passengers paid slight attention to the accident, knowing that these little natives are as much at home in the water as on shore. Indifference, however, gave way to concern when the child's shrill cry for help rang through the air, followed by the mad efforts of every sampan-man within sight to get away from the drowning boy, instead of to him. It was now evident that the little fellow had become entangled in a floating coil of rope, and that his drowning was a matter of a few seconds; yet not one of the Chinese boatmen but watched from a distance and in silence the small hero's frantic struggles for life. Indeed, the little Mongolian was already disappearing in the waters of the bay when the steam launch, at the signal of the commander, veered in its course, and a strong arm snatched the little body from the waves. As for the sampan-men, they watched the rescue with cries of amazement. This was because of the curious law existing in certain provinces of China that whosoever saves a life, the rescued one may lawfully look to the rescuer for support forever after. It is plain that this barbaric edict virtually puts a premium on death; but the explanation lies in the fatalistic religion, which holds that whenever a man falls into peril it is by the express wish and will of the gods, and that to rescue him is to obstruct their just decrees.
Meantime the officers, who had arriveil on shipboard with their protégé before it had occurred to them to pl:in for his disposal, were examining their find as though he had been a new and curious toy. To send him back to shore wils impossible, as they were already steaming out of the harbor. The only course, then, was to keep him on board, at least during the voyage to Japan, a plan rendered all the easier by the fact that the little heathen was, according to his broken Japanese, both homeless and friendless.
But if the boy had seemed a nuisance in prospect, he was anything but that in reality. Shrewd as any Bowery ragamuffin, the little fellow's alert ways and quick wits were the unfailing delight of the three American officers.
More imitative, even, than the Japanese, he picked up their language and customs with such in credible ease that in a few days he was more Japanese than any subject of the Mikado. Indeed, before many weeks had passed,
