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THE sun had shone brilliantly and torridly all day over the mud-laden river, the surrounding paddy-fields, and the copper-coloured backs of the sweating Chinese boatmen as they laboured at their yuloes in sampen and junk. It had, indeed, been a hot day even for up-river, and the extreme humidity of the atmosphere after the rains made the heat felt in every pore of the skin, so that even the half-naked steersmen of the junks sweated at their rudders.

But now the sun is setting. On all sides can be heard the rattle of the winches and the creaking as the heavy mat sails slide down the mast of the junks, a splash as the stone-weighted wooden anchor drops over the bows, and each junk in time swings to its rattan-twisted cable in the pea-soup known as fresh water in Chinese rivers. The heavy damp air is suddenly rent by a bugle note which signals the fact that the flag which represents the sovereignty of King Edward the Seventh is being hauled down till eight a.m. the next day on board the gunboat lying in the muddy river.

A careful study of the illustrated weekly papers will give us a fair knowledge of the appearance of the average naval officer, and we shall also gather from this same source that when he’s not rushing about after niggers with a field-gun, he’s employed attending balls at various Government Houses, or talking to beautiful ladies on a huge electric-lighted quarter-deck, what time the moon calmly shines on some picturesque Mediterranean harbour.

Undoubtedly our friends have experienced all these social joys in their time, but at present they are far removed from such soothing influences. Still, we have to deal with a gunboat of some pretensions, one wherein a gossamer vest and white trousers are not considered de rigueur for dinner. The wardroom is much as others in a “bug trap,” but it has one great adornment, a punkah, which is pulled during meal hours by a diminutive and quite expressionless “makee learn.” The lights are burning and the table laid for four, the “makee learn” is waiting by the pantry hatch ready to pull the punkah, and, on the entry of an officer, comes in and, sitting on a stool, begins to violently jerk the rope leading through a brass sheave to the small punkah which flaps away some large and well-fed bluebottles.

The officer is smoking a cigarette, and dressed in white duck trousers, a soft white shirt, and white mess-jacket, all of which goes to prove that we are in a smart ship. He strolls idly over to the thermometer hanging on the bulkhead and observes that the mercury stands at 84°. He idly places the burning end of his cigarette near the bulb of the thermometer and watches the mercury rise to 95°, while the “makee learn” violently agitates the punkah. Having performed this simple operation he sits in a cane chair, and another officer enters and flings himself on a settee without any remark.

“Good evening, Pill,” says the first officer. “Pretty hot to-night.”

“Don’t agree with you,” remarks the other. “But, anyway, I’m open to bet it isn’t ninety.”

“All right,” says the Chief, for such we will call the person who first entered the wardroom. “Bet you a sherry and bitters it is.”

The surgeon jumps up and looks at the thermometer, then leans over the table, rings the electric bell, and sings out, “Ah Hing, two sherries and bitters!”

The bitters are brought in and disposed of, and then another officer comes in.

“Nice and cool to-night, Pill,” he remarks.

“Don’t agree with you,” says the surgeon.

“But I think it’s much cooler,” remarks the navigator, for that is the rating of the new-comer.

“Well, I’ll bet you it’s over ninety,” says the surgeon.

“What’ll you bet?” says the navigator.

“Oh, a cocktail, to-morrow forenoon. Then look for yourself,” says the surgeon.

The navigator strolls over to the thermometer and says, “Eighty-eight.”

“Be blowed for a yarn!” says the surgeon. “Let’s look.” But on consulting the mercury column he finds it stands at eighty-eight, so muttering a curse that everybody and everything is against him to-day he sits down and shouts to Ah Hing to bring some chow-chop-chop.

“Hurry up, Ah Hing!” says “No. 1” as he comes in. “Hullo, my pippins! What cher! Well, Pill, fisherman’s luck, eh? Shot anything?”

“Yes,” says Pill; “darned sight too much!”

“Well, tell us all about it. You’ve been grubbin’ round the Chinese city I suppose, Chief, lookin’ for curios?”

“Yes,” remarks the engineer officer; “and got two bits of blue and white china and a confoundedly ancient-looking joss.”

Ah Hing brings in the soup, and “No. 1” says: “Well, doc, you might tell your adventures to the poor devil who’s had nothing to do but stop aboard the ship in this confounded stinking river.”

