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 CONQUEST 
 
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 PARADISE," ''THE ROMANCE Of AN ALTER E60,'* ETC. 
 
 REPRINTED FROM 
 
 LIPPINCOTT'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 J.%. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 
 
 1890. 
 
Dream of Conquest 
 
 %lk(>^.4.^ 
 
 LLOYD , BRYCE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "PARADISE," "THE ROMANCE OF AN ALTER EGO," ETC. 
 
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 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
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 Copyright, 1889, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 
 
 
 • ,•••• • • 
 
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 ' • • • • • « • 
 
DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WANG-CHI-POO sat in his bamboo chair, discontentedly twisting 
 the end of his queue. The fragrance of orange-blossoms breathed 
 softly on him from the garden, but could not soothe his perturbation, 
 nor could the noise of the fountain hard by that came in through the 
 paper-glazed windows. Everything palled upon him ; the silken hang- 
 ings interwoven with gold that decorated his apartment, the brightly 
 tessellated floor, in short, the wealth and Oriental luxury that were on 
 every side were, this morning, less than naught to him. 
 
 The Chinese have a song that runs somewhat in this manner : 
 
 At first, man hungers for a meal ; 
 And then, that clothes his form conceal; 
 Finely attired, a wife he craves ; 
 Married, for palanquins he raves ; 
 Supplied with horses, mules, and lands, 
 Official rank he next demands ; 
 Ennobled, he would yet climb higher, 
 Till by degrees he claims empire ; 
 At last enthroned as Heaven's son, 
 He thinks not yet his dues are won, 
 But, yearning still for something more, 
 'Gainst Death he fain would bolt the door. 
 Fool, Death alone thy wants can tame : 
 " I crave," thy epitaph and name. 
 
 But greed for more is, I fear, too common to the human race fairly 
 to indicate the cause of Wang-Chi-Poo's disquietude. His discontent 
 was of a less personal description, though it was connected with ambi- 
 tion : it was of a more truly Chinese character than the proverb just 
 quoted. It had its root in his country's ancestor- worship ; and to 
 Western ears it will sound peculiar. Wang-Chi-Poo, though barely 
 
4 ., ,, A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 'forty-s^eri j^mof age, had reached the Second Mandarin's rank, and 
 the cause of his discontent was the conviction of his incapacity to secure, 
 by the usual means, the yellow button of the first rank. Nor was it 
 for the gratification that this yellow button would confer on his personal 
 pride that he craved this, but — here comes in the distinction, and, O 
 land of the Antipodes, O land of the Topsy-turvy, it is a curious one 
 it was to gratify the pride of his grandmother, now some twenty- 
 five years in her grave. Takiug everything into consideration, for a 
 man still in his prime, surrounded with every luxury and temj)ted by 
 wealth and leisure to lead a life of pleasure,— for such a man thus to 
 cast his longings and his aspirations backward to a previous generation 
 illustrates, I think, one of the most beautiful traits of the Chinese char- 
 acter, and it is one that might well be copied by other peoples. Wang- 
 Chi-Poo therefore pulled his queue discontentedly, and continued to 
 brood on the hard fate of his progenitrix thus deprived, through him, 
 of what he considered her just due. 
 
 We in the West announce our coming with a knock ; those in the 
 East enter first and knock afterward. Thus it happened that Wang- 
 Chi-Poo was abruptly disturbed in his meditations by the presence of 
 his secretary, before his entrance was so much as suspected. The new- 
 comer was a small, narrow-chested young man with a large head and 
 eyes like coals, set ofi* by a pair of enormous spectacles tied by bows 
 behind his ears. He was attired in the garb of the literary class, and, 
 with much ceremony, took his seat opposite Wang-Chi-Poo, presenting 
 him with a neatly-enveloped package of manuscript as he sat down. 
 Wang-Chi-Poo weariedly took up the parcel, only to allow it to drop 
 as weariedly into his lap. 
 
 " O Taonsu," he observed at last, " I am not in harmony with 
 state papei-s, and the doctrines of Confucius sadly pall on me to-day. 
 Amuse me, rather ; tell me the doings of the town ; or stay I thou 
 who hast sojourned in the land of Foreign Devils, tell me more of it. 
 Tell me again of this land beyond the seas, where they dress in the 
 color of coals and wear shining black boxes for coverings of the head ; 
 where, as thou hast said, they call change progress, and select an em- 
 peror every four years, though the moment he is on the throne they pro- 
 ceed to look out for a new one ; whereof this same emperor, as thou 
 hast told me, is yet a god during the first two years of his term, a 
 demon during his last, and behold when he is stripped of his authority 
 and a new ruler elected there are none so poor as to do him honor. 
 Have they religions there, O Taonsu, and do the followers of Confucius 
 numl)er many?'' 
 
 " There are many from the Flowery Kingdom in America, Great 
 Excellency, whom the press of hunger has driven thither, and a few in 
 the schools who, like myself, were sent out by His Celestial Majesty to 
 be instructed in their sciences." 
 
 " And what are their sciences, O Taonsu ? Is it true that the fiery 
 horse walks on big stilts through their cities, crushing and trampling 
 down all before it ? Is it true, too, that each man takes only one she- 
 devil for his wife, and even so is obliged to cut off her nails that she 
 can't scratch?" 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 6 
 
 Taonsu raised his eyebrows with a queer little smile. 
 
 " They certainly cut off their nails, Great Excellency ; but as for 
 one man taking only one she-devil for his wife, they often take as many 
 as we do, only the process is different. Permit me, Your Excellency ; 
 the newspaper around this manuscript is of Western origin and chanced 
 to come over in the last steam-junk." And Taonsu, removing the parcel 
 from his patron^s lap, untied it and spread the enveloping wrapper flat 
 out on the floor. " There, Your Excellency," he continued, pointing 
 to the advertisement of a lawyer who guaranteed absolute divorce, with 
 perfect secrecy thrown in, for ten dollars, " when a man wants a new 
 wife he goes to this lawyer, states his complaints, and gets freed from 
 the old one by paying down his money. This is the first step." Then 
 Taonsu ran his eye down the sheet till he came to the advertisement of 
 a matrimonial agency. " And here is the second step," he continued. 
 " He visits this agency, pays down ten chop-dollars more, and selects 
 from a series of photographs he is shown the woman whose picture he 
 likes best. Thus for twenty chop-dollars in all he is both rid of his 
 old wife and provided with a new one." 
 
 " What strange devils these Foreign Devils are !" said Wang Chi- 
 Poo, reflectively ; " to understand them thou must look at them upside 
 down. But our people, how do they prosper ?" he went on, inquiringly. 
 
 " They did well until too many came ; then the natives massacred 
 them." 
 
 " Thev massacred them ?" 
 
 " Even so." 
 
 " But why, when our people were many ? If they were few it were 
 more natural." 
 
 " Excellency, the natives feared we would overrun their country and 
 take the bread out of the mouths of their own children ; but here is 
 mention of our people in this very paper, and what they suffer." And 
 Taonsu read a serio-comic description of a late ball given at Washing- 
 ton by the Chinese Legation, with an exaggerated account of the scram- 
 ble for supper. This he translated remarkably well, only taking in too 
 literal a sense the Western humor. 
 
 On Wang-Chi-Poo, of course, the humor would have been entirely 
 lost ; to him only the indignity was manifest. The Chinese Embassy 
 had been insulted ; and he swore lustily in the dialect of Confucius, 
 and would not be comforted. 
 
 "This last occurred some time ago," resumed Taonsu. "More 
 recently, however, they have passed a law that is an express violation 
 of all their agreements, for it will exclude our people entirely from 
 their shores." 
 
 In Wang-Chi-Poo's eyes, the desire to exclude his people fur- 
 nished rather a curious instance of that topsy-turviness he had re- 
 marked upon, but the insult inflicted on the Legation was a breach of 
 tliat ceremonial which to a Chinaman is as the breath of life itself. 
 For a long time he swore ; then, his passion s^ibsiding, he chewed the 
 recollection like a melancholy cud. 
 
 " Go on," he said at last, " read me something more of these Foreign 
 Devils. What do those great letters say on the top of the sheet ?" 
 
g A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 Taonsu, thus directed, resumed his office of interpreter. 
 
 " They speak, you see. Great Excellency, of the unprotected con- 
 dition of their harbors, showing the billions and billions of wealth that 
 lie exposed to any invader with no provision for their defence. Each 
 city on the coast, it is stated, could easily be laid in ashes by a fleet of 
 even a fiflh-rate power." 
 
 " And is this true, O Taonsu ?'* 
 
 " Too true. Your Excellency. To defend the great city of New 
 York, which is almost as large as this city which we inhabit, there are 
 barely half a dozen forts well-nigh crumbling into the dust." 
 
 " How many cities are there on the coast ?" 
 
 Taonsu reflected. " There are at least six of the flrst class, and 
 innumerable small towns." 
 
 " How many days' sail is it to this land ?" 
 
 ^* Steam, Great Excellency, has bridged the ocean." 
 
 " Taonsu, leave me : I would think." 
 
 When a Westerner " thinks," he generally requires the repose of 
 absolute quiet ; when a Chinaman " thinks," his cogitations are assisted 
 by a noise. The same results are attained by exactly the reverse 
 process. Stillness is proverbial of the fisherman\s craft ; in China the 
 fisherman surrounds himself with gongs. The Chinese watchman beats 
 his rattle, not to let the householder know that all is well, but to make 
 thieves and evil-doers aware that he is about. And where, under 
 Western civilization, a man having a grudge murders his foe, a China- 
 man, instead, kills himself upon his enemy's threshold. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo entered the garden with the purpose of seeking his » 
 wives' quarters beyond, for Wang-Chi-Poo had one first wife, and — not 
 to offend the delicate sensibilities of my lady-readers — he had several 
 wives besides. This garden was a marvel of quaintness in its way. It 
 was crossed and recrossed in every direction by little porcelain-paved 
 paths ; brightly-painted bridges spanned diminutive canals, and iu the 
 middle of the garden was a fountain from which the canals all radiated 
 outward. In the basin of the fountain stood an enormous artificial 
 flamingo, of so natural an appearance that it served as a perpetual puzzle 
 to a live flamingo which could do nothing but walk around him and 
 stare at him the entire day. Passing through the garden, Wang-Chi- 
 Poo entered his wives' quarters by a curious gateway in the wall, cut in 
 the exact shape of a large teapot. 
 
 Naomoona, the first wife, was reclining luxuriously in a hammock ; 
 Taomoona, the second, was similarly engaged ; Saomoona occupied a 
 third hammock ; and, in fact, the whole number, down to the very 
 newest, were quietly swinging themselves, keeping time to the oscilla- 
 tions of their bodies by the motion of their fans. 
 
 On the floor was a highly-decorative bamboo mat, and on this some 
 half-dozen little Wang-Chi-Poos were disporting themselves. A shout 
 of delight from the latter announced the coming of the author of their 
 beings ; the ladies severally rose from their hammocks, and each, taking 
 hold of the chair that was nearest her, proceeded to wipe from its seat 
 with her dress imaginary particles of dust. 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 7 
 
 " The Light of the Household shall sit on my chair," exclaimed 
 Naomoona. " No, he shall sit on mine,'^ interrupted Taomoona. " Nay, 
 but on mine," added Saomoona. But the Light of the Household solved 
 the dilemma by taking his seat with the juvenile Wang-Chi-Poos on the 
 floor, drawing some curious little tissue butterflies from his voluminous 
 pocket, and with his fan making them mount into the air for the edifi- 
 cation of his children. 
 
 " What would you think, O wives of my heart, if I should never 
 sit on any of your chairs again ? if, on the contrary, I should take my 
 seat on the lofty stern of one of His Majesty's smoke-junks and sail 
 away to the laud where the White-skin Devils abide ?" 
 
 A hush of intense surprise greeted this speech ; then each of the 
 ladies raised her curious little enamelled face over the edge of her 
 curious little hammock and stared at her husband, who was still engaged 
 with the butterflies. 
 
 " They say that they make silks of strange designs, these Foreign 
 Devils," said number one. 
 
 " And set diamonds in a way we know naught of here," observed 
 the second. 
 
 "Ay, and cut their stones to make them shine with unwonted 
 lustre," observed a third. "A jeweller from India once showed me 
 some that had been cut, he said, in barbaric lands." 
 
 " The house would be dark," exclaimed Saomoona, " without the 
 presence of its Light, but we will curb our impatience till his return 
 bringing with him these weird proofs of the Foreign Devils' skill." 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo rose from the floor, tightened his broad red sash, 
 rearranged the folds of his voluminous tunic, and called for his palan- 
 quin. He felt annoyed, just as a AVesterner might, at the flippant 
 reception his serious proposal had met with. " Wang-Chi-Poo has 
 not gone yet," he muttered, " but should he depart he will console 
 himself with the reflection that his wives will bear up against his 
 return." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The strictness of ceremonial used in approaching His Celestial 
 Majesty was in no wise relaxed for Wang-Chi-Poo, though he was a 
 mandarin of next to the highest rank ; and for the purpose of approach- 
 ing His Majesty Wang-Chi-Poo had called his palanquin. To go 
 in proper state required, for Wang-Chi-Poo, six runners in front and 
 six behind, without counting the fourteen bearers of the sedan-chair. 
 Ahead of all rode a horseman with a huge sheet of paper in his hand 
 and horns like rams' horns fastened to his cap on each side of his head. 
 The duty of the horseman was to strike awe into the public by loudly 
 reading off the paper the titles and dignities of Wang-Chi-Poo coming 
 on behind ; that of the runners, to prevent these same honors from 
 being forgotten, by belaboring the public over the heads with their 
 staves. 
 
 Not to particularize the precise road the procession took, suffice it 
 
3 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 to say that in due time it arrived before the walls of the Imperial 
 palace, where the great man descended. 
 
 The plan of this palace much resembles one of those curious Chinese 
 boxes which you open only to find another box inside. One wall serves 
 but as an outwork to another wall, and one series of buildings but as 
 shells to other buildings within ; all interspersed with court-yards and 
 gardens in a way to baffle and bewilder whoever would describe it. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo, being received by at least twenty-five court officials, 
 and havmg them as guides, threaded without much difficulty the 
 labyrinth, and was ushered at last into an apartment at the lower end 
 of which, in a sort of niche partly screened by a mat, the Son of Heaven 
 sat on his throne. Though but a boy in years, the sovereign was a 
 veteran in intelligence. Wang-Chi-Poo, on arriving at the threshold of 
 the sacred precincts, dropped on his stomach and advanced into the 
 apartment on his hands and knees, making a series of little hops like 
 a frog, with his head in the air and his mouth open ; for, being a stout 
 man, it was a decidedly uncomfortable manner of progress. Opposite 
 the niche he stopped. 
 
 "O great Son of Heaven, august Lord of the Universe, and 
 Master of Ten Thousand Kingdoms,'^ he exclaimed, " an idea, a great 
 idea, has taken possession of thy slave." 
 
 His youthful Majesty glanced down condescendingly from over the 
 mat. 
 
 " Take care, O Wang-Chi-Poo : ideas are dangerous," he observed, 
 with precocious instinct; "ideas are as the witch-fires in the lowlands that 
 lead a man on rejoicingly only to engulf him in mud. Is this idea of 
 thine inspired by Confucius ?" 
 
 "No, sire, it is a new idea, one born of extraordinary circum- 
 itances." 
 
 "Hush; I have heard it said that there is nothing new but the 
 forgotten." 
 
 *' True, sire, but this idea is not altogether my own ; rather let me 
 say it is sprung from thy great sire's generosity." 
 
 " Rise then, O Wang-Chi-Poo ; but if it be not as thou hast stated 
 the bamboo basket shall lift thy head higher than thou aspirest to raise 
 it, and Foong-Shoong [the evil spirit] shall take thy body." 
 
 " Great Majesty, I crave thy indulgence ; what I would say requires 
 secrecy for its success." 
 
 Now, with most Oriental sovereigns to clap the hands is the signal 
 to approach ; with the Son of Heaven it is the reverse. The Son of 
 Heaven clapped his hands behind the mat, and instantly the numerous 
 attendants lining the apartment disappeared, as if by magic, through 
 trap-doors in the floor. 
 
 Left alone with his august sovereign, Wang-Chi-Poo proceeded to 
 relate the substance of Taonsu's communications, describing the unpro- 
 tected condition of the seaboard towns across the ocean and their 
 enormous wealth, and showing with how little risk, owing to the semi- 
 wvihzed condition of the inhabitants, they might belaid under tribute. 
 Then he went on to portray the powerful navy China now had, the vast 
 Bums that had been expended on it, and the growing conviction of the 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 9 
 
 people that, because it had accomplished so little, the old style of war- 
 junks was superior. Lastly, Wang-Chi-Poo described the indignities 
 China had suffered from Foreign Devils generally, jumbling up the ex- 
 pedition of the French, the half-forgotten burning of the summer palace 
 by the English, the Chinese riots in America, and the passage of the 
 Chinese-exclusion bill, and winding up as a grand climax with the sup- 
 posed indignities inflicted on His Majesty's Embassy in Washington. 
 
 As he finished, the eyes of his precocious Majesty snapped fire. 
 
 " And why has no one told me of this last, O Wang-Chi-Poo ?" for, 
 in the opinion of the sovereign also, the supper episode was a more 
 grievous insult than the anti-Chinese bill. 
 
 " Because, Great Majesty, the Son of Heaven is supposed to know 
 all." 
 
 The Son of Heaven pondered deeply over this home-thrust. 
 
 " And thou couusellest me to use my powerful armaments for ven- 
 geance ?" he observed at last. " Thy idea is not without value. Long 
 now have we had these foreign steamers, and long have we been doubtful 
 what use to make of them. Ah, Wang-Chi-Poo, thou givest me an 
 idea that is not in Confucius, — namely, to signalize my accession by 
 some notable event. Thou givest me an idea ; I will, I will, I will ; 
 yes, I will take the reins of power, as the law now allows me, into 
 my own hands, and declare war against these Foreign Devils ; thus I 
 will stretch out my arms to devastate their cities as they have devas- 
 tated mine, — why not ? These expensive armaments brought from across 
 the sea shall go back across the sea aryi declare in tones of thunder that 
 the majesty of China is more than a name, and His Majesty more than 
 a child. But stay, thou who hast really had something to do with 
 giving me this idea, what wouldst thou advise ? Though thou art but 
 of the second rank, thy head is not completely addled, and I have often 
 thought thee not quite the fool thou seemest." 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo modestly acknowledged this compliment by a bow. 
 Before replying to the question, however, he ran the long nail of his 
 little finger down the breast-seam of his tunic. 
 
 "Tell me, who should command this expedition?" continued the 
 sovereign. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo still hesitated. "August Son of Heaven," he at 
 last replied, " thou hast many admirals educated in foreign lands to com- 
 mand thy fleet ; but I was thinking that if some commissioner could be 
 found to accompany it, some one not quite of the highest rank, for so 
 he might be arrogant and spoil all by his wilfulness, — one who was well 
 read in Confucius, but yet not so blind a follower of Conflicius as to 
 refuse to look beyond, — one whose greatest ambition was to raise an 
 ancestor who had no rank, and who would give as security for his suc- 
 cess perchance a million chop-dollars, — I was thinking that if such a 
 man could be found, the nominal direction of this expedition could be 
 safely reposed in his hands." 
 
 " But where is such a man, O Wang-Chi-Poo ? Gladly would I lay 
 my hands on him." 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo bowed self-complacently. 
 
 " By the bones of my ancestors, I almost believe thou meanest thy- 
 
20 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 self I Ha ! if it is thou, I shall have to ask TWO million chop-dollars. 
 Thou art too 'cute, O Wang-Chi-Poo." 
 
 " Thy servant is too poor." 
 
 " Say rather ray servant is too rich. But stay ; there is something 
 in thy plan, and, as thou thyself hast said, it demands secrecy and 
 discretion. Regents are obstructive, courtiers are bowing puppets, 
 while ministers of the crown are as pots that leak at the bottom and 
 have sieves for sides. Thou didst mention a certain Taonsu whom our 
 generosity permitted to study in the Foreign Devils' lands ; with him I 
 might more freely consult as to the likelihood of what thou hast told 
 me. Wang-Chi-Poo, I salute thee ; get thee hence." 
 
 Then Wang-Chi-Poo retired, — retired as is the custom in China, 
 backing out not only through the first door, but through the second, 
 backing out through one room after another, backing out through 
 court-yard after court-yard, and through the labyrinth of gardens by 
 which he had come; keeping his face turned always in the opposite 
 direction to that in which he was going, and salaaming to this official 
 and salaaming to that as one after the other passed him on. Nor was 
 the manner of his progress changed on arriving outside the palace; 
 for on entering his palanquin it was borne to his home backward 
 through the streets, so that his face might never be turned away from 
 that of his juvenile but Celestial Majesty. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It has been said of Russia that the system of its government is 
 military despotism tempered by assassination. Of China it may be said 
 that the system of its government is competitive examination tempered 
 by purchase. 
 
 China has reached the highest development of what is called here 
 Civil Service Reform, only in China the subject-matter of the exami- 
 nation is always Confucius. 
 
 No matter what the post sought for may be, Confucius is always 
 the test of fitness. For a collectorship of customs — Confucius ; for a 
 generalship in the^ army — Confucius ; Confucius for every post, Con- 
 fucius for secretaries, ministers, and judges, with a sublime impar- 
 tiality and a sublime indifference to the particular requirements of each 
 
 case. 
 
 For positions in the navy, however, in addition to the doctrines of 
 Confucius, a thorough knowledge of seamanship is required, and the 
 Naval Academy at Foo-Chow, under the management of European 
 instructors, turns out quite efficient officers. These, in addition to the 
 many young men educated in the European seats of naval instruction, 
 form a sufficiently large class to draw upon for the command of their 
 new Armstrong and German-built steamers. 
 
 I can think of no more glaring contradiction than this rapid engraft- 
 ment of new methods and of new sciences on the old trunk of Chinese 
 civilization ; this scientifically built and scientifically managed fleet, 
 armed with steel guns, and under the command of a monarch who 
 
A DREAM OF CONqUEST. H 
 
 attains his majority at the age of fourteen ; this scientifically managed 
 army too, equipped with arms of precision at the whim of a sovereign, 
 however precocious, who sits on an ivory throne behind a bamboo 
 screen. 
 
 China is awaking from her long sleep ; her four hundred millions 
 are beginning to rub their eyes and to look about them with all that 
 confusion of ideas which occurs on suddenly encountering the light, — 
 trying to reconcile Confucius with foundries, and Western ideas gen- 
 erally with paper butterflies and gongs. As if to give a last touch to 
 a situation strikingly suggestive of op6ra bouffe already, the command 
 of expeditions that would be supposed to stand in need of extra intelli- 
 gence is often a mere matter of barter. 
 
 Thus, Wang-Chi-Poo, utterly ignorant of steamships, scarcely having 
 more experience of naval matters than was to be acquired by paddling 
 his little boat on his artificial lake, aspired to command a European- 
 built armada, and was willing to pay down two million chop-dollars 
 for that distinction. One saving clause, however, removed at a stroke 
 the most striking absurdities of the situation, — namely, that his command 
 would be merely titular, and that he really would have nothing more 
 to do with the leadership than the gilded figure-head on the bow of the 
 vessel that bore him. Looked at from another stand-point it becomes 
 more natural still. Wang-Chi-Poo would be merely the representative 
 of his sovereign on the high seas, a commissioner, an envoy extraor- 
 dinary to His Majesty's own fleet. 
 
 This fleet consisted of seventy vessels, principally steamers and of 
 iron or composite construction. I give a list of them, which is official : 
 five armored men-of-war; two cruisers of the protected type ; two cruisers 
 of the partially protected type ; eighteen unprotected cruisers ; forty- 
 three gun-boats, of which two were protected and eleven partly protected. 
 
 The most extraordinary fact, however, is the slight notice the de- 
 velopment of this really extensive navy has attracted in foreign lands. 
 We hear of the Japanese navy, but the Chinese navy has been steadily 
 improving till the Celestial Empire to-day is one of the actual naval 
 powers of the world, and yet ninety-nine Americans out of every 
 hundred still believe its fleet to consist of sailing-junks alone. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Now let us turn to a different quarter of the world, but one with 
 which we shall have more to do ; let us turn to that country whereof 
 the inhabitants " dress in the color of coals and wear on their heads 
 for covering black boxes of silk ; where every fourth year they elect 
 an emperor, and the moment he is up proceed to search out a new one ; 
 to the land whose emperor is a god for his first two years, and a demon 
 during his last, and when he is out, and a new emperor is selected, 
 behold scarce a man can be found so poor as to do the old one honor ;" 
 let us turn to the capital of this emperor, even to the Houses of Con- 
 gress which make the laws. 
 
 It is exactly five months later than the events related in the first 
 
22 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 chapter, and the session of Congress is drawing to its close. Many 
 events have taken place during this Congress : for instance, China has 
 made certain preposterous demands in retaliation for the Chinese- 
 exclusion bill, and, failing to receive satisfaction, has just withdrawn 
 its legation. This act, which, if done by a more civilized country, 
 would be held tantamount to a declaration of war, was viewed by the 
 people at large with about as much concern as if the King of the 
 Sandwich Islands had abruptly withdraw^ his representative. War 
 was held to exist at this very moment with China, and the prospect of 
 the dragon across the sea at last showing his teeth caused general mem- 
 ment. 
 
 The session of this particular Congress is drawing near its close, 
 as we have said ; consequently, in the slang of the day, many bills are 
 being " railroaded through." The River and Harbor bill, for instance, 
 has })assed, " under a suspension of the rules," and one among its many 
 clauses is an appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars for widening 
 and dredging Little Log-Rolling Creek. 
 
 This bill, be it understood, was not for fortifying the rivers and 
 harbors, but simply for improving them : Little Log-Roiling Creek 
 was to be improved into a river ; the edict of the House had gone 
 forth. No one outside of the locality through which the creek passed 
 liad ever heard of it, nor was it on any map that the eyes of man had 
 ever seen ; but no doubt when Little Log-Rolling Creek had been 
 dredged and widened it would grow into a river, and that was all 
 that could be expected of it. No city stood upon its banks, but once 
 improved many cities might. And at all events its improvement 
 would afford bathing-facilities to the juvenile community thereabouts, 
 of which they had long stood in special need. So the River and 
 Harbor bill passed^ and each clause of its many new appropriations 
 was passed with it, — passed with the rush of an express train, and 
 regardless of the fact that there was yet an unexpended balance of 
 $16,636,362.71 from the appropriation of the preceding year. The 
 bill for defending the harbors, however, which was on the calendar for 
 to-day, was expected to create a very lively debate, and the galleries 
 were packed. 
 
 At three o'clock precisely, a certain Mr. Starr arose and clearly 
 demonstrated the unprotected condition of the cities on the seaboard ; 
 pointing out, in the course of his remarks, the necessity for providing 
 steel guns, and showing the cost and time required for merely the plant 
 to produce these. 
 
 A ^Ir. Blank replied that iron guns were quite as good as steel 
 guns ; while a Mr. Asterisk boldly declared that no guns were needed 
 at all. Going on to speak of Daniel Webster, he touched gracefully 
 on the American Eagle, and, closing in a pyrotechnic display of choice 
 language, said that the glory of the American name was sufficient to 
 keeji the enemy from our door. 
 
 To this a Mr. Dash replied, in suave accents. " The eloquence of 
 the gentleman who has last spoken," he said, " is as flowery as the 
 flowers that bloom in the spring, but, like them, it has nothing to 
 do with the case : the question is about guns, not eagles, nor can any 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 13 
 
 skill of rhetoric confound Daniel Webster with dynamite bombs. The 
 gentleman has observed that the grandeur of the American name is 
 a sufficient guarantee against invaders ; this is like the belief of the 
 Emperor of China, during his last war with England, that the list of 
 his titles loudly proclaimed would suffice to stay the advance of the 
 enemy into his dominions. While speaking of the Chinese, every one 
 knows that a Chinese-exclusion bill has been passed, and that, failing 
 to receive a satisfactory explanation of this, the Chinese Minister has 
 demanded his credentials. As for myself, I am not an alarmist, but 
 this action may mean something. Even now there are vague rumors 
 afloat about the movements of the Chinese fleet. Extravagant as it 
 may seem, it is quite possible that these movements may be ultimately 
 directed against our ports or shipping. Three Chinese war- vessels 
 have lately touched at the Sandwich Islands, ostensibly on a cruise of 
 instruction for cadets, but no cadets are on board. Five more ships of 
 the same nation, it is well known, have lately appeared in South 
 American waters, while one at this very moment is creating a deserved 
 sensation in Canada. 
 
