A FAIRY HISTORY OF JAPAN.
The shop in which Ned had discovered the object of his search was well down toward the water front, and the course of the sailor was now toward the center of the city. The two passed the customs quarters and the official offices of the city—Yokohama is the old-time treaty port of Japan—and so on to wide streets lined with shops, still alight, though the hour was getting late.
Such quaint little shops Ned had never seen before, and more than once he stopped to look at lacquered ware of rare quality, bronze work, and fancy embroidery. Directly the sailor led the way from the wide streets to the old-time narrow ones in the native quarter, which were not far from the old canal which virtually makes an island of the town.
After proceeding, with hesitating steps, down a particularly dark and foul-smelling street, the sailor paused at a corner, glanced up at a window in a tea-chest of a house which stood flush with the alley-like thoroughfare, and began the ascent of a flight of stairs which swayed under his weight.
On the corner below the tea-house was still open, and the invariable graphophone was grinding out some indistinguishable tune. When the two passed up the dark stairway an attendant slipped out of the public room, walked to the foot of the stairs, and observed the two mounting figures. When the sailor opened the door to as miserable a room as the sun of the Orient ever shone on, the attendant slipped back to the public room and conferred with a keen-eyed, slender man who sat there—a man garbed in the native costume, but bearing in manner and face the stamp of a European!
The sailor closed the door of his room and set a match to a candle which he found on a shelf hanging to a wall. There was nothing in the room, nothing but mats, as it seemed to Ned. There was no table, no chair. Only the mats to sit on and sleep on. The walls were of paper, and Ned saw with pleasure that the whole front of the room, which faced the alley, might be rolled up at will!
The sailor dropped on the floor and fumbled in his clothing for a cigarette.
"Have you got the makings?" he asked, giving up the search at last.
Ned shook his head.
"I have need of all my wits," he said, "and never befuddle my brain with tobacco. It's the curse of the age."
"I've got to have a cigarette," the sailor said. "I'll go crazy if I don't have one! I won't sleep a wink, either!" he whined.
Ned handed him a dime and pointed to the door.
"Go and buy some," he said, knowing that the fellow would be in fighting mood if he was not supplied with the narcotic. "Come back here and smoke."
The sailor looked at the dime sorrowfully, scorning the small piece of silver because it wasn't a dollar, as Ned concluded—pitying himself, too, because it would not buy what he wanted most—liquor!
Ned handed him a quarter and bade him hasten back. With the man's nerves crying out for accustomed stimulants, the boy knew that he could do nothing with him. He must get him into a companionable mood if possible. He dreaded the night, which seemed about to be passed in the fumes of tobacco and liquor, but there was no help for it that he could see.
Presently the sailor came back with a package of cigarettes, gin in a bottle, and a jug of water. He arranged the articles in a half-circle about him when he sat down on a mat. It seemed pitiful to the boy, the sailor's dependence on the nerve-destroying things he looked upon as necessary to his comfort. Only for these, only for their constant use for years, the man might have been honored and respected and possessed a home among his kind instead of being an object of contempt in a foreign port.
"Here's to the Flowery Kingdom!" the sailor said, the bottle at his lips. "Here's life to you, not existence! What's your name?" he added, stopping in the midst of a grin which wrinkled his dissipated face horribly to cast a glance of suspicion on the boy sitting in pity before him. "My name," he added, without waiting for Ned to reply to his question, "is Brown—B-R-O-W-N."
"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Brown," Ned said. "One is always glad to meet Americans in a place like this. Now," he went on, resolved to have his talk out before the sailor became too befuddled to talk coherently, "you spoke about wanting to get back to New York. Well, the Fultonia leaves for New York by way of Manila, to-morrow afternoon, and I may be able to arrange a passage for you. I'm a friend of the captain's."
"Not on your life! Not by way of Manila!" the sailor cried. "I wouldn't go back to Manila for all the gold there is in Standard Oil! I'm going to lose myself on a wind-jammer! Manila's unhealthy for me!" he added with a wink.
"I wasn't thinking of remaining there," said Ned. "I'm going back to New York."
