"On guard! I dare not call assistance. Stand firm!"
Meantime the steamer's boat was approaching, impelled by Japanese. The Chinamen came closer. We shifted away amongst the people, and I hailed the boat. The officer made a sign to the coxswain. The men pulled harder.
At that moment the assassins rushed in. In another moment we might have been struck, or even killed. But we turned suddenly, and unexpectedly separated. Each seized a "coolie"—so they appeared to be—and with real luck avoided a stab. In a second both men were swimming for life amid the shouts of the spectators, amid alarms and cries from natives.
"What is it?" asked some anxiously. "What has happened? Were they thrown in?"
"An accident," I replied, nodding at Tomi as I turned away. The boat came up, and he was rowed away, to the surprise of the onlookers on the wharf, who had not seen the struggle.
Then I returned, and remained indoors next day till afternoon.
As no one molested me, I became more easy in my mind as the day wore on, and I began to look about me with more interest. From the fine parade along the river,—the Bund it is called,—with its turfed slopes, Shanghai is alive, right away to the men-of-war, local steamers, and launches. The streets are full, even crowded, with passers-by and rickshas—the original "Pull-man car of Shanghai." On the Bund the business is performed, and its occupants are indeed busy. It is a wonderful sight for the stranger from Europe, who expects things to be Chinese-like. In the Maloo, or chief road, cabs, broughams, barrows, and horsemen jostle each other daily.
This is not China! It is London, Paris, New York. Fine houses and broad pavements; banks, hotels, imposing buildings, a cathedral. Great ships and little boats, sampans. Vessels loading and unloading, noise and bustle, cranes and steam-whistles. Babel of language, and the never-ceasing chatter of the Chinaman and his friends. Cash! cash! cash! Merchants, coolies, rickshas, runners, porters; Chinese dodging the carts, and avoiding the "foreign devils"; yet, at times, driving in British landaus driven by a Chinese. Such a confusion, such fun and variety; yet all over it, for me, hung the shadow of the crime of the Corean which led to War!
I crossed the bridge, and visited the Chinese-European sections,—not the city of Shanghai,—and the French Quai des Fossés, and the familiar notice of the continent of Europe—"defendu!" The Chinese possess in their section no landaus, they hire wheelbarrows like Mr. Pickwick's. Here one can examine the shops and the natives at leisure. You may see the deformed feet, and the really unpleasant supplies of food which the Chinaman consumes, and the frequent coffin which he will occupy later when he dies of "carrion dishes."
And all this primitive, conservative, old-world practice in the midst of modern civilisation—electric light, steam, and even comparatively broad streets, high houses, and wide roads,—but not China.