 " Not only is it within the bounds of possibility that these power- 
 ful s(|uadrons may suddenly concentrate on our coast, but, consistently 
 with the code of the most civilized nations, they may be coming to strike 
 in revenge for the violation of our treaties with the Chinese Empire. 
 
 " To be sure, such a navy as China possesses, and in the hands of 
 such a people, is like a watch in the hands of a savage ; but the very 
 backwardness of that country would make it oblivious to those respon- 
 sibilities which would restrain a more enlightened government ; and, 
 having indulged in the extravagance of a large European-built fleet, 
 it might be induced to try its prowess without reflecting upon the like- 
 lihood of retaliation. At all events, the appearance of so many 
 Chinese vessels hovering about our shores is most unusual, and, being 
 unusual, it ought to excite suspicion." 
 
 After this Mr. Dash gave a detailed description, obtained from the 
 Navy Department, of China's armaments, and closed with a timely 
 reminder as to the risk of " monkeying with a buzz-saw." 
 
 Alas ! of how little use are such warnings ! nothing is believed till 
 the predicted event has happened. 
 
 " What is your idea of Parliament ?" was once asked of a dis- 
 tinguished foreigner after a visit to the classic halls of Westminster. 
 " Why, simply," was his reply, " how much better and more expedi- 
 tiously three men of ordinary business capacity could have accomplished 
 the work." 
 
 I am afraid the present case was an instance of the justice of this 
 observation. The overwhelming sentiment of the country, as proved 
 by the press, was unanimously in favor of our adequately protecting 
 ourselves against invasion. Congress, too, as a whole, was in favor of 
 it ; but because one set of legislators desired steel guns and another set 
 iron, the wishes of that minority which desired no guns at all carried 
 the day. 
 
 One word more, and then I go on. From the speech of Mr. Dash 
 it will be inferred that wiser counsels must have prevailed at the last 
 
24 A DREAM OF CONqUEST. 
 
 moment in China, and that the pretext for withdrawing her legation 
 from Washington was rather the passage of the Chinese-exclusion bill 
 than the absuixl supper-party. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Among those who listened to the debate, or rather let me say 
 attended it, was Mrs. Percival T. McFlusterer. Not that Mrs. Perci- 
 val T. cared a hair-pin for Congress ; on the contrary, she despised 
 politics and everythmg connected with politics, as every fashionable New 
 York woman does. But she had run on to Washington for the benefit 
 of the earlier spring weather, and had attended Congress as she might 
 have done the zoological garden or the menagerie in some strange place. 
 Then, l)esides, Washington was becoming a fashionable resort, in spite 
 of Congress and its horde of politicians. Unfortunately, however, the 
 spring weather hung fire, and, instead of the balmy breezes she had 
 expected, the session closed in a flurry of snow. The flurry, much to 
 Mr. Percival T.'s displeasure, carried Madame back to New York. 
 For though Mr. Percival T. was anything but a careless husband, and 
 toiled day and night for his wife, he did like just occasionally to have 
 a " let-up" from the opera and a chance to talk stock at his club. In 
 fact, a more melancholy spectacle than Mr. P. T. at the opera can 
 scarcely be imagined. A fish out of water was a weak simile of his 
 case : indeed, to the outer world Mr. P. T. more resembled a fish than 
 a biped, and, so far as spontaneity went, he was quite as cold-blooded. In 
 consequence, he was voted dull in general society, but in the neighbor- 
 hood of the Stock Exchange he was dubbed the " Razor." 
 
 Mrs. P. T., however, aspired to be a social leader, and with a view 
 to that rdle had of course obliged her husband to purchase her a house 
 " on the Avenue." It was at this house, naturally, that Mrs. P. T. 
 arrived, bringing on with her the snow-flurry from Washington. 
 
 When Mrs. P. T. was absent, Mr. P. T. invariably put out the 
 fires, on account of the expense, and solaced himself over a register. I 
 can imagine no drearier sight than Mr. P. T. sitting warming his toes 
 over the register, taking his ease ; but then Mr. P. T., as we must 
 infer, never looked comfortable anywhere except on the floor of the 
 Stock Exchange. 
 
 Mr. P. T. happened to be thus solacing himself when Mrs. P. T. 
 arrived, and the comfort — or the discomfort — of her lord impressed her 
 disagreeably. 
 
 Mrs. P. T. had a way of entering a room when she was annoyed 
 that displayed the condition of her feelings without her uttering a 
 syllable. In her heart of hearts, Mrs. McFlusterer was not a cruel 
 woman, but she was an irritable one, — which is sometimes worse. 
 
 "I just ran back for the opera," she, however, observed, lightly: 
 " so, if you'll order the carriage, I'll be ready at nine sharp." 
 
 P. T. groaned. 
 
 " Oh, I won't keep you waiting, dear," she went on, persuasively ; 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 15 
 
 " no fear of that. I found Washington cold as Lapland, and back 
 lam." 
 
 At dinner Mrs. P. T. continued her sprightly attack. She even 
 remembered here and there fragments of the speeches she had heard in 
 Washington. " Oh, my !" she ejaculated, "just think, if New York 
 were really bombarded, what should we do ?" 
 
 " I suppose we'd have to face the music," replied Mr. P. T., with 
 his mind still on the opera ; " there's some things worse than a bom- 
 bardment." 
 
 " But just think, if the Chinese should really come ! One of those 
 horrid creatures in Congress said that the fleet had left China for parts 
 unknown." 
 
 " I hope they'll get there," said Mr. P. T., beneath his breath. 
 
 " And such nasty people, these Chinese !" 
 
 " I once made a corner in opium," Mr. P. T. observed, reflectively, 
 " but they've stopped the trade now." 
 
 " I wish you'd be lively and agreeable like other men," petulantly 
 put in Mrs. P. T. " I wanted you to say there was no chance of their 
 coming, but I feel it in my bones something is going to happen, and 
 I'm sure it is connected with the Chinese." 
 
 "If they'll only come and bombard the Opera-House," muttered 
 Mr. P. T., beneath his breath, " I'd be danged if I'd stop them." 
 
 Mr. P. T. at the opera, as I have already intimated, was even a 
 more melancholy sight than he was at his family register-side. After 
 he had stood the noisy Wagnerian music as long as he could, he usually 
 retreated into the smoking-rooms, where he found some other congenial 
 spirit and talked over the market. 
 
 It was really P. T. who made that now famous bon mot (and, it 
 being the only one he had ever been guilty of making in his life, it 
 may as well be recorded), — namely, that, if Wagner's music is the 
 music of the future, " it were a great pity not to postpone it to then." 
 
 " Percival, dear," lisped Mrs. P. T., as they were driving home- 
 ward from the opera in their smart brougham on the evening of her 
 return, " you must buy me Confucius to-morrow. Now promise me." 
 
 " Confucius !" exclaimed Mr. P. T., absently. " I'm afraid it isn't 
 listed : it's one of the fancies, I suppose." 
 
 Mrs. P. T. laughed out loud. " I'm not talking of stocks. Can't 
 you ever get them out of your head ?" 
 
 " I wonder where you'd be if I did ?" said Mr. P. T., with unwonted 
 fire ; then, more meekly, " You mean the man that wrote a book on 
 China, don't you ?" 
 
 " Yes, and Arnold's ' Light of Asia,' too. I know the Chinese are 
 coming. I told you before. I feel it in my bones." 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer was a woman of sudden whims and turns ; you 
 could no more tell of her than of a swallow which way she would dart 
 next. Thus forewarned, we are prepared for the startling announce- 
 ment she made to Mr. P. T. the next afternoon when he returned 
 home, like a good New York husband, fairly worn out from his oper- 
 ations in the street, and with the books she had asked for under his 
 arm. 
 
2g A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 « Percival, dear, IVe got a little surprise for you," she said. 
 
 P. T. felt uncomfortable; be knew these surprises of old. " What 
 
 bit The asked, feebly. . , ^ ^r ^ -x •* i. 
 
 . " Why, we are going to Cuba m the Terror, i ou know it is her 
 trial trip, 'and the government has proposed, as a condition of her 
 acceptance, her getting around Cuba and back in a month.'' 
 
 *^ I wouldn't like to go to sea in a vessel intended for the govern- 
 ment," said Mr. McFlusterer, cautiously. 
 
 "Tilt, tut, tut I" said Mrs. McFlusterer, "she's as safe as a yacht, 
 and if Mr. Puncherry, who built her and knows all about her, is 
 willing to risk it, I don't see why we shouldn't; he wrote this morn- 
 ing to invite us, and I opened the letter, though it was addressed to 
 
 you." 
 
 Mr. P. T. was sorely discomfited. "And may I ask why you 
 opened my letter?" he asked. 
 
 " Well, you see, if I hadn't, you might have kept back his invitation. 
 I had three reasons for accepting before you saw it," she went on, in a 
 relenting spirit, " but, as two were on your account and only one on 
 mine, you mustn't be angry." 
 
 " And what may they be, madam ?" (When particularly refractory, 
 Mr. P. T. addressed his wife as Madam.) 
 
 " First, you'll look so well in a yachting-suit," she said, checking 
 off the reasons on her fingers ; " secondly, you will really save a great 
 deal of money in household bills, etc., by our being at some one else's 
 expense ; and, thirdly, PU escape the cold weather, which I failed to do 
 in Washington. You see Pm influenced exactly twice as much on your 
 account as on my own." 
 
 " It is very kind of you, indeed," he said, grimly ; but then the 
 clause about the expenditure was not without its weight. 
 
 Indeed, when Mr. McFlusterer came to think over the matter 
 calmly, the plan develo})ed its advantages. He was carrying an 
 enormous line of stocks, and this might be unloaded on a suffering 
 community with less suspicion, and therefore with greater ease, during 
 an absence, than if he were present in New York. His very absence 
 would give a fictitious strength to the market, and therefore might 
 supply what he had long been looking for, — namely, a market to 
 unload ou. The street would say, all must be well, when the Razor 
 was satisfied to take his ease for a month. The tone of things, which 
 had been sagging downwards, in sympathy perhaps with the vague 
 rumors from China, might rally. Then, besides, his wife was so 
 continually harping on the necessity of an interval of genial weather 
 between the Arctic cold of winter and the torrid heat of summer, that 
 he had become impressed with the idea that she did need it. 
 
 Thirdly, Mr. P. T. had secretly been weighing in his mind that one 
 solitar)^ form of indulgence a wealthy New York business-man permits 
 himself, — I mean the purchase of a yacht. This trip might save him, 
 by its experiences, the extravagance of getting one. 
 
 All said and done, he would go, — as in any case he would have 
 been obliged to go. Madam directing. 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 17 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Coming events cast their shadows before," and the vague sur- 
 uises about the advent of the Chinese fleet were not unfounded. The 
 mrest indicator, the stock market, believed it before the public did, 
 md had been growing continually weaker for the past three months, 
 rhe great armada, in fact, had sailed, and was creeping on^from port 
 ;o port, often a vessel going backwards as if to China, and then turning 
 ibout and continuing her course, each one drawing nearer little by little 
 its objective point. 
 
 Gladly would I describe in full the incidents leading to the com- 
 missioner's departure, as well as the daily occurrences of the voyage, but 
 space forbids. Suffice it to say that poor Wang-Chi-Poo, when it 
 finally came to starting, would fain have renounced his rash determina- 
 tion. He found the desire of ennobling his grandmother weakening 
 in exact proportion as the time of his departure approached. At the 
 last moment it is doubtful whether anything would have induced him 
 to sail, were it not that his two millions of chop-dollars had already 
 been passed in. Besides, he was wroth that his wives and family 
 3id not take his departure more to heart. On the contrary, his mission 
 was so extraordinary that it seemed rather to amuse them ; and as for 
 his children, they blew their butterflies with increased assiduity into the 
 air, just as if nothing in particular was going to happen. 
 
 Long and wearily that last night he had stood in his garden and 
 looked at the artificial stork ; long the artificial stork had stared at him. 
 Then he went to the temple hard by, and passed two hours in silent 
 adoration of his ancestors. 
 
 The next morning he made propitiatory ofierings in the same pagoda, 
 and burnt innumerable little pieces of paper to propitiate the Dragon 
 of the sea, — that horrible demon who causes the waves to swell when 
 he is angry, and the winds to roar as they emerge from his mouth. 
 In due time he repaired to his ship, and truth compels me to relate that 
 when, at the moment of embarking, the boiler suddenly let off steam, 
 AYang-Chi-Poo jumped from the poop in an agony of terror, thinking 
 perhaps that this same demon was coming on board through the funnel. 
 
 Upon several occasions too, during the voyage, Wang-Chi-Poo came 
 near setting his cabin and with it the ship on fire, by burning little joss- 
 papers in propitiation of the Sea-Dragon ; but, as he was firmly persuaded 
 that only by such pious rites could disaster be averted, he concerned 
 himself little about the lesser evil of a conflagration. 
 
 It may be questioned, how so large a fleet could have sailed without 
 attracting more than " vague suspicions," even with the extraordinary 
 precautions that had been -taken. They had sailed, as we know, in 
 different detachments, under sealed orders, and to far different points 
 and at different times. It was rather the concentration of these vessels in 
 harbors of the Western Hemisphere that aroused attention, and then 
 it was too late for the United States to guard against them. Indeed, it 
 was left to America herself to bring about the climax, for, when the 
 movements of the fleet could be no longer doubted, a cablegram was 
 2 
 
2g A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 despatched to China stating that, if these vessels continued to approach, 
 their presence would be considered a casus beUi. 
 
 I am sorry to confess that this message was dictated in a spirit of 
 bluif ; and when to this an insolent reply was received, America awoke 
 to the disagreeable realization that she had a war on her hands with a 
 people whom it was no honor to vanquish, yet who were better prepared 
 to take the initiative than she was to defend herself. 
 
 As for the vessel that bore Wang-Chi-Poo, she had passed around 
 the Horn, and it was really her arrival at Rio that inspired the telegram 
 from the State Department. Throwing off the cloak here, as to her 
 intentions, she joined the squadron previously mentioned as cruising in 
 South American waters, and boldly sailed up the coast. It was exactly 
 one month after Mr. and Mrs. McFlusterer had sailed for Cuba that 
 the fleet skirted that island and approached the shores of Florida. As 
 they drew nearer, Wang-Chi-Poo's curiosity, which had been steadily 
 increasing, rose to fever-heat, and Taonsu, who had come out as inter- 
 preter, was kept busy answering his questions about the country. 
 
 Land might even now be sighted at any moment, and since early 
 morning "Wang-Chi-Poo had been eagerly searching the horizon with 
 his glass. At last he closed the instrument with a gesture of impatience. 
 
 " Thou hast said, O Taonsu, that this land is one of many laws, but 
 of little inclination to abide by them. How many laws has it ?" 
 
 " It has many in name, Great Excellency, but only two laws are 
 rigorously enforced." 
 
 "And what are they, O Taonsu?" 
 
 " The laws of supply and demand. These laws are harsher than 
 even our criminal code, for they grind the poor to powder, and heap 
 the rich with riches compared with which the wealth of our great 
 Emperor is as naught." 
 
 " But I thought this country was governed by the people." 
 
 " In name, again, Great Excellency, so that the people may be 
 ground down the more." 
 
 " But who grinds them down, O Taonsu ? I have heard that this 
 land was a republic, which I take to mean a beast with no head and 
 many tails, meaning by that a country that sits down on its ruling 
 classes." 
 
 "Stay, Great Excellency, thou dost not understand the system. 
 There is a ruling class, but it is not, as with us, the official class. On 
 the contrary, the class I speak of rules the official class, being composed 
 of kings, — Kings of the Highways, they are called, — and all products, 
 even those necessary to sustain life, must pay them tribute. Under 
 these are two lower grades, called respectively ' Directors' and ' Stock- 
 holders.' The last, however, are held in little account. Another kind 
 of ruler is the ' Silver King,' and still another the * Coal Baron :' the 
 one owns the silver-mines and makes the nation take his ore at enormous 
 premiums for chop-dollars, and the last controls men's bodies through, 
 their love of warmth and comfort. The official class is often but the 
 creature of these kings, and, though they are always prating of the 
 rights of the poor man, they are continually wronging him by helping 
 the rich to grow still richer." 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST, 19 
 
 "How SO, OTaonsu?" 
 
 " By voting the rich special charters and privileges in which they 
 ilso share in the profits, not always receiving their pay direct, but 
 hrough a species of middleman, called a 'lobbyist.'" 
 
 " But this four-year emperor, is he really of no account to prevent 
 his state of things ?" 
 
 " Great Excellency, his only function is to shake hands with all his 
 ubjects, so that they may feel happy and comfortable and never notice 
 low things are going. I have seen one of these emperors shake hands 
 7ith fifty thousand people in one day I'' 
 
 *' And that is why they have to choose a fresh one every four years, 
 —he gets worn out ?" 
 
 " That is why. Great Excellency ; oftentimes he does not last so 
 ong." 
 
 " But this ' progress,' that we hear so much about in Western 
 ountries, what means it, Taonsu ? — that affairs go forward ?" 
 
 " It is rather that they go ' round.' " 
 
 " Taonsu, thou makest my heart sick with what thou tellest me ; 
 •f a truth, this land is upside-down. Ha ! but what is that? A sail ! 
 
 , sail r 
 
 It was indeed a sail that they had overhauled, — if a long line of 
 moke against the far edge of the horizon could be so denominated, — the 
 Irst sail they had sighted for several days. What made that particular 
 teamer take that particular direction was one of those things that could 
 >nly be explained by an inscrutable Providence which brings the ex- 
 remes together. To be accurate, if neither the fleet nor the steamer 
 Itered their courses, the steamer in proper time would cross their bows. 
 )he was evidently taking the most direct route from the Queen of the 
 Antilles to Florida ; but at last, as if not liking the look of things, she 
 Itered her course in such a way as to steer for the nearest point. Key 
 N'estj turning her stern instead of her side to the fleet in order to reach 
 hat port. 
 
 Having yet a start of some seven miles, and barely fifteen to go, she 
 70uld in all likelihood reach her haven, could she sail one mile to the 
 nemy's two. As if in doubt of this, however, she was evidently put- 
 iug on steam to her utmost capacity, and crowding on all the canvas 
 he could carry. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Off the coast of Florida, like the dot to an i, lies the island of Key 
 West, and connected with the island by a long causeway is a giant 
 brtress. This fortress, lying midway as it does between Cuba and the 
 Jnited States, commands, on the south, the approach to the whole 
 lastern seaboard. This fortress, vast and stately, is garrisoned by one 
 nan. The utter loneliness of Sergeant McKenna's life I can compare 
 o nothing but that of a state prisoner sentenced to solitary confine- 
 nent. 
 
 Sergeant McKenna was both garrison and commander rolled into 
 )ne. Sergeant McKenna, being a soldier every inch of him, had a high 
 
20 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 sense of his duties. Sergeant McKenna tried to fulfil in his one person 
 the duties of the various personages he represented. Thus, he would 
 keep guard, and, when the usual four hours were up and he was com- 
 pletely exhausted, he would relieve himself by a fresh guardrmount. 
 To do the honors of the garrisonto himself as commander-in-chief was 
 difficult, but at stated intervals he would call out the guard to himself, 
 and regularly on Sundays he would have dress inspection of himself. 
 
 Evening parade, too, was seldom neglected; but the crowning 
 achievement of Sergeant McKenna's efforts appropriately to garrison 
 single-handed one of the greatest fortresses of his country was, strange 
 to say, accom])lished with — his foot. 
 
 Sergeant McKenna, by an ingenious arrangement of strings and pul- 
 leys touched at the proper moment by his foot, managed to let off the 
 sunset gun and to haul down the standard, and this, too, without leaving 
 his beat as sentinel the while. To a casual observer who noticed this 
 threefold performance, — who saw the smoke circling upward from one 
 part of the fort, the stately stars and stripes descending the flag-staff 
 in another, and yet who noticed the soldierly figure of the sentinel un- 
 concernedly pacing his beat on still a third part of the fortress, — 
 nothing would have seemed amiss. He would therefore have been 
 ignorant at what a cost in time, thought, and ingenuity this had been 
 accomplished. It is even stated that a Congressman once sailing past 
 was struck by the lavish extravagance of Uncle Samuel in maintain- 
 ing a garrison at this distant point, and on his return to Washington 
 demanded an investigation. A commission certainly went down with 
 a salary at the rate of five thousand dollars per year for each mem- 
 ber, with a secretary in addition at two thousand and a stenographer 
 at fifteen hundred. Collectively they sat on poor Sergeant McKenna, 
 and, since they could not very well cut him off, they cut off his powder. 
 
 From that day Sergeant McKenna's spirits began to flag. Sergeant 
 McKenna, though garrisoning the fortress, boarded at Mrs. Ayres's. 
 Mrs. Ayres lived in the village of Key West, and the fortress, as we 
 know, was connected with the village by a bridge. This bridge was 
 some six hundred feet long, and, when the tide was in, the fortress was 
 an island. Now, the boys of Key West, quick to notice the changed 
 demeanor of the sergeant, would wait at the town end of the bridge 
 to observe his comings or goings to and from Mrs. Ayres's, and, as is 
 the wont of boys, would chaff him, shout at him, ask him how the 
 garrison was feeling, and how much Uncle Sam allowed for powder. 
 
 At first Sergeant McKenna treated these insults with the contempt 
 they deserved ; he would unlock or relock, as the case might be, the 
 padlock of the wooden gate on the bridge, deposit the key of the fort 
 m his pocket, and go his way. But once, when the youths, growing 
 bolder, scaled this wooden gate and attempted to carry the fortress by 
 storm, Sergeant McKenna sallied forth, charged suddenly upon them, 
 and vowed heM fill them so full of shot that their mothers wouldn't 
 know them. Then the boys' feelings underwent a sudden change, and, 
 from contempt, they began to feel respect for the sergeant. As time 
 went on, they even got to lend him assistance in cleaning the guns, and 
 keepmg up the appearance of things generally about the fort, actually 
 
A DREAM OF CONqUfiST. 21 
 
 at last paying out of their own pockets for the gun-polish and the 
 blacking, as any recent visitor to Key West will testify. Nevertheless, 
 in spite of these evidences of devotion, the sergeant was growing morose. 
 He, too, had long felt it in his bones that war was imminent, and as 
 soon as war was declared (though no one believed that actual combat 
 would result) he laid in as large a supply of powder as his slender 
 means admitted of, further utilizing the boys in training them to load 
 and manoeuvre the cannon. 
 
 Each day, after returning from Mrs. Ayres^s he would sweep the 
 horizon with his glass, and would watch for the enemy of whose arrival 
 his poor old bones had warned him long before his government had. 
 
 Sergeant McKenna was not only losing spirits, but was losing his 
 flesh, and his bones were about all that was left of him. Smile as you 
 may, there is something grand in the spectacle of this poor old man 
 standing by the government that had so cruelly neglected him. 
 
 Tattered and torn, hungry and sorrowful, the butt of ridicule for all 
 men, he : and yet there was an unexpended balance of $16,636,362.71 
 belonging to our Little Log-Rolling Creeks ! The late patriotic demands 
 on his pocket had made serious inroads on his stomach ; he paid half 
 board and got half fare at Mrs. Ayres's. A reef in his belt for break- 
 fast, a long walk for dinner, and a sweep of the glass for supper would 
 have constituted before long his sole apology for diet. But an end was 
 
 coming, — an end was coming soon. 
 
 ******** 
 
 It is a w^arm and balmy afternoon, — one of those soft, sensuous 
 days when the sky and ocean seem to meet in a long lover-like embrace. 
 Far to the south lies Cuba, and far away behind a yellowish haze that 
 may be water, or may be sky, so indistinct it looks. Sergeant McKenna 
 thinks he sees something. His eyes, however, in general sympathy 
 with his physical condition, are a little weak, so he takes another look, 
 first wiping well the glass ; then at last from out of the haze he sees 
 the Chinese fleet coming, preceded by the strange steamer, all with their 
 sails set and gleaming, and with long lines of smoke standing out be- 
 hind them. 
 
 Sergeant McKenna, warned by his bones that the on-comers must 
 be the long-expected foe, summons the boys from the village forthwith, 
 and makes them a stirring speech. He tells them how much the 
 government has done for them, and how happy they ought to be for 
 this opportunity to serve it: stating that, if they will accurately 
 obey his orders, they can yet strike a blow for American honor; 
 that heretofore their efforts had been principally directed in keeping 
 things in repair about the fort, but now the country demanded a return 
 for the privilege which it had so magnanimously allowed them. Then 
 he touches upon the youths of Lexington, and, after seeing them load 
 the guns and close the gates, he sends one of them up the flag-staff to 
 nail the standard to the mast. 
 
 All this had consumed some fifty minutes, and in the mean time 
 the fleet had drawn quite close, with the chase still nearer in. 
 
 To a careful observer, the steamer in the lead would appear to be 
 laboring badly, and evidently trying to double a ledge of rocks ex- 
 
22 A DREAM OF CONQUEST.* 
 
 tending out from the fortress, and so around into the harbor which the 
 fortress protected. Then at the moment when she would naturally turn 
 and go around this ledge of rocks, she puts down her helm, but, owing 
 to some defect of machinery, or to the severe strain her flight has 
 subjected her to, her steering-gear fails to work. There is much con- 
 fusion and swearing on deck ; a stout man gives contradictory orders, 
 and. a lady faints. At last, however, she — the vessel, not the lady — does 
 "come round,'* but, coming around too far, is unable to be stopped, 
 turning when she has once got started, like a balky horse, a wilful 
 child, or a wound-up machine, and gaining in speed and obstinacy till 
 she is whirling around on a pivot like a thing possessed. It was at this 
 moment of all others, when her broadside was presented full, and at 
 a distance of barely six hundred yards, that — either astounded at her 
 behavior or unable to contain their impatience any longer — the boys in 
 the fort " let drive.'* 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DuEiNG the pursuit, Wang-Chi-Poo had been standing on the deck, 
 regarding the vessel they had been so quickly overhauling. 
 
 " So thou thinkest it is one of their new junks intended for the 
 navy ?" he exclaimed, turning to Taonsu. 
 
 " Great Excellency, there is no doubt on that point ; she is now 
 returning from her trial trip around Cuba, as it was telegraphed us at 
 Rio she would do, by our agents in the United States. Her description 
 exactly tallies with this paper." And the secretary looked at a sheet 
 whereon was written a full description of the Terror, her dimensions, 
 the guns she was to carry, the conditions of her acceptance, her 
 machinery, and particularly an improvement on the Kunstadter patent 
 screw which was intended to give greater rapidity in turning. 
 
 " It seems to me, then," said Wang-Chi-Poo, " that we have little to 
 fear from their fleets if perchance they resemble her ; she is too weak to 
 fight, too slow to run away, — and this last we have proved without 
 firing a gun." 
 
 " Great Excellency, that is the reason I counselled thee not to fire 
 on her. Had we done so, it would only have proved the weakness 
 of her armor. As we have now tested the slowness of her engines 
 as compared with those of the whole fleet, you can fire when vou 
 like." -^ 
 
 The commissioner was on the point of following out this suggestion 
 when the fortress opened fire itself. 
 
 The astonishment of Wang-Chi-Poo at this unexpect^ occurrence 
 took off his attention from the object of their pursuit, and was only 
 equalled by his rage. 
 
 " 9 Taonsu," he exclaimed, turning angrily to that official, " thou 
 hast misinformed me ; thou didst tell me there was no fortress fully 
 equipped the entire length of this coast." 
 
 Taonsu was himself astounded. " Great Excellency, I must admit 
 that It is strange. Perchance this is the one solitary exception to the 
 rule. But see, Great Excellency, they have saved us our powder. They 
 
• A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 23 
 
 have sunk their own junk, and not only settled the question of the 
 efficacy of her armor, but also that of the Kunstadter turning-gear, 
 which they are trying on a vessel called the Nina, so as to apply it to 
 their other new ships." 
 
 It was too true. The shot, while rattling off the sides of the Chi- 
 nese fleet like peas off a plank fence, had perforated the iron plates of 
 the Terror, and all that remained in evidence of her now was a small 
 boat containing three people rowing frantically on the waste of waters. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo's blood was up. 
 
 "It will never do to leave this place in our rear; it must be 
 carried," he said ; and the fleet continued their advance. After the first 
 outburst, the fortress had subsided into a suspicious quiet. As they 
 closely examined it through the glass, men's heads, as it appeared, 
 showed over the ramparts, and the glitter of steel could be seen as of 
 bayonets. The fleet, led by the flag-ship, continued on, opening fire as 
 it came ; still no sound, no response, after that first discharge. 
 
 The marksmanship of the fleet was admirable, and after each shot 
 huge splinters of stone rose in the air, or, if the projectile were a shell, 
 great sliowers of dust. 
 
