Blue Jackets; or, The Adventures of J. Thompson, A.B., Among "the Heathen Chinee": A Nautical NovelGreey, Edward
General
Blue Jackets; or, The Adventures of J. Thompson, A.B., Among "the Heathen Chinee": A Nautical Novel
Greey, Edward
Great Britain. Royal Navy -- Fiction; Seafaring life -- Fiction
A-tae trembled, as she cast a timorous glance towards her basket-bearer,
and replied, "I call you Sho" (beautiful eyes), saying which she
laughed, and added, "but surely you will not take that name?"
"I'll call myself any thing you choose to name me."
"Then I give you this,--Yung-Yung" (good-humoured face).
"And what may I call you?"
"Me! Don't you know?" said the pretty girl, looking at Yung-Yung in a
manner which made his heart bump again.
"What! not know my name?"
"I do not. I am a wanderer and a stranger here."
"Poor fellow. Have you no friends?"
"None here. Will you be my friend?"
"You don't know my name, yet ask me to be your friend. Speak lower, and
look down while you talk, or the overseer will send some one else with
me to-morrow."
"_What_ is your name?"
"A-tae."
After casting his eyes about in order to ascertain if any of the pickers
were watching, he bent over the girl, who was very deeply engaged in
removing some fine shoots from the lower part of a plant, and when she
rose, as her cheek came quite close to his, he kissed it gently, and
said,
"A-tae, I love you."
The girl gave a nervous little laugh, then asked him what he meant.
"I want to marry you."
"Where do you come from, Yung-Yung-Sho, that you speak thus? Would I
could be given to one like you; but I shall be, like other girls, sent
off to slave for some man of my own class, or sold to a mandarin." (It
will be perceived that A-tae was, although a Chinese, an advocate for
woman's rights). "Oh, Yung-Yung-Sho do you think Buddha knows how badly
they treat us poor girls?"
"Can't you run away with me?" observed the now thoroughly "gone" sailor;
"slip off in the night, and go away to a country where the women are
thought as much of as the men."
"That's where Buddha is, Yung-Yung-Sho. _There_ we shall be men. I know
all about that, and have my Tieh papers at home. I'm not as stupid as
most girls. You are a benevolent man thus to listen to the nonsense of
little me. But why do those Yuen-chae (police runners) point this way?
Are you wanted? If so, flee. That way, that way; up among the rocks, and
hide in the caves."
Jerry had little time to say farewell, as he noticed the two soldiers,
accompanied by police runners, making towards him; so, after bestowing a
fervent kiss upon the lips of the astonished A-tae, he sprang over the
tea plants and sped away like the wind. The poor girl sunk upon the
ground, cried, and wrung her hands like one demented. Her companions
gathered round, and finding she was in trouble, prevailed upon her to go
home. Meanwhile the soldiers and their party chased the agile sailor,
running until they got out of breath; and when they last spied him he
was darting into a wood, which was set apart for the use of Buddhist
priests, and where they felt sure of bagging him during the course of
the day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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