You"re an American, I take it?"
"Proud to say yes to that!" replied the other.
"Well, what are they trying to do to you?" asked Ned, taking a chair by his side. "Americans must stand back to back when they meet in a place like this!"
"They don"t all do that," was the reply. "My pardner got me here and shook me. I"m broke, and that"s all there is to it. Kept buying after I had spent all my money. I guess it is the coop for mine!"
"Perhaps we can fix it up in some way," Ned said. "I"m not a millionaire, but I may be able to help you out. How much do you owe?"
"About two dollars in American money," was the reply. "It is a small sum, but I"m your slave for life if you get me out of this. Ever spend a day in a j.a.panese jail, waiting for the American consul to get you out?"
"Never did," was the reply. "How are you fixed for lodgings?"
"Got a room up over a tea house," was the reply. "I"m looking for a ship that will take me back to New York."
"Well," Ned said, "I"ll pay this bill and go home with you for the night. I"ll need free lodgings somewhere after I settle!"
"You"ll be as welcome as the flowers of May!" the sailor said, and the boys, still sitting where Ned had left them, saw him hand the waiter some money and leave the place with the sailor.
A moment later, however, they saw a keen-eyed j.a.p come rushing through the door and up to the table where the sailor had been seated. He talked with the waiter a moment, speaking angrily at last, and darted out of the door again.
"That fellow came after the sailor," Frank said, "and will follow him.
When he finds Ned working him for his story he won"t do a thing to Ned!"
"An" we"ll go back to the hotel, like good little boys, an" sit there knittin" while they pinch Ned an" chuck him into the bay! Not for your uncle!"
"We"d make a hit wandering about Yokohama in the night!" Jack said. "I reckon Ned can take care of himself. Anyway, he"s had to go and find you every time you"ve gone out without him."
But before Jack had finished Jimmie had jerked away and was out in the street.
CHAPTER XI.
A FAIRY HISTORY OF j.a.pAN.
The shop in which Ned had discovered the object of his search was well down toward the water front, and the course of the sailor was now toward the center of the city. The two pa.s.sed the customs quarters and the official offices of the city--Yokohama is the old-time treaty port of j.a.pan--and so on to wide streets lined with shops, still alight, though the hour was getting late.
Such quaint little shops Ned had never seen before, and more than once he stopped to look at lacquered ware of rare quality, bronze work, and fancy embroidery. Directly the sailor led the way from the wide streets to the old-time narrow ones in the native quarter, which were not far from the old ca.n.a.l which virtually makes an island of the town.
After proceeding, with hesitating steps, down a particularly dark and foul-smelling street, the sailor paused at a corner, glanced up at a window in a tea-chest of a house which stood flush with the alley-like thoroughfare, and began the ascent of a flight of stairs which swayed under his weight.
On the corner below the tea-house was still open, and the invariable graphophone was grinding out some indistinguishable tune. When the two pa.s.sed up the dark stairway an attendant slipped out of the public room, walked to the foot of the stairs, and observed the two mounting figures.
When the sailor opened the door to as miserable a room as the sun of the Orient ever shone on, the attendant slipped back to the public room and conferred with a keen-eyed, slender man who sat there--a man garbed in the native costume, but bearing in manner and face the stamp of a European!
The sailor closed the door of his room and set a match to a candle which he found on a shelf hanging to a wall. There was nothing in the room, nothing but mats, as it seemed to Ned. There was no table, no chair.
Only the mats to sit on and sleep on. The walls were of paper, and Ned saw with pleasure that the whole front of the room, which faced the alley, might be rolled up at will!
The sailor dropped on the floor and fumbled in his clothing for a cigarette.
"Have you got the makings?" he asked, giving up the search at last.
Ned shook his head.
"I have need of all my wits," he said, "and never befuddle my brain with tobacco. It"s the curse of the age."
"I"ve got to have a cigarette," the sailor said. "I"ll go crazy if I don"t have one! I won"t sleep a wink, either!" he whined.
Ned handed him a dime and pointed to the door.
