A Dinner Party at Gin-Sin
URING the past months great events had taken place in the ancient empire of Porsslania. Many years earlier the various churches had sent missionaries to that benighted land to reclaim its inhabitants from barbarism and heathenism. These emissaries were not received with the enthusiastic gratitude which they deserved, and some of the Porsslanese had the impudence to assert that they were a civilized people when their new teachers had been naked savages. They proved their barbarism, however, by indulging in the most unreasonable prejudices against a foreign religion, and when cornered in argument they would say to the missionaries, "How would you like us to convert your people to our religion?" an answer so illogical that it demonstrates either their bad faith or the low development of their intellects. The missionaries of some of the sects, by the help of their governments, gradually obtained a good deal of land and at the same time a certain degree of civil jurisdiction. The foreign governments, wishing to bless the natives with temporal as well as celestial advantages, followed up the missionary pioneers with traders in cheap goods, rum, opium, and fire-arms, and finally endeavored to introduce their own machinery and factory system, which had already at home raised all the laboring classes to affluence, put an end to poverty, and realized the dream of the prophets of old. The Porsslanese resolutely resisted all these benevolent enterprises and doggedly expressed their preference for their ancient customs. In order to overcome this unreasonable opposition and assure the welfare of the people, the various Powers from time to time seized the great ports of the Empire. The fertile diplomacy of the courts found sufficient grounds for this. Most frequently the pretext was an attack upon a missionary or even a case of cold-blooded murder, and it became a proverb among the Porsslanese that it takes a province to bury a missionary. Finally, all the harbors of the Empire were in the hands of foreigners, who used this advantageous position to confer blessings thick and fast upon the reluctant population, who richly deserved, as a punishment, to be left to themselves. At last a revolutionary party sprang up among this deluded people, claiming that their own Government was showing too much favor to foreign religions and foreign machines. The Government did not put down this revolt. Some said that it did not have the power and that the provinces were practically independent of the central authority. Others whispered that the Imperial Court secretly favored the rebels. However this may be, the Fencers, as the rebels were called from their skill with the native sword, succeeded without much difficulty in getting possession of the imperial city and imprisoning the foreign embassies and legations in the enclosure of the Anglian Embassy. The Imperial Court meanwhile fled to a distant city and left the entire control of the situation in the hands of the Fencers. The peril of the legations was extreme. They were cut off completely from the coast, which was many miles distant, and the foreign newspaper correspondents amused themselves by sending detailed accounts of the manner in which they had been tortured and murdered. The principal men among the Porsslanese assured the Powers that the legations were safe, but they were not believed. A great expedition was organized in which all the great Powers took a part. The forts near the sea were stormed and taken. The intermediate city of Gin-Sin was besieged and finally fell, and the forces advanced to the gates of the Capital. Before long they succeeded in taking possession of the great city. The Fencers fled in confusion, and at least two-thirds of the population fled with them, fearing the vengeance of the foreigners. The legations were saved, after one ambassador had been shot by an assassin. The city was divided into districts, each of which was turned over to the safe-keeping of one of the foreign armies, and the object of the expedition had been accomplished. In the mean time many foreign residents, including many missionaries in various parts of the Empire, had been murdered, the inhabitants not recognizing the obvious fact that they and their countrymen were their best friends.
Affairs had reached this position when orders came to Havilla for Colonel Jinks to proceed to join the army in Porsslania, where he would be placed in command of a regiment. His fidus Achates, Cleary, had also received permission from his journal to accompany him, and the two set sail on a transport which carried details of troops. It is true that these troops could ill be spared from the Cubapines, as the country was still in the hands of the natives with the exception of here and there a strip of the seacoast, and there was much illness among the troops, many being down with fever and worse diseases. But it was necessary for the Government to make as good a showing in Porsslania as the other Powers, and the reenforcements had to go.
It was on a hot summer day that Sam and Cleary looked over the rail of the transport as they watched the troops come on board. It was a remarkable scene, for a crowd of native women were on the shore, weeping and arguing with the men and preventing them from getting into the boats.
"Who on earth are they?" asked Sam.
"It's a pretty mean practical joke," said Cleary. "That regiment has been up in the interior, and they've all had wives up there. They buy them for five dollars apiece. And the Governor of the province there, a friendly native, has sent more than a hundred of the women down here, to get rid of them, I suppose, and now the poor things want to come along with their young men. Some of them have got babies, do you see?"
