TWO:He turned. There was not a second to spare. The two long-haired fellows came nip and tuck. I see yet their long deer-hunters' rifles. But I remembered my pledge to this man's wife, and proudly found I had the nerve to hold the trigger still unpressed when at the apron of the bridge the rascals caught their first full sight of us as we sat humpshouldered, eye to eye, like one gray tomcat and one yellow one. They dragged their horses back upon their haunches. One leaped to the ground, the other aimed from the saddle; but the first shot that woke the echoes was neither theirs nor mine, but Sergeant Jim Langley's, though that, of course, I did not know. It came from a tree on our side of the water, some forty yards downstream. The man in the saddle fired wild, and as his horse wheeled and ran, the rider slowly toppled over backward out of saddle and stirrups and went slamming to the ground.INCIDENTS OF A WHALING VOYAGE.
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TWO:"Nine and ninepence" he heard at last, very thin and distinct. And then there was stillness.
FORE:"Why, Lieutenant, that is just what you have done--""Yes," answered Frank, "and to escape drowning you should never go near the water."
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FORE:"Everybody says that one Chinese town is so much like another that a single one will do for a sample. This is undoubtedly true of the most of them, but you should make exceptions in the case of Canton and Pekin. They are of extra importance; and as one is in the extreme north, and the other in the far south, they have distinctive features of their own. We shall have a chance to talk about them by-and-by. As for Chin-kiang, I did not see anything worth notice while walking through it that I had not already seen at Shanghai, except, perhaps, that the dogs barked at us, and the cats ruffled their backs and tails, and fled from us as though we were bull-dogs. A pony tried to kick Fred as he walked by the brute,[Pg 332] and only missed his mark by a couple of inches. You see that the dumb animals were not disposed to welcome us hospitably. They were evidently put up to their conduct by their masters, who do not like the strangers any more than the dogs and cats do, and are only prevented from showing their spite by the fear that the foreigners will blow their towns out of existence if any of them are injured.
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FORE:As every one knows who has read about the country, Japan contains a great many tea-houses, or places of rest and refreshment. They are to Japan what the beer-hall is to Germany, the wine-shop to France, or the whiskey-saloon to America, with the difference in their favor that they are much more numerous, and patronized by all classes of people. The first visitors to Japan came away with erroneous notions about the character of the tea-house, and these errors have found their way into books on the country and been repeated many times, to the great scandal of the people of the empire of the Mikado. The truth is that the tea-house is a perfectly reputable and correct place in nineteen cases out of twenty. It may have a bad character in the twentieth instance, just as there is now and then a hotel in New York or other city that is the resort of thieves and various bad persons. Nearly all classes of people in Japan, who can afford to do so, resort to the tea-houses, either in the hot hours of the day or in the evening. One can purchase, in addition to tea, a variety of light refreshments, and the building is almost invariably well ventilated and prettily situated. A person may sit in public if he wishes, or he may have one of the rooms partitioned off for himself and be quite secluded. The rooms are made, as in the hotels and other houses, by means of paper partitions, and can be formed with great rapidity.Arthur swallowed several times in rapid succession. His mind relapsed into a curious state of blankness. For some minutes he was not aware of any thinking processes at all. He began to feel dizzy and faint, from sheer bewilderment. And then the idea of escape crept into his consciousness. He moved one foot, intending to walk away. But the strange figure suddenly lifted up a hand, with an abrupt, jerky movement, like a signal jumping up. He said "nine and ninepence" three times very slowly and solemnly, and flapped his right ear twice. In spite of his confusion, Arthur could not help noticing the peculiar and awful synchronisation of these movements. At any rate, they seemed to help this unfortunate individual out of his diffi[Pg 13]culties. Still holding a hand upright, he achieved his first complete sentence.
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FORE:I have brought the block of your book-plate, sir, she said, with a couple of impressions of it."Maiden passing fair, turn again thine eyes! Turn again thine eyes, love's true mercy learn.
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FORE:Fred thought he must say something, but was undecided for a moment. The room was open, and as he looked into the hall, he saw the chambermaid approaching the opposite door with the evident intention[Pg 38] of looking through the keyhole. This gave him his opportunity, and he proposed his question."I have a feeling," he continued, placing a finger to his nose, "that if I put on my top gear now I should be off like a shot."
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FORE:
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FORE:She got up and overturned a tray of pens in her eagerness to write to Julia. This, of course, gave fresh provender to her mothers intuition. She could put two and two together as well as most people, and hardly ever failed to make the result five. It was quite obvious that Mr Silverdale had proposed to Alice, and that in consequence Mrs Fysons ill-founded expectations for Julia had fallen as flat as a card-house. No wonder Alice could afford to forgive her friend.
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FORE:The train sped onward, and in an hour from the time of leaving the station at Yokohama it was nearing Tokio. It passed in full view of the forts of Shinagawa, which were made memorable during the days of Perry and Lord Elgin, as the foreign ships were not allowed to pass them, and[Pg 108] there was at one time a prospect that they would open fire upon the intruders. Near one of the forts, a boat containing three fishermen was pulling slowly along, one man handling the oar, while the other two were lifting a net. Whether any fish were contained in it the boys did not ascertain, as the train would not stop long enough to permit an investigation. The fort rose from the water like a huge warehouse; it might resist a Chinese junk, or a whole fleet of the rude craft of the East, but could not hold out an hour against the artillery of the Western nations. In recent years the forts of Tokio have been[Pg 109] strengthened, but they are yet far from what an American or English admiral would hold in high respect. The Japanese have made commendable progress in army organization; but, so far as one can learn generally, they have not done much in the way of constructing and manning fortifications.
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