"Wind-jammer for mine!" Brown insisted. "Why," he added, swinging his bottle of gin in the air, "do you know that I'd like to get inside a boat with wide white wings and sail about the Orient forever! The more I mix with Englishmen and Americans the more I think of the Japs. It was an American that threw me down to-night. I did something for him, and—"
The sailor paused, gave a slight shiver, and looked down at his right hand. Then he brushed it, as if trying to wipe something away that was obstinate and hard to get rid of—some stain like the stain of blood!
"And he left you stranded?" Ned continued "I'm glad I happened along," he added, not caring to say how glad he was, nor how much the meeting might mean to him!
"I did his dirty work!" the sailor went on, his tongue loosened by the liquor. "I did for him what I never did before, what I never will do again! And he went back on me! He threw me down! I'd like to meet him on Roosevelt street, New York! I'd provide against his throwing anyone else down!"
"What did you do for him?" Ned asked, with as innocent a manner as he could assume.
"That's my business!" Brown answered, with a sly wink. "That's between the two of us! If I had him here I'd cut his heart out, and show you how black it is."
The sailor was fast coming under the influence of the gin, and Ned knew that he must keep him talking or he would drop off into drugged slumber. He sounded him on half a dozen subjects, intending to lead him back to the man's connection with the plot, but he would not talk until the subject of Japan was brought up. He seemed to be infatuated with the Flowery Kingdom.
"I know the history of Japan," he said, with a brightening of the eyes. "In the beginning, the world was like an egg in shape. The white became heaven, and the yolk became earth. You may read about it yourself in the book called "The Way of the Gods." Then two Gods descended from heaven, and a son called Omikami was born to them, and his body was so bright that he flew up into the sky and became the sun.
"What do you think of that? He became the sun. And a daughter was born to the two Gods, and she became the moon. The moon you see when the sun goes down. Then the children that were born after these became strong and founded the Empire of Japan. And the original inhabitants were hairy on the body and ate raw meat. You see I know all about it!"
"And Japan may in time acquire all Asia," Ned said, desiring to lead the sailor back to within reaching distance of the subject he was most interested in. "In time the Philippines may belong to Japan."
The sailor winked at Ned mysteriously and flourished his bottle of gin.
"I know!" he cried. "I know! If Japan gets the Philippines she'll have to fight a thousand tribes and the monkeys in the trees! She'll have to fight also the crocodiles in the brooks. 'I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul—cause thy two eyes, like stars, to start from their spheres, and thy—.' Say," he said with a laugh, "what do you think of me anyway? You think I've got a jag on, don't you. Never was soberer in my innocent life!"
"If you'll describe this man that threw you down," Ned said, anxious to have done with the by-play, "and tell me where to look for him, I'll go and see what I can do for you. How much was he to give you?"
"Barrels!"
The sailor paused and stretched his hands above his head, the bottle glistening in one of them. "He was to pile the greenbacks up so high—for me to wade in, and wipe my feet on. You can't find him."
There was a stealthy movement on the stairs, and a movement not so stealthy at the door. Ned heard a hand moving over the bamboo, and made ready for a spring. He had no idea who the visitor might be, but his manner of approach showed him to be no friend of the sailor's.
There were no more sounds at the door, and Ned glanced casually in that direction. The candle on the wobbling shelf gave forth little light, and that seemed to grow more shadows than rays of illumination. The shadows seemed deepest and most uncertain of form at the door, but, at the center of the odd-shape panel in the middle of the door he thought he saw a malevolent eye looking forth into the room.
He wondered if an eye was really there, or if, his imagination stirred by the weird scene and the fairy history of Japan which the sailor had repeated, he was seeing things not present to the senses!
In a moment there was no doubt, for the malevolent eye left the aperture and there was again a fumbling at the door. Ned made no motion, but sat as if unconscious of any intruder being there. He knew that the person at the door was there to watch the sailor, to see that he did not talk too much, to see that he did not leave Yokohama until the trap of treason had been fully set and baited.
There was no doubt in the mind of the boy now that he had found the man he had set out in quest of. Of course the man who had planned the conspiracy, who was doubtless assisting the tribes to arms and ammunition by way of the unpatrolled China Sea, was the one he aimed to reach in time. The sailor was only a link in the chain which led to the object sought.