 " Of a truth," exclaimed Wang-Chi-Poo, " this is most mysterious. 
 Perchance they wish to draw us into some monstrous trap. What 
 counsellest thou, O Taonsu, thou who knowest what these foreign devils 
 be? Perchance it were better that thou took the boats and carried the 
 place by assault. I will remain here with the fleet, to see that no evil 
 betide them." 
 
 " Rather let us stop and pick up the fugitives from the steam-junk," 
 said Taonsu, who little relished the proposal of his master. " The rest 
 of the fleet, having no precious life like thine on board, can carry this 
 accursed fortress as they will." 
 
 " Thy advice is good, O Taonsu. It is the part of a great com- 
 mander to guard properly his own safety. Moreover, it is only humane 
 to succor the afflicted." 
 
 In view of this magnanimous proposal, the flag-ship stopped, leaving 
 the rest of the fleet to continue on. 
 
 The fort by this time was pretty badly damaged, and its capture 
 would not seem a difficult operation ; still the bayonets flashed from the 
 ramparts, and the heads of numerous men showed mysteriously above 
 the walls, for the sergeant had skilfully placed such cannon-balls as he 
 might not require, at various points of vantage, and alongside of -each 
 a musket, upright. Yet the same suspicious quiet reigned. 
 
 The shape of the fort was a pentagon, and the vessels as they 
 approached finally fronted a new side. Then another sudden discharge 
 belched forth. To be sure, the fire did little damage, and what few 
 shots struck the vessels rattled, as I have intimated, on their iron plates 
 like peas shot from a glass tube. Still, the manner of defence was 
 peculiar, — these hysterical outbursts, succeeded by fits of remorse, as 
 it were. One more discharge only there was, and then the boats were 
 manned and lowered. 
 
24 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 CHAPTEB IX. 
 
 The phenomenon wliicli so surprised the invaders would have been 
 easily uudei-stood had they been. aware of the reduced condition of the 
 garrison. Sergeant McKenna, short-handed as he was, could not direct 
 the cannon, and was obliged to wait till tlie fleet got opposite each suc- 
 cessive battery of guns. Sergeant McKenna was weak with mucii fast- 
 ing, and saw with dismay his youthful garrison falling away around 
 him. When the boats left the fleet, he gave orders that the firing should 
 cease, and, calling the boys that yet remained alive to his assistance, 
 they dragged a small swivel loaded with canister up to the gates of 
 entrance. The sergeant knew, from the direction the boats were taking, 
 that the landing would be made on the bridge, and he directed the 
 swivel in such a way as to command this. 
 
 Then, attaching to the gun one of his old arrangements of strings 
 and pulleys by which it would be discharged on the bursting in of the 
 gates, he sadly closed them, and marched out with the remnants of his 
 plucky battalion. 
 
 Sergeant McKenna, I have heard, has since been severely criticised 
 for not having held on longer to the fort which his government had 
 placed in his charge. Truth compels me to say that I think these 
 criticisms unjust. Sergeant McKenna "held the fort'' till his garrison 
 was decimated, and only left because the sturdy boys would not leave 
 without him. 
 
 As for Wang-Chi-Poo, as we know, he had stopped behind to 
 pick up the survivors' from the sunken steamer. Nevertheless, the par- 
 ticulars of the assault had been signalled back to him in all its details, 
 including the terrible sacrifice of life that met the invaders when they 
 burst in the gates, and after all the retreat of but one man and half a 
 dozen boys. There was evidently something unnatural about such a 
 defence, and Wang-Chi-Poo stands talking with his Jidus Achates over 
 the extraordinary occurrence : 
 
 " Of a truth, O Taonsu, this is a strange land, where they confide 
 their fortresses to children. It passes my comprehension, however, 
 that the demon who must have assisted them did not provide them 
 \yith guns to perforate our ships' sides. By the bones of my grand- 
 mother, we must accept the combat as a happy augury, since, with all 
 their commotion, they have only sunk their own steamer. But hush ! 
 ^what is that?" 
 
 And, as they listened, a long wail rising over the cadence of the 
 waves was wafted to them from the shore. 
 
 " It is the grief of the female devils weeping for their offspring. 
 Great Excellency, and they will not be comforted, because they are not." 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo pondered deeply. 
 
 " By the way, O Taonsu, talking about female devils, didst thou 
 not mention that one was picked up in the boat of the sunken junk? 
 My attention was so sorely distracted by this accursed fortress that I 
 did not notice the survivors when they were brought on board." 
 
 " Yes, Great Excellency : it is now six years since I beheld one 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 25 
 
 of their white-skinned women, but I'm sure a female devil was among 
 the saved. She is now in the cabin along with her two mates/' 
 
 " Have them all up, O Taonsu : I would feast my curiosity on these 
 strange beings." 
 
 Taonsu gave the necessary orders; and in a couple of minutes 
 afterwards Mrs. McFlusterer in a dead faint, Mr. P. T. in a fancy 
 yachting-suit, and Mr. Puncherry in a towering rage and a profuse 
 perspiration, were before their Eastern captors. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo bowed low, brushed the dust from the seat of a 
 cane-bottomed chair, and then brought Mrs. McFlusterer back to life 
 by tickling her facetiously under the chin with his queue. 
 
 " Tell them," he said at last, turning to his interpreter, " that I 
 find the she-devil fair, and ask them to what class in life they belong." 
 
 Mr. P. T., with the idea of a heavy ransom in his mind, was in 
 the act of explaining that they were poor gentlemen travelling for their 
 health, when he was interrupted by a volley of expletives from Mr. 
 Puncherry, whose fat leg one of the monkey-like crew took occasion 
 to pinch as he was sitting down on a seat. 
 
 As for Mrs. McFlusterer, she looked at Wang-Chi-Poo, and in- 
 stinctively regretted that she could not have had him at a dinner as a 
 curiosity for her friends on the Avenue, In some respects she thought 
 him a handsome man, and his embroidered tunic would make such a 
 lovely tea-gown ; nevertheless, she was palpitating with terror as she 
 reflected on the predicament she was placed in. 
 
 Mr. Puncherry was the first to demand an explanation. " Will you 
 tell me," he asked of Taonsu, " what the devil this all means, that a 
 vessel intended for the United States government should be pursued 
 on the high seas by a lot of cut-throats from China ?" And Mr. Pun- 
 cherry stretched out his legs and folded his hands as if he had pro- 
 pounded an unanswerable conundrum. 
 
 " It means, O inhabitant of the West, that the righteous claims of 
 his Celestial Majesty having failed to meet with recognition, Ave have 
 come at the head of this mighty fleet to enforce them." 
 
 Mr. Puncherry drew a long whistle, and looked at the " Razor," 
 and the " Bazor" looked at him. Mrs, McFlusterer raised her hands 
 to her brow and gave vent to an hysterical sob. " Oh, Percival, oh, 
 Mr. Puncherry, this is what comes of never having stopped in a port 
 during our trip ! China has declared war," 
 
 " How the mischief could I stop in a port, when I only had a month 
 to make the trip in?" said Mr. Puncherry. "Around to Cuba and 
 back is thirty-seven hundred miles. I had to steam a hundred and 
 twenty miles a day to do it.- I consider it a great feat, a really great 
 feat, and never to have been obliged to put into port during so long a 
 time is more than most ships in our navy could boast." 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo was not a cruel captor, and the grief of the lady 
 touched his heart. 
 
 " Tell her, O Taonsu, I find her fair, and I like her none the less 
 because her nails are cut ; tell her, though her feet, as compared with 
 our daughters', are as the blades of paddle-wheels, they are not uncouth 
 in shape; tell her, therefore, to curb her sorrow, and, though many 
 
26 
 
 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 love her, for she resembleth my grandmother, in form, spirit, and beauty, 
 very much." Then Wang-Chi-Poo subsided into his cane-bottomed 
 chair, arranged the folds of his robes in what he considered a becoming 
 style,' and proceeded to ogle the lady over his fan. 
 
 Adequately to portray the feelings of Mrs. McFlusterer as Taonsu 
 translated this speech literally, defies my powers of description ; indig- 
 nant protest struggled for supremacy with rage and indignation, as she 
 ghired at Wang-Chi-Poo, who, taking it all for approval, 'sat in his 
 chair, like one of those squat Chmese figures, smiling and nodding his 
 head. 
 
 At last Mrs. McFlusterer, giving up the mandarin, somewhat illogi- 
 cally turned upon her husband. 
 
 " If it had not been for you," she cried, with a great gasp, " we 
 would not be here now; it was you that brought me, you, you, 
 YOU !" 
 
 " Me ?" said Mr. McFlusterer, with very natural surprise. 
 
 " Yes, you. At least it was you that made me want to come ; if 
 you had been like other men, I should have been content to remain 
 at home." 
 
 This interesting discourse was interrupted by the man at the mast- 
 head suddenly announcing fresh signals from the fleet, and the captives 
 were hurriedly remanded to their quarters in the rear cabin. It was 
 not an uncomfortable locality ; the port-holes were open, and, had it 
 not been that Messrs. McFlusterer and Puncherry were secured by 
 chains to ring-bolts in the side, they might have imagined themselves 
 on board of their former luxurious craft. 
 
 The cabin evidently adjoined that of the commissioner, and was 
 not lacking in emblems of Western civilization, though they were 
 somewhat misappreciated. For instance, on a table stood a stove, but 
 manifestly for ornament ; in a corner was a French clock, with its face 
 to the wall ; while the sides of the apartment were adorned with pictures 
 hung upside down. 
 
 Mr. McFlusterer, as soon as his fetters had been again made fast, 
 demanded of Mrs. McFlusterer, in a slightly injured tone of voice, 
 wherein his difierence from other men could be held responsible for her 
 desire to risk the dangers of the deep. 
 
 " Why," exclaimed his wife, " if, for instance, you had joined the 
 Jockey Club, as I wished last year, we might have been driving on a 
 coach to the races at this very instant. It was just to save the initia- 
 tion-fee, Percival," she continued, in a dramatic tone of voice, " that 
 you have sacrificed me your wife, Mr. Puncherry your best friend, 
 and, what you probably consider of greater moment, yourself, for 
 twenty-five dollars !" 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! I wonder what they'll do with us," exclaimed Mr. 
 Puncherry, anxious to draw off the fire from his friend; for Mr. 
 Puncherry, though touchy, was a good-hearted gentleman. " Curse it ! 
 this infernal idiot has got my chain so short I can't sit down. Here, 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 27 
 
 you black-tailed imp of darkness!" he continued, vainly calling after 
 the vanished attendant, and then to Mrs. McFlusterer, who alone of 
 the party had the free use of her lower limbs. " Might I beg you, 
 madam, to see if you can find a bell ?" 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer, thus appealed to, began a search which the 
 civilized appearance of things generally gave promise of being suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 " It's very awkward, but you see I can't even sit down ; it keeps me 
 so tight to the wall. How is yours, Mr. McFlusterer ?'' 
 
 " It might be worse,'' replied poor Mr. P. T., who endeavored to 
 cultivate on all occasions a cheerful and philosophical frame of mind. 
 '* It's better than being drowned." 
 
 "I'm really glad, though, the vessel sank," said Mr. Puncherry, 
 in a meditative way. " There were a lot of improvements in her 
 machinery which it would never have done for these fellows to have 
 seen and adopted." 
 
 " I guess it will be a big loss," said Mr. McFlusterer, with the 
 slightest possible tinge of irony. 
 
 " Oh, no," replied Mr. Puncherry, who besides being kindly was a 
 large, hopeful man. " You see, I'll have her raised up and pumped out, 
 and then I'll sell her to the next administration." 
 
 " I wonder what they'll do with us ?" asked Mr. McFlusterer, to 
 change the conversation. 
 
 " Why, they'll hold you both for enormous ransoms and sell me into 
 slavery; you heard the proposal of that odious wretch. Oh, no, I 
 forgot : you are both to be tossed overboard to propitiate the Dragon 
 of the Sea." Mrs. McFlusterer said this with a slightly irritating tone 
 of decision : the delightful ecstasy of the thrust, indeed, alone saved her 
 from a fresh fit of hysterics. 
 
 " I think," said Mr. McFlusterer, with a return to his usual 
 caution, " we'd better avoid all appearance of being rich : it might raise 
 our price." 
 
 " Great heavens ! how the papers will talk, when they hear we are 
 captured !" cried Mr. Puncherry. " Gad ! if I could only get hold of 
 the end of a telegraph-wire, I'd begin a suit against the government 
 for sinking my ship." 
 
 " Do you really think it will get into the papers ?" inquired Mrs. 
 McFlusterer, as a ray of hope lightened the murky horizon ; for Mrs. 
 P. T. revelled in a sensation. 
 
 " Of course it will : does anything of interest keep out of them, 
 madam ?" Mr. Puncherry, among his many possessions, owned a hun- 
 dred shares of newspaper jH-operty. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer at this moment screamed. A dark figure, stripped 
 to the waist, had entered the room without her knowledge, and was 
 crawling along the floor behind her. 
 
 *' Melican woman's tongue too long," angrily exclaimed the wretch, 
 rising on his knees and glancing down at the blade of a murderous knife 
 that was stuck in his belt. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer screamed again, while both of the gentlemen, 
 chained to the wall, could do nothing but stare in dumb horror. 
 
28 
 
 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 " Melican woman all foot and all tongue ; not miss a little of either," 
 continued the intruder, in the same pigeon English. 
 
 Id point of fact, he was simply a new attendant who had come in 
 answer to the bell. But, unfamiliar with the customs of the East, Mrs. 
 McFlusterer was alarmed by his crawling in on his stomach ; while the 
 servant, on his part, probably annoyed at his reception, did not hesitate 
 to give his coming a more sinister interpretation than necessary. At all 
 events, Mrs. McFlusterer had retreated to the far end of the cabin, and 
 her screiuns brought in the guard, headed by Taonsu. 
 
 She appealed to him, throwing herself on her knees before him. . 
 
 ** O lady of the West,'' he exclaimed, looking severely at the ser- 
 vant, " this creature has exceeded his instructions. Thy privilege it 
 shall be to allot his punishment." 
 
 In the ecstasy of her supposed deliverance, Mrs. McFlusterer flung 
 lier arms about his neck. Taonsu blushed, if the sickly flush that pene- 
 trated his sallow skin could be so denominated. 
 
 " He shall be beheaded, daughter of the West, and his head shall 
 serve to ornament thy bridal state-room." 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer had the utmost difficulty in dissuading Taonsu 
 from the immediate execution of this grim sentence. Then, as a 
 mark of his favor, she induced him to give the two gentlemen a little 
 more slack in chain. Shortly afterwards the table was spread for 
 dinner, and, though they were a little suspicious of the dishes, their 
 appetites were such as to make them do ample justice to what was put 
 before them. 
 
 At the close of the meal, Mr. Puncherry pushed back his chair as 
 far as his chain would permit. " You see, I go in more for safety than 
 for speed," he said, with the same delightful assurance, as he recurred 
 again to his vessel. " To be sure, that infernal fort sank her, but round 
 balls, as every one knows, are obsolete, and my armor wasn't prepared 
 to withstand them ; indeed, it is my principle to get rid of a projectile 
 as quick as you can ; it's better for it to go slap through and away, than 
 to stick, particyilarly if it's a shell that might burst on boai'd. You 
 must confess too, McFlusterer, that it ain't every ship that can sail 
 around Cuba and get back' in a month." 
 
 "It certainly is not," acceded Mr. McFlusterer; "at least, every 
 ship that you build." 
 
 Mr. Puncherry failed to notice the subtle irony. " Great Scott !" 
 he continued, " the idea, of the only garrisoned fort in the country letting 
 drive at the only really well-equipped vessel ! it's like the story of the 
 Kilkenny Cats. I tell you what it is, if we go on like this, we will 
 soon have no navy at all to fight these rascals." And Mr. Puncherry 
 lay back in his chair and lighted a cigar. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Mr. Puncherry was right. Everything does get into the papers, 
 and it was scarcely possible that so momentous an event as the arrival 
 of the hostile fleet off the shores of America could be omitted. 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 29 
 
 A detailed account of the defence of the fort was flashed up from 
 Key West, also of the sinking of the Terror, on which so many hopes had 
 centred. A full description of her successful trial-trip around Cuba, 
 too, was given, and the rash assumption was ventured that if she had 
 not been overtaken and run down by the enemy she would have been 
 an honor to the naval armament of the nation. As to the exact manner 
 of her destruction there seemed to be a wide discrepancy of opinion, but 
 the report most favorably Received was that she had been sunk by the 
 Chinese fleet. 
 
 " Of her crew," this version went on to say, "but three persons are 
 known to have been saved, and they are now in the hands of the enemy. 
 There is reason to hope that Mr. Puncherry is one of these three survivors, 
 since he always kept ready at hand for instant use on his own vessels a 
 small life-boat answering to the description of the one seen frantically 
 pulling away from the Terror as she went down." 
 
 As it happened", China's proclamation of war, or, to be more 
 accurate, the message which amounted to a declaration of war, was re- 
 ceived at Washington the day after the sailing of the Terror on her ill- 
 fated trip ; thus New York, along with the country at large, had barely 
 had a month for preparation. These thirty days having now elapsed, 
 the enemy were already ofi* the coast and steadily advancing northward, 
 having, presumably, for their first objective point the richest city of the 
 New World. Let us see what New York had done to protect herself 
 during this interval. 
 
 After her first paroxysm of astonishment, indignation, and alarm, 
 she had set herself valiantly to meet the emergency. 
 
 She had ample talent at her disposal, and hastily called a meeting 
 of the same Board on Fortifications whose counsels she had shortly 
 before despised. 
 
 This board had previously suggested that steel towers and sunken 
 batteries should be located at Sandy Hook, at points near Forts Ham- 
 ilton and Wadsworth, and, besides this, at Throgg's Neck to protect 
 the entrance to the city by the Sound. The board had further suggested 
 that a series of small islands running like stepping-stones from the 
 extreme east of Long Island to the Connecticut shore should be fortified 
 as outer bulwarks against approach from the sea. These several bat- 
 teries, properly equipped, would have amply guarded New York, and 
 they could have been constructed at a total cost of fourteen million 
 dollars, being but little more than one-half of one ])er cent, of the 
 value of that city's destructible property, which has been estimated at 
 $2,574,490,678. Thus for fourteen million dollars, or one-half of one 
 per cent, of its destructible wealth. New York could have been made 
 secure; and this fourteen million dollars, curiously enough, was two 
 millions less than the unexpended balance due upon our Little Log- 
 Rolling Creeks before many millions more were voted for their further 
 improvement. It has been shown, however, that it would require five 
 years to obtain a " plant" sufficient to make the guns wherewith to equip 
 such forts. To be sure, it may be parenthetically observed, a march 
 had been stolen on us ; for we never could believe that China — this 
 quintessence of absurdity, with its stock-still conservatism, and its boy 
 
30 
 
 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 monarch sitting on an ivory throne behind a bamboo screen — would 
 ever involve us in a real war. But suppose hostilities should spring 
 up between us and Germany, France, England, or even Chili, let me 
 ask, would these nations magnanimously allow us five years for prepa- 
 ration? You reply, America, wishing to live at peace with all the 
 world, will take care to involve herself in no complications. European 
 nations will be equally cautious, if from no other motive than because 
 any trouble with the United States would be extremely unpopular with 
 the masses of any such country, which, in their hearts, sympathize 
 with the experiment of democracy here being essayed. This is all very 
 true ; but you forget that the act of some hot-headed lieutenant on one 
 of our own ships at some distant port or station might put us in a 
 position from which we could not with honor withdraw. 
 
 You also forget that the unprotected condition of our harbors might 
 prevent us from maintaining our just claims in some case where an 
 immediate settlement might be demanded. 
 
 But to return to the Board on Fortifications. As it was naturally 
 impossible to procure steel guns in thirty days, and as the guns that 
 we had would be worse than useless, and, further, as the various forts 
 that decorated the approaches to the city would be more dangerous to 
 the garrisons than to the invaders, the board suggested that, in the 
 emergency, the chief reliance should be placed on torpedoes. The 
 result, at all events, would settle a much-disputed point, — namely, 
 whether torpedoes alone would not adequately fulfil all the purposes 
 of harbor defence. 
 
 Now, these torpedoes were made both by the government and by 
 private individuals. As the principal torpedo-stations belonging to 
 the government— viz., at Willett's Point and at Goat Island — had been 
 long without appropriations, it was deemed advisable to trust to private 
 enterprise to supply the machines. 
 
 Not to^ enter into a technical description of the various kinds of 
 torpedoes, it will be enough to state that they can be divided into two 
 l)rincipal classes. First, the "controllable" class,— that is, machines 
 directed by the operator on terra firmaj or even from a vessel. Second, 
 the " stationary" or " submarine mine," which is anchored, and dis- 
 charged either by contact with the enemy or by electricity from the 
 shore. ^ The first class generally have this objection, that if they are 
 to be directed from the shore they are limited in their flight, and hostile 
 fleets, knowing their range, keep just out of reach. There is a third 
 class,— namely, the "automobile torpedo,"— but, as the United States 
 is the only nation that possesses none, I have not included them in the 
 list. There was discovered to be an additional objection against con- 
 trollable torpedoes, so far as the present emergency was concerned, for, 
 when they came to be experimented with, they were found to be a 
 singularly uncontrollable machine ; as one of them, after rushing a few 
 hundred yards towards its imaginary enemy, suddenly turned around, 
 and, commg back in its course, exploded among the spectators, with 
 terrible effect. Under these circumstances, it was deemed best to trust 
 to the stationary torpedo, and a force had been sent out to lay these 
 along the various channels by which the fleet might approach the city. 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 31 
 
 Though such an operation is usually conducted with the utmost secrecy, 
 in the present case the hurry was great, and proper precautions to keep 
 away spectators were neglected. Many people, therefore, witnessed the 
 work, and amid the swarm of crafts that were tempted forth, a small 
 row-boat escaped any particular notice. She came from a long, rakish 
 schooner that hovered about in the offing, and at the oars was seated 
 a man with a slouch hat and a dirty face, who stopped and marked on 
 a little map the exact location of each torpedo as it was anchored. 
 
 " And where was the great American navy ?" you ask. I will 
 tell you exactly where it was at the time of the declaration of hos- 
 tilities. 
 
 Four vessels were being sold at auction at San Francisco, — viz., 
 the Cyane, the Shenandoah, the Wachusett, and the Lackawanna ; one 
 was being sold at League Island, — namely, the Pilgrim ; and three 
 more at Brooklyn, — viz., the Tennessee, the Powhatan, and the 
 Ticonderoga. Of our effective fleet we had the following encouraging 
 particulars, which I quote verbatim from the official report that was 
 received, curiously enough, a few days earlier. 
 
 " The Swatara," it stated, " is at Portsmouth. She is to have 
 new boilers and extensive repairs made in her hull ; she will be ready 
 for sea, it is hoped, in a few months, and will then in all likelihood 
 join the North Atlantic Squadron if she can reach it. The Nipsic, 
 Enterprise, Thetis (an old whaler), and the Richmond are almost ready 
 for sea. The former will relieve the Pinta at Alaska, and the latter 
 will become the flag-ship of the North Atlantic, i.e.y the Home 
 Squadron. The Nipsic and the Enterprise will be ready for sea 
 within a few months, and will also join the Home Squadron. The 
 Trenton, at Norfolk, will require several months for necessary repairs. 
 To take the place of the condemned vessels we have the Porpoise 
 and the Pacific, and a cruiser called the Hub, now in process of 
 construction." 
 
 Such were the condition, locality, and situation of the best part of 
 the American navy on the declaration of hostilities. In addition to 
 these were a half-dozen old monitors, one of which, lying off the 
 Brooklyn Navy Yard, immediately sank when it was taken into deep 
 water. Nevertheless, the ferry-boats and the magnificent Sound and 
 River steamers might be utilized; and, these being faster than any 
 ships the government possessed, it was proposed to man them, to run 
 down rapidly upon the enemy, and to throw on each of the iron-clads 
 a sufficient force to carry it by assault. It was a desperate under- 
 taking, but, the times being bad, and many people out of work, sufficient 
 tiumbers for the purpose answered to the call for volunteers, and they 
 were immediately put into training. 
 
 You ask. What did Congress do ? Was it not appealed to ? Of 
 course it was. The President called an extra session, but, as munitions 
 of war, not speeches, were what the poor cities wanted, the extra 
 session was a work of supererogation. To assist every seaboard city 
 in so few days was a matter of utter impossibility; and while 
 enormous sums of money (ten times greater than any that had been 
 previously asked) were voted, and while every ship of the navy that 
 
32 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 could float was hastily ordered out, the inhabitants of the exposed 
 towns were practically told that they must look to their own resources. 
 
 As regards the State of New York, the Governor had called out 
 the militia; the Knights of Labor had come forward as knights of 
 war ; the police were reinforced by special constables ; and, not to be 
 behindhand, the young club-men had volunteered en masse. They 
 were dubbed the " Fancies," and, the question of uniform exciting so 
 bitter a diiference of opinion, they resolved as a compromise to stick to 
 tlieir usual attire. Its essentials were a high, glossy black hat, and a 
 light overcoat, with little swallow-like tails projecting out behind, and 
 the effect was decidedly military. 
 
 These several classes of forces, it was hoped, would repel at all 
 events a landing; and, to have them ready at hand, sheds and tempo- 
 rary barracks had been erected in the principal parks and squares of 
 the city. 
 
 Nevertheless, the great majority of well-to-do citizens looked some- 
 what askance at these extensive preparations, and they" had already 
 begun to leave the city slowly. When the news was telegraphed up 
 that the hostile fleet had reached Key West, however, their desire to 
 get away received a sudden impulse. Fifth Avenue became one 
 moving caravan, and valuable pictures, silver, and statues were being 
 hurriedly flung into vehicles of all kinds. Here would be a Fortuny 
 lying on the side-walk, and there a bust by Launt Thompson, wait- 
 ing to be moved. I myself bought for ten cents a priceless Jules 
 Breton, which a boot-black told me had fallen out of a cart and which 
 he had picked up in the gutter. On every side was confusion worse 
 confounded, and the agonized haste of others growing contagious, as at 
 fires, people were throwing valuable mirrors often out of the windows, 
 while they carefully removed their mattresses by hand. Happy were 
 the owners of a horse and wagon. Cab-fares, never low in New York, 
 rose to unheard-of altitudes, and it is stated that a driver received two 
 hundred dollars for driving a bronze copy of the Yenus of Milo 
 beyond the city limits in his cab. Every species of vehicle was 
 brought into requisition, and even hearses were seen carting away 
 the precious plunder, or sometimes packed with living babies whose 
 fond mothers could secure no other description of conveyance to 
 transport them from the scene of danger. Many people, however, 
 did not move their children or effects, — people that lived down in 
 the Five Points, and had no effects to move, — people that lived in 
 tenements even higher than the cab-fares, but had no cab-fares to 
 give. The people, in general, who lived in the crowded purlieus of 
 the great city, having no works of art, did not move them ; and, havinf 
 nowhere to go themselves, they remained where they were, with their 
 offspring. 
 
 Thus endeth the first lesson of the Dream of Conquest. 
 
^ DREAM OF CONQUEST. • 33 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 It was a lovely spring morning when the fleet again approached the 
 coast, in the vicinity of Hampton Roads. 
 
 Mrs. McFIasterer was standing on deck, pensively regarding the 
 sea, and anon looking in the direction of the country she had come, so 
 to speak, to devastate. The probable commiseration of her fate by 
 the public, the sensation that her capture must have in all likelihood 
 occasioned, the fact that at this very moment she was probably the one 
 absorbing topic of conversation in ten thousand homes, tinctured her 
 sadness with a sense of gratification impossible to describe. 
 
 She was looking over the taifrail deep down into the dark-blue 
 water, observing a school of porpoises that were playing about the 
 vessel, when Taonsu approached and interrupted her reveries : 
 
 " Ah ! the lady of the West is sad to think of the proud cities that 
 are to be laid low, the homes that are to be desolated, and the multi- 
 tudinous graves ; but little did thy people heed it, O daughter, when 
 the English sailed into our harbors, destroyed our cities, and laid in 
 ashes the summer palace of the very Son of Heaven himself." 
 
 It was sweet to the ears of the captive to be called " daughter," 
 and her gentle sadness took a more sentimental cast. 
 
 " But thou must know, O Taonsu," she urged, adapting her style 
 to the formal phraseology of her companion, " that we have revolted 
 from England. Rememberest thou not George Washington, who never 
 told a lie, Daniel Webster, Jeiferson, and the other great men who 
 struggled and bled to free us from England's tyrannical rule?" Mrs. 
 McFlusterer, like many other fashionable women that I know, was 
 somewhat weak in her history. 
 
 " What are thy revohitions compared with the sum of China's 
 antiquity ?" replied Taonsu. " You are English sprung, and, according 
 to the word of your sacred book, the sins of the father shall be visited 
 upon the offspring unto the third and fourth generation thereof." 
 Taonsu, as we know, spoke English fluently, with only the slightest 
 possible accent. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer resolved to make one last appeal to him. 
 