Thus appealed to the surgeon begins—

“A day like this is enough to break any man’s heart. I haven’t the pluck now to open a jackpot on four kings, feeling certain somebody’d hold four aces and the joker against me. As you know, we two went shooting, and left the Chief to grub about the native city for curios. When we landed we hired two coolies to carry the drinks and chow, which they slung on a pole between them, and off we went to the right among the paddy-fields. There wasn’t a thing in the paddy except frogs, snakes, and cockie-ollie birds, so we went up towards the hills. Nothing to be found there, but after passing a small village we got into some scrub and long grass, when up got a quail. It flew to my left rear, and I let him have one barrel. Then he passed right behind me, and I let him have the other barrel, the contents of which went smack into the lunch-basket and blew it to bits. In the excitement I’d never noticed that our coolies were only a few yards behind me. There was instantly no end of a hullabaloo, and one coolie lay on the ground kicking and rubbing himself furiously, what time both of them kept up a most damnable screaming. I ran up to see what was the matter, and saw that his chest was covered with blood; but all my efforts at getting a look at his wound were unavailing, as he would keep rubbing his hands over his chest. My own opinion is that he hadn’t got at most more than one pellet in him; but I had no further time to look after him, because we were in a few seconds surrounded by the men, women, children, lunatics, and incurably leprous of the neighbouring village. They got to hustling us, and things looked ugly. All of ’em were singing out something in Chinese, and when they started pulling me about I got nasty and let out at ’em. Then they took my gun away, and by this time we were nearly crushed by the crowds round us. It was no use to create international complications by letting ’em have a few charges of No. 6, so we concluded to go without resisting to their village and see the matter out. So the howling, stinking mob conducted us to their village, and led us through filthy pig-infested lanes to an open space near the centre of the village, in which stood a dismal banyan tree, under whose shade a baby or two and some half-dozen hens and scraggy pigs were grubbing. A very benevolent-looking, grey-bearded Chinaman approached, and from the increased yells of our conductors we concluded that he was a man of some importance. He calmly surveyed us for quite a while, and spoke to our furiously shouting accusers in a calm and passionless manner. The wounded coolie was brought forward amid more shouts and gesticulations, and our ancient friend spoke a few words to him in a rather off-hand manner.

“We were getting a bit tired of all this hoop-hooraying when suddenly our ancient friend turned to me and said, ‘Say, what you goin’ to do about it?’ We were both pretty surprised at hearing him speak English, but I was jolly glad to find someone could understand us. I explained that the whole thing was an accident, that the man wasn’t much hurt, and that now, as we understood each other, we might go back to the ship, as having lost our tiffin, we didn’t care to do any more shooting that day. Our genial friend smiled kindly on us, and said it would be very hard to make his poor uneducated fellow-villagers understand that the shooting had not been done on purpose. He explained that no Chinaman was such a fool as to suppose that anyone with sense would shoot at a bird flying, that a bird could by no possibility be shot unless sitting still, and that my firing into the luncheon-basket was only a pretext to kill both coolies when they least expected it. He remarked, moreover, ‘We’ve got your gun, and I guess it’s worth at least forty dollars gold, so you’d better pay up if you want to get back to your ship. We know that in time you’ll be rescued by a landing-party, but we think you’d prefer to pay up rather than spend a night or two in our flea-infested village and be laughed at by your messmates when you do return.’ I got pretty angry at this and said, ‘I wish I had a few blue-jackets and marines now, and we’d knock hell out of your old village!’

“The ancient Chinaman smiled and said, ‘In your country you have an Employers’ Liability Act by which you’d have to pay for this coolie’s injury.’ We found then that we had a man of education to deal with, so I said I’d pay within reason but that I was dead keen to get aboard, and didn’t care if I never went shooting again in China.

“Then we got on to the question of money; I had two silver dollars and a ten and five dollar Hong Kong note. My Chinese friend explained that paper money was of no use to villagers, that if I handed over the lot to him he’d pay the two silver dollars to the wounded man in compensation, that later on he might manage to negotiate the paper money (for the good of the village), and that if I’d give twenty more dollars on the morrow to his representative he’d return my gun. At the same time he added that if the navigator attempted to use his gun and resist that the villagers would eat us raw.

“So we had to climb down. We left the village escorted by a howling mob, and now I’ve got to pay twenty Mexican dollars to that smooth-tongued English-speaking Chinaman before I get my 12-bore back.

“Ah Hing, give me another whisky-and-soda.”

Again the sun shines on the turbid pea-soup river, the steaming paddy-fields, and sunburnt backs of the sweating trackers as they painfully tow the junks up-stream. A continuous stream of junks drifts down the river, steered by clumsy rudders and big sweeps; now and then a Hakka boat passes laden with lime made by burning oyster-shells, and occasionally a steam launch, flying the Chinese flag, belonging to the Salt Commissioners or Imperial Chinese Customs. The sun is now mounting high in the heavens, when a sampan puts off from the shore and goes alongside the British gunboat. A grey-bearded man steps up the gangway and, handing a double-barrelled gun to the quarter-master, says, “Give that to the doctor, please, and tell him that there is someone waiting to see him.”

The quarter-master grunts, as much as to say, “Well, I’m damned!” He hands the gun to the surgeon in the wardroom and says, “Chinaman to see you, sir.”

“Show him down, quarter-master,” replies the surgeon, and the venerable Chinaman is conducted to the wardroom.

“Well,” says the surgeon, “what’s to prevent me, now I’ve got my gun back, from having you pushed over the side into your sampan and being told never to come near the ship again?”

The Chinaman smiles and says, “Nothing, except a foolish sense of honour which prevents you from getting out of a promise you’ve once made, even if you know you’ve been badly swindled. When I sent your gun down to you I knew you might have me thrown into the river, and with some justice on your side, but I also knew that, being a white man, you would stick to your promise and pay me the twenty dollars you agreed on yesterday. I don’t admire you for it, but I know your Western ways.”

“Look here,” says the surgeon, “you speak devilish good English; here’s your twenty dollars, and now we’re quits. Have a drink, and tell us something about yourself.”

“I will,” replies the Chinaman, “but whether you believe it or not matters little. I call myself Fung Wa Chun,” and the story of Fung Wa Chun as heard by the surgeon remains to be told.

THE STORY OF FUNG WA CHUN