After a long and noisy delay the captain of the transport, assisted by the officers of the regiment in question, persuaded the women to stay behind, giving a few coppers to each and making the most reckless and unabashed promises of return. The steamer then weighed anchor and was soon passing the sunken Castalian fleet.
"The Court at Whoppington has just allowed prize-money to the officers and men for sinking those ships," said Cleary. "They didn't get as much as they wanted, but it's a good round sum."
"I'm glad they will get some remuneration for their hard work," said Sam.
"Do you see that native sloop over there?" said Cleary. "She's a pirate boat we caught down in the archipelago. She had sunk a merchant vessel loaded with opium or something of the kind, very valuable. They'd got her in shallow water and had killed some of the crew, and the rest swam ashore, and they were dividing up the swag when they were caught. They would have had I don't know how many dollars apiece. They were all hanged."
"Serves them right," said Sam. "We must put down piracy. Good-by, Havilla," he added, waving his hat toward the capital. "It makes me feel happy to think that I have actually ended the war by capturing Gomaldo."
"Not much!" cried Cleary. "Didn't you hear the news this morning? The Cubapinos are twice as active as ever. They're rising everywhere."
Not many days later, and after an uneventful voyage, the transport sailed into the mouth of the Hai-Po River and came to anchor off the ruins of the Porsslanese forts. Colonel Jinks had orders to proceed at once to Gin-Sin, and he left with Cleary on a river steamer. They were much struck by the utter desolation of the country. There were no signs of life, but here and there the smoking ruins of a town showed where human beings had been. They noticed something floating in the water with a swarm of flies hovering over it.
"Good heavens! it's a corpse," said Cleary. "It's a native. That's a handsome silk jacket, and it doesn't look like a soldier's either. Look at that vulture. It's sweeping down on it."
The vulture circled round in the air, coming close to the body, but did not touch it.
"It has had enough to eat already," said an Anglian passenger who was standing near them. "Did you ever see such a fat bird? You'll see plenty of bodies before long. Do you observe those vultures ahead there? You'll find floating bodies wherever they are."
"I suppose they are the bodies of soldiers," said Sam.
"No, indeed, not all of them by any means. These Porsslanese must be stamped out like vipers. I'm thankful to say most of the armies are doing their duty. They don't give any quarter to native soldiers, and they despatch the wounded too. That's the only way to treat them, and they don't feel pain the way we do. In fact, they rather like it. The Tutonians are setting a good example; they shoot their prisoners. I saw them shoot about seventy. They tied them together four by four by their pigtails and then shot them. It's best, tho, to avoid taking prisoners; that's what most of them do."
"But you say these bodies are not all soldiers," said Cleary.
"No, of course not. You see the Mosconians kill any natives they please. Then those who are out at night are killed as a matter of course, and those who won't work for the soldiers naturally have to be put out of the way. It's the only way to enforce discipline. Look at these bodies now."
Corpses were now coming down the river one after another. Each had its attendant swarm of flies, and vultures soared in flocks in the air. The river was yellow with mud, and the air oppressively hot and heavy. Now and then a whiff of putrid air was blown across the deck. The three men watched the bodies drifting past, brainless skulls, eyeless sockets, floating along many of them as if they were swimming on their backs. "It is really a fine example of the power of civilization," said the stranger. "I don't approve of everything that has been done, by any means. Some of the armies have treated women rather badly, but no English-speaking soldiers have done that. In fact, your army has hardly been up to the average in effectiveness. You and the Japs have been culpably lenient, if you will permit me to say so."
"We are only just starting out on our career as a military nation," said Sam. "You must not expect too much of us at first. We'll soon get our hand in. As for the Japs, why they're heathen. They can hardly be expected to behave like Christians. But we were afraid that the war was over and that we should find nothing to do."
"The war over! What an absurdity! I have lived in Porsslania for over thirty years and I ought to know something about it by now. There's an army of at least forty thousand Fencers over there to the northwest and another twenty-five thousand in the northeast. The Tutonians are the only people who understand it. Their first regiments have just arrived, and they are going to do something. They say the Emperor is coming himself, and he will put an end to this state of affairs. He is not a man to stand rebellion. All we can say is that we have made a good beginning. We have laid the whole province waste, and it will be a long time before they forget it."