 " But is it right, O Taonsu," she exclaimed, still continuing in the 
 style of speech she had adopted, " that tliou who hast benefited by this 
 Western civilization shouldst come to destroy it ? What good will it 
 do thee?" 
 
 " Lady, we in the East do not measure everything by the profit 
 thai accrues ; such is the habit of money-changers, and of those who, 
 as with you, deal in stocks."" 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer unconsciously turned and regarded her husband, 
 who, attached to the end of a long chain, was being led up and down 
 by a Chinaman, like a dog by its master, for his morning walk on the 
 deck. On the other side of the deck, Mr. Puncherry was being sim- 
 ilarly conducted. How the unfortunate gentlemen could have prevented 
 this undignified treatment, Mrs. McFkisterer did not stop to puzzle 
 out; but, as she gazed at them, there appeared something so ignoble 
 3 
 
3^ A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 in their situation, and even in their character, that it gave emphasis to 
 Taonsu's remark. Like a woman, she unreasonably despised tliem. 
 
 How pointed, indeed, were the observations of this quaint young 
 man ! " Those of the West measure everything by the profit that 
 accrues •" and, were they landed at this very moment m New York, 
 she felt' obliged to confess that nothing but the chains that now held 
 her two friends would keep the one from the Stock Exchange and 
 the other from his place of business. , . , x- «.» 
 
 " Taonsu,'* she asked, with a weary sigh, " what is to be my fate ? 
 
 " Thou hast learned, daughter of the West, that his Great Ex- 
 cellency is to bear thee with him back to his home across the sea, where 
 thou shalt ride in a palanquin of ivory and gold.'' 
 
 " But is this proper, O Taonsu? Thou forgettest I am a wedded 
 
 wife." 
 
 " At thy wish thou canst be freed, O daughter, for thou hast but to 
 say^the word, and thy two husbands are struggling in the waves." 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer turned away resolutely from this tempting pros- 
 pect. 
 
 "But why does he wish to take me across the sea?" she asked; 
 and visions of hareems, of fountains, and of beautiful Georgian women 
 suddenly floated before her mind. " Why does he wish to tear me 
 from my home?" she continued, sentimentally; then, with a blush of 
 embarrassment, " He said I resembled his — his grandmother, and that 
 my feet were as the blades of paddle-wheels : wherefore should he say 
 this, if his heart longeth for me ?" 
 
 "Ah, fair daughter, by this he intended to signify his great affec- 
 tion. We in the East venerate our ancestors, and the greatest compli- 
 ment is to compare our loves to them. Filled out to suit the Western 
 fancy, his words meant this : that thou dost resemble his grandmother 
 when she was in the first flush of her glorious youth and beauty." 
 
 "And dost thou really think he meant this delicate flattery?" 
 
 " As surely, fair lady, as his treatment of the servant that offended 
 thee was delicately flattering to thee." 
 
 " And what of him, O Taonsu ?" asked the lady, unsuspiciously. 
 
 " Why, he has already partaken of him." 
 
 " Already partaken of him ?" cried Mrs. McFlusterer, with vague 
 horror. 
 
 " Partaken of him in the spirit, fair daughter of the West. His 
 tongue was served him for breakfast, his ears for luncheon, and what 
 there was over was left to the crew, — not to be actually eaten, but to 
 serve as a feast for the eye and to show the danger of offending thee. 
 Deemest thou not, therefore, that his affection for thee is unbounded ? 
 It is strong and abiding, and as certainly exists as the vessel that ap- 
 proaches is the one that will quickly pilot us to our destination." 
 
 ]\f rs. McFlusterer looked in thefdirection where Taonsu was point- 
 ing, and saw that they had approached, without her notice (though 
 signals from the steamer must have announced the fact before), a rakish 
 schooner that was lying-to. Indeed, a boat was already rowing from 
 the craft towards the flag-ship, and, as Taonsu spoke, the latter slack- 
 ened up. The lady's surprise was so great that for a moment she forgot 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 35 
 
 the revolting nature of the communication just made to her ; or let me 
 say that the hope of some unexpected assistance was inspired by the 
 stoppage. As she gazed down into the boat, however, the appearance 
 of the man in the stern-sheets gave her little encouragement. He wore 
 a low felt hat ; the cast of his countenance was villanous, and his face 
 was so dirty that it actually suggested a negro's. Nevertheless, she 
 would appeal to him : no American would be so lost to patriotism as to 
 pilot a fleet against his own country. Alas ! she knew not that the wile 
 of the enemy had engaged a hated Canadian, nor had she calculated 
 that before the stranger reached the ship's side, herself and her two 
 companions would be summarily dismissed below. 
 
 CHAPTEB XII. 
 
 The captives, we say, were hurried down below ere the man with 
 the slouch hat and dirty face had mounted to the deck. Until now she 
 had scarcely realized the nature of the people in whose power she was, 
 but the communication of Taonsu woke her up to the full realities of the 
 situation. What should she do, what steps should she take for her 
 escape ? Ignorant of the exact locality on the coast opposite which the 
 fleet had arrived, she yet knew sufficient of its geography to realize that 
 they must now be less than two days' sail from her native city, since 
 she had been on board already five days, and from early this morning 
 they had been sailing on in sight of land. During these five days, too, 
 the captives had been treated with courtesy, not to say kindness. To 
 be sure, there had been that question raised once or twice about flinging 
 Mr. Puncherry and lier husband into the waves ; but the object of the 
 proposal, when she came to analyze it, was that she might be maritally 
 unencumbered, and the offer had only been made with a view to meet 
 the prejudices of Western propriety, so to speak. With regard to these 
 chains, too, it was several times explained to the prisoners by Taonsu 
 that their being tied by the foot was merely complimentary, intended 
 to show that they were persons of very great distinction ; and, though 
 both gentlemen had energetically expressed their willingness to forego 
 these marks of honor, Wang-Chi-Poo, through the same interpreter, 
 again and again insisted that he could never bring himself to treat them 
 with so little consideration as to let them loose. Indeed, their evident 
 displeasure at their fetters was entirely misinterpreted by Wang-Chi- 
 Poo ; for, thinking that they were dissatisfied because the form of their 
 captivity was lacking in punctilio, he was only persuaded by Taonsu 
 not to "grade up" their distinction by incarcerating them in a couple 
 of bamboo cages reserved for prisoners of the most exalted rank. 
 
 Looked at from one point, horrible as it was in itself, the punish- 
 ment of the servant was intended as a courtesy ; and, although her 
 abhorrence at his fate could never be overcome, the spirit that dictated 
 it was flattering, and must be recognized. In short, her heart was 
 touched, or rather let me say her womanly instincts were gradually be- 
 ginning to reassert themselves. 
 
 Barely two hours after the prisoners had been dismissed below they 
 
36 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 were unexpectedly told that their presence was again desired, and par- 
 ticularly that of Mr. Puncherry. At the companion-way they were met 
 by the commissioner and his interpreter, who, ceremoniously leading them 
 on deck, accompanied them to the forward part of the ship. Here, on 
 the forecastle, they found, to their surprise, a number of chairs facing 
 forward and ranged as for private theatricals, with a large one, like a 
 throne for royalty, in the middle. On these the captives were told to 
 seat themselves, Mr. Puncherry being directed to take the principal 
 chair. 
 
 Then Taonsu explained that the pilot who had so recently come on 
 board brought news that the American fleet was in the offing, and, the 
 ships having just been sighted, he thought that perchance the patriotism 
 of the party would be fired by the proud spectacle of seeing them come 
 into action. 
 
 And in truth, as they bore down, it was a sight to make any 
 American feel proud, even Mr. Puncherry, naval expert that he was. 
 Here was the Swatara, with her newly-tinkered boilers and her patched- 
 up hull. Here were the Nipsic and the Enterprise, hastily got ready ; 
 here was the Trenton, with a great gaping hole in her bottom stopped up 
 with tarpaulins ; and here were the Pilgrim and the Tennessee. Next 
 came the Powhatan and the Ticonderoga, taken from under the very 
 hammer of the auctioneer at the Brooklyn Navy- Yard, and, though 
 condemned, commissioned. After all, with uncertain motion and most 
 melancholy, came the Pinta, which had just returned from Alaska to 
 die. 
 
 And indeed it did seem cruel to bring out these decrepit old vessels 
 that twenty years ago had so well earned a needed repose. In many of 
 them the scars of the late war had never been obliterated. Serving as 
 a sort of escort for the squadron were the new steel cruisers the Porpoise 
 and Pacific. Like a host of lame men in charge of a couple of small 
 but vigorous boys, the fleet hobbled forth to meet the enemy, bringing 
 with them the recollections and traditions of a glorious past, when the 
 flag they carried at their peak was borne to victory instead of ridicule. 
 
 As I have intimated, the Porpoise and Pacific were steaming around 
 these vessels, now rendering assistance to one and now to another, and 
 trying to bring them all up in proper shape into action. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo is smiling with a mild sort of irony. " O Taonsu," 
 he exclaimed, turning to his secretary, " this is most remarkable : these 
 people, thou hast told me, protect their industries, but fail to protect 
 their coasts. How is it ?" 
 
 Mr. Puncherry at this point broke in upon the dialogue. He failed 
 to comprehend the commissioner's words, but that they were inspired by 
 the decrepit appearance of the fleet was manifest, and it angered him 
 to be set up on a throne, as it were, to behold the ignominy of his 
 country. 
 
 ^ " WeVe spent more money on that fleet than you have on your en- 
 tire navy,'' he said, rudely ; and he looked at the commissioner as if he 
 dared him to contradict the statement. 
 
 " ^u* wbich of the two is the more proper subject of pride?" de- 
 manded Taonsu,— "that much is spent on one's fleet, or that much is 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 37 
 
 accomplished by that expense ? Of a truth, O inhabitant of the West, we 
 do not wish to quarrel ; if you are satisfied, so are we." 
 
 " It's all very well to crow," said Mr. Puncherry, " because youVe 
 stolen a march on us. Suppose you can lick this fleet ; fightin' ain't 
 the only quality demanded in a navy. S'pose you can sail round it ; 
 sailin' ain't everything. The great use of a navy with us is to encour- 
 age American ship-building ; and if it wasn't for patchin' up them old 
 hulks, — which is all Congress allows me the money for, — where would 
 I be?" 
 
 Before a fitting reply could be found to the question, the American 
 squadron, which by this time was barely two miles distant, endeavored 
 to perform what was for it a highly complicated manoeuvre, — namely, 
 to fall into line of battle. In the act of doing so, most of the ships ran 
 foul of each other, owing to the rottenness of their equipment, for, 
 though principally steamers, their engines' were weak and it was neces- 
 sary to assist the operation with their sails. Yet the top-hamper was 
 so defective that in the act of coming about a sheet would give way, or 
 a yard would get jammed ; and it was not surprising that they should, 
 for you cannot expect to take condemned vessels from under the 
 auctioneer's hammer and have them in first-class sailing trim in a 
 month's time. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo still stands just where he was, with his hand resting 
 on the back of Mr. Puncherry's chair. 
 
 " Of a truth," he observed, meditatively, to the interpreter, " the 
 progress these Westerners make so much boast of is not shown in 
 their ships ; and as for their forts, they have arrived but at the 
 Stone Age. How is it I have heard you say that they call us back- 
 ward?" 
 
 In the mean while the distance between the two fleets was being 
 rapidly lessened, and the nearer the Orientals drew the more aston- 
 ished they were at the appearance of everything on board. So great 
 had been the haste in getting these vessels ready that in many cases 
 their tattered sails and rigging had not been changed for new. Hence, 
 shortly afterwards, as they camQ opposite to the American flag-ship, 
 and when it became necessary for it to send a force of men aloft to 
 take in a tattered sail, Wang-Chi-Poo distinctly saw the ratlines of the 
 shrouds give way under the sailors' feet, causing them to slide back, 
 one after another, to the deck, as on so many greased poles. Yet it was 
 a glorious evidence of American valor that men should come out at all 
 in such poor old tubs ; and this was the view that principally struck 
 Wang-Chi-Poo. Indeed, the commissioner, with all his faults, was a 
 gentleman, a man unwilling to take any unfair advantage even of an 
 enemy. It went against his grain to fire upon such brave fellows, and 
 he felt that respect for them which none but the brave can feel. So 
 he waved his hand affably, as is the wont of Orientals, at the American 
 admiral as he passed him in his flag-ship, and, sailing through the very 
 thick of the fleet, left it to be settled by a heavy squall that he saw 
 gathering on the edge of the horizon. 
 
 And indeed we may as well allow this storm to be a veil and draw 
 it gently over the poor old hulks. 
 
3g A DREAM OF CONQUES'l. 
 
 As for the Porpoise and the Pacific, the new steel cruisers, I can 
 say nothing. Their efforts were principally directed to lending such 
 assistance to the others as would keep them above water. The Chinese 
 officers were of the opinion, however, that they were too large for 
 torpedo-boats, and too small to carry guns of sufficient calibre to con- 
 tend with their larger vessels. Certainly, armed only with six- and 
 eight-inch guns, the projectiles which, I have forgotten to state, they 
 hurled at the foe, could not be expected to penetrate steel plates tested 
 to resist sixteen-inch guns ; and while the contract for their construction 
 stipulated a speed of fifteen knots an hour, they could not very well run 
 down with their rams vessels that steamed nineteen. All the Chinese 
 officers were agreed, however, that the one — from her propensity to roll 
 — was very well named the Porpoise, and the other — from the little 
 injury she seemed capable of inflicting — the Pacific. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 It was late on the morning of the third day after leaving Hampton 
 Roads when Mrs. McFlusterer awoke. The sun was shining brightly 
 into the cabin. Both her husband and Mr. Puncherry assured her 
 that tliey had arrived off Sandy Hook at daybreak, and that there they 
 had lain for the past three horn's. They were again in motion, however, 
 and Mi-s. McFlusterer could hear the blades of the propeller striking 
 the water • yet they w^ere proceeding cautiously, advancing slowly, and 
 frequently stopping. Mr. Puncherry, whose eyes were glued to the 
 port-hole, explained in professional language that they were removing 
 the outer line of torpedoes that New York had probably set out for its 
 defence. Overseeing this work was a steam mosquito-boat called the 
 Fang, which he had often noticed during his promenades on deck. 
 When the steamer would slacken up and swing around with the tide, 
 this vessel would frequently be disclosed to him ; and, although Mr. 
 Puncherry made light of her, it may as well be stated here that, 
 according to the opinion of the English Admiralty, the Fang was the 
 fastest and best-equipped" boat of her "kind in any service. Built for 
 the Chinese government by Messrs. Yarrow & Co., of Poplar, the well- 
 known English builders, she could steam the incredible sgeed of twenty- 
 four and three-eighths knots an hour. , 
 
 At the wheel, directing her movements, stood the dirty-faced man 
 with the slouch hat, studying a map which he had made at the time 
 these very torpedoes Were set out. Mr. Puncherry also explained that 
 they had been subjected to a heavy fire from certain earthworks at Sandy 
 Hook ; but, as Mrs. McFlusterer had failed to be disturbed by this, 
 it can only be inferred that the damage had been slight. Yet that 
 morning seemed very long to the poor lady, and she thought it would 
 never come to an end ; she was weary of the continual stoppings and 
 backings of the vessel and the rattle of the <lonkey-engine, while her 
 nerves absolutely refused to grow accustomed to the bursting of torpe- 
 does, harmless though their explosions generally prov^ed. 
 
 Towards mid-day her ennui was relieved by a really thrilling contest 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 39 
 
 between the Fang and a little white-topped vessel shaped like a tooth- 
 pick, that suddenly darted out upon them from under protection of the 
 shore. Mr. Puncherry cried out that slie was the celebrated Stiletto. 
 She carried a large tin pot on the end of a long improvised bowsprit ; 
 and it was evidently her intention to jam this pot, which contained 
 some fifty pounds of nitro-glycerin, against the side of the steamer. 
 So quick was her coming that the fleet were unable to get their aim 
 adjusted upon her, and she was already inside and below the range of 
 their heavier guns before they could do as much as fire on her. 
 
 The Fang was, however, on the alert, and, waiting till she got 
 quite close, made a dash at her, spoiled her aim, and then, sliding up, 
 ran along by her side, warding off her approach. Around and around 
 the flag-ship they tore, the Stiletto outside, the Fang inside, shoulder to 
 shoulder as it were, like boys playing football, the one protecting, the 
 other endeavoring to reach, the ^' base." 
 
 Mr. Puncherry, in his agonized curiosity, stuck his head so far out 
 the port-hole that he was unable to get it back ; consequently, he not 
 only blocked up the most favorable outlook, but, by his smothered cries 
 and violent contortions to extricate himself, prevented Mrs. McFlusterer 
 and her husband from enjoying the spectacle as they might have done 
 through the other port-hole. Nevertheless, as it was, the lady saw 
 enough of it, and was extremely relieved when their unwelcome visitor 
 turned suddenly away from the Fang and started in a bee-line for 
 another ship. It was a dangerous move. When she had got far enough 
 to admit of being aimed at by the flag-ship, the discharge of a heavy 
 gun thrilled through the steamer; and Mrs. McFlusterer saw their 
 valiant little enemy torge downward, throw her stern in the air, and 
 disappear. Being only steel-braced instead of steel-plated, the vessel 
 failed to resist the shot, which, with its downward pitch, entered her 
 deck amidships and came out through the bottom just forward of the 
 engines, perforating her through and through. 
 
 In the mean while they had drawn quite near to Coney Island, and 
 Mrs. McFlusterer could see people like ants crowding the shores and 
 the tops of houses to survey the contest. 
 
 The rest of the afternoon was agreeably diversified by the fruitless 
 attempts of sundry earthwork batteries here, and at a point opposite on 
 Staten Island, to reach the fleet with their antiquated ordnance. Had 
 these earthworks, according to Mr. Puncherry, l)een only provided with 
 sixteen-inch steel guns, instead of the- old steel-lined Rodmans brought 
 from Fort Hamilton and the neighboring fortresses, it would have been 
 quite a different matter for the fleet. 
 
 Mr. Puncherry, according to his wont, became quite animated over 
 the subject, and showed her how the positions on these two islands, 
 together with Sandy Hook, constituted the angles of a triangle, only 
 some seven miles apart, stating that, if these three points were only 
 provided with such ordnance as he had described, there would thus be 
 formed two lines of defence for the city, — namely, an outer one between 
 Coney Island and Sandy Hook, and, secondly, an inner line between 
 Coney and Staten Islands, should the first be successfully passed, as 
 had just occurred ; he even affirmed that one properly-equipped battery 
 
40 
 
 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 where Sandy Hook Light-House stood could have made it extremely 
 difficult to j)ick up the torpedoes between that point and where they 
 had now arrived. Mr. Puncherry further went on to add that the 
 protection of these waters could only be made complete by a large navy; 
 but the value of this last assertion was not enhanced by his explaining 
 that the building of its ships should be strictly confined to his own 
 yards. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Puncherry was quite right so far as generalities 
 went. To be accurate, the fleet had anchored during the night off the 
 Dry Romer shoals. At the point where the Gedney Channel divides, 
 like the prongs of a pitchfork, into the Main Ship and the Swash 
 Channel, the fleet had separated into two divisions, the smaller vessels 
 taking the latter, and the larger ones, owing to their greater depth, 
 the Main Channel. This had brought them directly o})})o.site Sandy- 
 Hook I/ight, and much closer to the shore than the Swash Channel did 
 the other division. Both these channels, along with the inlet leading 
 into them, had been sown with torpedoes, with sunken mines, and with 
 scuttled vessels, for tliey were the two only approaches navigable for 
 ships of such draught. The way these various obstructions were dis- 
 posed of, however, by the fleet, offered food for reflection to those many 
 estimable people who consider torpedoes and mines sufficient for harbor 
 defence. In the first place, the exact location of most of these was 
 already accurately known, as I have explained, and the sunken vessels 
 amply proclaimed their own locations. Besides, the mines and many 
 of the torpedoes were to be exploded from the shore, and their several 
 bases of operations were protected by earthworks. The cannonading 
 which IMr. Puncherry had first heard was that of the fleet as it passed 
 Sandy Hook, either destroying these earthworks with their two-thousand- 
 pound i)rojectiles, or shelling out the garrisons, thus preventing the 
 mines and a large portion of the other torpedoes from being utilized. 
 Then the fleet would slowly pass over the now harmless position, and 
 anchor just beyond it. In case the obstruction was a sunken vessel, 
 the Fang would dart out and throw a dynamite torpedo from a curious 
 deflecting gun that she carried in her bows ; or, if that were not sufficient 
 to remove it, she would send down a diver who would deliberately set 
 to work to blow it up. 
 
 Heavy guns would have been effective, and })roper forts or batteries 
 for their protection were needed, because without them the mines and 
 the torpedoes that were connected with the shores could not even be 
 discharged. Of coui-se I include under the head of " torpedoes con- 
 nected with the shores" the controllable class, — i.e., those which were to 
 be sent out against the enemy in leading-strings, so to speak. Conse- 
 quently, with the destruction of the earthworks, there remained only 
 those torpedoes which, anchored in the channel, were to be exploded 
 by collision. It was more particularly these last that Mr. Puncherry 
 had seen the Fang remove. 
 
 Indeed, this is so important a point that I crave the indulgence of my 
 readers to express the opinion that, except in rare instances, experience 
 has shown torpedoes to be a delusion and a snare, and as dangerous for 
 the one side as for the other. If fleets are matched against fleets, they 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 41 
 
 obstruct the movements of each fleet equally ; if, on the other hand, 
 no fleets are ready to engage the hostile ships, they are generally harm- 
 less ; while if both torpedo-boats and forts do not co-operate with them, 
 they are absolutely useless. Look at it rationally. Hostile fleets may 
 vanquish protecting fleets ; hostile torpedo-boats may out-manoeuvre pro- 
 tecting torpedo-boats ; there must remain forts to give the coup degrdce. 
 
 Without these various auxiliaries a seaboard city is handicapped in 
 its defence, and resembles a pugilist with either one leg or one arm, 
 perhaps both, tied up. 
 
 As regards forts, earthworks, which are indispensable for some pur- 
 poses, can yet be destroyed by shot, the largest kindof which can now 
 ])enetrate through seventy-five feet of embankments ; masonry must be 
 more than twenty-four feet thick ; while even iron, unless thirty inches 
 through, is useless against the latest Krupp or Armstrong projectiles. 
 
 At this point Mr. Puncherry relieves me of the duty of entering 
 into further particulars, by explaining to his companions that the only 
 kind of protection which has been proved capable of resisting such 
 guns as the fleet was amply provided with was the German cast-iron 
 dome, such as forms a part of the defence of Antwerp. " An improve- 
 ment in this dome might even be effected, '^ he went on to say, " by 
 building it of steel in the manner advised by Bessemer; while dis- 
 appearing batteries according to Gener-al Sheridan^s i)lan have many 
 advocates." Thus Mr. Puncherry could very well see what was needed 
 in forts, if he could not in ships. 
 
 . But, meanwhile, the fleet had arrived ofi* the west end of Coney 
 Island, and a second cannonading had begun from the batteries there 
 and on the Staten Island shore. The fire of the last was as quickly 
 silenced as that of Sandy Hook, but to the fire from Coney Island the 
 fleet had not yet replied. Now, the reason for tliis was so extraordinary 
 that I fear if I state it my veracity will be doubted. The fact of the 
 matter was, that Wang-Chi-Poo suddenly caught sight of the huge 
 artificial elephant that towers over the cardboard hotels and the shingle 
 palaces of Manhattan Beach, and feared to excite it by any discharge 
 of his heavy ordnance in that direction. No arguments could persuade 
 him that it was not alive, and, dreading it more than any of the infernal 
 machines New York had yet sent one against him in her defence, he 
 allowed the rest of the afternoon to glide by in masterly inactivity. 
 Nor did the fall of evening's shades arouse him from his stupor. Thus 
 closed the night, and any inmates that the shingle palaces and the card- 
 board hotels yet contained went to bed, very likely, attributing their 
 immunity less to the guardianship of the elephant than to the beauty 
 of the edifices reflected in the waves hard by. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 It is some five hours later, and Wang-Chi-Poo is seated in his 
 cabin, pretending to study a large map ; anon he looks up and gazes 
 about him absently. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo is thinking of his distant home, and his thoughts 
 
42 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 make him sad. Wang-Chi-Poo remembers the little Wang-Chi-Poos, 
 and the butterflies lie used to make mount into the air for them. He 
 can see, in his mind's eye, the very figure of the bamboo naat on which 
 he used to play with them, and can hear their cries of delight re-echo- 
 ing in his ear when a butterfly would fall within their grasp. 
 
 AfUir all, of what good was it coming to this barbarian land, where 
 the elephants walked on the tops of the houses and took their meals 
 out of chimney-pots? Would he ever be permitted to return home, — 
 to his home in the Flowery Kingdom, where things were fixed up and 
 regulated as things should be ? Alas ! he sometimes felt that he should 
 never return again. And if he did return, what would his wives say 
 when he suddenly presented to them the fair McFlusterer? Ah, it 
 would be better to cut their nails extremely short too. Wang-Chi-Poo 
 felt very sad, and, the cabin being close, he went up on deck. Over- 
 head it was a lovely night, but along the surface of the water lay a 
 heavy mist. Looking shoreward, he imagined he could make out, 
 every now and then, as the haze lifted, the great hotels of Coney Island, 
 which he had naturally taken for pagodas erected for the purposes of 
 woi-ship by these strange people. He could feel the soft land-breeze 
 laden witli fragrance blowing on him gently through the mist, but ever 
 and anon his gaze reverted to the spot where he remembered the huge 
 elephant had stood, rising high above the pagodas. 
 
 It may be parenthetically observed that anything lofty in the way 
 of a building is thought by the Chinese to deflect and dissipate the evil 
 spirits that may be hovering about in the air. Pagodas are thus a 
 kind of spiritual lightning-rod ; and, to prevent any unfair advantage 
 that a rich man might have by the rearing of a lofty edifice, a strict 
 law in the Celestial Kingdom rigidly limits the height of all buildings. 
 Nurtured in this belief, the very height of these buildings had appealed 
 to the superstitious side of his nature, and he looks over to where the 
 elephant ought to be, and shudders. And, as he stands there, he begins 
 to think he can dimly make out its huge whitish form through the 
 mist, and he looks at it witli a strange fascination ; anon he can almost 
 fancy it is moving, and certainly it does seem larger than his recollec- 
 tion of it in the afternoon would warrant. Yes, it is moving, he is 
 sure, it is growing bigger, too, and the faint mufiled sound as of some 
 huge beast breasting the waves suddenly strikes upon his ear. Wang- 
 Chi-Poo feels the very marrow of him freeze. His legs refuse to sup- 
 port him as he clutches the gunrail to sustain himself. He must be 
 mistaken, however ; his fears are father to his thoughts ; and he closes 
 his eyes and listens intently. First he thinks himself deceived, then 
 he changes his opinion, but at last there is no doubt, — the noise grows 
 every instant more distinct, and he can actually hear the feet of the 
 creature striking the water as it swims. But other quigk ears have 
 already detected the noise, and the electric light is. suddenly turned on 
 in the threatened direction. TJien, surely enough, scarce a thousand 
 yards distant, is revealed a great whitish form, rising tier above tier, 
 coming mysteriously out of the misty night. As they gaze upon it, 
 spellbound, the mass seems to dissolve into many parts, each pail, like 
 tlie parent mass, rising also tier above tier and striking out for a sepa- 
 
A DREAM OF CONqUEST. 43 
 
 rate vessel of the fleet. In an instant the flag-ship is alive. In re- 
 sponse to the shrill whistle of the boatswain, men suddenly aroused 
 from sleep tumble up the hatches and, seizing what arms come first to 
 hand, rush to their posts. Not a moment too soon, for, quicker than I 
 can relate, the great white object is moving down upon them and strikes 
 them with a terrible thud, blended with three ringing cheers for Uncle 
 Sam. 
 
 Waug-Chi-Poo sees a torrent of men' pour down from the upper 
 parts of this formidable visitor, and, once convinced that it is not the 
 elephant, draws his gold-mounted cutlass from its scabbakl and, like 
 the brave man that he is, calls loudly on his men. Then, alas, what a 
 horrible m^lee ensued in the glare of the electric lights and in the flash 
 of lauterus !— a horrible hand-to-hand struggle all over the decks, 
 with quarter for no one; now backward, now forward, the hip-hip- 
 hurrahs of the one party mingled with the " zing-yous, zing-yous" of 
 the Chinese. Indeed, the last, though half asleep^ fought like devils, 
 but the elan of the attacking party seemed carrying everything before it. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer had thrown herself on the sofa for a brief nap, 
 and was only awakened by the commotion of the ship preparing for 
 action. Poor woman ! she invariably used a sofa now, that she might 
 be better prepared for any emergency. She could hear the hurried 
 tramp of men as they crowded up the hatchways, and the hoarse voices 
 of the oflicers as they gave the necessary orders. She felt, too, the 
 crash of the vessel striking the steamer, and the dropping of men as 
 from a great height down upon the decks above her head. Then came 
 that awful sound of fighting, of hacks and bloWs, of sudden reports, 
 of sharp crackling discharges, intermingled with cries of agony, and 
 cheers for her patron saiut. 
 
