THE RESCUE OF THEOPHILUS NEWBEGIN
I
The Dirigo was a one-hundred-and-twenty-two foot gunboat, spick and span from the Cavite yard—lithe as a panther, swift as a petrel, gray as the mists off Hi-tai-sha—and she was his very own. The biggest, reddest day in all his twenty-three years of life was when the Admiral's order had come to leave the Ohio, where he had acted as a sort of apotheosized messenger boy and general escort to civilians' fat wives, and to proceed at once to Shanghai to assume command of her, provision and await further orders. It had cost him nine dollars and seventy-five cents to cable the joyful news adequately to his mother in Baltimore, and although the family resources were small—his father had died a lieutenant commander the year before—she had cabled back a "good luck and God bless you" to him. He only got as an ensign a paltry one hundred and twenty-eight dollars per month, and out of it came his mess bills and other expenses, but for all that he had enough to go down Nanking road and buy his mother a handsome mandarin cloak—Harry Dupont was going back on leave—and then to invite all the fellows he knew in Shanghai harbor to a jamboree at the club. It was going on at the time this story opens, boisterously and uproariously as befits the blow-out of a twenty-three-year old ensign who has just received his first command. The older civilians, who were drinking their comfortable "B & S" on the veranda, merely shrugged their shoulders as an impromptu refrain rose louder and louder to the pounding of bottles and the jingle of silverware.
Here's to the Kid and the Dirigo, He's off for a cruise on the Hwang-ho!
The officers of the squadron, not wishing to spoil the fun, slipped off to the billiard room or the bridge tables, or strolled back to the bar. Most of them had letters to write for the American mail, which would leave the following morning, and more than one sighed as he glanced toward the upper veranda from below the club house. They knew how many and how long the years would be before any of those boys would be called "captain"—well, let them enjoy themselves! What was the use of croaking? There were compensations—of a sort. Even if one's people were all on the other side of the globe or migrating from boarding house to boarding house in a vain endeavor to keep up with the changes in the billets of their husbands and fathers, one was still an officer of Uncle Sam's navy.
So reflected Follansbee, executive officer of the flagship Ohio, which had slipped into Woosung, ten miles below Shanghai, just as the sunset gun on the forts was echoing over the closely packed junks along the water front, and while the boy was engrossed to the extent of total oblivion with the club steward over the decoration of his dinner table and the choice between various highly recommended brands of Scotch and Irish. Follansbee was a good sort, who had already waited thirty-five years to get his battleship and was waiting still, and he had seen Jack Russell, the boy's father, die the year before at Teng-chan of a combination of liver and disappointment, all too common among naval officers in the East. Follansbee's own liver was none of the best, but he had cut down on the drink, and, anyhow, his wife was coming out on the Empress of India next month. He hoped to God the Ohio wouldn't be ordered to Sulu or some place impossible for her to follow him. That boy of Russell's—he liked that boy, he was all to the good; knew his place and kept his mouth shut. Follansbee wasn't going to butt in and spoil his fun. It would do him good to get a little drunk. He remembered when he got his first gunboat—thirty years ago. Whew! Follansbee stared up at the veranda, then sighed again and started down the bund.
Shanghai harbor was alive with light. The murmur of the city rose and fell on the soft, fragrant air, shockingly penetrated every now and then by the discordant shrieks of swiftly hurrying launches. The bund was crowded with coolies, some toiling with heavy loads, others pulling their 'rikishas. Here and there flashed the colored lanterns of pedestrians. Beyond the junks lay many cruisers sweeping the starlit night with their quickly moving searchlights. Then one of these took him bang between the eyes and he stumbled and fell against some one coming up the walk.
"Where the deuce—!" shouted a clear young voice angrily. Then the note changed. "I beg pardon, sir—these confounded lights—I didn't see you at all."
Follansbee returned the midshipman's salute.
"Don't mention it!" he growled. "But what are you doing ashore? I thought you had the deck."
"I did, but I'm trying to find Russell. The Admiral wants him. I took the ship's launch to the Dirigo and they said there he was ashore and hadn't left any word, only that he'd be back late. Have you seen him?"
"Can't you hear him?" inquired Follansbee laconically.
A figure in white duck loomed suddenly into view on the veranda rail waving a bottle and shouting at the top of his lungs:
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