The Land Leviathan (A Nomad of the Time Streams Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page A

direction from which the sound had seemed to come, noticed a white puff of smoke. Peering more carefully, I made out several riders armed with rifles. More reports followed and I heard something whizz through the rigging over my head. I realized that we were being shot at and hastily ran along the deck to the wheelhouse with the intention of warning the Dutch skipper of the boat.
    Old Cornelius, the skipper, smiled at me as I told him what was happening.
    “Best stay inside, den, Minheer ,” he said, puffing phlegmatically on his own pipe, his huge red face running with sweat, for it was all but airless in the wheelhouse.
    “Should we not pull further out into midstream?” I enquired. “We are surely in some danger.”
    “Oh, yes, in danger ve are, most certainly, but ve should be in much greater danger if ve vent further to midstream. De currents—dey are very strong, sir. Ve must just hope dat not’in’ serious is hit, eh? Dey are alvays shootin’ at us, dese days. Any powered vessel is suspected off bein’ a military ship.”
    “Who are they? Can we not report them to the nearest authorities?”
    “Dey could easily be de aut’orities, Minheer .” Cornelius laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “Do not vorry, eh?”
    I took his advice. After all, there was little else I could do! And soon the danger was past.
    Nothing of a similar nature happened to us in the course of the next couple of days. Once I saw a whole town on fire. Lurid red flames lit up the dusk and thick, heavy smoke drifted over the river to mingle with ours. I saw panic-stricken people trying to crowd into sampans, while others hailed us from the bank, trying to get us to help them, but the skipper would have none of it, claiming that it was suicide to stop and that we should be overrun. I saw his logic, but I felt a dreadful pang, for we sailed close enough to be able to see, with the aid of field-glasses, the fear-racked faces of the women and children. Many women stood up to their waists in water, holding their infants to them and screaming at us to help. The following morning I saw several detachments of cavalry in the uniforms of the central government, riding hell-for-leather along the bank, while behind them rode either irregulars attached to them, or pursuers, it was hard to tell. In the afternoon I saw field artillery being drawn by six-horse teams over a tall bridge spanning a particularly narrow section of the Yangtze Kiang. It had obviously been involved in a fierce engagement, for the soldiers were weary, wounded and scorched, while the wheels and barrels of the guns were thick with mud and there were signs that the guns had been fired almost to destruction (I saw only one ammunition tender and guessed that the others, empty, had been abandoned). Framed against the redness of the setting sun, the detachment looked as if it had returned from Hell itself.
    I was glad to reach Wuchang, but somewhat nervous concerning the next stage of our journey, which would be overland by horse, backtracking to an extent, along the river and then in the general direction of Shancheng—unless we could get a train as far as Kwang Shui. It was what we had originally hoped to do, but we had heard rumours that the line to Kwang Shui had been blown up by bandits.
    Wuchang faces the point where the Han Ho river merges with the Yangtze Kiang. It is one of three large towns lying close to each other, and of them Wuchang is the loveliest. Hanyang and Hankow are beginning to take on a distinctly European character, giving themselves over increasingly to industry and ship-building. But there was no real rest in Wuchang. Martial law had been declared and a mood of intense gloom hung over the whole city. Moreover, it had begun to rain—a thin drizzle which somehow managed to soak through almost any clothing one wore and chilled one to the very bone. The various officials who appeared at the dock as we came in were over-zealous in checking our papers and