 I can imagine no more thrilling situation than the prisoners founa 
 themselves in. They knew, of qourse, that some desperate attempt was 
 being made to carry the steamer from under the very feet of their 
 captors, and waited the issue — an issue fraught with so much con- 
 sequence to themselves — with bated breath. They could distinctl)r 
 trace the tide of battle, too, as it ebbed and flowed up and down the 
 deck, for now the American cheers would prevail, and now again 
 the cries of the Chinese. Finally the Chinese, it was evident, were 
 being driven back : their battle-shouts grew fainter as those of the 
 Americans grew louder and more enthusiastic, — so loud and enthusi- 
 astic a< to pve the captives the im})ression that their fellow-countrymen 
 were victorious. 
 
 But then, at the very instant of Mrs. McFlusterer^s expected de- 
 liverance, in the crisis of her delightful anticipation of being set free, 
 her ecstasy was changed to a chill horror that riveted her to the floor 
 where she stood. 
 
 Once when the boatswain was practising the crew in the various 
 calJs of his whistle, Taonsu had explained that a certain one of them 
 was the signal for blow'ing up the vessel. It was this call she now 
 distinctly heard. It ran through the ship like wildfire, stilling in an 
 instant the combat, and petrifying each contestant with the dread of 
 instant annihilation. 
 
44 A DREAM OF COXQVEST. 
 
 But what is this? At the very moraent she thonglit her last, the 
 combat is renewed, the " zing-yous, zing-yous" of the Chinamen are 
 heard again, in the very teeth of their enemies' success. It was as if 
 the tide had 'been suddeidy turned by some unexpected occurrence in 
 favor of their captors. For some five minutes the suspense continued, 
 then the cheers for Uncle Sam grew fewer and fewer, fainter and more 
 indistinct, and a hush as of tlie grave fell on all things, followed by an 
 explosion as of a distant ship. 
 
 When Mrs. McFlusterer looked about her, Mr. Puncherry lay in 
 a (lead faint upon the floor, while her husband was rocking to and fro, 
 completely beside himself, and gibbering to himself like one of those 
 foolish old crones we read of in Lever's novels. 
 
 She heard the splash, splash, splash as of bodies hastily flung one 
 after another into the waves, and the next instant the vessel, still hard 
 alongside of the flag-shif), went down with such suddenness that the 
 iron-clad seemed likely to be swallowed up in the vortex of disturbed 
 water. 
 
 And in truth the combat, if short, had been decisive, and that it 
 had not resulted in the success of the Americans was owing solely to 
 the fact that only about one man in ten had reached the enemy's deck. 
 Though the upper decks of their steamer towered over those of the 
 flag-ship, the distance to jump was wide, and so great had been the 
 anxiety to board, and the consequent confusion, that the greater number 
 of the assailants fell between the two vessels' sides. Those that did 
 arrive in safety were many of them strained and hurt by their leap, 
 and were received with repeated discharges from the Hotchkiss and 
 Gatling guns that decimated their ranks ; nevertheless, so great was 
 the enthusiasm of the Americans that at first they carried everything 
 before them, and the signal was actually given to blow up the ship, on 
 the supposition of her capture. It was at this moment, this supreme 
 emergency, that Wang-Chi-Poo, who had been swept by the tide of 
 battle far back into the stern, succeeded in disengaging himself and 
 saved his vessel. He had noticed a large, powerful man at the head 
 of the boarding force, and thought if he could only succeed in putting 
 him hcxi's de combat, the others, being few, could be quickly mastered. 
 As soon as he was free, therefore, he sought him out and faced him ; 
 an instant the two leaders stood there, as if measuring each other's 
 prowess, when, suddenly stamping his foot, Wang-Chi-Poo flung his 
 cutlass with an unexpected flourish in the air, flashed open his fan with 
 a snap directly in his enemy's eyes, and, taking advantage of his aston- 
 ishment at such an unusual attack, squatted down and seized him about 
 the middle, then, summoning all his strength in one concentrated effort, 
 he flung him clean over his head, far over the bulwarks, into the sea. 
 
 It was this contest between the champions that stayed the command 
 to fire the magazine, and its issue that revived the drooping spirits of 
 the Chinese. 
 
 But Wang-Chi-Poo's blood was up : as in the case of many other 
 men, success alone was needed to bring out his mettle, and after this 
 his shining cutlass was seen gleaming in the rays of the electric lights, 
 and, like the sword of Mohammed, devouring all before it. It was not 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 45 
 
 till tlie dead (for no wounded were left) had been flung one after the 
 other into the waves, and tlie decks cleared of the most ghastly evidence 
 of the combat, that Wang-Chi-Poo looked abont him. 
 
 Of the fleet, one vessel had been captured by the Americans, and 
 had been blown up under the captors' feet. Warned in time by the 
 flag-ship, the other vessels of the fleet had either sunk the several vessels 
 of the attacking party as they advanced, or had so crippled them that 
 they failed to reach their destinations. 
 
 ^One of these vessels, however, was almost stripped of its courageous 
 legions by their own anxiety to get at the foe, for, crowding pell-mell 
 to the side on which they were to board, they had caused the vessel to 
 topple over so far as to spill the greater number into the cruel waves. 
 
 The cries of these unfortunates gave additional horror to the situa- 
 tion, and a lurid light was thrown upon the scene by another vessel 
 catching fire and subsequently blowing up. 
 
 Thus we have in this second combat another glorious example of 
 American pluck. That its success was hindered by so trivial a fact as 
 Wang-Chi-Poo's superstitious horror of an elephant will rob it in no 
 wise of its historic lustre. 
 
 Thus, too, was destroyed at one fell swoop a large part of New 
 York's summer fleet of travel, and the waves for many a day after- 
 wards were littered with boats and life-preservers, pieces of wreck and 
 debris, bearing such peaceful names as the Bristol, the Day-Dream, or 
 the Mary Powell. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 In a little shop in the lower portion of the threatened city a shirt- 
 maker named Smith plied his peaceful trade. He was an odd man 
 in some respects, but a conspicuous illustration of the versatility of 
 American genius. A shirt-maker, as we say, by calling, he had during 
 his idle moments turned his attention to inv'entions, and had perfected 
 a boat that could be propelled under water at will. With this he 
 claimed that he was able to conquer the greatest fleets of the world in 
 detachments. He had certainly given several successful exhibitions of 
 his boat long before the war was dreamed of, and had clearly demon- 
 strated the fact that he could guide her at a high rate of speed under 
 water. 
 
 Worked by a small " fireless engine," in Avhich the motive power 
 was a solution of caustic soda, she carried a large supply of compressed 
 air for breathing purposes, thus enabling the inventor to extend his 
 submarine voyages, as he expressed it, " for as long a time as his canned 
 tomatoes held out." 
 
 She was thirty feet long, seven and a half feet wide, six feet deep, 
 with room for holding two persons comfortably. 
 
 From the nose of this boat, like the proboscis of a sword-fish, ex- 
 tended a spar, on the extreme end of which was fixed a glass cylinder 
 for nitro-glycerin. 
 
 The proposal of this intrepid man had been to start out by himself 
 
46 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 and, single-lianded, to encounter the whole fleet as they sailed np the 
 coast, for in his own opinion the work of the authorities " didn't amount 
 to shucks." 
 
 It was not, however, till the fleet had arrived off Sandy Hook that 
 his arrangements were completed, and he had left the city at the same 
 time with the huge flotilla whose destruction has been recorded in the 
 j)receding chapter. 
 
 Nevertheless, as yet he had fiiiled to put in an appearance, and 
 Mrs. McF'lusterer was awakened the second morning by the peaceful 
 cadence of the donkey-engine again hoisting the anchors, and the roar 
 of the boilers again getting up steam. Brief as it had proved, the 
 respite was a much needed one, for the poor lady had already learned 
 that a trip in a hostile fleet coming to attack one's own country was 
 more to he dreaded than even a cruise in the Terror. The horrors of 
 her position were indeed accumulating up to a point beyond which she 
 thought she would soon lose all reason. 
 
 To make matters worse, the terrible barbarian seemed actually in 
 love with her, and would seize every available chance to escape from 
 the deck and to pass the time in her socnety, intruding as an unwelcome 
 guest at the prisoners' meals, and bringing along the interpreter, who 
 would explain what was going on. 
 
 Now, sometimes a small and comparatively trivial incident will 
 make a more lasting impression than the most momentous calamity. 
 There was nothing in all that she had gone through, nothing in all that 
 was yet to come, nothing even in the event that was immediately to 
 follow it, or indeed in any circumstance connected with her capture, 
 that remained so indelibly stamped upon Mrs. McFlusterer's memory 
 as the one I am about to relate. It occurred this very morning towards 
 the close of breakfast, to which tlie commissioner and his shadow, 
 Taonsu, had as usual invited themselves. 
 
 A glass bowl, with half a dozen goldfish swimming about in it, 
 had just been placed on the breakfast-table, and Taonsu was explain- 
 ing that they had been brought out as a delicacy in sj)ecial reservoirs 
 on board the ship, when the servant in attendance, darting into the 
 bowl a sharp-pronged fork, harpooned one of the fish, and, proceeding 
 to split the quivering body down the middle with a knife, deposited 
 one half upon the lady's plate. The prisoners jumped from their seats 
 in a body. Mrs. McFlusterer, placing her handkerchief to her eyes, 
 with a shudder, went as usual into hysterics ; Mr. McFlusterer seized 
 the bowl and threw it out the port-hole ; while Mr. Puncherry punched 
 the head of that servant till he collapsed, a jellified mass, on the floor, 
 and, facing the astonished Wang-Chi-Poo and his interpreter, glared 
 upon them like a veritable god aroused. How this ebullition of feel- 
 ing would have been received will remain forever unknown, for at this 
 moment a strange sensation, as of the ship's bottom being violently 
 assaulted, as- it were, by the proboscis of some submarine monster, 
 changed the temper of all to sudden alarm. Wang-Chi-Poo himself, 
 springing to his feet escaped to the deck, and, Taonsu immediately fol- 
 lowing, the prisoners were left to themselves. 
 
 Mr. Puncherry was the first to break the dread silence. " It's a 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 47 
 
 sword-fish !" he exclaimed, aghast ; " I know it^s a sword-fish : one of 
 them sunk the best steel-armored vessel I ever built, down in the Gulf 
 of Mexico. This must be a far bigger fellow than that, though. Great 
 Scott ! here it comes again !'' he cried, as the same mysterious attack 
 was repeated. Then, as the three captives stood awaiting whatever 
 doom the assault foreboded, a deafening report was heard, the vessel 
 seemed to rise up under their very feet, and they felt a shock as 
 of a husce column of water descendinsc on the deck above their heads. 
 Presently the whistles blew, the bells rang, and the vessel came to a 
 dead stop. . 
 
 While the unfortunate captives were regaining their composure as 
 best they could, the commissioner and Taonsu were on deck engaged in 
 setting a huge wire netting about the ship, called, in nautical language, 
 a crinoline. This, Mr. Puncherry finally recovered himself enough to 
 explain, was intended to protect the vessel against horizontal attacks 
 beneath the water-line. Parenthetically, we may observe that, except 
 for her distance from the shore, her petticoats would have been spread 
 to little purpose, since a distinguished officer of the army, who had 
 spent several years" in bringing to perfection a new form of air-gun, 
 thought the present a favorable opportunity for opening fire upon the 
 fleet. So extraordinary was this invention that it warrants a moment's 
 notice. Sixty feet in length, it resembled an enormous astronomical 
 telesco])e on wheels, pointed reversely, and w^as braced by supports not 
 unlike an elevated railroad. It carried a cylindrical brass torpedp, 
 holding a charge of sixty pounds of dynamite, and by a deflection of 
 aim, according to the distance, the missile was calculated to enter the 
 waves and to explode under the ship. The government did not own 
 this gun, but it was coquetting with the inventor for its purchase, since 
 its balance was so nice, and its mechanical arrangements so -perfect, 
 that but one artilleryman was required to manage it, — an all-important 
 consideration for a seaboard depending on a series of Sergeant McKennas 
 for its protection. 
 
 The name of the redoubtable weapon was the Pneumatic Dynamite 
 Torpedo Gun, and its discharge had caused little noise, no smoke, and 
 as yet no damage. 
 
 AVith his machine the inventor had just commenced a series of ex- 
 periments on his own hook, from behind a hastily-constructed earth- 
 work. The only trouble was that the Chinese, being perfectly instructed 
 in the flight of all such projectiles, kept not less than five thousand yards 
 from shore, the outside range of tliis particular piece of ordnance being 
 four thousand two hundred and fifty yards. 
 
 The flag-ship in the mean time was only just moving, and it suddenly 
 occurred to Wang-Chi-Poo'to utilize the occasion by the punishment of 
 the lookouts for not having sooner detected the enemy the previous 
 night. For this purpose one of the large bamboo cages in which it 
 had been proposed to confine Messrs. Puncherry and McFlusterer was 
 brought into requisition, and heavy shot were chained to the bottom of 
 it. Then the five culprits w^ere put into it and the cage was dropped 
 over the ship's side. Of course it was not allowed to sink immediately, 
 but was only submerged for some thirty seconds and then tantalizingly 
 
4g A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 pulled up by a rope : this having been repeated some half-dozen times, 
 the end of the rope was let go. 
 
 This entertaining little diversion occurred just under the cabin 
 port-hole, and Mrs. McFlusterer could see the agonized faces of the 
 men, like those of five drowning rats, pressed against the bars on each 
 occasion that the cage was pulled up. It did not tend to cheer her, 
 or to raise her opinion of the people among whom she found herself 
 placed. 
 
 Mr. Puncherry and Mr. McFlusterer, to whom the sight was hardly 
 less rej)ellent, sought relief to their feelings by observing the antics of 
 the Fang, which kept continually circling about the ship. Indeed, the 
 way she twisted and waltzed around her monster charge in her solicitude 
 to ward off any conceivable danger was most diverting. Each ship of 
 the fleet had just such a zealous little champion too, only the Fang was 
 superior to them all. 
 
 Mr. Puncherry confessed that, had as many of these boats been 
 available for our defence as were possessed by the enemy, the fleet 
 might very likely have been kept outside Sandy Hook to this time. 
 " If we will spend all the resources of the nation,'* said he, " in 
 widening our Little Log- Rolling Creeks, of course nothing remains for 
 protecting our harbors." Mr. Puncherry highly disapproved of wasting 
 any money outside of his own shipyards. 
 
 All the rest of the day the fleet lay-to, or when it did advance 
 it only moved at a snail's pace, backing and turning, now stopping 
 completely, and progressing barely three miles the entire afternoon. 
 Indeed, they had been simply going around in a circle, searching the 
 most effective position for the attack upon the city, and waiting for 
 the co-operation of the other squadron expected to arrive at Throgg's 
 Neck or near it, in Long Island Sound. At five o'clock the huge 
 chains were heard rasping their way through the hawser-holes as the 
 great Leviathan came to her final stop. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TnfeY had been at anchor barely half an hour, when an extraordinary 
 sight was beheld. It was nothing less than a huge flag, apparently 
 supported on nothing, and floating down towards the fleet, like a sign 
 from heaven, along the water. On a nearer approach the miracle was 
 revealed, for the boat (a steam-launch) that carried the flag was so 
 narrow that she had simply been invisible before. On she came, un- 
 doubtedly the bearer of a flag of truce, since the flag was white. Tht 
 ecstasy of the prisoner? ran better be imagined than described as they 
 detected her approach, which was, however, cautious, permitting the 
 flag to wave to one side instead of straight out backward. 
 
 You ask, perhaps, how^ it was that the prisoners could be so well 
 aware of everything that was going on : the fact will be appreciated 
 when I explain that the cabin, being in the stern, ran directly across 
 the ship, and that there were three port-holes, one on each side and one 
 astern. As each captive had a port-hole and passed most of the weary 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 49 
 
 time while confined below before it, a pretty good lookout was main 
 tained in every direction except forward. 
 
 " Yes, I told you it was a flag of truce !" cried Mr. Puncherry. 
 " It's probably the result of a spontaneous rising to demand my sur- 
 render. I'll be extremely sorry to leave you both," he continued, 
 turning to his fellow-captives, " but you see, in their emergency, the 
 American people require my services.'' 
 
 " Why, she's full of men !" ejaculated Mrs. McFlusterer, whose 
 attention was so absorbed that she had failed to hear Mr. Puncherry's 
 remarks, '' and they seem to be all writing. How odd !" 
 
 " At all events, they'll bring us the latest news of the market, who- 
 ever they are !" exclaimed Mr. McF., with a sigh of relief. '* It's quite 
 awful to have been away so long, when you come to think of it." 
 
 '* Why, they're reporters !" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Puncherry, 
 straining his eyes very severely. " Upon my word, it's very kind of 
 them. You see, I own a hundred shares of the Trumpety and they've 
 probably come to carry me back with them." 
 
 In the mean while the launch continued to advance, raising the 
 hopes of the party to fever-heat. At the moment when all were sure 
 that she was coming to board the steamer, she turned as on a pivot ; 
 then of a sudden, the opposite side of the flag being presented, appeared 
 in large and startling letters, " Read the New York Trumpet Half a 
 million circulation." The next instant she was flying back over the 
 water with a speed that was in sharp contrast to her cautious coming. 
 
 The indignation and disappointment of the captives knew no bounds. 
 Mr. McFlusterer, in his despair of learning the condition of the market, 
 craned his long neck far out of the port-hole and piteously cried after 
 them to at least inform him of the latest quotations in Erie. Mr. 
 Puncherry, from his port-hole, angrily shook his fist ; while the lady, 
 with the true sentimentality that distinguished her, dropped from hers 
 a silent tear to mingle with the sad and cruel waves. 
 
 Regardlessly, however, the launch kept on her way, if we can so 
 express a retreat that partook in its velocity of the nature of a projectile 
 hurled from a gun. Indeed, it was even more rapid ; for when the fleet 
 appreciated that a flag of truce had been merely raised as a subterfuge, 
 they opened fire, only to perceive that their shots barely caught up with 
 her. Perhaps you will moderate your astonishment when I explain 
 that the little vessel was no other than the world-renowned Daisy, and 
 that Mr. Puncherry had had so little to do with her construction that 
 his eye had never so much as fallen upon her before this moment, — it 
 having been computed that by merely looking at a vessel he knocked 
 off five knots per hour from her speed. 
 
 During the night the Fang and her fellow mosquito-boats atoned 
 for their failure to apprehend the Daisy, by announcing the advance of 
 a large army of men in life-buoy suits, led by the indomitable Captain 
 Buoy himself. Each swimmer carried a hand-grenade of dynamite ; but as 
 it has been deemed necessary to fill the latest-invented projectiles with five 
 hundred pounds of the same, and as the sides of the larger vessels were 
 twenty-five inches thick, these missiles, containing less tJian six pounds 
 of explosive, would presumably have had little effect. Besides, it would 
 4 
 
50 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 have been necessary to fling them over the nets which were hung a dis- 
 tance of twenty or thirty feet from their iron walls. ^ In fact, however, 
 few of the swimmers were allowed to approach within a mile, and such 
 as got nearer and within the rays of the electric lights were immediately 
 opened upon by sharp-shooters and Gatling guns from the ships. The 
 pop, pop, pop, as the bullets penetrated the wind-inflated suits, sug- 
 gestecl a sharp cross-fire upon a consignment of large and tightly-corkSi 
 champagne-bottles floated down by the tide. 
 
 It was late the ensuing morning when Mrs. McFlusterer was 
 awakened by the loud knocks of an attendant, who hurriedly explained 
 that her husband was wanted on deck. As it happened, this summons 
 interrupted a blood-curdling dream touching the instant execution of 
 this very gentleman. In the confusion of her hurried awakening she 
 imagined that his last moment had come. Wildly she clung to him. 
 She was convinced that he was to be cast into the sea at the very least, 
 and reiterated and reiterated again her convictions, between her parox- 
 ysms of grief. 
 
 There are some occasions, I am sorry to confess it, when the tears 
 of a woman are a nuisance, — when, for instance, they are accompanied by 
 the reiterated lamentation that you are to be flung overboard as food for 
 fishes. Besides, Mr. McFlusterer was not of a particularly impressiona- 
 ble temperament, and he hated tears. This will perhaps account for the 
 almost rude manner in which he broke away from his wife. 
 
 Mr. McFlusterer, as he gained the deck, hesitated for a moment and 
 surveyed the scene. The fleet must have moved down nearer the city 
 during the early morning, and New York — or, more strictly speaking, 
 Jersey City — was suddenly disclosed through the Narrows as if a veil 
 had been lifted, with its spires and pinnacles, its steeples and its towers, 
 as brightly shining as if neither terror nor dismay were crouching at 
 their base. The fleet was at least seven miles away, but in the clear 
 morning light the buildings looked quite distinct. Close to the left; lay 
 Staten Island, with its smart villas and large hotels. 
 
 On the davits Mr. McFlusterer found a steam-launch with steam 
 already up, and in her bows a staiF bearing a white flag. Taonsu was 
 already seated in her stern, and, at his direction, the prisoner took his 
 place alongside of him. Mr. McFlusterer was of a philosophical cast 
 of mind, and long ere now had resigned himself to the inevitable. At 
 all events, being let down into the sea with a stout launch between 
 him and the water was better than being flung headlong into the 
 waves. He even began to congratulate himself on the prospects offered 
 by the flag of truce of learning at last the condition of the market. 
 Poor man ! he little knew what was before him. 
 
 Once clear of the steamer, Taonsu removed from his pockets a 
 couple of formal-looking documents, bearing large seals and directed in 
 English. One of these, Taonsu proceeded to explain, was to be left by 
 Mr. McFlusterer at the Chamber of Commerce and the other at the City 
 Hall. As the city authorities, in all likelihood, would be obliged to 
 consult the State Department, time was allowed to communicate by 
 telegraph with Washington. Taonsu then went on to add that, in case 
 he, Mr. McFlusterer, failed to meet the steam-launch at four o'clock, on 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 5I 
 
 Its return to the fleet his wife and Mr. Puncherry should both suffer 
 the penalty assigned by the Chinese criminal code to parricides ; that 
 is, they would be chopped into the finest mincemeat, peppered and 
 salted, fried in lard, and then served to the crew as a special delicacy 
 for su])per. 
 
 Mr. McFlusterer was looking forward, moodily taking in these 
 agreeable particulars, with his eyes resting on what seemed an enormous 
 dead fish floating on the water some five hundred yards ahead. Be- 
 fore they had arrived sufficiently near to decide as to its exact nature, 
 the object mysteriously sank. Taonsu, however, resumed his instruc- 
 tions, and was just explaining what was to be done in case no answer 
 was received from the State Department, when the mysterious object 
 rose suddenly alongside of the boat like a thing of life, and with a 
 puff of smoke unexpectedly gave utterance to a violent snort. The 
 consternation of the crew, some half a dozen all told, on recognizing 
 at last their dread enemy the Demon of the Sea, can be imagined. 
 Taonsu seized the rudder from the palsied hands of the helmsman, and 
 directed that the highest pressure of steam should be put on. Then 
 began the most terrible race that probably the New World has ever 
 witnessed, and certainly the Old has never surpassed it. Every now 
 and again the monster would make a dash, which it took all the skill 
 of Taonsu to avoid ; sometimes under water, and sometimes above the 
 surface, whither it would rise as if to gain fresh air or a clearer view 
 so as to direct another charge. The speed of pursuer and pursued was 
 80 nearly matched that fortunately when the Demon would go beneath 
 the waves he would lose ground, and, as if becoming convinced of this 
 at last, he confined himself principally to the surface, snorting with 
 indignation and lashing the sea into foam as he surged on : neverthe- 
 less he would now and then plunge downward, dive under the boat, 
 and, emerging into view on the opposite side, try the same game there. 
 After one of these submersions, he was on the surface again, and evi- 
 dently making one last desperate effort to get sufficient distance ahead 
 to turn and destroy the launch. The increased steam was beginning 
 to tell, however, and, after passing through the Narrows, they raced 
 for fully two miles side by side, each straining every nerve. Now the 
 steam-launch appeared gaining, now the Demon. Finally, as they 
 were rounding the cheese-box fortress on Governor's Ipland, the 
 monster with one last effort redoubled its exertions, and gained by a 
 spurt some fifty feet, then with a downward plunge he disappeared. 
 A tremendous explosion followed ; a large column of water rose into 
 the air, and the boat rocked like an egg-shell in a pool of Niagara as 
 countless numbers of dead or stunned fish rose slowly to the surface. 
 Taonsu, by a rapid appreciation of the danger, had put the helm hard 
 a-port, and had only avoided annihilation by an inch. It was a terrible 
 experience ; but the crew, after their first astounded bewilderment, had 
 displayed the utmost stoicism. 
 
 The coming of the steam-launch had been telegraphed to the city, 
 and Mr. McFlusterer, more dead than alive, was put ashore at the 
 Battery. An enormous crowd was in waiting to receive him, but, dis- 
 engaging himself from these, he took a cab, and drove directly to the 
 
52 
 
 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 office of the Mayor. His instructions were clear and explicit ; and, 
 after depositing one of the documents in the hands of that official, who 
 happened to be engaged in writing one of his famous letters on the 
 situation generally, Mr. McFlusterer proceeded directly to the Chamber 
 of Commerce, where he left the second document, the crowd accom- 
 panying him all the way and much impeding his progress in their 
 anxiety to learn all that they could about their dreaded foes. 
 
 Next Mr. McFlusterer stopped at his own office, and remained 
 closeted with his confidential clerk for at least an hour. He had not 
 intended going to the Stock Exchange, but, as his office was in its 
 immediate vicinity, the temptation to visit his old haunts once more 
 proved irresistible. The scene here beggars description ; even his 
 presence at first was lost sight of in the general hubbub. Huge blocks 
 of stock were being offered at unheard-of sacrifices, and, more from 
 force of habit — namely, to buy when things were cheap — than from 
 belief in their present value, Mr. McFlusterer found himself purchasing 
 whatever was put up. Indeed, he soon became aware that he was the 
 only buyer, and, lest he should be compelled to support the entire 
 market, he at last retired. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Chamber of Commerce had been convened in extra session, 
 but, like most extra sessions, it decided on nothing definite ; consequently, 
 Mr. McFlusterer repaired from there to the Mayor's office again, only 
 to learn that no reply had yet been received from Washington relative 
 to the terms proposed by the invaders. Leaving word, therefore, that 
 should any news come it should be sent down by messenger to the 
 steam-launch, he went back to the Battery, as the time for his return 
 to the fleet was drawing on. Here for a brief ten minutes he watched 
 the drill of the various organizations to which the city had confided its 
 defence, — the Knights of Labor (for whom he had always had a special 
 abhorrence), the Tooth-Brush Brigade (so called because strictly confined 
 to members of the Tooth-Brush Union), and sundry regiments of the 
 National Guard ; here he saw, too, the now famous Brigade of Dudes, 
 and noticed the rapt admiration of the female sex at their dapper 
 appearance and martial tread. Besides these, he saw being trundled 
 out a celebrated piece of ordnance that had figured in the War of 1812. 
 It had been lent for the occasion by the State Armory on Thirty-Fifth 
 Street, and so formidable was its appearance that he was obliged to 
 confess that if the invaders landed they would have a hard time of it. 
 Indeed, all that he saw revived his confidence to such an extent that 
 a strong temptation came over him to allow the crew the indulgence 
 of the dainty dish mentioned by the interpreter ; but the doubt as to 
 whether, in that case, a considerable sum of money loaned to his bosom 
 friend Mr. Puncherry would be paid up by his heirs, induced him to 
 put behind him this cowardly impulse. These reflections still occupying 
 his mind, he found himself opposite the Barge office. Alongside of 
 this, as every one knows, is a basin built in the masonry of the espla- 
 nade, for the accommodation of small boats. Around the edges of the 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 53 
 
 basin a great crowd were gathered, and so engrossed were they all that 
 he had to inij^aire several times before he learned that a certain shirt- 
 maker, on whom the city had lately been relying to relieve her of her 
 enemies, had just returned from an unsuccessful expedition against the 
 fleet. Elbowing his way through the people, he at last stood on the 
 very brink of the basin, and there, to his surprise, saw the same dark 
 monster that had so nearly proved disastrous to tiie steam-launch in 
 the morning. It was lying torpid now on the surface of the water, 
 and more resembled an enormous fish than ever. Its steering-apparatus 
 was made in the shape of a tail, and, instead of having any clearly- 
 defined deck, its body was rounded like a cylinder, black and shiny all 
 over. 
 
