Part 19 (1/2)
”It was yesterday. We shan't be safe until we reach Sui-Fu.”
”You had better drop, then, and run in the water. We've come too far already for them to overtake us.”
This seemed good advice, and Burroughs shut off the tractor and let the vessel drop gently into the water. a.s.sisted by the current, and with the engine at little more than half speed, it skimmed along at the rate of at least twenty-five knots.
”I think I had better go and have a word with Chung Pi,” said Burroughs to Errington. ”He's in a terrible stew by the look of him.”
”He's done for with Su Fing, beyond doubt. Go and smooth him down as well as you can, old man.”
Burroughs left Errington to navigate the boat, and sat down at Chung Pi's feet, calling Chin Tai to interpret.
”Have the evil spirits taken possession of the thing?” asked the unhappy captain. ”But no; I see that you are not perturbed in mind, honourable stranger. What is the meaning of this? Did you not see the chief's launch? Why do you not give him the boat, and the thousand dollars that your august mandarins sent to support him?”
”I owe you a humble apology, n.o.ble captain,” replied Burroughs. ”I will confess all to you, and when you have heard me, I hope you will pardon me. The prisoner there is my friend.”
”But you are a German!” Chung Pi interrupted.
”No. I am an Englishman.” Chung Pi groaned. ”My friend, as you know, had the ill-fortune to interfere with your chief in a little fight down-stream, and your chief very naturally got even with him as soon as he could. Since he could be released in no other way, I came up on this vessel to see what I could do. Imagine, then, my dismay when, on returning with you from our little trip, I saw the launch of a man, a German, who had been a bad friend to my friend there, and had refused to help him, though I begged him to do so, knowing his relations with your chief.”
”Ah! It is ill to catch a fish, and throw away the net,” said Chung Pi sententiously. ”But you say he is a German. Where, then, is his moustache?”
”Here!” said Burroughs solemnly, pointing to his upper lip.
The Chinaman gasped. Bending forward, he examined the moustache closely.
”Such a thing I never heard of,” he cried. ”Are you speaking the truth?
You have deceived me once and twice.”
”I know--I'm sorry I had to do it. The moustache was shaved from the German in an opium house, and a skilful countryman of yours fitted it to my own hairless lip.”
The Chinaman smiled; then he appeared to reflect.
”It was well done,” he said presently. ”Will you tell me where I can find that man?”
”My comprador can tell you,” Burroughs replied. ”Are you thinking of employing him?”
”I should like my moustache to grow up instead of down,” said Chung Pi simply. ”Yours is so much more becoming to a warrior.”
”If it didn't tickle so! But, n.o.ble captain, we must consider your position.”
Chung Pi's look of anxiety returned; in his preoccupation with this wonderful matter of the moustache he had forgotten that he too was a fugitive.
”Su Fing has a very hasty temper, by all accounts,” Burroughs went on.
”The loss of his prisoner, and your treatment of his German friend, will make him very angry with you; he will believe, no doubt, that you are a party to the whole scheme, and I'm very much afraid that it won't be safe for you to show your face at Meichow again.”
”Su Fing would chop off my head,” said the captain ruefully.
”And that would be an irreparable loss,” said Burroughs. (”Not like the loss of a moustache,” added Chin Tai in translating.) ”We are going to Sui-Fu. Will you come with us, or shall we put you down somewhere near Chia-ling Fu, and leave you to make your peace with the chief?”