The Japanese Lantern Read Online Free

breaking off only when she sa w the seriousness of his face. “Did you mean that?” she asked in uncertain tones.
    “Yes”—his smile broke out—“but let’s forget all about her. You, Miss Kennedy, are about to be given your first taste of the Eternal Patience of the Oriental!”
    But they were lucky. The young Filipino who was carrying their bags, combined his duties with a profitable sideline in bribes, discreetly carried out, without greed that would make them too obvious, but nevertheless carefully designed to fill out his wage packet quite considerably.
    “In great hurry, sir?” he asked, his velvet brown eyes gleaming in the sunshine; “very great hurry, sir?”
    “Two pesos’ worth,” Jason told him.
    “ Si, senor!”
    His lithe, brown body wriggled through the crowd of passengers and onlookers, to appear again almost immediately.
    “Your bags ready, senor,” he sang out, his English resonant with a strong American accent. “You pleased, senor?”
    Jason agreed that he was and handed the youth the two pesos he was expecting.
    “Have you your passport and landing card?” he asked Jonquil.
    She searched through her handbag and triumphantly produced them, together with her certificates proving that she had had the various inoculations that were necessary, all neatly together in the cardboard wallet that the Air Company had provided.
    “I’m always terrified I shall lose something,” Jonquil confided wryly. “What will we need?”
    Jason took the wallet from her and took out her passport.
    “Just this for the moment, I think.” He paused.
    “ Would you like me to look after these other things for you while we’re in Manila?’ he asked her diffidently.
    Jonquil hesitated. After all, the papers were very important. Then she smiled and nodded. They would in all probability be much safer with him.
    It took them only a moment or two to be checked out and then they were free to pass out of the airport buildings into the blazing sunlight outside.
    It was as well, Jonquil thought, meeting the full ferocity of the sun’s rays, that she had been brought up in a land almost as hot as this one. She was sufficiently acclimatized not to feel completely wilted in the glare from the buildings.
    Cars were parked everywhere, in higgledy-piggledy chaos, their drivers laughing and shouting at one another. Bicycles shot round corner s without warning, adding to the general cheerful confusion. Horns blared and arguments broke out at the least provocation.
    Jonquil found herself clasping Jason’s arm as they found themselves in the centre of this milling mass of humanity, but she loved every moment of it. The men in their “tagalog” shirts, richly embroidered and never tucked in, and the women dressed in frocks with “butterfly” shoulders that stood up like gigantic puffed sleeves, giving the wearer an oddly winged appearance.
    “Here, quick,” Jason called out; “ there ’ s the jeepney that takes us into Manila proper! ”
    He hurried her across the only open space that could be seen between the vehicles and waved madly at the driver of the most comic fo rm of transport that Jonquil had ever seen. Painted in ferocious colours, the bus held no more than ten passengers, who clambered into the back and sat in two rows facing each other.
    “Mabuhay!” the driver shouted.
    “Mabuhay!” they panted back, squeezing themselves into the already full seats.
    “Oh, this is fun!” Jonquil laughed. “But what on earth is it?”
    Jason put his arm round her to prevent her from falling out as they swirled round a particularly perilous corner, and laughed with her.
    “A converted jeep. Left here by the Americans in t h e war. There are hundreds of them on the streets now.”
    And sure enough, the further into Manila they went, the more jeepneys there were to be seen, sporting such names as “Junior” and “Ave Maria ! ”, and tearing round the streets at breakneck speed, picking up and putting down