"You don't mean the place where the missionaries were killed the other day?"
"Missionaries killed!" repeated Rob, mechanically, and with blanching cheeks. "How were they killed? How many? What were their names?"
"Killed by a mob of natives, as usual; but the city tao-tai and fifteen of the ringleaders were executed yesterday in Canton, so everything is quiet up there now. Their names? Why, I don't seem to remember; but all who were at the station were killed. Nobody escaped. Of course, none of your friends were there, though, seeing that you moved away so long ago."
"My father and mother were there," groaned poor Rob. And for him the light of life seemed to go out with the setting sun that just then sank from sight in the blood-red waters of the Dragon's Mouth.
[CHAPTER XIII]
IN THE WORLD'S MOST MARVELLOUS CITY
Stunned by the terrible news he had just heard, Rob sat silent, trying to think of all that it meant to him, while his new acquaintance, shocked at the unexpected result of his chance remark, tried in vain to console him. It might not be so bad as reported, he said, for such things always were exaggerated. Probably, Rob would find that his parents had escaped and were safe in Canton. Perhaps the massacre had extended only to native Christians, as often was the case; or, it was more than likely that the Hinckleys had been warned of the outbreak in time to leave Wu Hsing before it took place.
"They couldn't leave," answered Rob, "for my father was too ill to travel." Then, wishing to be alone with his great sorrow, the lad abruptly rose and went to his state-room, which he did not again leave that night.
As it was not advisable for the steamer to reach Canton before sunrise, she stopped about ten o'clock and remained at anchor until daybreak, when she again was got under way. An hour later Rob was wakened from a troubled dream of fighting, killing, and burning by such a confusion of yells, splashings, and other strange sounds that he rushed out on deck with the idea that his dream had become a reality. Once in the open he gazed upon a scene unique and unparalleled. The steamer was slowly making her way against the swift current of a turbid river, along the water-front of the most marvellous city in all the world. She was moving amid a vast collection of floating craft, from fine, English-built Chinese war-ships and foreign gun-boats down through junks of all sizes, stern-wheel "kick-boats" propelled by man-power, gorgeous mandarin-boats gay with fluttering flags, house-boats, flower-boats—which are floating palaces in which men of wealth give expensive dinners—silk-boats, rice-boats, and produce-barges from up-river; fishing-boats, duck-boats, long, slender—paddling-canoes known as snake-boats, besides thousands of sampans and slipper-boats, that ply for hire in any capacity, and on which half a million of people are born, live, and die, in many cases without ever setting foot on land.