A star or two already shone faint in the lower s.p.a.ces. A second war-junk loomed above them, with a ruddy fire in the stern lighting a glimpse of squat forms and yellow goblin faces.

"It is very curious," said Rudolph, trying polite conversation, "how they paint so the eyes on their jonks."

"No eyes, no can see; no can see, no can walkee," chanted Heywood in careless formula. "I say," he complained suddenly, "you're not going to 'study the people,' and all that rot? We're already fed up with missionaries. Their cant, I mean; no allusion to cannibalism."

He lighted a cigarette. After the blinding flare of the match, night seemed to have fallen instantaneously. As their boat crept on to the slow creaking sweep, both maintained silence, Rudolph rebuked and lonely, Heywood supine beneath a comfortable winking spark.

"What I mean is," drawled the hunter, "we need all the good fellows we can get. Bring any new songs out? Oh, I forgot, you're a German, too.--A sweet little colony! Gilly's the only gentleman in the whole half-dozen of us, and Heaven knows he's not up to much.--Ah, we're in. On our right, fellow sufferers, we see the blooming Village of Stinks."

He had risen in the gloom. Beyond his shadow a few feeble lights burned low and scattered along the bank. Strange cries arose, the b.u.mping of sampans, the mournful caterwauling of a stringed instrument.

"The native town's a bit above," he continued. "We herd together here on the edge. No concession, no bund, nothing."

Their sampan grounded softly in malodorous ooze. Each mounting the bare shoulders of a coolie, the two Europeans rode precariously to sh.o.r.e.

"My boys will fetch your boxes," called Heywood. "Come on."

The path, sometimes marshy, sometimes hard-packed clay or stone flags deeply littered, led them a winding course in the night. Now and then shapes met them and pattered past in single file, furtive and sinister.

At last, where a wall loomed white, Heywood stopped, and, kicking at a wooden gate, gave a sing-song cry. With rattling weights, the door swung open, and closed behind them heavily. A kind of empty garden, a bare little inclosure, shone dimly in the light that streamed from a low, thick-set veranda at the farther end. Dogs flew at them, barking outrageously.

"Down, Chang! Down, Chutney!" cried their master. "Be quiet, Flounce, you fool!"

On the stone floor of the house, they leaped upon him, two red chows and a fox-terrier b.i.t.c.h, knocking each other over in their joy.

"Olo she-dog he catchee plenty lats," piped a little Chinaman, who shuffled out from a side-room where lamplight showed an office desk.

"Too-day catchee. Plenty lats. No can."

"My compradore, Ah Pat," said Heywood to Rudolph. "Ah Pat, my friend he b'long number one Flickleman, boss man."

The withered little creature bobbed in his blue robe, grinning at the introduction.

"You welly high-tone man," he murmured amiably. "Catchee goo' plice."

"All the same, I don't half like it," was Heywood's comment later. He had led his guest upstairs into a bare white-washed room, furnished in wicker. Open windows admitted the damp sea breeze and a smell, like foul gun-barrels, from the river marshes. "Where should all the rats be coming from?" He frowned, meditating on what Rudolph thought a trifle.

Above the sallow brown face, his chestnut hair shone oddly, close-cropped and vigorous. "Maskee, can't be helped.--O Boy, one sherry-bitters, one bamboo!"

"To our better acquaintance," said Rudolph, as they raised their gla.s.ses.

"What? Oh, yes, thanks," the other laughed. "Any one would know you for a griffin here, Mr. Hackh. You've not forgotten your manners yet."

When they had sat down to dinner in another white-washed room, and had undertaken the promised rice and chicken, he laughed again, somewhat bitterly.

"Better acquaintance--no fear! You'll be so well acquainted with us all that you'll wish you never clapped eyes on us." He drained his whiskey and soda, signaled for more, and added: "Were you ever cooped up, yachting, with a chap you detested? That's the feeling you come to have.--Here, stand by. You're drinking nothing."

Rudolph protested. Politeness had so far conquered habit, that he felt uncommonly flushed, genial, and giddy.

"That," urged Heywood, tapping the bottle, "that's our only amus.e.m.e.nt.

You'll see. One good thing we can get is the liquor. 'Nisi d.a.m.nose bibimus,'--forget how it runs: 'Drink hearty, or you'll die without getting your revenge,'"

"You are then a university's-man?" cried Rudolph, with enthusiasm.

