Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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“I should have had the right, and it would have been my duty, to follow you, as I certainly should have done.”
“No,” said Kin-Fo: “I would rather suffer a thousand deaths than expose you to a single peril. Farewell, Le-ou! farewell!” And with tearful eyes he gently unclasped the arms that would have retained him.
That very day Kin-Fo, with Craig and Fry, followed by Soun, whose unlucky fate it was never to have a moment’s rest, left Pekin, and proceeded to Tong-Tcheou. The journey took only an hour.
After thinking the matter over, they decided that the journey by land, through a rather unsafe province, presented very serious difficulties. If the only object was to reach the Great Wall in the northern part of the capital, whatever dangers there might be in a journey of one hundred and sixty leagues, it would have been worth their while to have faced. The port of Fou-Ning was not in the north, but in the east; and, if they went there by sea, they would gain time, and be safe. They would reach it in four or five days, and, when there, could consider what was best to do next.
But would they find a ship about to sail for Fou-Ning? They must first ascertain this from the maritime agents of Tong-Tcheou.
On this occasion chance favored Kin-Fo, to whom misfortune had unremittingly dealt her blows. A boat, freighted for Fou-Ning, was waiting at the mouth of the Pei-ho.
There was no course but to take one of those fast steamboats which sail the river, descend as far as its estuary, and embark on the ship in question.
Craig and Fry asked for only an hour for their preparations; and they employed that hour in purchasing all the known life-preservers, from the primitive cork belt to the waterproof floating-suit of Capt. Boyton, for Kin-Fo was still worth two hundred thousand dollars. He was going on the water without paying an extra premium, because he insured against every risk. Now some catastrophe might happen. It was necessary to provide for every emergency; and, rest assured, this was done.
On the 26th of June, therefore, Kin-Fo, Craig-Fry, and Soun took passage on the “Pei-tang,” and descended the Pei-ho. The curves of this river are so sharp, that a passage over it takes exactly twice as long as if it extended in a straight line from its mouth to Tong-Tcheou; but it has canals, and is therefore navigable for ships of quite heavy tonnage. Its business is also considerable, and much more important than that of the main route, which runs almost parallel to it.
The “Pei-tang” descended swiftly between the buoys of the channel, beating the yellowish waters of the river with its paddles, and stirring up the numerous canals on both shores. The high tower of a pagoda beyond Tong-Tcheou was soon passed, when it disappeared at the angle of a sharp turn.
At this distance the Pei-ho was not very broad, and flowed along between sandy banks, then by agricultural hamlets, with orchards and blooming hedges. Several important villages, scattered here and there in the midst of a wooded country, then appeared,—Matao, He-Si-Vou, Nane-Tsaë, and Yang-Tsoune, which the tide reaches.
Tien-Sing soon came in sight. Time was lost here; for it was necessary to have the eastern bridge opened, which unites the two shores of the river, and to wind about, not without some difficulty, among the hundreds of ships with which the port is crowded.
This is done with considerable difficulty, and costs more than one boat the cables which keep her in the current. These were cut without regard to the damage, which caused confusion and a blockade of the boats, such as might have kept a port-officer busy, had there been one at Tien-Sing.
If we were to state that Craig and Fry, who kept a stricter watch than ever on this voyage, were never more than a footstep away from their charge, we really should not exaggerate.
Their chief anxiety was no longer concerning the philosopher Wang, with whom an arrangement might easily be made if he could be reached, but concerning Lao-Shen, the Tai-ping whom they did not know, on account of which he was all the more formidable.
They ought to feel safe, since they were going to him; but who could say that he had not already started in pursuit of his victim? How could they keep out of his way, or get word to him? Thus pondered the anxious Craig and Fry, who saw an assassin in every passenger on the “Pei-tang.” They no longer ate or slept or lived.
If Kin-Fo, Craig, and Fry were very seriously troubled, Soun, on his part, did not fail to be very anxious. The mere thought of going on the water made him seasick, and he grew paler and paler as the “Pei-Tang” approached the Gulf of Pe-che-lee. His nose grew sharp, and his mouth contracted; and yet the water was so quiet, that there was not the slightest motion to the boat.
What would it be when he had to endure the choppy waves of a narrow sea, which causes a boat to roll so much more?
“You have never been to sea?” Craig asked him.
“Never.”
“And you don’t like it?” said Fry.
“No.”
“I command you to hold up your head,” added Craig.
“My head?”
“And not to open your mouth,” added Fry.
“My mouth?”
Thereupon Soun gave the two agents to understand that he preferred not to speak; and he walked off to the middle of the boat, and, as he went, cast over the already widening river that melancholy look of persons predestined to the rather ridiculous trial of seasickness.
The landscape in the valley which borders the river was of a different character. The right shore, which was steep, contrasted with the left, on whose long beach extended a line of foam left by the light surf. Beyond lay vast fields of sorghum, maize, wheat, and millet. Throughout China—a mother of a family who has so many millions of children to feed—there is not a patch of ground capable of cultivation that is neglected; and everywhere there are canals to water the ground, and a kind of rude water-machine of bamboo, which draws and gives out great quantities of water. Here and there, in the villages of yellowish mud, rose clusters of trees, among which were some old apple-trees fit to adorn a plain of Normandy.
Numerous fishermen were going to and fro along the shore, making use of sea-ravens instead of hunting-dogs, or rather fishing-dogs. At a sign from their master, these birds dive into the water, and bring up the fish which they cannot swallow, owing to a ring placed around their throat half-way up, which nearly strangles them. There were ducks, crows, ravens, magpies, and sparrow-hawks, which the screeching of the steamboat sent flying from the tall grass.
Though the main route along the river appeared to be deserted, the travel on the Pei-ho did not lessen, and there were crowds of boats of every description sailing up and down. There were junks of war with mounted cannon, whose roofing formed a concave from fore to aft, and which were managed by a double row of oars, or by paddles worked by men; custom-house junks with two masts, with sails like those of a shallop, at an angle, and ornamented at stern and prow with heads or sails of fantastic figures; junks of commerce of considerable tonnage, huge shells, which, though loaded with the most precious products of the Celestial Empire, are able to brave the typhoon in the surrounding seas; travelling junks, being rowed or towed along according to the tide, and which are made for people who have time to lose; junks of the mandarins, small pleasure-yachts, towed by canoes; sampans of every kind, with sails of braided rushes, and the smallest of which, guided by young women with an oar in their hands and a child on their back, deserve their name, which signifies three planks; and, finally, rafts, which are really floating villages with cabins and orchards and gardens, and formed of immense pieces of floating timber from some Mandshurian forest, the whole of which the woodmen must have felled.
But, as one went on, the villages became more scattered along the shore; and there were not more than twenty between Tien-Sing and Takou, at the mouth of the river. Dense clouds of smoke rose from the factories on its banks, and, mingling with those from the steamboat, obscured the atmosphere.
Evening came, preceded by the June twilight, which is very long in that latitude;