The mind of the boy was not at that time much concerned with thoughts for his own safety although he could never be in more deadly peril than he was at that moment when he was looked at through the opening in the door. His one idea was to get a view of the spy, and with this object in view he arose and stepped toward the door.
"You're getting sleepy," he said to the sailor, "and I'll go out and get a little fresh air while you sleep. I shall not be far away."
"You're a good fellow," Brown cried, already half asleep. "When I get out of this I'll tell you something that'll make your fortune. Bring back another bottle of gin. Thish mos' gone!"
Ned stood by the door for a moment in order to give the spy time to get back to the bottom of the stairs. He could see no profit in a struggle in that place, and there was certain to be one if he permitted the spy to know that his movements had been observed.
Finally he heard soft footsteps on the stairs. He waited only an instant after this before passing out into the narrow hall. The staircase was clear, but a door opening into it from the public room below was open and a broad zone of light lay on the floor of the passage and on the wall.
Ned stood in the doorway and looked out on the street, now and then turning his eyes in the direction of the public room. At a table well toward the back end of the place he saw the man he was looking for. He was seated at a table with two men who appeared to be American sailors. While he stood there, wondering at the inefficiency of the disguise the man wore, at the nerve which prompted him to wear that fragment of native costume when his face, manner and accent bespoke the cultured American another sailor came swaggering into the place.
This sailor was unquestionably intoxicated. He swayed back and forth as he walked, and would have fallen to the floor at the very door only for the restraining hand of a boy who accompanied him. Immediately on his appearance waiters rushed forward to attend to his wants, to give him a chair and a table, and to pay him all sorts of little attentions.
In such places in all foreign ports the American sailor is the easy mark. He drinks—when he drinks at all—until he is past all wisdom regarding the expenditure of money, with the result that he literally throws it away. In the appearance of this sailor the attendants saw a rich harvest, not only for the place but for themselves.
But Ned saw more than this. He saw the freckled face and sparkling eyes of Jimmie McGraw, steering the drunken sailor to the table pointed out for him. The boy was in high humor, for he joked with the blundering sailor, and instead of sitting down at the table—brought into use there because the foreigners insist on not drinking sitting on the floor—he sat down on it and swung his feet downward.
"Look at the kid!" one of the men at the table Ned was watching said. "Looks like he was on South Clark street, Chicago."
"Don't get gay, now!" Jimmie retorted. "I'm playin' I'm a tug towin' this 'ere sailorman to bed."
"You've got a job on your hands," the other said, and then the three at the table bent their heads forward and talked in whispers. Now and then they faced toward the doorway, but Ned was then too far toward the street for them to observe him.
They did not seem at all suspicious of Jimmie, and Ned concluded that such occurrences were not uncommon there. Jimmie seated his companion more firmly in his chair in a moment and passed out, stopping at the doorway where Ned stood.
"You duck!" the boy said. "That man in there with the sailors followed you here, an' I followed him here. You duck!"
"I haven't got the information I'm after yet," Ned said. "How in the world did you get here?"
"Followed the chap that followed you," was the quick reply. "Out here I come upon that beery sailor and took him in tow!"
"Good idea," Ned said. "Now, you slip past me and go up stairs, to the room in front, and see if the man there can be gotten away. I want to size up the men in there. I can see them by poking my head out occasionally, but they can't see me."
"Well, you keep your gun ready," Jimmie warned. "This ain't New York, with a cop every half block an' a taxicab always within reach. This is Yokohama! Don't you forget that!"
"Don't remain up there long!" said Ned.
Jimmie hastened away, and Ned stood leaning against the casing of the doorway. Then Jimmie came down the stairs at a jump, making no pretense of secrecy, and behind him there was a rush of feet and a jumble of foreign words.
The three men Ned had been watching sprang up from their table and dashed toward the front of the place, and all was confusion in an instant. The sailor who had come in with Jimmie attempted to lean carelessly back in his chair and toppled over on the floor, where he lay with the slippered feet of the attendants striking him in their rush for the door.
"Run!" Jimmie cried as he approached Ned. "Hot foot! The man you sent me to is dead, and there's a bunch of ruffians after us. Run! Beat it!"