In the Yellow Sea Part 4

"Aye, I'm here," he said.

"And your father's--body?" I asked. "Bring him out, please."

"What?" exclaimed the steersman. "A body--a dead body! Not for us.

Push off, lads."

"You won't take it?" I cried. "Won't you bring it ash.o.r.e?"

"No time to go ash.o.r.e, youngster! There, you see, just in time!

See!--she's sinking!"

I looked. The _Osprey_ began to lurch and dip as the men pulled away.

I stared in dread suspense, half dead, I fancied. Then we increased our distance. The _Osprey_ lifted and fell, appeared again, disappeared; rose again, and just when one expected to see it once more the sea hid it and bore it out of sight for ever.

I think I shouted; I know I leaped up in haste, but a firm hand was placed upon my collar, and I sank back unconscious of all around me save the darkness of sea and sky. My senses left me!

So Murry had gained a sailor's grave. "There in the lone, lone sea--in a spot unmarked but holy," he lies at rest until the last call for "all hands" is piped.

CHAPTER III

THE STEAMER _FeNG-SHUI_, FOR CHINA--CAPTAIN GOLDHEUGH--DISCIPLINE AND A ROPE'S END!

When I again recovered consciousness I found myself in a comfortable berth, in what appeared an airy cabin on the deck of a vessel. The distant churning noise which attracted my rather wandering attention, and the shaking of the furniture, told me that I was on board a screw steamer. From the cabin windows I perceived a dim light upon the sea.

The steamer rolled and plunged and shook herself with great energy, and at times the lamp hung, apparently, quite sideways across the room. As I continued to gaze rather listlessly about me, my eyes fastened themselves upon two words, of which I could make no sense nor meaning.

These were painted upon a locker in golden characters, above some peculiar characters, and read--

FeNG-SHUI.

What was Feng-Shui? I had never heard of it. I puzzled over it. Was it a name, a motto, or a spell of some kind? It seemed to my still obscured brain "neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring," and the painted characters beneath the words looked even funnier than those upon a tea-chest. FeNG-SHUI!

The letters burned into my brain; they kept recurring in a kind of sing-song refrain, and finally adapted themselves to the "t.i.t-Willow"

song in the _Mikado_. _Feng-Shui, Feng-Shui, Feng-Shui_! As I lay staring at the locker my mind turned the song anew--

A poor little sailor-boy lay in a berth, _Feng-Shui, Feng-Shui, Feng-Shui!_ And never could tell what was meant on this earth By Shui, Feng-Shui, Feng-Shui!

And so on, _ad infinitum_, till my senses reeled again. At length, being almost desperate, I rose, and was in the act of quitting the horrible cabin, when a man in uniform--merchant service--came in.

"Hallo!" he exclaimed, "what are you up to? Sleep-walking? Get back directly, d'ye hear? Smart now!"

He aimed a blow at my back, and literally ran me into the swinging cot which I had just vacated.

"Are ye mad?" he inquired, with a touch of the brogue of northern Ireland--a most amusing accent to my mind--which gave a comic turn to his most serious remarks.

I made no reply immediately, only by staring.

"Ah! the boy's off his head! D'ye hear me? Are ye deaf and mad?"

"No," I replied; "neither, I think."

"Ye _think_! Ye're not sure! Then bedad _I_ think ye're mad. What made ye jump out o' bed, then, like a lunatic?"

"I was wondering where I was, and thinking of those queer letters. I am better now. I was confused when I woke up."

"Oh, that's better! Sure it was a miracle ye woke at all; we all thought ye dead as Kerry mutton. What's ailing ye?"

"Nothing, except those queer letters."

"What! The s.h.i.+p's name, is it? That's nothing but _Feng-Shui_, and it's written in Chinese besides."

"Oh, thank you, I see. I couldn't make it out. What does it mean?"

"_Wind and Weather_, and a lot more, in China. Ye'll see in time. Be easy now, I tell ye."

"In time! What do you mean?" I asked, starting up.

"What I say. In time! By and by,--when ye get there."

"Get where? To China?"

"That's it," replied my new acquaintance. "Ye've hit it plumb."

"But _I_ am _not going_ to China!"

"Aren't ye, bedad! Well, we'll agree to differ on that."

"What rot!" I exclaimed rudely. "Surely you're going to London?"

"Not till I get back, round the East. Then, maybe I will."

"Do you mean to say that this vessel is bound to China?"

"I do; and ye're bound to go with it."

"Then I _won't_! I want to go home to Beachmouth. Can't you put me ash.o.r.e anywhere?--I don't care where it is."

"Can ye swim?" he asked, looking at me with a funny wink.

"I can, of course. Well?"

"Then ye must swim home. We're away in the Channel, and France is on the port-beam, if ye know what that is."

"Of course I do. Do you think me an idiot?"

"I did--a while ago. If ye're not a fool ye'll stay where ye are. Of course, ye're a bit mad now, but by the mornin' ye'll be well. Lie quiet now, and I'll send ye some food."