Part 5 (1/2)
The operator suspected that Minion was sparring for time.
”Where is Len Yang?”
”Do you mean, how does one reach Len Yang?”
”Either.”
”Mr. Moore”--the suspicion fell from the chief's expression, leaving it calm and grave--”you are not an amateur. You have discretion. The man who controls Len Yang is the _Vandalia's_ owner.”
”Why, I understood the Pacific and Western Atlantic Transport Line owned her!”
”This man--he is a Chinese. Oh, I've never seen him, Mr. Moore. One of the richest of China's unknown aristocrats, the central power of the cinnabar ring. You have never gone up the river with us to load at Soo-chow?”
Peter shook his head. ”Cinnabar from his mine is brought down the Yangtze on junks and transferred at Soo-chow?”
Minion seemed not to be listening. His eyes were stagnant with an appalling retrospect. ”A terrible place--horrible! Five years ago I visited Len Yang. Hideous people with staring eyes, dripping the blood-red slime of the mines! And girls! Young girls! Beautiful--for a while.” He sighed. ”They work in that vicious hole!”
”Young girls?” Peter exclaimed.
”Imported.From everywhere. I tried to find why. There is no explanation. They come--they work--they become hideous--they die! It is his habit. No one understands. Poor things!”
Peter was staring at him narrowly. ”Quite sure he imports them to work in the mines?”
Minion nodded vehemently. ”I made sure of that. I went up the river as _his_ guest. Trouble with the seepage pumps. Hundreds of them drowned like rats. Len Yang is near the trade route into India.
Leprosy--filth--vermin! G.o.d! You should have seen the rats!
Monsters! They eat them. Poor devils! And live in holes carved out of the ruby mud.”
He tore the clump of waste from his left hand and ground it under his heel.
”And in the center of this frightfulness--his palace! Snow-white marble, whiter than the Taj by moonlight. But its base is stained red, a creeping blood-red from the cinnabar. d.a.m.n him!”
”No escape?” Peter muttered.
”Escape!” Minion shouted. ”_Dang hsin_! They call him the Gray Dragon. He reaches over every part of Asia. That is no exaggeration.
Take my advice, Mr. Moore, if you have stumbled upon one of his schemes--_ni chu ba_--don't meddle!”
The white face writhed, and for a new reason Peter smothered the impulse to tell the agitated Minion what he had seen. Their conversation drifted to general s.h.i.+pboard matters. When he left he borrowed the chief engineer's master key on the excuse that he had locked himself out of the wireless cabin.
Besides a stiffening head wind the s.h.i.+p was now laboring into piling head seas. Far beyond the refulgence of the scattered lights stars shone palely. Flecks of streaming white were making their appearance at the toppling wave crests.
A hail of stinging spray, flung inboard by a long gust, struck Peter's face sharply as he struggled forward, rattling like small shot against the vizor of his cap and smarting his eyes. The needle-like drops were icy cold. The elastic fabric of the _Vandalia_ s.h.i.+vered, her broad nose sinking into a succession of black mountains. Peak gutters roared as the cascading water was sucked back to the untiring surface.
Gaining the cross entrance, he braced his strength against the forces of wind which imprisoned the door, and crept down the pa.s.sage.
His heart pounded as his groping fingers outlined the cold iron numerals on the panel. Nervously, he inserted the master key into the door lock, and paused to listen.
Rhythmic snoring moaned from an opened transom near by. What other night sounds might have been abroad were engulfed by the imminent throbbing in the engine-room well.