CHAPTER IX

When Peter emerged from the wireless room, having completed his

business for the morning, he found Romola Borria with elbows on the

rail gazing thoughtfully at a small Chinese girl who sat cross-legged

on the hatch cover immersed in her sewing.

And Peter marveled at the freshness of Romola Borria's appearance, at

the clarity of her sparkling brown eyes, the sweet pinkness of her

complexion, and the ease and radiance of her tender smile.

"You look troubled," she said, as her smile was replaced by a look of

tender concern. "What is it?" She lowered her voice to a confidential

undertone. "Last night's affair, _desu-ka_?"

Peter shook his head with a grave smile.

"I am discovered, Miss Borria. That is to say, I have just given

myself away to the Manila navy station, not to speak of the commander

of a gunboat, not far from us, off the coast of Mindanao. It

seems"--he made a wry face--"Peter Moore is not popular with the

authorities for deserting a certain ship in Shanghai."

"The _Vandalia_!" said the girl, and suddenly bit her lip, as though

she would have liked to retract the statement.

Peter sank down on his elbows beside her, until his face was very close

to hers, and his expression was shrewd and cunning.

"Miss Borria," he remarked stiffly, "I told you last night you're

clever; and now you've given me just one more reason to stick to my

guns; one more reason to believe that you know more than you're

supposed to know. Now, let's be perfectly frank--for once. Let's not

erase any more rouge stripes, so to speak. Won't you please tell me

just what you do know about my activities in this neighborhood?"

His outflung gesture indicated the whole of Asia.

The girl pursed her lips and a hard twinkle, like that of a frosty

arc-light upon diamonds, came into her eyes. "Yes, Mr. Moore," she

said vigorously, "I will. But you must promise--promise faithfully--to

ask no questions. Will you do that?"

Peter nodded with a willingness that was far from assumed.

Romola Borria placed the tips of her slender, white fingers together

and looked down at them pensively. "Well," she said, looking up and

raising her voice slightly, "you escaped from the liner _Vandalia_ in

the middle of the Whang-poo River, at night, in a deep fog, in a

sampan, with a young woman named Eileen Lorimer in your arms. This

occurred after you had delivered her from the hands of certain men,

whom I prefer to call, perhaps mysteriously, by the plain word _them_.

"You sent this young lady home on the _Manchuria_, or the _Mongolia_, I

forget just which. That night on the bund near the French legation,

you met, quite by accident, another young lady who found your

companionship quite desirable. Her name was Miss Amy Vost, a bright

little thing."

"You don't happen to know," put in Peter ironically, "what Miss Lorimer

had for breakfast this morning, by any chance?"

"At last accounts she was studying for a doctor's degree in the

university at San Friole, Mr. Moore."

"Indeed!" It was on the tip of Peter's tongue to tell this astounding

Romola Borria that she was nothing short of a mind-reader. Instead, he

nodded his head for her to continue.

"As I was saying, you met Miss Vost, quite by accident, and danced with

her at a fancy dress ball at the Astor House. You wore the costume of

a Japanese merchant, I believe, thinking, a little fatuously, if you

will permit me, that those garments were a disguise. A little later in

the bar at the Palace Hotel, after you left Miss Vost, you met a sea

captain, ex-first mate of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha steamer, the _Sunyado

Maru_. He was an old friend.

"With Captain MacLaurin and Miss Vost you made a trip on the

Yangtze-Kiang in a little river steamer, the _Hankow_, which foundered

in the rapids just below Ching-Fu. This occurred after you had stabbed

and killed one of their most trusted spies.

"When the _Hankow_ sank, you followed what now appears to be your

professional habit of a trustworthy gallant, by taking a lady in

distress into your arms, and swam the whirlpools to the little village

across the river from Ching-Fu. Then Miss Vost was met by her father,

an incurable missionary from Wenchow, and by devious routes, well known

to _them_, you joined a caravan, owned by a garrulous old thief who

calls himself a mandarin, the Mandarin Chang, who told you many lies,

to amuse himself--

"Of course they were lies, Mr. Moore. Chang is one of _his_ most

trusted henchmen. He even permitted you to kill one of his coolies.

The coolie would have died anyway; he was beginning to learn too much.

But it tickled Chang, and _him_, to let you have this chance, to see

how far you would go. And Chang had orders to help you reach Len Yang.

It gave you confidence in yourself, did it not?"

"I don't believe a word," declared Peter in a daze. He refused to

believe that Chang, kindly old Chang, was in league with that man, too.

"Then you entered Len Yang, the City of Stolen Lives, and _he_ watched

you, and when you heard a difficult wireless message on the instruments

at the mine, _he_ gave you a present of money--five hundred taels,

wasn't it?--hoping, perhaps, that you would 'give up your foolishness,'

as he expressed it, and settle down to take the place of the

opium-befuddled wireless man you fooled so cleverly. _He_ valued you,

Mr. Moore, you see, and he was not in the least afraid of you!

