estuary to a point where the shores-a green-brown
line low down on either bow--began to be visible again. Mile after
mile we flung behind us; more and more we seemed to be in a river
rather than a sea. As the vast estuary narrowed, so all the divergent
tracks of up-river traffic drew in together; now we passed within
hail of an occasional steamer, and before long saw away to starboard
the eternal procession of junks as they hugged the north shore to
avoid the down-rolling volume of the stream. Philipson's knowledge of
the river seemed to be exact to the last detail; many of the shore
villages he named as we swept past were quite unknown to me, though I
recognised the Treaty Port of Chinkiang on our starboard bow early in
the afternoon, and wanted no telling when, at the fall of dusk, we drew
near the end of our long stage.
Well throttled down, we crept past Nanking Bund, giving it a wide
berth, then headed straight in for a creek Philipson had chosen as
being secluded enough for our business. Here we halted in midstream
while the pair of us changed into European clothes, and gently paddled
the launch inshore. You couldn't have hit on a better place for a
furtive landing. There was a queer old inn, big, rambling, well tucked
away, with its garden running down to the willow-shrouded bank, and
water enough in the creek to allow of our putting the launch right in,
so that we could step from the cambered roof of her cabin on to the
grey lichened garden wall. We gave out to the native proprietress that
we were merchants down stream from Hankow on a vacation, and engaged a
bedroom each--Ah Sing would sleep on board--and a sitting room in the
wing of the building overlooking the water; and there, after we had
fed, Philipson pushed a box of cigarettes towards me and sat back in
his chair with a strangely serious air.
'I owe you an apology, Mirlees,' he began.
'What on earth for?'
'I am afraid I have misled you.'
He sprang up, glided to the door as noiselessly as a cat, and flung it
open. I had heard nothing myself, but I now caught a glimpse of the
lady of the house withdrawing, feather dust-whisk in hand, to the far
end of the landing.
'Note one,' muttered Philipson, closing the door and resuming his seat.
'That woman needs watching. But, as I was saying, I fear I have not
been altogether frank. I led you to suppose that I was coming here
to escape the consequences of our little brawl last night. That was
only partly true. This Nanking journey is only the first stage of a
much longer one I am making--so long that the distance would probably
surprise you.'
'H'm. _How_ long?'
'Only time can measure the exact length,' said Saunders Philipson, 'but
I should estimate it at nearer three thousand miles than two.'
CHAPTER III
ENTER STEPHEN POYNING
The match I had struck to light my cigarette remained burning in my
fingers till it scorched them. I was waiting for Philipson to amplify
that last disclosure, but he appeared to be thinking of something else;
he had thrown back his head and was listening intently.
'Not a word now,' he whispered.
There was a knock on the door, and the innkeeper entered, laid four
bottles and two glasses on the table between us, and withdrew with that
queer bent-kneed bounce which natives use for a bow.
'Fortunately,' said Philipson, 'this inn has been patronised by
foreigners in the past, for whom the woman keeps a cellar. When we
arrived it was almost my first concern to explore it and take stock.
This is not a vintage claret, I am afraid, but it was the best quality
I could find.'
'You've made up for it in quantity, anyway,' I put in.
Philipson smiled. 'Have no fear,' he said. 'I fully understand that
the burden of consumption will rest upon me. It is, I may say, a
habit of mine to drink freely, and that of the best obtainable, on
all occasions. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to drink large
quantities of good wine.'
I thought this was a pretty naive assertion for a man to make, but
Philipson seemed quite unconscious of anything queer about the
remark he had made. He poured out two glasses, pledged me politely,
and continued to sip with zest all the time he was talking. I fully
expected to see him get soused, but, far from that, beyond causing
him to speak with a little deeper earnestness, the wine left Saunders
Philipson entirely unaffected. His speech remained clear, with a sort
of musical, incisive clearness it always had, and the clarity with
which he unfolded his tale grew, if anything, as the night advanced.
'You are, I understand, pretty hard up at present, Mirlees?' he began,
coolly.
'That's so,' I replied, 'but I don't know how you came to understand
it.'
'Do not trouble to inquire. I know many things about many people that
would surprise them.' And with that he began to prove it, quoting facts
from my career since I had come East that I had thought unknown to
anybody but Ronald Mirlees.
'So you see,' he concluded, with a business-like pull at his glass, 'I
have a fair general idea of your status and antecedents. But it was
only last night I found out about you the fact that really concerns
me.'
'What was that?'
'That you are a comrade to be relied upon,' he said with the sincerest
and most matter-of-fact air in the world, 'and that you are free from
any absurd prejudice against the Asiatic as such.'
'What makes you think that?'
'Your actions have proved that you, at least, do not consider him less
worthy of consideration than a European. How many white men would have
stepped in to see fair play for a Chinese as you did last night?'
'Perhaps not many.'
'Very few indeed at the risk of their own lives. That fact alone would
have singled you out in my mind as the ideal man to help me.'
'What do you want me to do?'
'I want you to partner me in about the biggest adventure two men ever
undertook.'
'And you think I'd be more inclined to say yes because I'm on the
rocks?'
Philipson sat back in his chair with a frank smile. '_Touché!_' he
cried. 'I ought not to have mentioned the state of your finances, if
your being hard up disposes you to accept my offer, so much the better
for me, but candidly, I was not leaning on that. What I want is breadth
of mind, insight, sympathy, imagination. I can find any number of mere
situation hunters, but the man of sympathy is rare. To meet that man at
a moment when he is looking for an enterprise worthy of him I regard as
a piece of unparalleled good fortune. After all, why should you scrape
a livelihood writing for a public which can hardly understand you,
leave alone appreciate, when you might be bidding for real fame with
me?'
'You'd better let me have the story complete, Philipson,' I said.
'With all my heart. You had never heard of me before last night, I take
it?'
'Never.'
'It is not greatly to be wondered at. I have spent many years in the
East, but somehow the European centres never attracted me. Often I