“Perhaps so,” said Richard. “I had arranged with him only to San Francisco. But we can keep him on if you like.... There will be plenty like him on the boat. They are all Japs on the boat.”
XXI
On the steamer they were, as Richard had predicted, all Japanese. Not only the crew and attendants, but many of the passengers showed the dark skin and straight hair of the race to the west. There were Chinese, too, and strange foreign faces that Richard More did not know. A few Americans were on board—bound on business or pleasure to China and Japan—but the majority of the passengers were of alien race.
Richard More and his wife sat day after day in their steamer-chairs, looking out to sea and watching the strange faces drift between them and the horizon line.... They came and went, dreamlike and vague.... Now a face would silhouette itself on the sky, turbaned and dark and motionless against the approaching west; and now gesticulating hands moved swiftly, and sharp staccatoed words flitted by them along the deck. They were in a foreign world, a cosmopolite world—a restless, moving strangeness of life.... It was not possible not to feel, deep underneath, the common tie of race or nation that made them one.... Only a boat moving to the west—and the faces moving with it.
The courier left them at the dock at San Francisco. Eleanor caught a glimpse of his face among the crowd as the boat moved out.
“There he is!” she cried to Richard, her hand on his arm and her eyes searching the dock. Then the crowd jostled—and the face was gone. There were many dark faces along the dock’s edge, watching the boat recede, and she could not see that one was more familiar than another.
She had come to fancy on the journey that she knew the courier a little; but now she saw that she had known only his strangeness; there were dozens like him, and he was merged in the deeper alienism of his race.
He was replaced by a Chinese interpreter who was to act as guide for the rest of the journey. Richard More, searching for a courier who was familiar with the languages and dialects of the different provinces of China, had come upon Kou Ying, who was contemplating a journey home. For a consideration, he was willing to go with them into the interior and to remain with them as long as they wished.