CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
"CHINESE MEN-OF-WAR."
Stan Lynn lay holding his breath and straining his ears, till he uttereda hoarse gasp, and all the while the murmur of voices and the plashingof an oar came nearer and nearer. Then the sounds were so close that heraised himself a little to look round for some hiding-place in thedepths of the vessel, and then dared not stir. But all at once, just ashe felt that the boat must be alongside, relief came in a hearty laughuttered by one of the boatmen, the plash, plash, plash of the oar grewmore distant, and he let nerve and muscle relax till he felt limp andhelpless ready to do nothing but lie panting amongst the rotten wood,resting and trying to recover his failing powers.
The light overhead increased, and as his eyes wandered here and there hecould see bright cracks and rifts in the deck and high up in the sides,all evidences that he had found a sanctuary in some dilapidated,half-rotten junk which had been drawn close inshore ready for breakingup, its services being evidently at an end.
The morning grew brighter, and fresh sounds of plashing came near,tempting him to creep through the half-darkness to where the firstgleams of the morning sun streamed through a rift in the side. Uponreaching it and applying his eyes, he found that he could command a goodview of the river to right, left, and across, with the water becominganimated, boats large and small passing and repassing, the oppositeshore waking up, and smoke beginning to rise from the house-boats mooredclose to the bank, and all the morning business of a great cityappearing around.
If only the old junk were left alone, Stan felt that he might lie inhiding till night. There might be a possibility of his marking downsome boat, and as soon as it was dark wading or swimming to it, when, ifhe could loosen it from its moorings and secure the mast, sails, oroars, escape would be simplicity itself. But, as the lad argued, therewere so many _ifs_.
"But I oughtn't to grumble," he muttered. "I have got out of theprison, and I am here in a capital hiding-place where nobody is likelyto come."
Just about the time when he had come to this conclusion a waft of somepeculiar odour from food being cooked seemed to float down the river andreach his nostrils, producing a sensation that was repeated again andagain with increasing violence, till the poor fellow uttered a low moanof misery.
"If this goes on I shan't be able to bear it," he muttered; and then,setting his teeth hard, he groaned out through them, "I must--I must.Oh, what a coward I am! I've only got to wait till it's dark, and thensurely I can land and find something somewhere."
But even as he tried to console himself with these words, he felt moreand more hopeless, not seeing for a moment where he was to search, andall the time suffering more and more keenly.
For in all directions smoke was rising from the hundreds upon hundredsof house-boats that lined the shores, as well as from the manyone-storied houses clustering together, and a strange mingling of themost maddening scents came floating around--literally maddening to onewhose sole sustenance for many hours had been a couple of bananas and apiece of cake.
It was all so horribly civilised, too. The fugitive was in far-awayAsia, but his nostrils were assailed with the steam of fragrant tea,freshly roasted coffee, newly baked bread, frying fish, and appetisingbacon.
No wonder the starving lad called it maddening as he crouched down inthe darkness and tried to think of other things.
Before long, however, he had something else to take his attention, for aprocession of nearly a dozen huge junks came slowly down the stream,each with its leering, painted eyes and gay dragon-like gildedornamentations.
They were full of men armed with spear, fork, and trident, besides inparts bristling with matchlock barrels, while fore and aft the watchercould see that they carried big service-guns.
"Chinese men-of-war, full of soldiers!" Stan mentally exclaimed; butonly to alter his opinion directly, for he had some little experience ofthe Government troops, and knew that the men all wore a grotesque kindof uniform.
They were not merchant-vessels, he thought, for though many of thetrading-junks carried armed men, those before his eyes were out of allproportion.
"Could they be pirates?" he asked himself; but the sight of the leadingjunk casting anchor in midstream--an example followed by the rest--putan end to his surmises, for they were evidently at peace with the peoplein the vessels about them and on shore, many landing and mingling withthe men who came to the sides and crowded in boats about the anchoredvessels to supply them with food.
So much was going on all about him in this latter way that every now andthen Stan felt that, come what might, he must land and seek forsomething, even if it was only a loaf of bread, to appease his hunger;but he knew it meant surrendering his liberty, for there would be acrowd round him at once; while doubtless by this time it was known thatthe foreign devil had escaped:
Stan watched till the morning was well advanced, longing for the nightto come even though the sun was not yet at its height, while now a freshagony assailed him; the rugged deck overhead began to get hotter andhotter, and the air about him suffocating, till at last he felt that atall hazards he must crawl up and trust to his not being seen while hecrept to some spot where the remains of the lofty stern would act thedouble part of shading him from the sun and the curious eyes of thosewho passed.
There are limits to human endurance. Stan had not slept for above anhour during the previous night, and the bodily and mental toil he hadgone through were tremendous. Hence it was that when his sufferingswere at the worst, the faintness produced by his hunger and the heatmore than he could bear, a half-delirious kind of insensibility stoleover him--half-stupor, half-sleep--which tided him over the hottest partof the day, rendering him oblivious to all that was going on, till heawoke suddenly, to find, to his amazement, that it was twilight in hishiding-place, and on looking out through a rift he could see the riverglowing like blood from the reflection of the sunset clouds.
In his excitement at the beauty of the scene which met his eyes lowerdown the river, he clapped his hands together, and had hard work torefrain from shouting aloud, merely standing gazing out through the openrift in the planking, and feeling giddy now in his joy.
Hunger and heat were forgotten, and he gazed out till his eyes grew dimand he had to make an effort to avoid yielding to the giddiness andswimming which attacked his head.
Strange that one in such a terrible position should feel such ecstasyupon seeing a glorious vision in the sunset beauties of that far-easternriver? Not at all. Stan Lynn was in no sentimental mood to be moved tosuch excitement by a few orange-and-gold clouds reflected in the water,or the gay aspect of the thronging people haunting the great warlikejunks still moored higher up. Stan's beautiful vision was something farmore simple. It was that of a lad of about his own age seated in a_sampan_ which he had moored about a hundred yards lower down thestream. There he was, sitting alone, unnoticing and unnoticed save bythe watcher in the crumbling junk's hull, who saw him pull up a silveryfish, and then, after putting it into a basket between his feet, proceedto rebait his hook and cast it in again.
Was it hunger, then, which produced a longing for a few raw fish? Againnothing of the kind. As Stan's eyes lighted upon that small boat, whichseemed to have a little mast and matting sail laid with the oars andpole projecting over the stern, the idea had struck him that this wasexactly the kind of boat for which he longed. Could he but gainpossession thereof and get rid of the boy who was fishing, whileretaining his lines and bait, the _hong_, no matter how many days'journey distant, was within easy reach; and hence when Stan clapped hishands it was after coming to the determination that he would have thatboat at all costs.
But how?