victoria city on hongkong island was almost invisible in hot mist and rain as the steamer crawled up the roads and anchored off the sea-wall. the gray harbour water appeared to steam, slopping sluggishly against her iron sides, and the rain steamed as it fell, so that the heavy air was a sort of stew of wet and heat and strange smells of the sea and land. the lascar and coolie deck-hands were hurrying out the side-ladder, the water streaming from their faces and their coarse black hair; but, above the rattle and bustle of disembarkation, elliott was aware of the movement of a mighty life clustered invisibly around him. the hum and roar of an immense city pierced the fog to landward; on the other side he was conscious of the presence of innumerable shipping. the noises came hollowly through the hot air, echoed from the sides of giant vessels; he caught hazy glimpses of towering forests of yards, and of wet, black funnels. the air was acrid with the smoke of coal, and the water splashed incessantly upon the sea-wall from the swift passage of throbbing steam launches. away in the mist there was a rapid fusilade of fire-crackers, and somewhere, apparently from the clouds above the city, a gun was fired, reverberating through the mist. a ship’s bell was struck near by, and, before the strokes had ceased, it was taken up by another vessel, and another, and the sound spread through the haze, near and far, tinkling in every key:
“ting, ting; ting, ting; ting!” it was half-past five o’clock in the afternoon.
the rain slackened, and a fresh breeze split the mist. to landward elliott beheld a wet, white city climbing irregularly up the sides of a long serrated mountain. the waterfront along the sea-wall swarmed with traffic, with rickshaws, sedan-chairs, carts, trucks, gay umbrellas, coolies, lascars, chinese, indians, japanese. the port was crowded with shipping, from war-steamers to high-sterned junks, as motley as the throng ashore, and it was shot through incessantly with darting tugs and launches, so that in its activity it reminded him more of new york bay than of any other roadstead he had ever seen.
during the voyage from bombay he had perforce picked up a smattering of that queer “pidgin-english” so apparently loose and so really organized a language, and when he stepped upon the praya he beckoned authoritatively to a passing palanquin.
“boy! you savvy number one good hotel?”
“yes, master. gleat eastel’ hotel b’long number one good.”
“great eastern hotel, then—chop-chop,” elliott acquiesced, getting into the chair, and the coolies set off as he had directed, chop-chop, that is, with speed. they scurried across the praya, up a narrow cross street, and came out upon queen’s road. they passed the club and the post-office and finally set him down at the hotel, which, in spite of its great size and elaborate cooling devices, he found intolerably hot and damp. it rained all that evening, till his clothing hung limply upon him even in the billiard-room of the hotel, and when he went to his chamber he found the sheets apparently sodden, and damp stood shining on the walls. even in the steamy passage through the malay archipelago elliott had spent no such uncomfortable night as that first one in victoria at the commencement of the rainy season.
a torrential rain was pouring down when he awoke, after having spent most of the night in listening to the scampering of the cockroaches about his room. it was a hot rain, and there was no morning freshness in the air. the room was as damp as if the roof had been leaking, but he began to realize that this was to be expected and endured in victoria for the next three months, and, shuddering damply, he resolved that he would hunt down his man within a week, if “baker” were still upon the island.
by the time he had finished a very english breakfast, for which he had no appetite, the rain had ceased, leaving the air even hotter than before. the sun shone dimly from a watery sky. elliott felt oppressed with an aching languor, but he was deeply anxious to finish his work and get away, so he went out upon the hot streets.
this time he would not repeat the mistakes of bombay, and he wasted no time in adventures about the harbour. he called a sedan-chair and, having ascertained the names of the leading hotels of the city, he proceeded to investigate them one by one.
this search resulted in nothing but disappointment. there was no record of the man he sought at any hotel, neither at the expensive ones nor at the second and third class houses to which he presently descended. the mate might indeed have changed his name again on landing, though elliott could think of no reason why he should do so. at the eastern navigation company’s offices he ascertained that “baker” had indeed landed at victoria from the prince of burmah, but nothing was known of his present whereabouts.
finally elliott called upon the american consul, who could give him no help. he had never heard of the clara mcclay or her mate, but he turned out to be a marylander, and he took elliott to dinner with him, and made him free of the magnificent hongkong club, which is the envy of all the foreign settlements on the eastern seas.
under the sweeping punkahs in the vast, dusky rooms of the club a temperature was maintained more approaching to coolness than elliott had yet found in victoria, and he lounged there for most of the evening, observing that a great part of the male white population of the city seemed to do likewise. it had come on to rain again, and the shuffle of bare feet in the streets mingled with the dismal swish of the downpour. he had been in victoria for twenty-four hours, but he found himself bitterly weary already and oppressed with a certainty of failure.
failure was indeed his lot during the next two weeks, though by an examination of the shipping-lists he assured himself that baker had not sailed from hongkong in the last two months, at least, not by any of the regular passenger steamers. it was out of all probability that he should have gone into the interior of china, and beyond possibility that he should have organized his wrecking expedition at so distant a port. yet it was almost equally beyond the limits of likelihood that he should have come to hongkong at all; and it was so beyond the bounds of sanity that he should voluntarily stay there during the rains that elliott was forced to recognize that reason afforded no clue to the man’s movements.
