The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1920-09-02
CHAPTER ~
The Eeathered Needle.


The Ensurta Queen was neither the
largest nor the newest ship afioat.
The Pacific was inclined to handle her
roughly. She was not long enough TO
be comfortable in a breeze, but she
was of a sturdy depth, profitable to
her owners. The wind was sharper
than Lexington had anticipated.
Nothing was as he had planned. He
went shivering to his cabin.
The fire that lurked in Cons veins
was not sanity. He never knew that
his mother had dwe1t on the clear
heights of emotion, that John Leving-
ton had seen all things with the vision
of a poet. Even in those shabby fra
grant days in Dory street. toward the
last, the father had mentioned the
beauty of Gods world, not meant for
himself, and had looked to his little
boy for answer.
Often after that Lexington glanced
across at Chez Ming ia the dining
salon or passed him on deck. a per-
feet lack of relation was preserved
between them, as if they had never
met before.
The Ensurta Queen hesitated at
Nagasaki, let go a little of her burden,
and bounced onward into the Yellow
sea- The wind changed thrice, lifted,
then died. The ship was not quoted,
but wallowed anyway. A thick
dim mist filed fine, air, cold, riven
only by the Ensurta's dignified warn
ing, which was repeated every forty
seconds throughout the final night and
day.
Small, low craft scuttled out of her
path. The presence of the ancient
yellow Mother permeated the fog, as
if creeping out from invisible shores
to sniff the stranger Mother
China. who started half the good
things of the world, but left them for
others to finish, to abuse and forget.
Some of her best have never been dis
covered. She is waiting. She did not
ask for the Torch of Light, and there
was no sorrow in her yielding when
they took 1T from her Her timeless
eyes have never wept, and they will
never smile. Dynasties, empires, races
of men, emerge from her, cast their
tinsel upon the dust, and vanish, God
knows where, and Mother China waits,
and waits.
In his cabin Con Lexington was
sleeping.
The harbor at Tong-hu was crowd
ed. Mongrel craft of the world were
cluttered here-sailing-ship that had
left Liverpool in the girlhOOd Of
Queen Victoria, and never returned |;
gray japanese coasters; netting tugs
from the south; a low neglected
revenue chaser, built for the king OF
Portugal, at present carrying arti-
ehokes and salt and sisal, a tramp
like the rest. Threading these were
the native river -decked
and fat, their rails mere perforated
steam-pipes arranged against the day
of pirates, when live steam would
flash from them broadside and scald
the robbers as they came aboard-with
ever q shifting background OF junks,
like vermin swarming an old coat,
crooked, discolored floating shapes
that would have sunk in water thinner
than this Pei-ho mud. Short cries
sounded, and a dim rattle of gongs.
A sooty ting worried at the hawser
of the bulky Queen. There followed
the creaking of strained timbers as
she leaned against the dock, a female
CULVER amid the little dirty ships of
Tong-hu. The tug snorted at her, then
ran up the fOggy river.
Coolies ran up the wet gangways.
Human wharf-rats sat on the cargo that
was presently to be loaded. smoking in
the foul. cold yellow air of the harBor.
The handful of passengers disembark-
cd. Far from being. the last was
Chez Ming, with his carriers trotting
before him. Lexington was stin asleep.
Cons room was in disorder The
porter came on his rounds with broom
and dust-pan, and found the sleeper.
He reused Con and thought him drunk.
But the stupor was not that of alcohol
Levington's pulse was slow. One
side Of his body felt dead Every
thing was thick and puffy to his touch,
and pain ran deep into his head.