"Go and buy some," he said, knowing that the fellow would be in fighting mood if he was not supplied with the narcotic. "Come back here and smoke."
The sailor looked at the dime sorrowfully, scorning the small piece of silver because it wasn"t a dollar, as Ned concluded--pitying himself, too, because it would not buy what he wanted most--liquor!
Ned handed him a quarter and bade him hasten back. With the man"s nerves crying out for accustomed stimulants, the boy knew that he could do nothing with him. He must get him into a companionable mood if possible.
He dreaded the night, which seemed about to be pa.s.sed in the fumes of tobacco and liquor, but there was no help for it that he could see.
Presently the sailor came back with a package of cigarettes, gin in a bottle, and a jug of water. He arranged the articles in a half-circle about him when he sat down on a mat. It seemed pitiful to the boy, the sailor"s dependence on the nerve-destroying things he looked upon as necessary to his comfort. Only for these, only for their constant use for years, the man might have been honored and respected and possessed a home among his kind instead of being an object of contempt in a foreign port.
"Here"s to the Flowery Kingdom!" the sailor said, the bottle at his lips. "Here"s life to you, not existence! What"s your name?" he added, stopping in the midst of a grin which wrinkled his dissipated face horribly to cast a glance of suspicion on the boy sitting in pity before him. "My name," he added, without waiting for Ned to reply to his question, "is Brown--B-R-O-W-N."
"Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Brown," Ned said. "One is always glad to meet Americans in a place like this. Now," he went on, resolved to have his talk out before the sailor became too befuddled to talk coherently, "you spoke about wanting to get back to New York. Well, the _Fultonia_ leaves for New York by way of Manila, to-morrow afternoon, and I may be able to arrange a pa.s.sage for you. I"m a friend of the captain"s."
"Not on your life! Not by way of Manila!" the sailor cried. "I wouldn"t go back to Manila for all the gold there is in Standard Oil! I"m going to lose myself on a wind-jammer! Manila"s unhealthy for me!" he added with a wink.
"I wasn"t thinking of remaining there," said Ned. "I"m going back to New York."
"Wind-jammer for mine!" Brown insisted. "Why," he added, swinging his bottle of gin in the air, "do you know that I"d like to get inside a boat with wide white wings and sail about the Orient forever! The more I mix with Englishmen and Americans the more I think of the j.a.ps. It was an American that threw me down to-night. I did something for him, and--"
The sailor paused, gave a slight shiver, and looked down at his right hand. Then he brushed it, as if trying to wipe something away that was obstinate and hard to get rid of--some stain like the stain of blood!
"And he left you stranded?" Ned continued "I"m glad I happened along,"
he added, not caring to say how glad he was, nor how much the meeting might mean to him!
"I did his dirty work!" the sailor went on, his tongue loosened by the liquor. "I did for him what I never did before, what I never will do again! And he went back on me! He threw me down! I"d like to meet him on Roosevelt street, New York! I"d provide against his throwing anyone else down!"
"What did you do for him?" Ned asked, with as innocent a manner as he could a.s.sume.
"That"s my business!" Brown answered, with a sly wink. "That"s between the two of us! If I had him here I"d cut his heart out, and show you how black it is."
The sailor was fast coming under the influence of the gin, and Ned knew that he must keep him talking or he would drop off into drugged slumber.
He sounded him on half a dozen subjects, intending to lead him back to the man"s connection with the plot, but he would not talk until the subject of j.a.pan was brought up. He seemed to be infatuated with the Flowery Kingdom.
"I know the history of j.a.pan," he said, with a brightening of the eyes.
"In the beginning, the world was like an egg in shape. The white became heaven, and the yolk became earth. You may read about it yourself in the book called "_The Way of the G.o.ds_." Then two G.o.ds descended from heaven, and a son called Omikami was born to them, and his body was so bright that he flew up into the sky and became the sun.
"What do you think of that? He became the sun. And a daughter was born to the two G.o.ds, and she became the moon. The moon you see when the sun goes down. Then the children that were born after these became strong and founded the Empire of j.a.pan. And the original inhabitants were hairy on the body and ate raw meat. You see I know all about it!"