THREE:"Oh, you need not, sirs, I'll unlock the door."On her arrival at Han-kow, the steamer was tied up to the bank in front of the portion of the city occupied by the foreigners. Han-kow is on a broad tongue of land at the junction of the Han with the Yang-tse. On the opposite side of the Han is the city of Han-yang, and over on the other bank of the Yang-tse is Wo-chang. Here is the brief description given by the Doctor in a letter to friends at home:
FORE:"But you agree," said Gregg, unperturbed, "that it might be possible in the future?"
THREE:
FORE:They saw a native ferry-boat at one point, which was heavily laden with a mixed cargo. According to Fred's inventory, the craft contained a horse and half a dozen men, together with a lot of boxes and bundles, which were, as the auctioneers say, too numerous to mention. The head of the horse was firmly held by the groom who had him in charge, as it[Pg 285] would have been a serious matter if the beast had broken away and jumped into the stream with all his load about him. A Japanese ferry-boat does not appear the safest thing in the world, but, somehow, one never hears of accidents with it. If any occur, they must be carefully kept out of the papers.Not slow-spoken did we find the command when we reached the road where they were falling into line. After a brief but vain pursuit, here were almost the haste and tumult of the onset; the sweat of it still reeked on everyone; the ground was strewn with its wreckage and its brute and human dead, and the pools of their blood were still warm. Squarely across the middle of the road, begrimed with dust, and with a dead Federal under him and another on top, lay the big white-footed pacer. At one side the enemy's fallen wounded were being laid in the shade to be left behind. In our ranks, here was a man with an arm in a bloody handkerchief, there one with his head so bound, and yonder a young fellow jesting wildly while he let his garments be cut and a flesh-wound in his side be rudely stanched. Here there was laughter at one who had been saved by his belt-buckle, and here at one who had dropped like dead from his horse, but had caught another horse and charged on. But these details imply a delay where in fact there was none; the moment Ferry spied me he asked "Did he get across?" and while I answered he motioned me into the line. Then he changed it into a column, commanded silence, and led us across country eastward. For those few wounded who would not give up their places in the ranks it was a weary ten miles that brought us swiftly back to a point within five miles of that Clifton which we had left in the morning. And yet a lovely ten miles it was, withal. You would hardly have known this tousled crowd for the same dandy crew that had smiled so flippantly upon me at sunrise, though they smiled as flippantly now with faces powder-blackened, hair and eyelashes matted and gummed with sweat and dust, and shoulders and thighs caked with grime. Yet to Ned Ferry as well as to me--I saw it in his eye every time he looked at them--these grimy fellows did more to beautify those ten miles than did June woods beflowered and perfumed with magnolia, bay and muscadine, or than slant sunlight in glade or grove.
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THREE:And how do you know that? he asked.
FORE:
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THREE:It was certainly very odd. The doctor was so struck by something altogether wrong about the figure, something so suggestive of a pathological phenomenon, that he almost forgot his annoyance and remained watching it with an unlighted cigarette between his lips.Yes, you were quite right. You like being right, dont you?
FORE:The sailors on the junk were very prompt in obeying orders, but they went about everything with an air of coolness which one does not always see on an American vessel. Ordinarily they pulled at ropes as though they would not hurt either the ropes or themselves; but it was observed that when the captain gave an order for anything, there was no attempt at shirking. One of the sailors stood at the sheet of the mainsail, and while he held on and waited for directions his mate was quietly smoking and seated on the deck. When the order came for changing the position of the sail, the pipe was instantly dropped and the work was attended to; when the work was over, the pipe was resumed as if nothing had happened. Evidently[Pg 275] the sailors were not much affected by the fashions that the foreigners had introduced, for they were all dressed in the costume that prevailed previous to the treaty of Commodore Perry, and before a single innovation had been made in the way of navigation. The captain of the junk looked with disdain upon a steamer that was at anchor not far from where his craft was obliged to pass, and evidently he had no very high opinion of the barbarian invention. He was content with things as they were, and the ship that had borne his ancestors in safety was quite good enough for him and his comrades.He came opposite the house, and his heart leaped, for there was a light behind her window-blind. He had known there would be, and he almost shouted for exultation at the fulfilment of his anticipation. Of course she had not gone: she was waiting just for this.
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