I reached Yokohama at night, and stopped at the Sailors’ Home, certain that in this city I could soon get work on some vessel going to my native land. I squandered the seven yen I had left, and on a morning late in July wandered down to the port to ask for work on some ship.
CHAPTER XXVIII
HOMEWARD BOUND
It was Saturday, nearly two weeks after my arrival in Yokohama, that I saw a chance to escape from Japan. The American consul had promised to speak for me to the captain of a fast mail steamer to sail a few days later.
Early the following Monday, the last day of July, I turned in at the American consul’s office just as two men stepped out. One was the vice-consul; the other, a large man of some fifty years, wearing thick-rimmed spectacles and a broad-brimmed felt hat. His black hair was unusually long. I supposed he was a missionary, and stepped aside to let him pass. The vice-consul, however, catching sight of me as he shook the stranger’s hand, beckoned to me.
“By the way,” he said, speaking to the stranger; “here is an American sailor who wants to work his passage to the States. Can’t you take him on, captain?”
Captain, indeed! Of what? The fast mail steamer, perhaps. I stepped forward eagerly.
“Umph!” said the stranger, looking me over. “On the beach, eh? Why, yes; he can come on board and I’ll set him at work.”
“Good!” cried the vice-consul. “There you are! Now don’t loaf and make us ashamed to ask a favor of the captain next time.”
“Go get something to eat,” said the captain, “and wait for me on the pier.”
I raced away to the Home to invite one of the “boys” I had met there to a farewell luncheon, then returned to the place of meeting. The day was stormy, and a dozen downpours drenched me as many times during the seven hours that I waited. Toward nightfall the captain drove up in a ’rickshaw, and we stepped into his launch.