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.Realizing he would have to hurry to disembark in the same sampan, he turned quickly and extended his hand in a farewell salutation to Jacques Devraux.“Good-bye, Monsieur Devraux.You’ve made me appreciate that things won’t be easy for me.But I hope God will give me the strength to do good work in China.”“I wish you bonne chance,” said Devraux in a formal tone and stood aside to let a perspiring coolie shuffle by, bearing Jakob’s heavy cabin trunk.The Chinese cleared his throat noisily and spat over the rail close to them as he went on his way, and the Frenchman raised a world-weary eyebrow in Jakob’s direction.“By the way, the Communists have a new slogan, Monsieur Kellner,” said Devraux in an acid voice.“They say that if every Chinese could be persuaded to spit at the same moment, all the foreigners in China would drown.”5Choppy waves slapped noisily at the steps of the stone jetty opposite the Cathay Hotel, where the first canopied sampan was trying to land its passengers.The clash between the inflowing tide and the fast, brown current of the Whangpoo was lifting the craft high one moment and dropping it the next.Seeing Lu Chiao rise from his seat to take his sister’s arm, Jakob hurried impulsively ahead of them to the sampan’s dancing stern and bounded across a gap of several feet onto the slimy steps.Turning quickly, he extended his right hand smilingly toward Mei-ling, offering to assist her ashore.As the sampan lifted her, a pucker of uncertainty appeared fleetingly in Mei-ling’s expression; then as she came level, she calmly stretched out a slender, white-gloved hand toward him and when he grasped her fingers she stepped confidently across the gap to the jetty.“Thank you, Mr.Kellner.” Her smile again carried a hint of warmth and her eyes held his as she spoke, but when they reached the top of the steps she withdrew her hand quickly from his.“I haven’t had the chance to thank you for playing the piano for us last night.” Looking directly into her lovely face, Jakob felt his breath quicken.“I shall never forget the way you played.”Mei-ling gave him a puzzled smile.“But it was nothingAt a loss for words, Jakob continued to stare at her.“Your dress, Miss Lu, is very charming.you must have bought it in Paris.”“My sister, Mr.Kellner, cares little for flattery or compliments.” Lu Chiao strode confidently to the top of the steps, smiling broadly, but behind the smile Jakob noticed for the first time the hard, almost insolent intelligence of his gaze.“She’s as determined as I am to change old Chinese habits.It’s a thing of the past to regard young girls merely as ornamental flower jars.” He held out his hand and shook Jakob’s firmly.“Good-bye, Mr.Kellner.”“I hope we may meet again sometime.” Jakob turned eagerly toward Mei-ling.“Since you are a missionary, Mr.Kellner, our paths are not likely to cross.Good-bye.”Chiao guided his sister quickly away into the melee of yelling dock coolies and lightermen crowding the jetty and Jakob caught a glimpse of a gleaming limousine with a uniformed Chinese chauffeur at the wheel standing beyond the crush.Then he heard a voice call his name and he swung around to see a grinning white face approaching through the throng.“Jakob Kellner? I’m Laurence Franklin.I’ve come to escort you to the mission house.”A pale, bespectacled Englishman in a dark suit and wide-brimmed hat offered his hand quickly; spotting Jakob’s labeled trunk and baggage, he snapped his fingers in the direction of a group of hovering shoulder-pole coolies and, speaking sharply in staccato Shanghai dialect, barked orders at the first Chinese to scamper forward.Jostled by streams of stevedores sagging beneath pole-borne casks, canvas-wrapped boxes, and brimming vegetable baskets, Franklin led the way toward a phalanx of rickshaws.The pullers, bare-chested like the dock coolies, stood before the hooded vehicles, with the shafts jutting skyward over their shoulders, and when Franklin made a signal, half a dozen lunged toward them.The pair who won the scramble dropped to their knees to hold the shafts firm against the cobblestones and Laurence Franklin lowered himself immediately into one of the cushioned seats, mopping his face with a snowy white handkerchief.Jakob, however, stood staring down at the bony, hollow-chested Chinese who knelt before him: the strip of cotton cloth wrapped turban-fashion around the aging man’s head was streaked with sweat and grime and his puny shoulders sagged with fatigue.The expression of mute supplication that burned in his narrow eyes appalled Jakob and rooted him to the spot.In that moment he also became acutely aware of the throbbing, hundred—degree heat, the ceaseless surge of human energy all around him, and the raucous “heb-ho, heb-ho, heb-ho” chants of the trotting coolies which both cleared the way and gave rhythm to their breathing and their gait.An acrid, unfamiliar stench of body sweat rose sickeningly in his nostrils and he found that he was bracing his knees against the imaginary heave of the wharf induced in his senses by seven weeks at sea.“Are you all right, old man?”Jakob looked up to find Franklin watching him with concern.“Do we have to ride in these things?” he asked uneasily.The bespectacled missionary laughed good-naturedly.“Ah, you’ve got a touch of ‘rickshaw-itis’! A lot of new arrivals from Europe get it.It’ll soon pass.You’re just taking rice out of the coolie’s mouth if you refuse the ride.Jump in.He can’t make a living any other way.”Jakob obeyed reluctantly and as soon as he was seated, his coolie broke into a hobbling run, following in Franklin’s wake.Coming out onto the crowded Bund they seemed to be carried along by the momentum of thousands of other iron-wheeled rickshaws; the shriek of tram sirens augmented the din, the feral reek of mules and buffalo hung heavy in the saturated air, and Jakob noticed with a start that the human draft animals hauling the giant platformed wheelbarrows rumbling all around him were often coolie women.With hempen ropes biting into their narrow shoulders they leaned low toward the road, staggering now and then with effort while their husbands strained and pushed the barrows from the rear.They never raised their heads and the unseen rickshaws swept past them like leaves on a millrace into the Nanking Road: there, thickets of brilliant hanging name banners splashed with golden Chinese characters drifted and rippled against every facade, dazzling Jakob’s eyes.The jumbled mass of carts, trucks, cars, and rickshaws ground to a standstill around the pedestal of a black-bearded Sikh policeman who was regulating the flow of traffic
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