 As if to carry out the suggestion of a fish, it had two large glass 
 port-holes set in its head like eyes. 
 
 A sort of hatchway, some three feet square, was open in its back, 
 showing an interior of sufficient size to accommodate two men com- 
 fortably. Just below this hatchway, but on the outside of the boat, 
 were a couple of hooks, to hang torpedoes on, or any such tools as the 
 operator might require when the hatchway was open. From the nose 
 of the uncouth creature projected a wooden spar broken off short. 
 
 Mr. McFlusterer shuddered as he looked about in vain for the 
 captain of this queer craft. He gathered, however, from a young man 
 engaged in polishing the engines, facts going to prove that what Mr. 
 Puncherry a few days before had taken for an attack by a sword-fish 
 was in reality an ineffectual thrust of the torpedo-spar of this boat ; 
 and, further, that the explosion on the morning of the present day had 
 been due to her striking her nose against a rock instead of against the 
 bottom of the steam-launch as intended. The young man was of a 
 loquacious turn, and '' guessed," as he passed a quid of tobacco from 
 one cheek to the other, that the annihilation of the fleet would now be 
 not long delayed. He concluded his remarks by observing that the 
 " boss" had gone to dinner. 
 
 There was one comfort in the last piece of intelligence, — namely, 
 that, under the circumstances, the " boss" might not be back in time to 
 repeat the same lively chase he had given them this morning. To 
 further guarantee this, however, a sudden device came into Mr. Mc- 
 Flusterer's mind. " But is it right," he observed, anxiously, " to attack 
 a vessel bearing a flag of truce ? Reflect, young man : it is against all 
 the usages of war; and besides, as I understand this very launch is 
 the bearer of despatches looking to the retirement of the enemy, the 
 fate of the whole city may hang on your course." 
 
 " Go to thunder !" replied the young man, obdurately ; " me and 
 the boss is runnin' this business on our own hook ; we're tryin' to sell 
 this boat to the government, too, and we ain't goin' to be balked by a 
 bit of white rag." 
 
 Sadly Mr. McFlusterer turned away, and, as the hour fixed for his 
 departure to the steamer had now arrived, he walked over to the other 
 side of the Battery, near Castle Garden, where he had landed. Here 
 he found the steam-launch already waiting, and an immense crowd 
 gazing in horror at its strange crew. As he passed them to go on board, 
 
54 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 many uncoraplimentary epithets were hurled at his head by the ignorant 
 rabble, who imagined him in league — poor man ! — with the Cliinese. 
 Suffice it to say, the return to the flag-ship was made without further 
 incident, and Mr. McFlusterer congratulated himself that his appeal 
 to the youth in the submarine boat had after all been not made in vain. 
 To add to his satisfaction, his wife was for once in her life rejoiced to see 
 him. She had passed the entire day in the state-room with Mr. Pun- 
 cherry for her sole companion ; consequently, even her husband brought 
 a welcome relief from the long-winded dissertations of that estimable 
 gentleman on ship-building and the real requirements of the American 
 navy. 
 
 It was not till dinner was over, and the commissioner and Taonsu 
 had retired, that occasion offered for Mrs. McFlusterer to hear her 
 husband descant upon all that he had seen. She too recalled Mr. 
 Puncherry's apt allusion to a sword-fish on the occasion of the attacks 
 during breakfast the other day, and a feeling akin to horror seized her 
 when she realized the peril in which they had all been placed from that 
 shirt-maker's ingenuity. Poor lady I she did not know the terrible 
 experiences' before her yet, and in how extraordinary a manner her 
 fate was to be influenced by that submarine boat. 
 
 She made her husband describe its every detail, the hatehway cut 
 in its back, its eye-like port-holes ; and, her interest exciting that of 
 Mr. Puucherry, he began himself to ask questions, pondering deeply 
 over what the hooks in the side could be meant for. He was to discover 
 what purpose these same hooks might serve before long ; and his interest 
 about so trivial a detail will be admitted later as a most remarkable 
 instance of second-sight. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Taonsu also brought back news of the great city ; and now, as he 
 and Wang-Chi-Poo watched it, and saw the distant lights come out one 
 •after another, they conversed on the strange scenes the interpreter had 
 beheld. At last Wang-Chi-Poo turned with sudden inspiration to his 
 Jidus Achates. 
 
 " Why shall I not make of this land a vast feudal province, and with 
 the fair McFlusterer share the vice-regal throne ?*' 
 
 " Great Excdlency, thy project, so far as immediate conquest is 
 concerned, were impracticable : thou wilt accomplish it better by the 
 extension of the Burlingame Treaty. This is probably the clause in 
 the conditions which they are most reluctant to yield, as is natural after 
 they have in effect repealed that treaty by the anti-Chinese law. They 
 will be forced to accede to it, however, bitter as is the pill, for thou 
 boldest them now in the hollow of thy hand. Thus will this country 
 become the asylum of our sick and of our weak, for into it we will pour 
 our surplus population. 
 
 " By this means, too, we will rid ourselves of the palsy and those 
 hideous diseases which we have inherited from our greater antiquity, 
 and at the same time we will inoculate this haughty people with evils 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 55 
 
 till they fall an easy prey. I have noticed that a young civilization is 
 largely free of these diseases. Their people smoke not opium, and are 
 therefore of a ruder and more vigorous growth than we. Thus to 
 endeavor to overthrow their empire at one fell stroke were impossible ; 
 the slower course is better and surer. Our civilization has seen all 
 others die before it ; this civilization is destined, Great Excellency, to 
 perish before it too." 
 
 " Taousu, thy words are as the flying swallows, graceful, but not 
 straight- winged." 
 
 " Then, Great Excellency, to be more explicit, let me say that the 
 extension of the Burlingame Treaty goes further than the mere repeal 
 of the anti-Chinese law, and is of greater moment than the enforced 
 payment of an enormous ransom. These people are peculiar, lost to 
 every consideration but the making of chop-dollars. If we demand 
 too much, and deprive them of the hope of regaining by their energies 
 what they pay, they will in all probability sail to China and retaliate. 
 But if we try to squeeze out of them a moiety of their wealth, they 
 will pay it, and only think to make chop-dollars afresh. All other re- 
 ligions have died out here save the making of these chop-dollars, and 
 this religion they cling to with an enthusiasm approaching frenzy." 
 
 " Thy advice holds wisdom as the bucket of a well holds water, O 
 Taonsu, but thy bucket is not always full, and sometimes its contents 
 are muddy. Tell me rather what thou wouldst advise me to do with 
 these foreign devils whom we have captured. It goes against my grain 
 to hang them, lest they become stiff-necked and lost in pride at the 
 honor." 
 
 " Excellency, I have it. The one that is a great feudatory of the 
 highways (for I have learned this much from their secret converse), 
 him I would retain as an intermediary between ourselves and the 
 city ; whereas the other, who is a great naval architect, him I would 
 let go, in order that he may make more ships for our enemies." 
 
 " Ah ! Taonsu, now the water in thy bucket is clear and sparkling 
 and veritably is supplied from the well of truth. The first I will con- 
 tinue to send to town till the extension of the Burlingame Treaty, as 
 thou callest it, is signed, and a moderate ransom is paid up in full ; 
 then shall he be made into mincemeat for the crew. The other I will 
 gladly liberate, for such a one is the best ally we can have. Taonsu, 
 thinkest thou the fair McFlusterer admires me ?" And Wang-Chi-Poo, 
 struck an attitude of rapt attention. , 
 
 " Great Excellency, she is immersed over head and ears in her 
 admiration of thee." 
 
 " Taonsu, thinkest thou that the fair McFlusterer loves me ?" 
 
 And Wang-Chi-Poo now struck an attitude of strained coquetry. 
 
 " Great Excellency, her affection clouds her reason." 
 
 " Taonsu, I believe thee : of a truth, my very walk is irresistible." 
 
 And Wang-Chi-Poo placed his fan at a right angle with his face, 
 and strutted off with that peculiar mincing gait and stilted gesture 
 which a ballet-dancer assumes when she leaves the stage after an 
 immense ovation. 
 
56 A DREAM OF CONqUEST. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The terms of these conditions, which we have as yet only vaguely 
 hinted at, called for the payment of fifty million dollars, in satisfaction 
 of the well-nigh forgotten indignity offered to the Chinese Legation. 
 Further than this, a sum measured at the rate of one hundred and 
 twenty-five dollars per inhabitant of every city on the coast was de- 
 manded, payable in bimonthly instalments of a hundred millions each. 
 
 Thirdly, and what was far more disastrous to the welfare of our 
 people than the mere repeal of the anti- Chinese law, was the extension 
 of the Burlingame Treaty, so that practically the hordes of over- 
 populated China could find entrance into the United States. This last 
 proposal was telegraphed on to Washington, and was placed before the 
 extra session of Congress ; it was this that caused the delay. In the 
 mean while, the " surplus" offered a ready means of meeting the first in- 
 stalment ; but, strange to say, with all the trouble the disposal of this 
 same surplus had given every one, when it came to parting with it the 
 nation drew a long face. 
 
 These conditions bore with especial harshness on New York ; and 
 having received news, the day before, that the squadron which we left 
 at Hampton Roads had escaped the storm (because no storm had really 
 occurred), the city was bracing up for one grand and last heroic effort at 
 co-operation with it. 
 
 The plan was to fill with explosives every steamer, ferry-boat, and 
 tug that yet remained to the city, and to send them down upon the 
 enemy in such overwhelming numbers that a few might be expected to 
 escape his destructive fire. At the moment of collision the explosives 
 were to be ignited by concussion, an electric button being fixed in the 
 bows of each vessel. As the previous attempt to capture the fleet by 
 assault had proved so disastrous, there were merely to be sufficient men 
 on board to steer the vessels and to manage the engines and furnaces. 
 These were to take to small boats an instant before the collision, and to 
 trust to the expected confusion among the enemy to make their escape. 
 It was a desperate undertaking ; but the New York pilots are the most 
 skilful and venturesome of their species, and a sufficient number 
 were found for the purpose. But when it came to filling these vessels 
 with explosives, the supply of powder and dynamite gave out, and it 
 became necessary to make up for the deficiency with petroleum. Indeed, 
 this far predominated over the explosives proper, and was stored in 
 huge tanks on the vessels' upper decks. 
 
 So secretly had everything been managed that, although the prep- 
 arations were under way when Mr. McFlusterer visited the city, he 
 never so much as suspected that any further attempt was to be niade, 
 while the Chinese were equally off their guard because of the pending 
 negotiations. 
 
 I am not prepared to discuss the morality of the attack. A hostile 
 fleet anchored off your city ready to open fire on you at any moment 
 does not tend to make you over-scrupulous about the niceties of inter- 
 national usage. 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 57 
 
 Besides, civilized nations have not always displayed an equal regard 
 for these niceties in their dealing with semi-barbarous people as with 
 each other. Be this as it may, Wang-Chi-Poo was awakened the next 
 morning by the now more attentive lookouts, and, on gaining the deck, 
 saw, to his dismay, the lately-deserted waters of the Narrows covered 
 with shipping. As far as the eye could reach ahead, the waves were alive 
 with vessels ; boats of every description there were, all bearing down 
 upon the fleet, — swift and graceful steamers like yachts, blunt and 
 short steamers like tugs, ferry-boats, and even sail-boats. The wings 
 of a few of these contained painted advertisements showing the pur- 
 poses the crafts had originally served. Here was " Tarrant's Seltzer 
 Aperient'* coming down to kill. Here was " Hots Pepper Bitters" on 
 the same errand. Here were " the world-renowned Chokum Pills," 
 while the sails of still another craft held aloft the timely suggestion of 
 a Dr. Walker to use a certain remedy against ague and to " Shake No 
 More." Indeed, it would seem that America in her emergency had re- 
 solved to fight the enemy with her quack medicines, sagely recognizing 
 their superiority in deadliness to dynamite or guns. 
 
 Such an array of vessels had probably never been seen before, and 
 all of them that had steam-whistles were blowing them, as at the finish 
 of the International yacht-race. Naturally astonished by all this in 
 front of them, the attention of the lookouts was distracted from the 
 rear, and they failed to sight the sluggish approach of the American 
 squadron which we left at Hampton Roads. 
 
 Now, the Chinese, imagining the purpose of the enemy ahead to be 
 similar to that of the other night, directed their fire at the water-line 
 of the fire-ships ; consequently, as the explosives which they carried 
 were stored on the open decks above, these vessels were generally sunk 
 instead of being blown up, thus concealing the dangerous nature of their 
 cargoes. Indeed, it was not till the one that' was leading the way had 
 arrived within three-quarters of a mile, that a shell striking a little 
 higher revealed, by the explosion that followed, the actual peril of the 
 fleet. I say actual peril, for, although many of the fire-ships were 
 already sunk, and more sinking at every moment, they were yet so 
 numerous that a fresh one was ready to fill up each gap. And so little 
 were their ranks thinned that it was already manifest that they could 
 not all be destroyed. 
 
 The fleet was in a disagreeable predicament. It could easily have 
 repelled an army of boarders, for, having sufficient time to prepare, 
 each vessel could draw her crew within herself, close up all but a third 
 of her deck, and then with her Gatling and Hotchkiss guns sweep off" 
 any number of assailants that might have gained a foothold on the 
 limited space remaining. 
 
 To repel a flotilla of fire-ships, however, coming with an impetus 
 that promised to crash through any steel crinoline as through a spider- 
 web, was a very different matter. 
 
 The vessel that was now ahead, too, had her steam-whistle adjusted 
 to music, and, to add astonishment to confusion, was loudly whistling 
 " Yankee Doodle." So surprised were the Chinese that they ceased 
 their fire for a brief space, and it was during this interval that they 
 
58 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 first became aware of the presence of the American squadron in their 
 rear. Its coming, however, reassured the Mongolians. The vessels 
 looked so decrepit and innocuous that they actually cast a halo of peace- 
 fulness over the scene. They had required all the time since we left 
 them to get up from Hampton Roads, and their exertions even to ac- 
 complish this feat had aged them conspicuously. To prevent any one 
 ship from sinking without the rest, chains had been passed under the 
 hulls of all, and the whole squadron came on in one wide outstretched 
 file, the Porpoise and the Pacific on the flanks, as before, now towing 
 the vessels and tugging at them, and anon shoving back this one or 
 that one as it seemed likely to fall out of line. The Chinese were in a 
 trap, their enemies closing in upon them from in front and from behind, 
 for if that mass of chained-up rottenness struck them it might very 
 likely involve them in common disaster. Little time, too, was given 
 for deliberation ; the advance guard of the fire-ships was already almost 
 on top of them, and the inspiring strains of " Yankee Doodle" sounded 
 now like the screech of doom. There was really but one course open 
 to the Chinese fleet: it must sail down on the chain-bound squad- 
 ron and dispose of that first. To accomplish this, the Chinese fleet 
 was obliged to come about, since it faced the city. Now, it requires 
 a considerable amount of sea-room and no little time to turn ves- 
 sels of such draught. The majority of them, however, accomplished 
 the operation successfully ; but the one that lay directly north of the 
 flag-ship and the nearest of any to the fire-ships was a little slow. 
 Just as she came around, and before her propeller had got adjusted 
 to her new course, the Yankee Doodle, on the lead of the fire-ships, 
 putting on a spurt, struck her with a terrific crash. They say that the 
 report that followed the collision was heard for twelve miles inland, and 
 that the iron plates of the steamer were flung clean to the beach. At 
 all events, so perfect was the construction of the musical apparatus that 
 it held together compactly, and, flying on ahead past the fleet, it never 
 stopped whistling till it sank beneath the waves. But it was not the 
 destruction of the two vessels that was the most terrifying j it was not 
 the noise and the smoke, nor even the extraordinary performance of 
 her musical attachment, but rather the burning oil that escaped from 
 the fire-ship at the explosion and spread itself over the water. 
 
 Now, Wang-Chi-Poo had been summoned from the breakfast-table 
 of the captives at the first alarm. When he got up on deck, and 
 imagined that a hand-to-hand conflict was imminent, he had returned 
 to his cabin for a particular cutlass set with rubies and brilliants. This 
 weapon, belonging to an ancestor of his, was held by him in especial 
 esteem, and Mrs. McFlusterer, seeing him don it, knew that the occa- 
 sion was one of extra moment. She could hear the rapid firing of the 
 fleets, and, having no relish for being confined in the cabin during an- 
 other engagement, she seized the occasion of the commissioner carelessly 
 leaving the door opened behind him to follow him out. Being a privi- 
 leged character, no one interfered with her, although when the other 
 two prisoners endeavored to keep her company they were ignominiously 
 cuff*ed back. Indeed, after the punishment of the servant, Mrs. Mc- 
 Flusterer, as might seem natural, was universally avoided by the crew, 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 59 
 
 and, the only other person having authority to address her being the 
 interpreter, she had but to escape his eye and that of Wang-Chi-Poo. 
 Nevertheless, she proceeded stealthily, taking advantage of every chance 
 cover to conceal herself, and curbing the wild yearning for liberty that 
 came over her. She arrived on deck about ten seconds after the ex- 
 plosion, and the sight that met her gaze was calculated to make the 
 stoutest heart quail. The sea for miles about was on fire, and the fleet 
 in full retreat ; every instant, too, the area of the fire was increasing ; 
 for as the flames reached one after another of the fire-ships, and licking 
 their sides caused them to explode, more burning oil was poured on the 
 water, and fresh fuel was added to the flames. Both tide and wind, 
 too, assisted its spread in the direction of the fleet, and so intense became 
 the heat that she could scarcely breathe. At one moment she thought 
 they might escape, but the next instant the fire would take a leap and, 
 springing from crest to crest, would run on after them, as if actually 
 hungering for them. Mechanically she watched the outward edge of 
 the huge burning area growing larger and nearer, hissing after them as 
 if actually alive ; she felt too the heat each moment growing more and 
 more intense ; then a pufl* of wind bore the fire down upon them, and 
 they were in a flaming sea. The effect on Wang-Chi-Poo was most 
 extraordinary. In his despair of being able to save his ships, his terror 
 suddenly changed to insatiate animosity, and it was directed against the 
 squadron he was rapidly bearing down upon. The flight became a 
 charge. To involve the enemy's line of battle in the common destruc- 
 tion seemed now his only aim, and, as his fleet sped on, he waved his 
 cutlass in the air and shouted like a maniac. 
 
 I can imagine no more terrible spectacle than the onslaught of the 
 Chinese, enveloped in flames as they were, w^ith the flag-ship leading 
 and gaining fresh speed from their very momentum ; the crews, too, 
 taking the cue from their leader, all waving their cutlasses in the air, 
 shouting their barbaric war-cries and beating their gongs, perfectly 
 beside themselves. Like a blast from the mouth of Hell they went. 
 
 I maintain that none but Americans could have withstood such an 
 onslaught. Chained up as they were, however, they were unable to 
 avoid it. Nevertheless, as if in contempt of the danger, the admiral 
 orders out such poor old dinted and battered musical instruments as 
 the government had left him, and the glorious strains of the " Star- 
 Spangled Banner" float upward like the greeting of the gladiators to 
 the cruel Emperor, — " We salute thee, though about to die.'' The air is 
 caught up along the shores, — the shores which are lined and crowded 
 with excited people till there is scarce standing-room on the roof of 
 any house or at any point of vantage, — and they re-echo back the strains 
 from ten thousand throats". On sweep the barbarians, on, on, on, the 
 fire and the smoke sweeping on with them, at times completely to 
 envelop the fleet ; not much longer can the shock be delayed, and men 
 and women along the beach stand clasping each other in their arms 
 with horror during that terrible suspense. Nearer, now nearer, and 
 then Mrs. McFlusterer — to whom we must return — felt herself thrown 
 to the deck ; she felt the vessel rising up under her as a charger in 
 leaping, and next a scraping and gliding as over crunching timber. 
 
60 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 When she raised her eyes she caught a glimpse through the smoke of 
 the admiral, standing up on the sinking stern of his ship, with the flag 
 of his country wrapped about him. Wang-Chi-Poo is like a veritable 
 god aroused. He gives the signal to come about and charge again. 
 Three times he charged the sinking fleet -with the burning fleet ; then 
 the sea closed over the American navy, leaving only three vessels to 
 represent it, — viz., the Nipsic, the Vandalia, and the Trenton, which 
 on the way up had drifted apart from the rest, and were only then 
 preserved to perish lamentably, and but too soon after, at Samoa. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 But what means this ? has the oil burnt itself out ? .Yes, to a 
 certain extent, and the disturbed water has scattered it into little islands 
 of fire. The steel plates of the flag-ship are like the sides of an oven, 
 but the ships ^re not themselves on fire. Then, too, when the Chinese 
 came to look about them, they found that the steel crinolines had acted 
 as Davy lamps against the flames, keeping back the volume of oil out- 
 side their line of contact with the water, — that is, about twenty to thirty 
 feet from the ship^s sides. 
 
 You ask, perhaps, how the vessel had managed to charge, with these 
 nets on. Well, in certain experiments made by the British off the Irish 
 coast, and more recently confirmed by the French in their own waters, 
 it was found that vessels thus attired could steam nearly eight miles an 
 hour. 
 
 In the present case, however, the nets were seriously damaged by 
 the collision with the American squadron, and on this injury to them 
 the fate of two of our prisoners at least is destined in a very short time 
 to hang. Nevertheless, the heat had charred the wood- work of the 
 cabins, and it was not till the walls of the magazines had been deluged 
 with water that the Chinese felt relieved of all danger from being blown 
 up. 
 
 , As might be expected, the oil had proved fatal to the fire-ships, 
 and now, as the fleet quietly steamed back to its original position, 
 charged and smouldering hulls were seen in every direction littering 
 the water. 
 
 You ask, perhaps, why Wang-Chi-Poo did not immediately begin 
 to fire now upon the city. The fleet returned to its original position 
 for that purpose, but still he hesitated to give the necessary orders. In- 
 deed, the fact is so extraordinary that, had I not previously mentioned 
 a somewhat similar cause of hesitation connected with Coney Island, I 
 should hardly dare to mention it now. 
 
 The fact of the matter was, that on her second return the flag-ship 
 anchored a trifle nearer to the city, and from this her new position 
 Wang-Chi-Poo suddenly caught sight of the colossal statue of Liberty 
 on Bedloe's Island. 
 
 Mr. McFlusterer, along with Taonsu, was again despatched on the 
 following morning to the city in the steam-launch, to demand an 
 increased sum as indemnity for the injury done by the fire-ships to the 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. Ql 
 
 fleet. During his absence, Mr. Puncherry and the fair McFlusterer 
 were taking an outing on the deck, the gentleman still talking about 
 ships and armaments, and the lady listening to him in the resigned 
 manner that was to be expected of a lady who had gone through so 
 many other trials. 
 
 Mr. Puncherry was even a little spiteful this morning : the iron ring 
 round his ankle pinched him, and his attendant at the other end of the 
 chain, who followed him up and down like his shadow, refused to allow 
 him any relief. Being unable to vent his spite on him, he vented it on 
 his own country. 
 
 " It's derned hard, derned hard," he said, " after all IVe done for 
 the American public, that there's not a spontaneous rising to demand 
 my ransom. To be sure, 1 haven't built such ships as these people 
 have, but for all practical purposes mine are better. No, marm," he 
 continued, " I don't take much stock in these new-fangled navies : 
 why, the very armor they carry weighs them down so that they can't 
 answer the helm. This heavy plating is all a mistake, but the public 
 want it ; so I just put tin on my ships, paint it over, and the public's 
 satisfied.'^ 
 
 " But would a real iron-plated ship have leaked like yours did the 
 day we encountered that dreadful storm off Cape Hatteras? You 
 remember, Mr. Puncherry, you were dreadfully alarmed yourself, and 
 since that day have invariably worn a Boy ton waistcoat ; indeed, if I 
 remember correctly, you confessed in a fit of candor that, being 
 called the Terror, she was the best-named vessel that ever left your 
 yards.'' 
 
 " I won't deny, marm, that she leaked somewhat ; but then, you 
 know, when wood is new and before it gets well seasoned, seams will 
 gape. Indeed, the seams in a ship are like the pores in a human : to be 
 kept healthy, they ought to open every now and then." 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer looked dubious. 
 
 " S'posin' she wasn't water-tight," he continued, " tightness ain't 
 everything. She was built from stem to stern in an American ship- 
 yard. What's the use of a navy, marm, if it ain't to encourage 
 American ship-building? I'm an American ship-builder myself, 
 marm, and I don't believe in going to Europe even for my ideas ; it's 
 unpatriotic." 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer, with a sigh of relief, for which she nevertheless 
 felt guilty, saw Wang-Chi-Poo advancing towards her. He still wore 
 his magnificent jewelled cutlass at his side, and the dragon worked in 
 gold thread upon his breast looked especially brilliant. The graceful 
 way in which he walked, not to speak of the almost coquettish manner 
 in which he carried his fan, could scarcely escape the notice of so 
 susceptible a lady. He evidently had something very particular to say 
 to her, which in the absence of the interpreter he was unable to explain. 
 At last, taking her by the hand, he led her to a seat in front of a small 
 stage which had been improvised without her knowledge just under the 
 poop. Mrs. McFlusterer had long given up being astonished at any- 
 thing, and, taking the chair, began to watch the crew assembling as an 
 audience. At last the curtain went up on what was really the billionth 
 
g2 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 act of a Chinese drama, which, beginning with the early dawn of that 
 people's history, would go on, an act for each victory, to the end of 
 their existence. The present act was intended to commemorate the 
 victory of yesterday, which Wang-Chi-Poo rightly considered as de- 
 cisive. Mrs. McFlusterer naturally failed to appreciate the point of the 
 performance. But the strained, unnatural voices of the players, pitched 
 in a high falsetto, their weird and peculiar movements, and their 
 grotesque attires, filled her with an alarm quite appropriate to the 
 situation. It was all so unnatural, so unhuman, so uncanny ! Their 
 facial expression under no circumstances ever underwent a change, but 
 was fixed and immutable as that of a Chinese doll. This was the 
 more curious, contrasting so oddly as it did with the spasmodic move- 
 ments of their bodies. It was like the performance of beings of some 
 different sphere, of another world, only half human ; and so unpleasant 
 was it all that even Mr. Puncherry was affected, and, to the evident 
 displeasure of his attendant, who was deeply interested in the play, he 
 walked over to the side of the ship, dragging perforce his unhappy 
 attachment after him. With the fascination of a horrible dream, Mrs. 
 McFlusterer felt herself gazing at the chief actor : he was tall and 
 well made, and, though human in shape, he put her more in mind of a 
 huge bird. From the back of his head rose a couple of feathers from 
 a peacock's tail. What he was intended to represent she failed to im- 
 agine, but every now and then he would emit a peculiar screech like the 
 scream of a peacock, and, with his eyes fixed on space, would walk 
 stiffly three times around the stage. This accomplished, he would clash 
 together a pair of brass cymbals fastened to the palms of his hands. 
 Then the players, who filled the r6le also of musicians, would go up in 
 a body to a brass gong hanging on a side-scene and, as a transported 
 orchestra, hammer on it collectively. 
 
 Altogether, the performance was the weirdest, most uncanny 
 spectacle she had ever witnessed ; and, taking everything into con- 
 sideration, — the circumstances that attended it, the locality where it 
 occurred, here barely eight miles from New York, now beleaguered by 
 this foreign fleet, — she could scarcely realize that she was not the 
 victim of some hideous nightmare, that would have some more terrible 
 ending. 
 
 She was still gazing on this peacock-like individual as he was 
 circling the stage for the fourteenth time, when a fresh troop of actors 
 appeared on the scene from behind. Thereupon began a procession of 
 all the actors around the stage. Round and round in dumb silence they 
 went, all with the same fixed expression of utter vacuity. Then, with- 
 out a moment's warning, without rhyme or reason, but with a sudden 
 clash of gongs, the procession jumped from the stage in a body, and 
 seemed advancing on her. Mrs. McFlusterer's nerves were at that exact 
 degree of tension that they could stand nothing more. 
 
