The passengers, clad and half clad, nervous, talkative, hung about the decks. The two teachers, curiously self-possessed, sat side by side at the dining table. From the quarters of his excellency, aft, came the continuous sound of women moaning and wailing.... It was, to the eye, but a river steamer plowing up-stream in the moonlight. But to the senses of those aboard the situation was a nightmare, already an incredible memory while sleep-drugged eyes were slowly opening.... To the mighty river it was but one more incident in the vivid, often bloody drama of a long-suffering, endlessly struggling people....
In his spacious cabin, his eyes shaded from the electric light by a screen of jade set in tulip wood, dressed in his robes of ceremony, wearing the ruby-crowned hat of state with the down-slanting peacock feather, his excellency sat quietly reading the precepts of Chuang Tzü.
“Hui Tzü asked,” (he read) 'Are there, then, men who have no passions? If he be a man, how can he be without passions?'
“'By a man without passions,' replied Chuang Tzü, I mean one who permits neither evil nor good to disturb his inner life, but accepts whatever comes.... The pure men of old neither loved life nor hated death. Cheerfully they played their parts, patiently awaited the end. This is what is called not to lead the heart away from Tao.... The true sage ignores God; he ignores man; he ignores a beginning; he ignores matter; he accepts life as it may be and is not overwhelmed. If he fail, what matters it? If he succeed, is it not that he was provided through no effort of his own with the energy necessary to success.... The life of man passes like a galloping horse, changing at every turn. What should he do; what should he not do? It passes as a sunbeam passes a small opening in a wall—here for a moment, then gone.... let knowledge stop at the unknowable. That is perfection.'”
It is to be doubted if even Doane gave regard at the moment to the possible origin of the fire. It had spread through two or three of the upper cabins by way of the ventilating grills and was roaring out through a doorway by the time he heard the new outcry and ran to the spot. The white men were rushing about. Rocky Kane, collarless, disheveled, was fumbling ineffectually at the emergency fire hose; him Doane pushed aside. But the flames spread amazingly; worked through the grill-work from cabin to cabin; soon were licking at the walls and furniture of the social hall.
Doane left Dawley Kane and Tex Conner—an oddly matched couple—manning the hose, others at work with the chemical extinguishers, while he went forward through the thickening smoke to the bridge.
Captain Benjamin said, huskily, almost apologetically—his eyes red and staring, his face haggard: “I'm beaching her.”
And in another moment she struck, where the channel ran close under an island.
Lowering the boats without a crew proved difficult. Already the fire had reached those forward. Doane, the other mate and MacKail did what they could. The Chinese women crowded hither and thither, screaming, rendering order impossible. In the confusion one boat drifted off with only Connor, the Manila Kid, and Miss Carmichael.
Captain Benjamin was cut off by the quick progress of the flames. The whole forward end of the cabin structure was now a roaring furnace, fortunately working forward on the down-stream breeze rather than aft. The flames blazed from moment to moment higher; sparks danced higher yet; the heat was intense. Doane sent the viceroy and his suite below, aft, where the deck was still strewn with bodies and slippery with blood. With three available boats, fighting back the crowding women and the more excitable among his excellency's secretaries, he sent ashore, first the women, then his excellency and the men. Hui Fei—she had slipped hastily into the little Chinese costume she wore at their midnight talk, and had thrown about it an opera cloak from New York—went in one of the first boats; Doane himself handed her in. The two teachers, pale, very composed, followed. At the oars were two of the customs men, faces streaked with grime and sweat.