"A dozen times, yes, a hundred times, he could have killed you. But he

preferred to sit back and stroke those long, yellow, mandarin mustaches

of his, and watch you, as a cat watches a foolish mouse. I can see him

laughing now. Yes! I have seen him, and I have heard him laugh. It

is a hideous, cackling laugh. Quite unearthly! How he did laugh at

you when you rescued Miss Vost, dear little clinging Miss Vost, from

the jaws of his white palace!

"But he let you go; and he and his thousand sharpshooters who lined the

great, green walls, when you and Captain MacLaurin and Miss Vost

galloped bravely out, with one poor little mule! A thousand rifles, I

say, were leveled upon you in that bright moonlight, Mr. Moore. But

_he_ said--_no_!"

Peter looked up at the stolid rigging of the _Persian Gulf_, at the

sunlight dancing brightly on the blue waves, which foamed at their

crests like fresh, boiling milk; at the passengers sleeping or reading

in their deck chairs; and he refused to believe that this was not a

dream. But the level voice of Romola Borria purred on:

"Then you joined a caravan for India, and, for a little while, they

thought your trail was lost. But you reappeared in Mandalay, attired

as a street fakir; and you limped all the way to Rangoon. Why did you

limp, Mr. Moore?"

"A mule stamped on my foot, coming through the Merchants' Pass into

Bengal."

"It healed rapidly, no doubt, for you were very active from that time

on. You took passage to Penang, to Singapore, doubling back to Penang,

and again to Singapore, and caught a blue-funnel steamer for Batavia."

"But, Miss Borria," writhed Peter, "why, with all this knowledge,

hasn't he done away with me? You know. _He_ knows. You've had your

chance. You could have killed me in your stateroom last night.

Please----" And Peter cast the golden robe of the adventurer

temporarily from him, becoming for the moment nothing more than a

terribly earnest, terribly concerned young man.

"I gave you an inkling last night," replied Romola Borria composedly.

"Until you left Batavia _he_ believed that you had given up your

nonsense. The coolie you threw overboard in Batavia was there, not to

stab you, but to warn you away from China. Those warnings, of which

you have had many, are now things of the past. You have thrown down

the glove to him once too often. He is through toying.

"It was great fun for him, and he enjoyed it. He treats his enemies

that way--for a while. You have now entered upon the second stage of

enmity with him. Last night was a sample of what you may expect from

now on. Only the sheerest luck saved you from the coolie's bullet--and

my almost-too-tardy intervention."

Peter gave her a hard, thoughtful and a thoroughly respectful stare.

"I take it," he said, "that you are a special emissary, a sort of

minister plenipotentiary, from the Gray Dragon. As a matter of fact,

you are here simply to persuade me to correct my erring ways; to

persuade me to give you my promise for _him_ that I will put China and

Len Yang forever out of my plans."

"Express it any way you please, Mr. Moore. I have told you about all

that I am able. I know this game, if you will permit me, a little,

just a little better than you do, Mr. Moore. I know when fun stops and

downright danger begins. The moment you put your foot in China, you

are putting your foot in a trap from which you can never, never so long

as you are permitted to live, extricate yourself. And, believe me,

seriously, that will not be for long. A day? Perhaps. An hour? Very

likely not any longer than that.

"Call me a special emissary if you choose. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am

only a friend, who desires above everything else to help you avoid a

most certain and a most unpleasant death. I have given you your

opportunity. From my heart I gave you, and I still do give you, the

chance to leave--with me. Yes; I mean that. Your promise, backed by

your word of honor, is a passport to safety for both of us. Your

refusal, I might as well confess, means to me--death! Won't you stop

and consider? Won't you say--yes?"

Peter's head had snapped back during this epilogue; his white-clad

shoulders were squared, and his blue eyes were lighted by a fire that

might have made a Crusader envious.

"You may report to him," said he, "that I have listened to his

proposal; that I have considered it calmly; and that, as long as the

gauntlet is down--it is--_down_! I want but one thing: a man's chance

at that beast. You can tell him just that from me, Miss Borria. I am

sorry."

She seemed on the point of uttering a final word, a word that might

have been of the greatest importance to Peter the Brazen; but the word

never got beyond her lips.

Into her eyes crept a look of despair, of mute horror. She half raised

her hand; withdrew it. Her shoulders sagged. She staggered to a deck

chair, and sank into it, with her head back, her eyes closed, her long,

dark lashes lying upon cheeks that had become marble.

Standing there with his eyes glued to the blue of the sea, Peter the

Brazen felt the confidence oozing from him as water oozes out of a

leaky pail. He felt himself in the presence of a relentless power

which was slowly settling down upon him, crushing him, and overpowering

him.

It occurred to him as his thoughts raced willy-nilly, to flash a call

of help to the gunboat which prowled south of Luzon, a call which would

have met with a response swift and energetic.

Yet that impulse smacked of the blunderer. It would put an end forever

to his high plan, now boiling more strongly than ever before, in the

back of his racked brain: to meet and some day put down the beast in

Len Yang.

A bright, waving hand distracted his attention from the sea. The maid

from Macassar was endeavoring to attract him. He looked down with a

pale, haggard smile.

"You have not forgotten--Kowloon, _busar satu_?" said her tinkling

little voice.

"Not I, small one!" Peter called back in accents that entirely lacked

their accustomed gaiety.