 It was merely the wind-up of the performance, and what in China 
 is considered an artistic finish ; but, not knowing this, she rushed over 
 to Mr. Puncherry. "Jump, Mr. Puncherry ! jump !" she cried, in an 
 agony of fright, and she gave him a sudden push in the back. Mr. 
 Puncherry was standing near an open port-hole, sniffing contemptuously 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. g3 
 
 at some new contrivance for closing it ; he was even leaning well out of 
 the port-hole in his examinations, and the push in the back caused him 
 to lose his balance and to topple overboard, jerking the chain from the 
 hand of his attendant; then in her terror, wild and unreasonable as it 
 was, terror at what she herself could scarce explain, she jumped out 
 herself, and came down with a great thump on that gentleman's back, 
 as his stout person lay struggling on the waves. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 How slowly each step in the progress of mundane tragedies often 
 seems to move, and yet how little it requires at the last to bring about 
 the climax ! A Chinese play, an instant of alarm, a woman's push, and 
 the long-retarded thunderbolt is hurled. 
 
 In this case Wang-Chi-Poo is the Jupiter, and on that fair city 
 that lay apparently so calmly dreaming over the distant surface of the 
 water, the thunderbolt is soon to fall ; not caused exactly by the escape 
 of the prisoners, but undoubtedly accelerated by that event. 
 
 Now, the etiquette of China prevents, in cases of sudden emergency, 
 a mandarin of high rank from running. He may, with perfect pro- 
 priety, hasten when there is no need to hasten ; but when anything has 
 happened that in lesser mortals would warrant speed, he must advance 
 slowly, turn at every third step, and bow. Thus it resulted that AVang- 
 Chi-Poo took ten minutes to go ten yards, and consequently arrived at 
 the ship's side too late to understand the extraordinary phenomena he 
 beheld, — namely, a disturbance of the water in the spot where Mrs, 
 McFlusterer had fallen, as if she had been swallowed by a sea-ser- 
 pent ; and Mr. Puncherry, not under the stern, where any one would 
 naturally have looked for him, but, instead, fully half a mile distant, 
 and travelling over the waves as if hooked to the same creature's tail. 
 
 Wang-Chi-Poo's blood was up ; attributing the escape, however, to 
 supernatural agencies, he yet hesitated to fire on Mr. Puncherry, but, 
 ordering the fleet to clear for action, he let drive at the city. This, 
 too, in spite of the statue of Liberty, which up to this time had pro- 
 tected it. 
 
 * ******* 
 
 Though the shock caused by her immersion failed to bring Mrs. 
 McFlusterer back to a full realization of the case, she yet reached out 
 her hand for something to catch hold of, and it came in contact with a 
 long cylinder-like object that hugged the stern of the ship. There was 
 apparently a man on the top of it, or rather a man inside of it, who, inter- 
 rupted in whatever he was doing by the double fall, looked at her in 
 bewildered astonishment. 
 
 " Save me !" she cried, " oh, save me, good sir, and, if there's room, 
 Mr. Puncherry also !" 
 
 "Two's company, but three's a crowd," said the gentleman, politely ; 
 then, as he assisted her to enter, " If my boat were elastic, madfim, 
 your friend would be welcome ; but, as it is, he must take his chances 
 outside." 
 
g4 ^ DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer, in pushing Mr. Puncheriy overboard, had seized 
 the end of his chain, and, like all drowning persons, had kept tight 
 hold of it. Just as the lid of the hatchway was closing on top of her, 
 she instinctively slipped this chain over a hook on the outside of the 
 boat, against which her dress had caught as she was being pulled in, and 
 then she fainted. 
 
 Miraculous as it may sound, for a man who built such ships, Mr. 
 Puncherry was not a good swimmer. He, however, remembered a piece 
 of early advice, — viz., if ever in deep water, to keep perfectly quiet and 
 lie on his back. In this position he suddenly remembered, too, his 
 Boyton waistcoat, and, getting the mouth-piece of the connecting tube 
 between his lips, he began to blow it up, keeping his eye the while fixed 
 on tlie boat, w^hich he every minute expected would come to his assist- 
 ance. He had inflated the lower portion of this waistcoat, which was 
 divided into sections, and which, contrary to what its name would indi- 
 cate, extended inside his trousers almost to his calves, when he saw the 
 boat that he had expected to pick him up, take a downward plunge 
 and disappear ; then, a sudden jerk almost pulling his leg out of its 
 socket, he was as suddenly slung around, and, to his horror, felt him- 
 self being hurriedly towed away by the foot over the troubled surface 
 of the waters, bobbing and plunging like a huge animated buoy, and 
 prevented from expostulating by the entrance of a breaker every time 
 he opened his mouth. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer opened her eyes with the firm but disagreeable 
 conviction that she was in a coffin meant to hold two, a coffin that was 
 plunging downward, diving and turning, squirming and twisting, and 
 forging ahead generally in a mad career. So great w^as the speed that 
 the water fairly hissed past them, and, as she gazed through the heavy 
 glass of a couple of eye-like port-holes, the water looked green and 
 cool. Numerous fish of uncouth shape and enormous size passed them, 
 but one huge dolphin attached himself to them as a companion and 
 swam with them for at least a quarter of a mile ; his left eye came 
 directly opposite to the right-hand port-hole, and Mrs. McFlusterer 
 could notice the astonishment wjth which he looked in at her. He 
 evidently wondered what kind of a soul animated this new species of 
 crnifrh-e, and Mrs. McFlusterer found herself wondering whether after 
 all she might not herself be a fish. Mrs. McFlusterer, however, was a 
 practical woman, and these fancies were only the after-effects of her 
 recent terrible experiences. Her full consciousness was returning, only 
 it was returning slowly, and she had that languid sensation of indiffer- 
 ence that comes as a reaction after all great shocks. She began to realize, 
 too, that this must be the very submarine boat her husband had de- 
 scribed to her, and she found herself wondering how the air was kept 
 so pure and fresh in such a cramped-up interior : indeed, the fit was so 
 tight that the navigator could barely give the necessary attention to the 
 machinery, and during most of the time they lay together side by side. 
 Great as was the rate of speed, the action of the engines was without 
 noise or jar, and the whole mechanism seemed to obey the very word of 
 the inventor, as if it were a thing of life. Now he would argue with 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. g5 
 
 it, now lie would praise it, and anon he would chide it as if it were 
 veritably his offspring. 
 
 ^' I don^t know why it is," she heard him say, " you ainH as spry 
 this afternoon as usual." 
 
 " I can't make it out," he continued, more directly addressing his 
 companion. " She'll only range downward a certain depth, and then, 
 when I try to go deeper, I'm suddenly pulled back, as if I were tied to 
 something on the surface." 
 
 " It's Mr. Puncherry ! Oh, it's Mr. Puncherry !" she cried, " and 
 he must be drowned ! I hooked the end of his chain on to the boat 
 when I came on board." Then Mrs. McFlusterer had to enter into a 
 hurried explanation of the circumstance. 
 
 " Ah, true enough. I remember now there were two of you that 
 took to the water." Then, more consolingly, " But there's no danger 
 of his drowning, madam, if he's the Mr. Puncherry. A man would 
 never build the ships he does, if he could drown like an ordinary 
 mortal : it's only his ships that drown." 
 
 *' But he is drowned ? I know he is !" she continued, blaming 
 herself for his misfortune. " Let's go up immediately to his assistance. 
 Qui(;ker ! quicker !" she urged, as the boat was directed towards the 
 surface. " He must be already dead, I'm sure." 
 
 '^ If you're so sure of that, madam, I don't see the use of hurrying; 
 but the will of the ladies always rules." 
 
 The boat now showed by her increased speed that something had 
 certainly been detaining her ; they could feel the water sweep by them 
 like a mad torrent; then the port-holes ahead showed greener and 
 paler, lighter and whiter, and in an instant afterwards they reached 
 the surface, and shot clean beyond it into the air, like a fish that had 
 miscalculated its ascending impetus'. A great thud fairly shook the 
 breath out of the lady as the boat dropped back again on the surface, 
 and they were lying calmly rocking to and fro. 
 
 *' Open the hatchway, quick ! I'm sure he's dead !" she cried. Then 
 the hatchway was thrown open, and, raising their heads, they beheld 
 Mr, Puncherry, inflated as to his lower extremities to about four times 
 his usual dimensions, and apparently seated on the top of the waves. 
 
 lie waved his hand affably to them. " Wind her up again," he 
 cried, " only don't start off too sudden. I've got a new idea for a ship." 
 
 ^' Great Scott !" he added, in a different tone of voice, " they've 
 begun to shoot. I guess you'll have to make room for me on board, 
 after all." 
 
 It was true : a large missile, followed by a distant report, sailed 
 past them. 
 
 ^' If they^'ve begun to shoot, I guess I'd better say good-day," cried 
 the inventor, drawing his head in like a snapping-turtle ; then, the 
 trap-door closing, with a twist of a crank, a little whistle, and a swish 
 of the tail, the extraordinary craft again plunged downward, and, 
 burying herself under the waves, disappeared from Mr, Puncherry's 
 sight. 
 
 This second instalment of submarine travel was in most respects a 
 repetition of the first. Nevertheless, Mrs. McFlusterer felt more in- 
 5 
 
(56 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 clined to listen to the shirt-maker, and to hear his explanations as to 
 why he liad not succeeded in blowing up the ships. The first failure 
 he attributed to the slow action of the mechanism for exploding his 
 torpedo ; the next, to the steel crinolines, in the meshes of which the 
 proboscis of his craft had unfortunately got entangled, thereby pre- 
 venting his approach ; while as for this morning, he had merely come 
 out on a reconnoitring expedition, and had not known till he got quite 
 close that tiie vessels had removed their crinolines, probably for the 
 purpose of repairing such damage as had been sustained in the col- 
 lision with the American fleet. When Mrs. McFlusterer had fallen 
 into the waves so near him, he was in the act of examining the hull of 
 the flag-ship to find a weak spot, " so as to follow it up under water." 
 
 Shortly after this explanation, the lady felt the nose of the boat 
 pounding along the bed of the river, and now, for they had well-nigh 
 reached their destination, against the sunken piles of the wharves. 
 Just as she was giving up all hope, however, that they would ever 
 arrive, the craft took another sudden upward dart, and, springing out 
 of the watel" as before, only with a greater flourish of the tail and a 
 little louder whistle, lay rocking in the very basin that her husband 
 had visited two days earlier. But what had become of the crowd that 
 usually received the vessel ? There was no crowd here. A dire plague, 
 a hush, a cathedral stillness, had fallen over the city, broken by an 
 occasional crash or distant boom. Could it be? It must be ! The 
 bombardment of the city had begun ! 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer and the shirt-maker gazed about them w^ith 
 feelings impossible to describe. What few people were visible were 
 cautiously peering around the corners of houses, or were taking ad- 
 vantage of a lull in the firing, like children playing puss-in-the-corner, 
 to slip across from one spot to another. 
 
 As his family might need his protection, the shirt-maker insisted 
 upon repairing to his home, and Mrs. McFlusterer was about to accept 
 his offer to convey her thither, when Mr. Puncherry, whom she had 
 entirely forgotten, entered the basin, safe and sound, by the novel pro- 
 cess of pulling himself hand over hand by his chain. A belated hack- 
 driver, who had been caught behind a house when the firing began, 
 and had since been too terrified to leave that retreat, was finally in- 
 duced to convey them up-town to the lady's residence, and to drop the 
 shirt-maker at the nearest point to his house. The three thereupon 
 entered the carriage, and the horses were put to a full gallop toward^ 
 Broadway. 
 
 The aim of the fleet seemed principally directed at the lofty build- 
 ings, and barely had they passed Wall Street, when they saw Trinity 
 Church steeple rock and fall. 
 
 Opposite the Western Union building a cab was lying across its 
 horse, while a party of gentlemen were struggling to extricate them- 
 selves from the interior. 
 
 But still the same absence of crowds. What had become of so- 
 many people? They could scarcely have all left town. At City Hall 
 Place, however, a vast number had congregated. Mrs. McFlusterer 
 turned away her head, as a shell exploded in their midst with terrible 
 
A DREAM OF CONqUEST. 67 
 
 carnage. Faster, faster, driver ! To remain here were death, and yet 
 the narrow highway before them scarce were safer. Was there no less 
 dangerous road than up Broadway, no wider avenue? 
 
 Though this street was mostly deserted, yet a few belated persons 
 were hovering about their stores, runuhig back to lock a door, or to 
 remove some last forgotten article. Down the side streets, however, 
 people could be seen in greater . numbers, getting out their sick and 
 aged, while around these hung women in anguish, — over all the sharp, 
 whip-like crack of the shells, and the jar of walls continually falling. 
 Great God ! It was truly a terrible drive, and, with the unerring in- 
 stinct of women in emergencies, Mrs. McFlusterer jumped to the right 
 conclusion, — namely, that the bombardment had been hastened by her 
 escape. She would go back, she would do anything to stay it ; and, 
 becoming hysterical, she implored her companions to return, weeping 
 and wringing her hands convulsively, and losing all that flippancy and 
 lightness of character which we have tried to depict. Even had her 
 companions been willing to accede to her request, it were now impos- 
 sible, for their return was suddenly cut off by a mass of people like a 
 drove of cattle wildly sweeping around the corner of Canal Street up 
 Broadway, mangled and bleeding, many of them but propelled onward 
 by their terror. A train on the elevated road, conveying up town the 
 last lingering hordes from the lower parts of the city, had either been 
 struck by a shell or had met with some other accident. The carriage 
 was still ahead, however, and kept its distance, the throng growing be- 
 hind till it resembled a huge troubled sea with hands emerging here 
 and there from above the surface, as of people veritably drowning. 
 Opposite Grand Street a cry, as of ten thousand imprecations rolled 
 into one, reached the carriage, aixl its occupants on looking back beheld 
 a column of smoke rising behind the crowd high into the air. The 
 lower part of the city was on fire. On, on, on ! — no use in loitering ; 
 the most heroic valor could accomplish naught : walls falling on every 
 side, shells exploding everywhere, a sea of flames in pursuit, distance 
 was the only refuge. 
 
 Suddenly the explosions ceased, a death-like stillness reigned su- 
 preme, and the word went up that the enemy were landing I It was at 
 this moment, this supreme moment of terror, that the distant sound of 
 fife and drum was heard ; louder and more distinct it grew, shriller 
 and cheerier as it approached, calming the confusion and allaying the 
 alarm. Then the carriage was compelled to pull to one side, and the 
 '^ gallant Sixty-Ninth" swept by, changing their step from a march to 
 a double-quick, and that into a long sweeping stride, as they pressed 
 on to meet the foe. After them came the finely-equipped ^^ Seventh,^' 
 in their trim uniform and with their admirable discipline ; then, more 
 regiments of the National Guard. The Knights of Labor, ready this 
 time "to strike'' to good purpose, followed the troops, and next in turn 
 came the United Brotherhood of Tooth-Brush Makers, bristling all 
 over ; after them, the Brigade of Dudes, armed with umbrellas spread 
 and nicely raised on high, not to protect their heads, but, O tempora, O 
 mores ! their shiny black hats from the dust of crumbling masonry. 
 They numbered exactly four companies, and their dainty attire and 
 
(38 A DREAM OF CON qV EST, 
 
 ])articularly the dainty way they all pressed the coramon earth with 
 their neatly-varnished boots together elicited hearty plaudits from the 
 crowd. On they swept, bearing a flag on which was proudly printed, 
 in golden letters, " Behold, the Real Four Hundred." 
 
 Closing the procession was the Revolutionary piece of ordnance 
 lent by the State Armory on Thirty-Fifth Street. For what purpose 
 it was trundled out, save to gratify the popular craze for antiquity, is 
 hard to say. Possibly it was fired by the general enthusiasm of the 
 troops, as it could be fired in no other manner, and had pleaded to 
 accompany them ; or, more likely, it argued that it was t(X) old to be 
 left behind unprotected, and had been brought along out of commisera- 
 tion. Poor thing ! Men and women dropped sympathetic tears as it 
 feebly rumbled on. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The bombardment ceased simultaneously with the conflagration, 
 which, as rt turned out, was that of the Produce Excliange. Fortu- 
 nately, the valiant efforts of the fire-brigade succeeded in extinguishing 
 this, and, when the regiments of the National Guard arrived at the 
 point where the enemy were supposed to be landing, it was to find the 
 report erroneous. No military force in the world, of the same numer- 
 ical strength, would have received the enemy more courageously ; but, 
 when you reflect that the government had supplied them with Spring- 
 field cartridges for their Remington muskets, you can appreciate that 
 they might as well have been provided with clubs. At any other time 
 the jmrsimony and short-sightedness of the government would be almost 
 laughable, but it was no laughing-matter now. On the contrary, all 
 maintained that it was a case of drying injustice. Nominally Uncle 
 Sam allots four hundred thousand dollars a year among his forty-two 
 nephews, but instead of paying cash he very unkindly pays in kind, — 
 in other words, trades ofl*at his own valuation any old military rubbish 
 that he has no need of himself. Thus, during the preceding year the 
 New York appropriation had been paid up partly in old saddles and 
 partly in cartridge-boxes, the last at the rate of a dollar apiece, and 
 which had been in the government's hands since the War of 1812. 
 To give an almost burlesque touch to the situation, a cavalry troop had 
 got the cartridge-boxes and an infantry regiment received the saddles. 
 The disbandment of State cavalry troops in New York dates from this 
 gift. And yet all the time Little Log-Rolling Creek is being improved 
 into a river, merely that the boys who live along the banks may have 
 somewhere to swim without the danger of getting drowned. 
 
 Now, while the bombardment had really taken place in a fit of 
 spleen at the loss of Mrs. McFlusterer, nevertheless, had it begun only 
 fifteen minutes later, it would have been in full accordance with the 
 usages of the most civilized nations. Mr. McFlusterer had returned 
 in the steam-launch without bringing back with him any distinct guar- 
 antee that even yet the terms were accepted, and Wang-Chi-Poo had 
 vowed to open fire on the city if such guarantees were not received 
 by four o'clock. Not only so, but the assault on the flag of truce by 
 the shirt-maker would have excused the attack at an earlier stage still. 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. gg 
 
 To recur to Mr. McFliisterer, however: lie liad passed his wife, on 
 his return from his second trip to the city, without knowing it, and he 
 had, moreover, passed Mr. Puncherry. His astonishment at behokliug 
 his old friend inflated to four times his usual size, and waving his hand 
 to him from the top of the waves, caused Mr. McFlusterer to forget 
 all about his wife, and, though Mr. Puncherry had pointed downward 
 to her as he called out her name, he naturally failed to see the connecting 
 link that there really was between her and that gentleman's flight. 
 
 The very escape in itself was so extraordinary that Mr. McFlusterer 
 could think of nothing else ; for, though he knew that Mr. Puncherry, 
 from long experience Avith his own ships, protected himself against 
 sudden immersions by wearing a patent inflating waistcoat, he did not 
 know that this waistcoat was in fact a tunic divided into compartments, 
 and that when the proper compartment was inflated it made of the seat 
 of Mr. Puncherry's nether garments a very comfortable air-cushion. 
 This it was that raised Mr. Puncherry so high above the waves, and 
 gave him that exultant and Arion-like appearance as he rcxle them. 
 So great was the Razor's astonishment, that he failed to notice the 
 comparatively trivial fact that the fleet had begun to fire on the city, 
 and long before he gained the vessel's side this firing had developed 
 into a pretty brisk cannonade. 
 
 Now, the strangest part of this bombardment, to use a Hil>ernicism, 
 was its sudden termination. The abruptness with which it began 
 was only surpassed by the extraordinary abruptness with which it ceased. 
 Was the motive merely to give the city a taste of what the Chinese 
 could do? If so, it amply served its purpose. Men won't suffer their 
 residences, their places of business, their Penates and their Lares, their 
 churches, and particularly their banks of deposit, to be hammered into 
 smithereens if they can save them by buying off the enemy. Without 
 stopping to question the reason for this cessation of hostilities, however, 
 or to ask themselves why it had not been explained by the fleet, the 
 twelve principal gentlemen of the city (for afler the warning of the 
 Centennial Ball I don't wish to make invidious distinctions by men- 
 tioning names) constituted themselves, on the first cessation of the 
 firing, into a select committee and hastily called a meeting of all the 
 less well-known gentlemen of New York in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. 
 
 A hush of expectation fell over the city, as people waited to hear 
 what these Solons would agree upon. 
 
 At last it was decided by the less well-known portion of those 
 present that the select portion should be allowed to continue in their 
 self-assumed mission, and should prove their right to the claim of 
 public spirit by going over to the fleet in a neighborly, friendly way 
 and making the best ternis they could with the barbarians. It was 
 with extreme reluctance that this proposal was finally agreed to by the 
 twelve, and the account of their expedition, the marvellous incidents 
 that attended it, and, last but not least, the discovery of the extraordi- 
 nary cause of the city's immunity from a further dose of shot, can best 
 be given in the graphic words of a newspaper man who volunteered to 
 accompany the party. 
 
 " We embarked in a ferry-boat at the foot of East Seventh Street," 
 
70 A DREAM OF CONqVEST, 
 
 he said, " at about six o'clock in the evening, though it was quite dark 
 before we finally got away. How well I remember it ! — a hot, sultry 
 night, without a breath of air, and a duplicate set of stars seemingly 
 fixed beneath the water, so bright were the reflections. At first each of 
 us tried to keep up the spirits of the others, as we sat huddled together 
 on the deck. Then some one — I don't remember who — began a song, 
 — not a jovial college song, but a sad weird song, and one suited gener- 
 ally to the occasion ; after this, beciiuse human nature is human nature, 
 and reacts naturally from one extreme to the other, some one told a 
 story, and from that we all fell to talking of the extraordinary mission 
 we were on, the extraordinary fact of a Chinese fleet being in our 
 waters at all, and what blank fools these Chinese were not to reflect 
 on the terrible retribution that would come upon them later. We all 
 agreed, however, that we were in a very awkward predicament; being 
 pillaged, so to speak, by a burglar who in the end would pay dearly for 
 his crime, but who in the mean time was making things decidedly un- 
 comfortable about the house. Such was the general verdict, and it was 
 impressed upon my memory because at the moment of its expression 
 there was a frightful explosion, caused by the paddle-wheel striking a 
 torpedo. For all decided that it must have been a torpedo, and proba- 
 bly one of those set for the Chinese, which had either got loose from its 
 moorings or had been detached by that fleet itself. Nevertheless, it 
 didn't do much harm, since it only knocked out a couple of blades from 
 the paddle-wheel. 
 
 " The curious feature about the trip was, however, that the further 
 we left the city behind us, and consequently the nearer we approached the 
 enemy, the more intense became the sadness with which we had started 
 out. Opposite Governor's Island our conversation turned to the subject 
 of a future life, and we actually discussed it until we entered the Nar- 
 rows. On passing through them we shortly reached a point from which 
 the waters of the outer harbor began to spread out quite wide, and at 
 last we succeeded in distinguishing the dark hulls of the enemy's ships, 
 all grouped together in one black mass ahead of us. I have no lan- 
 guage to portray our sadness at this sight. The tide was running 
 swiftly, and we were dropping down on the fleet more rapidly tlian we 
 imagined. Indeed, we must have got within half a mile of it before 
 any one reflected that our intentions might be misunderstood. The 
 prominent gentlemen of New York owe their prominence rather to 
 their status in commercial affairs than to their experience of war, 
 and understand better the cutting off of coupons than of heads : con- 
 sequently, the possibility of our being taken for the advance guard of 
 some desperate assaulting .party never struck any one. At last some 
 one did venture the suggestion, and, in view of its plausibility, we 
 stopped and blew the whistle. 
 
 "Not a sound from the fleet. There they lay calmly at anchor, 
 their spars faintly limned against the starry sky, and their huge bodies, 
 painted gray, rising now more like huge octopuses out of the water. 
 Then we advanced anew, but w^ith greater caution and increased sad- 
 ness, and blew the whistle again. Were they waiting for us to get 
 quite close ? were they then going to annihilate us at one fell swoop ? 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 71 
 
 Assuredly, our presence by this time ought to be known. One would 
 think that they would challenge us, — would blow a whistle in response 
 to ours, to ask our intentions, as it were. But not a sound. Our sad- 
 ness grew actually appalling; there was something mysterious about 
 this silence,- too, something uncanny and suspicious : it fairly made 
 the flesh of our several bodies creep. I really think, if each of us had 
 not been ashamed to show his feelings before the others, we should 
 all have proposed turning around instanter, much as the Western 
 trapper did when he found the 'bar's track gettin' too plagued fresh.' 
 We had now arrived within three hundred yards of the largest vessel, 
 and there was the same deep quiet. Were these phantom ships ? Were 
 they creatures of our imagination, after all ? The ordinary tokens of 
 life that could be looked for in a fleet on such an occasion were com- 
 pletely lacking ; and then, oh, horror of horrors ! at the very instant 
 when it might be necessary to beat a retreat, the cursed paddle-wheel 
 gave out, and we drifted without steerage- way directly upon them. 
 
 " Until now we had no idea that we were so close to them, and be- 
 fore we could realize it we felt our accursed tub grating and pounding 
 against the iron sides of the largest vessel. I, for one, — and I know 
 the others joined me, — threw myself flat down on the deck to avoid 
 the discharge that must come now. But not a shot, not the cry of a 
 sentinel, and for sound only the thumping and grating of our ferry- 
 boat, as the tide pressed her down against those iron walls. 
 
 " ' They're deserted,' at last cried the captain ; ' I know they're de- 
 serted. Follow me.' And, carrying the gang-plank to the top of the 
 upper deck over the cabin, he rested one end of it on the bulwarks 
 of the steamer, strode intrepidly across, and we followed him cautiously 
 half-way. Then I shall never forget — no, not till the last hour of my 
 allotted time arrives — the sight I beheld. The vessel was the largest 
 in the squadron, evidently the flag-ship, and with more deck-room than 
 iron-clads usually possess. Instead of these decks being deserted, how- 
 ever, they were actually thronged with people, just as if the crews from 
 all the other ships had congregated here ; but the strangest fact was that 
 of this crowd not a soul was moving. Even where we were we must 
 have been distinguishable, but not an eye was raised to meet us, nor a 
 cutlass drawn. There they all stood as if cut in stone or congealed in 
 various attitudes of rapt attention. It was as if some huge momentous 
 catastrophe had interrupted them in the midst of the bombardment and 
 had suddenly petrified them. Here were the appliances about the guns 
 for loading them, and fresh cartridges just as they had been left on 
 deck. Among these stood the crew, like stone images, dressed in silks 
 or the variegated attires of their different ranks, down to the humblest 
 sailor, all looking towards a common centre, and with a fixity of gaze 
 that could hardly have been surpassed had they been posing for a photo- 
 graph. 
 
 " It was our captain who first recovered himself. * Who'll follow 
 me?' he cried; but no one did. What a brave man we thought him I 
 Indeed, taking everything into consideration, I deem that captain the 
 most courageous man I ever beheld. As for us, we stood on the plank 
 just where we were, midway between the ferry-boat and the steamer, 
 
72 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 looking down on him. We could see him push through the crew, dis- 
 turbing their long flowing robes as he swept by, occasionally upsetting 
 the equilibrium of one after another of the figures as he jostled by them ; 
 but, though pushed to one side, the figures would quickly fall back into 
 their original positions. At last we saw him make his way through the 
 ring of the inner circle and lean over the common centre of attraction. 
 Here he stopped; but what was he waiting for? He did not return. 
 Instead of explaining, he did not even answer, though we all called 
 his name, and we called it again and again. We could see him leaning 
 over further and further. Good heavens ! he appeared to be assuming 
 an attitude like all the rest. Had the same nefarious spell begun to 
 operate on him ? Then, curiosity rising superior to fear, one of the rest 
 of us followed the captain down into the ship, with identically the same 
 result. Neither would he return nor answer when we called. Next 
 another of us went to look after the last, and so on, one after another, 
 till I remained alone. Finally, curiosity or the same fatal spell also 
 beginning to take effect on me, I went myself, drawn I know not by 
 what invisible agency. T advanced through these figures ; as I passed 
 them I saw that they were not of stone at all, but only still and 
 motionless as if engaged in some religious rite of extra solemnity. As 
 I moved by I touched them ; their muscles were firm and their flesh 
 felt warm. I even got to where my companions w^ere, and, looking 
 down, this is what I saw: a china basin serving as a cockpit, sur- 
 rounded by a ring of lanterns, and in this basin a couple of small 
 black beetles fighting. Then it was all explained to me. I had read 
 in some book of travels on this extraordinary people, that, if they 
 are engaged in battle, and by any chance a lesser strife occurs in their 
 midst, it is considered in the light of an augury, and their own combat 
 must be postponed till the result of the latter be determined. They 
 must stand perfectly motionless, pay no attention to the enemy, and 
 must suffer themselves even to be slaughtered without resistance. 
 Thus, in the Tai-Ping Rebellion, at Wasso, in the upper provinces 
 of the empire, a party of five hundred suffered themselves to be 
 massacred to a man by the enemy as they stood entranced over a com- 
 bat of — what do you think ? — a couple of ants. A fight between two 
 beetles, however, is considered an especial augury ; and the beetles in 
 the present case were ordinary ship-roaches, that had probably been 
 disturbed from their retreats in the seams of the deck by the violence 
 of the cannonade. 
 