The journey was hot and tedious; the desolated shore, the corpses and vultures, and an occasional junk with square-rigged sails and high poop were the only things upon which to fix the eye. When at last our travelers arrived at the city of Gin-Sin, Sam learned that his regiment had proceeded to the Capital and was in camp there, and it would be impossible for him to leave until the following day. He stopped with Cleary at the principal hotel. The city was in a semi-ruined condition, but life was already beginning to assume its ordinary course. The narrow streets, hung with banners and lanterns and cabalistic signs, were full of people. Barbers and scribes were plying their trades in the open air, and war was not always in sight. Sam's reputation had preceded him, and he had scarcely gone to his room when he received an invitation from a leading Anglian merchant to dine with him that evening. Cleary was anxious to go too, and it so happened that he had letters of introduction to the gentleman in question. He made his call at once and was duly invited.
There were a dozen or more guests at dinner, all of them men. Indeed, there were few white women left at Gin-Sin. With the exception of Sam and Cleary all the guests were Anglians. There was the consul-general, a little man with a gray beard, a tall, bald-headed, gray-mustached major-general in command of the Anglian forces at Gin-Sin, two distinguished missionaries of many years' experience, several junior officers of the army, and a merchant or two. When dinner was announced they all went in, each taking precedence according to his station. Sam knew nothing of such matters, and was loath to advance until his host forced him to. He found a card with his name on it at the second cover on the right from his host. On his right was the card of a young captain. The place on his left and immediately on the right of the host bore no card, and the consul-general and the major-general both made for it. The former got there first, but the military man, who was twice his size, came into violent collision with him, pushed him away and captured the seat, while the consul-general was obliged to retreat and take the seat on the left of his host. The whole party pretended very hard to have noticed nothing unusual.
"Rather odd performance, eh?" whispered the captain to Sam. "You see how it is. Old Folsom says he takes precedence because he represents the Crown, but the general says that's all rot, for the consul's only a commercial agent and a K.C.Q.X. Now the general is a G.C.Q.X., and he says that gives him precedence. Nobody can settle it, and so they have to fight it out every time they meet."
"I see," said Sam. "I don't know anything about such things, but I should think that the general was clearly in the right. He could hardly afford to let the army be overridden."
"Quite so," said the captain. "I don't suppose you know these people," he added.
"Not one of them, except my friend, Mr. Cleary. We only arrived to-day."
"The general is a good deal of a fellow," said the captain. "I was with him in Egypt and afterward in South Africa."
"Were you, indeed?" cried Sam. "Do tell me all about those wars. They were such great affairs."
"Yes, they were. Not much like this business here. Nothing could stop us in the Sudan, and when we dug up the Mahdi and threw his body away there was nothing left of the rebellion. I believe the best way to settle things here would be to dig up somebody—Confusus, for instance. If there's anything of that kind to be done our army could do it in style."
"It must be a very effective means of subjugating people," said Sam.
"Yes, and would you believe it? the natives objected to it. They asked us what we would think of it if they dug up our Queen. Just think of it! The impudent niggers! As if there was any similarity in the two cases."
"Outrageous," said Sam.
"And even at home and in Parliament, when our general was sitting in the gallery hearing them discuss how much money they would give him, some of the members protested against our digging the old fraud up. It was a handsome thing for the general to go there and face them down."
"It showed great tact, and I may say—delicacy," said Sam.
"Yes, indeed," said the captain. "That's his strong point."
"But I suppose that the war in South Africa was even greater," said Sam.
"Rather. Why we captured four thousand of those Boers with only forty thousand men. No wonder all Anglia went wild over it. Lord Bobbets went home and they gave him everything they could think of in the way of honors. It was a fitting tribute."
"The war is quite over there now, isn't it?" asked Sam.
"Yes," answered the captain, somewhat drily. "And so is yours in the Cubapines, I understand."
"Yes," said Sam. "I think the Cubapine war and the South African war are about equally over."
"Do you see that lieutenant there between your friend and the parson?"
"Yes."
"He got the Victorious Cross in South Africa. He saved a sergeant's life under fire. You see his cross?"
"How interesting!" said Sam. "He must be a hero."
