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
As she sang this her eyes sparkled, and a smile illuminated her face.
Was she not going to meet her true love, her own Yung-Yung-Sho? Under
those circumstances even a plain girl would have looked charming, and
little A-tae appeared happy as a bird and bright as a diamond.
The girl proceeded at a brisk rate until she came to the entrance of the
ravine, upon which she stopped and tormented herself with surmises. "He
has fled. He _was_ killed, for my mother did not mention him. I am
devoured with affliction; I must go back," she thought, but after a
while summoned courage, and walking up the pathway, found herself before
the hole in the wall.
"Ahem!" said a voice, which she knew did not belong to Nan-woo.
A-tae blushed, cast down her eyes, and lifting the tribute basket placed
it gently upon the ledge, but was too much agitated to speak.
"Ahem!" repeated the person inside.
"Sho," timidly whispered the girl, still looking at the ground; and ere
she could raise her eyes the stone screen was pushed back, and Jerry,
thrusting forth his arms, seized her, and lifting her up, imprinted a
burning kiss upon her lips.
"O Sho, don't."
"You beauty, how I have longed to see you!" whispered the happy fellow.
Of course his Chinese was not perfect by a long way, but he managed to
make her understand, and what he could not utter with his tongue he
expressed with his eyes, his only drawback being his inability to kiss
her often, as the operation was not only awkward, but absolutely
dangerous. After a delicious half-hour, during which he told her that
she was the most beautiful woman in the world at least twenty times, she
asked for Nan-woo.
"Oh, he's asleep."
"Wake him. Good-bye. I'll come again to-morrow, my lord," said she,
kissing her hand in imitation of her lover; then, assuming a demure
expression of countenance, awaited the awakening of the bonze.
After shaking the old gentleman until he began to fear he would
dislocate his neck, the sailor succeeded in getting Nan-woo to open one
eye, and to slowly utter "O-mi-tu-fuh," upon which the deputy bonze
repeated the irritation until he got through a good many
"O-mi-tu-fuh's;" then he informed him that _a person_ wanted him, and
added in his own language, "If I ketch you a winkin' at her I'll stop
your rice, so mind." Not that the bonze was likely to be guilty of such
a breach of discipline but the sailor was so love-stricken, that he
would have quarrelled with A-tae's shadow from very jealousy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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