 " We had evidently come, however, towards the close of the duel, 
 for even as T gazed the larger beetle had seized the smaller in his claws ; 
 giving it one last shake, a faint struggle ensued, and, a thrill passing 
 over each, they both rolled over on their backs stone-dead. 
 
 "At this instant a gong sounded with a terrible clash, the people 
 suddenly came back to life, and, while a detachment surrounded us 
 with their drawn cutlasses, the rest of the crew flew back to their 
 guns, and the long-interrupted bombardment was on the eve of being 
 resumed. 
 
 "Great heavens I I thought, is the fate of a city of fifleen 
 hundred thousand souls to hang on such a circumstance? How 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 73 
 
 raany lives had the pugnacity of those two little creatures thus far 
 saved ? 
 
 " This was my principal reflection, and so engrossing was it that I 
 failed to notice that a large and not ill-favored man had in the mean 
 time puslied through the drawn cutlasses of our detainers, and was 
 bowing before us, and brushing, witli the folds of his gorgeous blue 
 tunic, the seat of a cane-bottomed chair w^iich he dragged forward. 
 After this I heard myself addressed in faultless English by a small, 
 narrow-chested young man, who seemed to understand that we were 
 envoys from the city. Even yet, however, I scarcely know^ what would 
 have been our fate, had it not been for the amused astonishment of the 
 big man in the blue tunic at our hats. He would examine them, take 
 them off our heads, and then place them on his own with the utmost 
 complacency. Finally, when our mission was fully explained to him, 
 we were taken down below into his cabin, where a sumptuous repast 
 w^as set out for us. Nevertheless, despite the hospitality of the recep- 
 tion, — a hospitality that is really extraordinary when you reflect on the 
 way we had arrived, — the terms we offered were absolutely refused. 
 Wang-Chi-Poo raised his demands higher than those originally made, 
 and even put in an extra sum for the steamer destroyed by the fire-sliips. 
 His ultimatum was this : a ransom of one hundred and fifty dollars 
 per head, instead of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, for the in- 
 habitants of every seaboard city, and one hundred and fifty million 
 dollars to be paid by New York before to-morrow night ; that Wash- 
 ington should agree to the extension of tlie Burlingame Treaty without 
 further delay; and that a certain lady, whose name he gave, should be 
 returned to the fleet. In addition to this, that twelve of New York's 
 most distinguished citizens, perhaps we the very envoys ourselves, 
 should be given up as pledges for the fulfilment of these terms. 
 Then we, the envoys, decided that it was about time to retire, and, as the 
 vessel which had brought us was quite unequal to stemming the tide, 
 we very ignominiously had to accept Wang-Chi-Poo's offer to get out 
 the steam-launch for our safe return. In so great a hurry, indeed, 
 were we to get away, and so fearful lest the permission to go might be 
 rescinded, that we failed, until the last moment, to notice a melan- 
 choly object in a large bamboo cage chained to one of its bars by his 
 foot ; and, though he appealed to us piteously in our own language 
 and begged us to take him back with us to the city, w^e pretended not 
 to see him. I must confess, however, that our regret at leaving him 
 was somewhat mitigated by the fact that this same gentleman had got 
 ahead of several of us before in transactions in Wall Street.'^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXin. 
 
 . It is still night, and the lamps in a luxurious room are beginning 
 to burn low. Silken portieres are drawn across the doors of the apart- 
 ment, and on a sofa, soft and velvety, reclines a woman, deep sunken 
 in its cushions, — a woman not exactly beautiful, but not altogether plain. 
 A changed woman she looks, — not precisely aged, but one who has 
 
74 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 gone through some long and terrible ordeal, — a woman who has at last 
 '' collapsed." She is breathing heavily ; she has reached the ultimate 
 term of endurance. 
 
 The windows of the apartment are open, to catch any lingering 
 breath of air ; for, though the trees in the Park opposite have not as 
 yet put on their summer livery, the night is oppressively hot, — intensely 
 hot, one of those hot nights which are occasionally thrown into the 
 fickle, womanly-like month of April, as a faint indication of the 
 summer soon to burst, like the blast from a furnace, over the land. A 
 strange hush, too, has fallen over the city, broken occasionally by the 
 cidl of a sentinel, or the plaintive cry of a child from the thronged 
 humanity bivouacking in the Park. AH is otherwise still, — strangely 
 still, — and the woman on the sofa is strangely still, too. At last she 
 turns weariedly, and, pressing her hand to her brow, thinks, — tries to 
 think calmly, with the half-distinct foreboding that evil is yet to come ; 
 and indeed tlie very silence that prevails on every side is the hush rather 
 of anticipation than of relief. 
 
 As regards the manner of Mrs. McFlusterer's safe return to her 
 home, suffice it to say that after the lull in the bombardment she had 
 been conducted thither by Mr. Puncherry, who, after leaving her, re- 
 turned to his own house. 
 
 Far removed as her residence was from the centre of the city, it 
 had not entirely escaped injury, as the occasional cracks in the mirrors 
 or windows would go to prove. One of the chimneys, too, had come 
 down with a crash, and all the servants had decamped, with the excep- 
 tion of the old housekeeper, whom alone Mrs. McFlusterer had found 
 to receive her. Though it was now nearly two o'clock in the morning, 
 the domestics had not yet returned. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer, when we left her, had just put her hand up to 
 her brow. She was tossing restlessly on the sofa, and she returned to 
 consciousness from the semi-conscious state with the uncomfortable 
 feeling that there was some one either in the room with her or near the 
 room, — some one who did not belong there, and had no part or parcel 
 with the surroundings ; some one who had entered surreptitiously, who 
 had perhaps crept through one of the windows, and whose coming now 
 made her very flesh creep. She arose with a sudden start : she called ; 
 no answer ; then she looked about her. The room was half darkened, 
 and the dim light there was gave no indication of any presence. 
 
 She looked at the portieres : one of them was stirring. She screamed 
 violently. A man with a long white beard, narrow-chested and small, 
 suddenly came out from behind it. 
 
 " Daughter of the West, it is I." And, removing his beard with a 
 sudden jerk, Taonsu stood before her in European attire. " Ah," he 
 exclaimed, *^ thou thoughtst, fair lady, to escape us. See, by this card, 
 which thou didst leave on the cabin-table, I have tracked thee, and I 
 hav« come to take thee back." 
 
 " Never will I return !" exclaimed the lady, with a shudder. 
 
 "Then thy husband dies by the most excruciating tortures, and 
 the bombardment is rasumed. Thus has Wang-Chi-Poo, my master, 
 spoken." 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST, 75 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer wrung her hands : until now she had forgotten 
 all about her husband. He added fresh difficulty to the dilemma. 
 
 What should she do ? She could not allow him to be slain. Oh, 
 was ever a woman placed in so terrible a predicament? 
 
 " Thou hast but a short time to decide^ O daughter.^' 
 
 Then she turned upon him suddenly : *^ Why dost thou pursue me 
 thus? why dost thou so zealously do thy master's bidding?" 
 
 His answer came : " Because I love thee, fair one." 
 
 *'Thou lovest me? But why then dost thou come in another's 
 behalf? Why not in thine own ?" 
 
 " Because, fair lady, according to the ways of China, those we love 
 we never seek to wed ourselves, but rather try to marry them to our 
 friends." 
 
 This extraordinary announcement struck Mrs. McFlusterer with 
 such astonishment that she could only gasp ; there was a tinge of irony, 
 too, pervading the assertion, but whether this was intentional or not she 
 was unable to decide, nor did the face of the speaker give any indica- 
 tion to assist her. 
 
 " Make up thy mind, fair lady," he resumed, " whether thy hus- 
 band is to suffer, and thy city to be destroyed. I have just brought back 
 the envoys from the fleet, and thy return was one of the stipulated 
 conditions." 
 
 " Give me until to-morrow,— only till to-morrow," she cried, falling 
 on her knees. 
 
 " That is already granted, fair one, but by that time must thy de- 
 'cision be made." 
 
 Thereupon Taonsu retired, put on his white beard, and, as he 
 walked down to the East River in the neighborhood of the docks, he 
 would have readily passed for an ordinary pedestrian,, so perfect was 
 the disguise of his beard and his European clothes. 
 
 Now, the harbor had been comparatively deserted lately, for, though 
 large numbers of torpedoes had been destroyed by the burning oil, there 
 were yet sufficient loose ones floating about to make the waters far from 
 agreeable as a resort : consequently, no one interfered with Taonsu as 
 he rowed out in a small boat he had kft in the deep shadow of a wharf. 
 It was some twenty minutes later that .he gained the steam-launch, 
 unnoticed as when he had left it. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Poor Mrs. McFlusterer was having a hard time of it. It is the 
 last straw that breaks the camel's back, and any resolution she might 
 Jiave had not to give herself up as a willing sacrific"e was to be broken 
 yet. 
 
 Up to this time she could scarcely have imagined this proposal of 
 Taonsu's to be serious, and the morning sunlight was beginning to 
 dispel the shadows of the past night. 
 
 The state of aifairs could not be so terrible, after all. The city 
 authorities would never permit such a sacrifice, and they must be ap- 
 
76 A DREAM OF COXqUEST. 
 
 pealed to in order to relieve her. Tlie liberation of her husband must 
 be insei-ted as a special condition in any pending treaty. She would go 
 down immediately to the Chamber of Commerce and to the City Ilall. 
 Her spirits were reviving, and she toyed with her egg-shell and her 
 spoon with more of her old manner. As she glanced out of the window, 
 too, she could see the children of the bivouackers playing opposite to her, 
 and tlie very leaves seemed to have sprouted through the night ; all, 
 everything on every side of her, seorned lighted with ho]ie, and tlie 
 })eople, by their joyful expression of countenance, appeared to feel that 
 the siege was soon to be raised. Yes, she must go down to the City 
 Hall at once ; and she rose from her seat with the intention of getting 
 her cloak and bonnet. 
 
 But what is this ? A body of troops passing by ? Yes. No, for 
 they do not pass. On the contrary, the tramp of their footsteps ceases 
 just opposite her house ; how odd ! 
 
 After a moment's delay, steps are heard on the stoop, and the bell 
 rings loudly. 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer had stood just where she had risen, with her 
 hand pressed to the folds of her dress as she swept them back from 
 the breakfast-table. Under ordinary circumstances her curiosity would 
 have carried her to the window, but there was something in the very 
 echo of these footsteps, something in the very ring of the bell, that 
 riveted her to the floor. 
 
 She hears the old housekeeper descending the stairs on her way to 
 the front door ; she hears a smothered discussion in the. hall ; and the 
 next instant a conclave of twelve gentlemen, headed by Mr. Puncherry, 
 solemnly enter the apartment. 
 
 They were all eminently respectable 'gentlemen, and most of them 
 she had previously met in society ; but there was an expression of deep 
 sadness on their faces that completely altered them. 
 
 At first they said nothing to her, but stood regarding her pityingly 
 through their glasses. Mrs. McFlusterer could support their silence no 
 longer. 
 
 " What is it, gentlemen ? tell me what it is," she cried. " I know 
 you come with something terrible to announce. Has my husband been 
 sacrificed ?" 
 
 Instead of replying, they all nudged one another, as if each wanted 
 to force the other into the duty of spokesman. Mr. Puncherry, being 
 nudged the hardest, was almost physically forced to a prominence of 
 position from which he was unable to retreat. 
 
 " If s very awkward, it's very awkward indeed, madam," said that 
 gentleman, with his face very red, and rubbing his hat the wrong way 
 with the cuff of his sleeve. 
 
 "The fact of the matter is," he continued, in a fit of sudden in- 
 spiration to escape the disagreeable task of explaining matters himself, 
 " these gentlemen stopped at my house and asked me to bring them 
 over and introduce them." Then, calling out each gentleman's name 
 in turn, Mr. Puncherry bowed himself cleverly out of the situation 
 into which he had been so cruelly thrust. 
 
 "The fact of the matter is rather, madam," said the gentleman 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 77 
 
 whose name had been the fii-st called, " that we were yesterday deputed 
 as a committee of twelve to take in hand the difficult task of getting 
 rid of the enemy. For that purpose we heroically visited the fleet last 
 evening, and were almost blown up on the way." The old gentleman 
 stopped somewhat abruptly, for Mrs. McFlusterer stood looking at him 
 60 fixedly that her gaze made him uncomfortable. He took out his 
 handkerciiief and sponged the top of his bald bead, then, as if thereby 
 receiving stimulation, he went into a lono^-winded account of their ex- 
 pedition, stating the terms Wang-Chi-Poo had finally consented to 
 accept, and last, but not least, describing the ])itiable appeal of Mr. 
 McFlusterer as he sat in his bamboo cage tied by the foot. " This 
 ultimatum," continued the old gentleman, " we presented to the city 
 authorities, and they have just sent us to ask of you a very great favor, 
 — or, let me say, to state to you what a heroic sacrifice they would con- 
 sider it if, in the interest of your native city and the country at large, 
 you would consent to sail back with the fleet to China. It wouldn't 
 be so disagreeable if you only look at it in the proper spirit ; and before 
 very long Mr. Puncherry's ship-yards will have turned out an Ameri- 
 can squadron which will sail over and bring you back. It is very 
 awkward, but you see if you dun't return by to-night they resume the 
 bombardment, and your husband will be immediately sacrificed." Then 
 the speaker stopped and looked at her inquiringly. " Madam, we 
 await your answer." 
 
 Mrs. McFlusterer stood there like Lot's wife turned into a pillar of 
 salt ; she was quite as rigid and quite as blanched. So her city threw 
 her off! and, flinging herself on the sofa, she burst into a wild par- 
 oxysm of weeping. And yet as she wept the great sacrifice she was 
 asked to make appealed to her by its very magnitude : was ever a 
 woman asked to make such a sacrifice as this ? By one of those ex- 
 traordinary instances of clairvoyance, too, her husband was revealed to 
 her just as he was in his bamboo cage. He seemed to be imploring her, 
 as he piteously told her of tlie fate that hung for him on her decision. 
 Above all, the terrors of the bombardment recurred to her, and again 
 she saw the frightened women, the dying children, and the crashing 
 walls. 
 
 " Gentlemen," she said, abruptly rising and facing the deputation, 
 " the men of America having failed to provide for the defence of tlieir 
 women, it remains for a woman to make the sacrifice. I go, — yes, I 
 will go." Then the deputation withdrew and left her to herself. 
 
 The news of Mrs. McFlusterer's decision spread like wildfire. 
 
 It became the sensation of a much-excited town ; crowds of those 
 that yet remained of the city's population came to gaze at her windows, 
 and she found that the publicity she had always courted was gained ; 
 not that she cared for it now,— on the contrary : but the principal con- 
 dition of success seems to be that when we gain what we have been 
 struggling for all our lives, we gain it in such a manner, at such a 
 time, or hampered with such conditions, as to make it valueless. 
 
 Even in the strained situation of affairs, committees were formed to 
 wait on her, and bands of music came and played funeral dirges, appro- 
 
78 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 priate to the occasion, as they paraded up and down in front of her 
 house. Yet there was a large faction of the opinion that she ought not 
 to be allowed to go under any circumstances. These, however, were 
 mostly the impotent ones who possessed neither banks of deposit nor 
 bank-accounts. 
 
 Now, in spite of his previous protestations to the contrary, Wang- 
 Chi-Poo, on learning of Mrs. McFlusterer's decision, had finally agreed 
 to receive a lump sum down in lieu of the various instalments he had 
 originally demanded : this had already been sent out to the Chinese. 
 Then, too, commissioners appointed by telegraph from Washington had 
 just signed a treaty for the free admission of the Mongolian race ; con- 
 sequently, there now remained only the exchange of Mr. McFlusterer 
 for his wife, which was to take place midway between the fleet and the 
 shore at six o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 How that day dragged for Mrs. McFlusterer ! When once we 
 have decided on some heroic act, it is the small and trivial details that 
 irritate. 
 
 It was five o'clock when the deputation called for her, and this had 
 been joined by a band of the fairest w^omen New York yet con- 
 tained. They were dressed in white tunics of the coarsest stuff, and 
 walked before her carriage slowly, wringing their hands and tearing 
 their hair. Now, New York, when it sets itself to do anything, does 
 it remarkably well ; and in response to the popular craze for proces- 
 sions the children of the various hospitals and charitable associations 
 with which the lady had been connected were provided, at the city's 
 expense, with clean pocket-handkerchiefs, and were marshalled in line. 
 After the school-children came the various city guilds; and, as there 
 had been no time to get the legislators from Albany, the Board of 
 Aldermen closed the procession. 
 
 So great was the concourse of people whom her martyrdom drew 
 forth that, on arriving at the wharf where she was to embark, it was 
 with difficulty she could pass through their ranks ; nor even here 
 would the band of fair women leave her, but, accompanying her on the 
 ferry-boat which had been engaged to take her out, they sailed down 
 the bay with her, making the sad waves sadder by their wailing and 
 their gestures of woe. Punctually to the hour, the steam-launch 
 brought Mr. McFlusterer out from the fleet to the common point of 
 meeting, and for a brief ten minutes husband and wife remained clasped 
 in each other's arms. Then, just as she was getting into the steam- 
 launch to take his vacated place, he weakened, and, jumping back after 
 her, vowed that he'd remain by her side tlirough thick and thin and 
 go with her to China or to the devil himself. Thus the deputation of 
 twelve respectable gentlemen and the band of disconsolate fair ones re- 
 turned to the city without the ^' Razor ;" and the several forts along 
 the Narrows, which had been so useless for war, appeared to fire minute- 
 guns as they passed, and there was a weird sadness over all things. 
 
 Then these discharges grew more frequent; even the foreign fleet 
 seemed to be taking part in the demonstration. 
 
 By the time the deputation had got back to the city, however, shells 
 were bursting over their heads, and walls were tumbling again. Was 
 
A DREAM OF CONQUEST. ■ 79 
 
 AYang-Chi-Poo enraged at the " Razor's" return ? It would seem so, 
 for the bombardment had been renewed, and was increasing in severity. 
 Indeed, the former attack paled into insignificance before the new. 
 Deeming that trouble was over, the people had moved back into their 
 houses, and were therefore taken completely by surprise. Such a scene 
 of horror was probably never witnessed before. Here were women in 
 their frantic terror throwing their own children out of windows, and 
 men and boys stretching their arms on high in mute appeal to the Deity. 
 
 One of the shells exploding in Gilmore's Garden, temporarily oc- 
 cupied by Barnum^s Circus, caused in some miraculous manner the 
 beasts to escape, and these suddenly stampeding made confusion worse 
 confounded, as they tore down the streets, trampling all before them ; 
 huge elephants trumpeting their alarm, uprooting lamp-posts with their 
 trunks, and lasliing their tails ; hippopotami with their tusks tearing 
 and rending everything they met ; affrighted giraffes craning their long 
 necks upward and thrusting their heads into second-story windows, 
 as they daslied by. Such a terrible sight I never saw. After this all 
 grew confused. I have an indistinct recollection 0/ going down the bay 
 with the deputation that conducted Mrs. McFlusterer, and on my return 
 of lending my assistance in the capture of these escaped animals ; after 
 that of throwing myself, completely exhausted, upon my bed, regardless 
 of wliat might ensue, and of trying to sleep through the bombardment. 
 At first I seemed to succeed fairly well, but was disturbed at last by 
 the gradually increasing noise of heavy ordnance, of the crash of falling 
 masonry growing louder and nearer, and particularly by a great light 
 shining in my eyes. The main pipe of the Standard Oil Company, 
 crossing the East River, had been burst open by the frantic inhabitants, 
 and the oil ignited as it flowed over the waters of the harbor. By this 
 flaming light I seemed to see for an instant Wang-Chi-Poo standing, 
 not on the deck of his ship, but on the lofty Brooklyn Bridge, survey- 
 ing, like Macaulay's New Zealander, the desolation about him. 
 
 Then the glare grows more intense and the booming of the cannonade 
 nearer and more terribly distinct. Adjacent walls are falling, — ay, the 
 very walls of my own house. 
 
 I spring from my bed, and stare about me in bewildered astonish- 
 ment. Instead of its being night, the glorious rays of an April sun 
 are shining in my eyes ; the walls of my room are standing, but the 
 reports of heavy ordnance still continue. I fly to my window, — but 
 what is this ? No panic-stricken people, no troops of enraged elephants 
 and bizarre giraffes, no deputations of fantastically-draped females 
 wringing their hands and tearing their hair. On the contrary, the 
 same prosaic people are passing up and down on their every-day affairs 
 as are wont to pass every morning of the year. 
 
 Can it all have been a dream? No, for the cannonading, instead 
 of growing fainter, rather gets louder. I fly to the door, and my land- 
 lady hands me a note. 
 
 " Have they gone ?" I ask. 
 
 "Bless your soul, sir, of course they've gone. Here Fve been 
 knocking for the last fifteen minutes. You couldn^t expect them to 
 wait the answer that long." 
 
80 A DREAM OF CONQUEST. 
 
 " I mean the Chinese." 
 
 "The Chinese, sir? Laws-a-massy ! what's got inter you, sir?" 
 And the old lady started back alarmed. Indeed, I might well have 
 terrified any one, especially so staid and eminently respectable a party 
 as Mrs. Archer was, as I pounced out upon her. 
 
 She had dropped the note in her fright, and I could hear her steps 
 pattering down the stairs as she hastily descended. 
 
 As I picked up the letter I recognized the handwriting, and particu- 
 larly the coat of arms, as Mrs. McFlusterer\s. Doubtless she had sent 
 it from the fleet, I thought, as a last farewell. I opened it hurriedly, 
 and this is what I read : 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. McFlusterer request the pleasure," etc., etc. 
 
 Then all was clear. I had simply been dreaming, and I could 
 account for every incident in my nightmare, however distorted. A 
 term in Congress ; a trip at the close of the last sassion to the " Queen 
 of the Antilles," where I was strongly impressed with the evils of 
 Chinese immigration, and the inevitable ruin to a newer civilization 
 when inoculated wit^ the moral and physical diseases of the East; 
 the meeting while on that beautiful isle with a courtly and not 
 uninteresting specimen of the Chinese race, who was travelling with 
 his secretary ; and, lastly, on my return the accounts that met me 
 of the Samoan trouble, — these several incidents, coupled with an 
 extensive reading of what has been published concerning our defence- 
 less coasts, and a voyage under water with my friend Mr. Smith, who 
 is actually my shirt-maker, in the trial trip of his boat, supplied 
 warp and woof of this hideous dream-tissue, everything as distinct 
 and clear as I have tried to make it ; the details as to marine warfare, 
 steel plates, explosives, etc., when I came to compare them with fact, 
 being in perfect accordance therewith, and my own personality, as so 
 frequently occurs in dreams, now gliding into one of my characters, 
 and now into another. Nevertheless, dream that it was, there is a 
 vein of common sense running through it like a silver thread, and it is 
 this : 
 
 If we wish to preserve in peace the wealth and prosperity our energies 
 have produced, we ought to devote some small portion to defending 
 ourselves against those attacks which our very wealth and well-being 
 invite. 
 
 So much at least common sense dictates : guarding against reckless 
 expenditures whose results may become useless in the next ten years, 
 let us at least spend sufficient to keep our proper place in the march of 
 improvement; for so only can .the just demands of a great power be 
 enforced when it becomes necessary to enforce them. 
 Si vis pacem, para helium. 
 
 THE END. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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 LD 21-100m-12,'46(A2012sl6)4120 
 
YC 1 03455 
 
 MlSlST^ 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
^i THE BEST WHlTtRS. 
 
 WORCESTER'S UNABRIDGED DIGTIONARY. 
 
 new Gfl^t^on. 7be Standard. 2130 pa|{««. 
 
 The Largest and Most Comp/ete D/ct/onar/ in the Engtish Language. 
 
 THE LATEST. 
 
 THE CHEAPEST. 
 
 THE BEST. 
 
 Tbe R««» edition of tbia DlotltonariT 
 inoludes } 
 
 A DICTION A IIY that contains thousanda 
 of words not to be found in any other Un- 
 abridged Dictionary. 
 
 A PRONOUNCING GAZKTTEEE OF 
 TH£ WORLD, baaed upon Lippincott'a Gazet- 
 teer, the Standard on Geographical Names, 
 noting and locating over 20,000 nlaces. 
 
 A PRONOUNCING blCTIONARY OF 
 BIOGR «\.PHY, based upon Lippincott's Bio- 
 graphical Dictionary, by Dr. Thomas, the Stand- 
 ard on Biographical Names, giving not only th« 
 names, but many facts concerning over 12,000 
 personages. 
 
 A DICTIONARY OF SYNONYlttES, con- 
 taining over 5000 words in general use. 
 
 AI.I. BOUND IN ONE BOOK, and Illus- 
 trated with Wood-cuts and Full-page Plates. 
 
 In the face of the most bitter opposition, Worcester's Dictionary has won Its way solely upon ita merit, 
 
 '>til it is now recognized as " by fak tab best aothobitt xa to the present usk of the knglmh 
 
 " It has compelled its rival to make several revisions. In the battle of Dictionaries it has won : 
 
 XHK KIBI<I» OK 8TA1<«DA«.D I^IXEITATIJRE. 
 
 J:!.very edition of Longfellow, Holmes, Bryant, Lowell, Whittler, Hawthorne, Cooper, Irving, and other 
 eminent Americaa authors, follows Worcester. " It presents the usage of all great English writers of the 
 country." XHK FIKI«I> OK CUHRK^JX I^IXKHLAXURlH. 
 
 Many publishing houses, which for a time adopted its rival, have no^V gone over to Worcester. The 
 same is true of the leading magazines and newspapers. The Harper** Slacraxlne, Weekly, Kew 
 Tork Tribnne, Serald, Times, World, PoAt. Snn, Independent^ Nation ; the Boston 
 AdTertiser, Transcript, Herald, Globe ) Philadelphia liediper, and other leading papers 
 all over the country, now use the word-forms presented by Worcester. 
 
 XHK.KIKI^D OK OR.AXOHLY. 
 
 Worcester's 
 the statidard 
 'ergymen and lawyers use Worcester as authority on pronunciation 
 
 XHH KIEI<I> OK HIGHKR KOUCAXIOPT. 
 
 That Worcester is preferred among scholars is evident firpm the following tcstlxnoniale ftom the 
 jading colleges: 
 
 Dcom President €bas, W, Eliot, oj Harvard College, October 3, 1887.—" I have always referred to 
 
 ii is work & the standard," 
 
 From President McCosb, of Rinceton OoUege, January 21, 1887.— "I am amazed at the amount of 
 s-uowledge in this large volume, which every scholar should possess. Worcester's Dictionary, so well known, 
 needs no commendation from me." 
 
 From President Fair child, of Oberlin College, February 24, lSST.—"Ihave never felt fare that 1 had 
 'he best light. on any. doublful point until I ?iad consulted this avihoriiy. Our instnictoi's in Ei^lish, in the oollege, 
 fwe in general impressed the same idea upon tfieir pupils." 
 
 REASONS FOR BUYING' WORCESTER'S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY. 
 
 1 , -Because it is the most complete Quarto Dictionary of the English Language. 
 2, — Because it gives the correct usage in pronunciation. • 
 3. — Because it gives the correct usage in spelling : 
 
 (a). The works of our standard authors follow Worcester. 
 
 (b). The leading magazines and daily papers follpw Worcester. 
 e,. — Because its definitions are complete, concise, and accurate. 
 5. — Because it contains a Biographical Dictionary of over 12,000 names^ 
 6, — Because it contains a Pronouncing Gazetter of the World, noting and locating 
 
 over 20,000 places. 
 7.— Because it contains a table of Synonymes of over 5000 words. 
 8. — Because it is Ihe cheapest Unabridged Dictionary made. 
 
 Dictionary presents the accepted usage of our best public speakers, and has been regarded 
 by our leading orators,— Everett, Sumner, Phillips. Garfield, Hill" 
 
 eld, Hiliiard, and otheiB. Most 
 
 STYI^ES OF BINDING AND PRICKS :— Sheep, marbled edges, JIO.OO. Half Turkey morocco. 
 ma«bled ed^es, $12.00. Half Russia, marbled edges, $12.00. Half Russia, vermilion edges, 812.60. Full 
 Russia, marbled edges, $16.00. Full Russia, vernnlion edges, $16.50. Full Turkey, marbled edges, 116.00. 
 WW TirrVptr eztra gilt edges, $17.00. Any of the above styles with Denison's Patent Index, 75c. additional. 
 
 IF YOU WISH FULL INFORMATION, WRITE TO 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Publishers, Philadelphia.