The other nodded gloomily. On the instant his face had fallen as impa.s.sive as that of the Chinese boy who stood behind his chair, straight, rigid, like a waxen image of Gravity in a blue gown.--"Yes, of sorts. Young fool. Sc.r.a.pes. Debt. Out to Orient. Same old story. More debt. Trust the firm to encourage that! Debt and debt and debt. Tied up safe. Transfer. Finish! Never go Home."--He rose with a laugh and an impatient gesture.--"Come on. Might as well take in the club as to sit here talking rot."

Outside the gate of the compound, coolies crouching round a lantern sprang upright and whipped a pair of sedan-chairs into position.

Heywood, his feet elevated comfortably over the poles, swung in the lead; Rudolph followed, bobbing in the springy rhythm of the long bamboos. The lanterns danced before them down an open road, past a few blank walls and dark buildings, and soon halted before a whitened front, where light gleamed from the upper story.

"Mind the stairs," called Heywood. "Narrow and beastly dark."

As they stumbled up the steep flight, Rudolph heard the click of billiard b.a.l.l.s. A pair of hanging lamps lighted the room into which he rose,--a low, gloomy loft, devoid of comfort. At the nearer table, a weazened little man bent eagerly over a pictorial paper; at the farther, chalking their cues, stood two players, one a st.u.r.dy Englishman with a gray moustache, the other a lithe, graceful person, whose blue coat, smart as an officer's, and swarthy but handsome face made him at a glance the most striking figure in the room. A little Chinese imp in white, who acted as marker, turned on the new-comers a face of preternatural cunning.

"Mr. Wutzler," said Heywood. The weazened reader rose in a nervous flutter, underwent his introduction to Rudolph with as much bashful agony as a school-girl, mumbled a few words in German, and instantly took refuge in his tattered _Graphic_. The players, however, advanced in a more friendly fashion. The Englishman, whose name Rudolph did not catch, shook his hand heartily.

"Mr. Hackh is a welcome addition." He spoke with deliberate courtesy.

Something in his voice, the tired look in his frank blue eyes and serious face, at once engaged respect. "For our sakes," he continued, "we're glad to see you here. I am sure Doctor Chantel will agree with me."

"Ah, indeed," said the man in military blue, with a courtier's bow.

Both air and accent were French. "Most welcome."

"Let's all have a drink," cried Heywood. Despite his many gla.s.ses at dinner, he spoke with the alacrity of a new idea. "O Boy, whiskey _Ho-lan suey, fai di_!"

Away bounded the boy marker like a tennis-ball.

"h.e.l.lo, Wutzler's off already!"--The little old reader had quietly disappeared, leaving them a vacant table.--"Isn't he weird?" laughed Heywood, as they sat down. "Comes and goes like a ghost."

"It is his Chinese wife," declared Chantel, preening his moustache. "He is always ashame to meet the new persons."

"Poor old chap," said Heywood. "I know--feels himself an outcast and all that. Humph! With us! Quite unnecessary."--The Chinese page, quick, solemn, and noiseless, glided round the table with his tray.--"Ah, you young devil! You're another weird one, you atom. See those bead eyes watching us, eh? A Gilpin Homer, you are, and some fine day we'll see you go off in a flash of fire. If you don't poison us all first.--Well, here's fortune!"

"Your health, Mr. Hackh," amended the other Englishman.

As they set down their gla.s.ses, a strange cry sounded from below,--a stifled call, inarticulate, but in such a key of distress that all four faced about, and listened intently.

"Kom down," called a hesitating voice, "kom down and look-see."

They sprang to the stairs, and clattered downward. Dim radiance flooded the landing, from the street door. Outside, a smoky lantern on the ground revealed the lower levels.

In the wide sector of light stood Wutzler, shrinking and apologetic, like a man caught in a fault, his wrinkled face eloquent of fear, his gesture eloquent of excuse. Round him, as round a conjurer, scores of little shadowy things moved in a huddling dance, fitfully hopping like sparrows over spilt grain. Where the light fell brightest these became plainer, their eyes shone in jeweled points of color.

"By Jove, Gilly, they are rats!" said Heywood, in a voice curiously forced and matter-of-fact. "Flounce killed several this afternoon, so my--"

No one heeded him; all stared. The rats, like beings of incantation, stole about with an absence of fear, a disregard of man's presence, that was odious and alarming.

"Earthquake?" The elder Englishman spoke as though afraid of disturbing some one.

The French doctor shook his head.

"No," he answered in the same tone. "Look."

The rats, in all their weaving confusion, displayed one common impulse.