Part 12 (2/2)
Peter, reaching the deck, scanned the paG.o.da-dotted sh.o.r.e-front.
”She'll be here,” he said.
Pu-Chang, the _Hankow's_ pilot, a slender, grayed Chinese, grown old before his time, in the river service, sidled between them, smiling mistily, and asked his captain if the new tow-line had been delivered.
While MacLaurin went to make inquiries, Peter watched a sampan, bow on, floating down-stream, with the intention, evidently, of making connections with the _Hankow's_ ladder. On her abrupt foredeck was a slim figure of blue and white.
Startled a little by recollection, Peter leaned far out. For a moment he had imagined the white face to be that of Eileen Lorimer. The demure att.i.tude of Miss Vost's hands, caught by the finger-tips before her, gave further grounds to Peter Moore for the comparison. Her youth and innocence had as much to do with it as anything, for there was undeniably an air of youth and extreme innocence about Miss Vost.
Something in the shape of a triumphant bellow was roared from the engine-room companionway. Whereupon the companionway disgorged the monumental figure of Bobbie MacLaurin, grinning like a schoolboy at his first party. He seized Miss Vost by both hands, swinging her neatly to the deck.
She panted and fell back against the rail, holding her hand to her heart, and welcoming Bobbie MacLaurin by a glance that was not entirely cordial.
”The sampan boy hasn't been paid,” she remarked, opening her purse.
”It's twenty cents.”
While MacLaurin pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and spun it to the anxious coolie, Miss Vost turned with the warmest of smiles to Peter. Rarely had any girl seemed more delighted to see him, for which, under the circ.u.mstances, he found it somewhat difficult to be grateful.
He experienced again that dull feeling of guilt. He felt that she ought to show more cordiality to Bobbie MacLaurin. Here was Bobbie, trailing after her like a faithful dog, on the most hazardous trip that any man could devise, and he had not been rewarded, so far, with even the stingiest of smiles.
Women were like that. They took the fruits of your work, or they took your life, or let you toss it to the crows, without a sign of grat.i.tude. At least, _some_ women were like that. He had hoped Miss Vost was not that kind. He had hoped----
Miss Vost laid her small, warm hand in his, and she seemed perfectly willing to let it linger. Her lips were parted in a smile that was all but a caress. She seemed to have forgotten that the baffled young man who stared so fixedly at the back of her pretty, white neck existed.
It was quite embarra.s.sing for Peter. The feeling of the little hand, that lay so intimately within his, sent a warm glow stealing into his guilty heart.
Then, aware of the pain in the face of Bobbie MacLaurin, a face that had abruptly gone white, and realizing his duty to this true friend of his, he pushed Miss Vost's hands away from him.
That gesture served to bring them all back to earth.
”Aren't you glad--aren't you a little bit glad--to see me--me?” said the hurt voice of Bobbie MacLaurin.
Miss Vost pivoted gracefully, giving Peter Moore a view of her splendid, straight back for a change. ”Of course I am, Bobbie!” she exclaimed. ”I'm always glad to see you. Why--oh, look! Did you ever see such a Chinaman?”
They all joined in her look. A salmon-colored sampan was riding swiftly to the _Hankow's_ riveted steel side. With long legs spread wide apart atop the low cabin stood a very tall, very grave Chinese.
His long, blanched face was more than grave, more than austere.
Peter Moore stared and ransacked his memory. He had seen that face, that grimace, before. His mind went back to the shop front, on Nanking Road, last evening, when he was skulking toward the bund from the friendly establishment of his friend, the silk merchant, Ching Gow Ong.
This man was neither Cantonese nor Pekingese. His long, rather supercilious face, his aquiline nose, the flare of his nostrils, the back-tilted head, the high, narrow brow, and the shock of blue-black hair identified the Chinese stranger, even if his abnormal, rangy height were not taken into consideration, as a hill man, perhaps Tibetan, perhaps Mongolian. Certainly he was no river-man.
It seemed improbable that the window-breaker could have been released by the heartless Shanghai police so quickly; yet out of his own adventurous past Peter could recall more than one occasion when ”squeeze” had saved him embarra.s.sment.
There was no constraint in the pose of the man on the sampan's flat roof. With indifference his narrow gaze flitted from the face of Bobbie MacLaurin to that of Miss Vost, and wandered on to the stern, sharp-eyed visage of Peter Moore.
Here the casual gaze rested. If he recognized Peter Moore, he gave no indication of it. He studied Peter's countenance with the look of one whose interest may be distracted on the slightest provocation.
An intelligent and wary student of human nature, Peter dropped his eyes to the man's long, claw-like fingers. These were twitching ever so slightly, plucking slowly--it may have been meditatively--at the hem of his black silk coat. At the intentness of Peter's stare, this twitching abruptly ceased.
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