There was preaching and singing in the Sailors’ Home of Yokohama on the evening of my arrival. The white-bearded missionary styled the service a “mass meeting for Christ.” The beachcombers in attendance were not those to cavil at names. So long as they were permitted to doze away the evening in comfortable chairs, “holy Joe” might assign any reason he chose for their presence, though there were those near me at the back of the room who grumbled now and then at the monotonous voice that disturbed their dreams.
No such protest, certainly, rose to the lips of the herculanean Chilian with whom I had fallen in during the afternoon, for whatever his inner feelings, they were stifled by his deep-rooted respect for religious services. One by one, the beachcombers drifted out into the less strident night; but the South American clung to his place as he would have stuck to his look-out in a tempestuous sea. Had “holy Joe” been gifted with a commonplace sense of the fitness of things he might have held one hearer until the benediction. Late in the evening, however, he broke off his absorbing dissertation on the Oneness of the Trinity to assign a hymn, and, stepping down among us, fell to distributing pledges of the “Royal Naval Temperance Society.”
“Válgame Dios!” breathed the Chilian, as a pamphlet dropped into his lap. “He asks me to sign the pledge, me, who haven’t had the price of a thimbleful in two months! This is too much! Vámonos, hombre!” and, stepping over the back of his chair, he stalked to the door.
In the darkness outside, a cringing creature accosted us. Something in the whining Italian in which he spoke led me to look more closely at him. It was the Neapolitan half-caste; more ragged and woe-begone than ever, and smudged with the dust of the coal bunkers in which he had stowed away in Kobe harbor.
I told his story to the Chilian as we struck off together towards the park which I fancied must be our resting-place for the night. The South American, however, had not been three months “on the beach” without learning some of the secrets of Yokohama. He marched self-confidently down the main thoroughfare, past the German and American consulates, turned a corner at the European post-office, and, brushing along a well-kept hedge, stopped in the deep shadow of a short driveway. Before us was a high wooden gate flanked by two taller pillars, beyond which the thin moonlight disclosed the outlines of a large, two-story dwelling.
“Look here, friend,” I interposed, “if you’re going to try burglary—”
“Cállete la boca, hombre!” muttered the Chilian. “The patrol will hear you. Come on,” and, placing both hands on the top of the gate, he vaulted it as easily as if it had been only half its six feet in height. I followed, and the half-breed tumbled over after me, his heels beating a noisy tattoo on the barrier. Once inside, however, the Chilian seemed to lose all fear of the patrol and crunched along the graveled walk, talking freely.
“Lucky thing for the beachcombers, this war,” he said; “If there were peace we’d be sleeping in the park. Suppose the Czar knew he was giving us posada?” he chuckled, marching around to the back of the building. There was no sign of life within. Mounting to the back veranda, our guide snatched open one shutter of a low window. The half-breed was trembling piteously, though whether from hunger, fatigue, or fear, I could not know. One needed only to look hard at him to set his teeth rattling.
But I myself had no longing to be taken for a burglar.
“Here! What’s the game?” I demanded, nudging the Chilian.