to search for a stray straw in a haystack is trying to the temper, especially when the search must be conducted under the conditions of a vapour bath. but elliott sweltered and toiled with a determination that certainly deserved more success than he attained. he acquired much knowledge that was new to him in that fortnight. he learned the names and flavours of many strange and cooling drinks; he learned to call a chair or a rickshaw when he had to go twenty yards; to hang his clothes in an airtight safe overnight to save them from the cockroaches; to scrape the nocturnal accumulation of mould from his shoes in the morning, and to look inside them for centipedes before he put them on. he learned to keep matches and writing-paper in glass jars, to forget that there was such a thing as stiff linen, and to call it a dry day if the rain occasionally slackened. but he learned nothing of what he was most anxious to discover. he could find no trace of either baker or burke at the hotels, at the consulates, at the club, or along the waterfront, and no man in victoria admitted to having ever heard of the clara mcclay.
from time to time he went up to the peak, behind the city, to gain refreshment in that social and physical altitude. a house there cost fifty guineas a month, but every one had it who pretended to comfort or distinction. it was damp even on the peak, but it was cool; hongkong bay and victoria lay almost perpendicularly below, veiled by a steamy haze, but on the summit fresh breezes played among the china pines, and elliott always took the tramcar down the zigzag road again with fresh courage for an adventure that was daily growing more intolerably unadventurous.
the same desire for coolness at any cost led him to take the coasting-boat for macao on the second saturday of his stay. he had heard much already of the dead portuguese colony, the monte carlo of the china coast, maintaining its wretched life by the lottery, the fan-tan houses, and the perpetual issue of new series of postage stamps for the beguilement of collectors. but macao is cooler than hongkong, and those who cannot afford to live on the peak find it a convenient place for the weekend, much to the benefit of the gaming-tables.
this being a saturday, the boat was crowded with victoria business men, who looked forward to a relief from the heat and the strain of the week in the groves and the fan-tan saloons of macao. the relief began almost as soon as the roadstead was cleared, and a fresher breeze blew from a clearer sky, a cool east wind that came from green japan. elliott inhaled it with delight; it was almost as good as the peak.
the verdant crescent of macao bay came in sight after a couple of hours’ steaming. at either tip of the curve stood a tiny and dilapidated block-house flying the portuguese banner, and between them, along the water’s edge, ran a magnificent boulevard shaded by stately banyan-trees. the whole town appeared embowered in foliage; the white houses glimmered from among green boughs, and behind the town rose deeply wooded hills. scarcely an idler sauntered on the praya; a couple of junks slept at the decaying wharves, and deep silence brooded over the whole shore.
“beautiful!” ejaculated elliott, unconsciously, overjoyed at the sight of a place that looked as if it knew neither business nor rain nor heat.
“beautiful enough—but dead and accursed,” replied a man who had been reading in a deck-chair beside him.
“it looks dead, i must say,” elliott admitted, glancing again at the deserted wharves.
the other man stood up, slipping a magazine into his pocket. he was gray-haired, tall, and very thin, with a face of reposeful benignity. the magazine, elliott observed, was the religious outlook, of san francisco.
“an american missionary,” he thought; and his heart warmed at the sight of a fellow countryman.
“i suppose it is pretty bad,” he said, aloud. “the more reason for men of your cloth to come over here.”
the old man looked puzzled for a moment, and then gently shook his head with a smile.
“i’m not a missionary, as you seem to think. at least, i ain’t any more of a missionary than i reckon every man ought to be who tries to live as he should. i’m just a tired-out hongkong bookkeeper.”
“you’re an american, anyway.”
“you are too, ain’t you?”
“certainly i am,” elliott proclaimed. “and you—”
the little steamer rammed the wharf with a thump that set everything jingling on board. the gangplank was run out; the old man dived into the cabin in evident search for something or some one, and elliott lost sight of him, and went ashore.
macao slumbered in profound serenity. as soon as the excursionists had scattered, the praya grande was deserted. the great white houses seemed asleep or dead behind their close green shutters and wrought iron lattices that reminded elliott of the mexican southwest. but the air was clear and fresh, and it was possible to walk about without being drenched with perspiration. elliott strolled, lounged on the benches in the deserted park, visited the monument to camoens above the bay, and finally ate a supper at the only decent hotel in the place, and enjoyed it thoroughly because it contained neither english nor chinese dishes.
in the evening there was a little more animation. there were strollers about the streets like himself; the band played in the park, and through the iron-barred windows he caught occasional mysterious glimpses of dark and seductive eyes under shadowy lashes. as he sauntered past the blank front of a great stone house that in the days of macao’s greatness had possibly been the home of a prince, he was stopped by a silk-clad coolie who lounged beside the wide, arched entrance.
“chin-chin master. you wantchee makee one piecey fan-tan pidgin?”
elliott had no idea of playing, but he had no objection to watching a little “fan-tan pidgin,” and he allowed the celestial “capper” to introduce him through the iron gate that barred the archway. the arch was as long as a tunnel, leading to the square patio at the heart of the house, and here the scene was sufficiently curious.
here the fan-tan tables were set, completely hidden from elliott’s view by the packed mass of men that stood above them. over each table burned a ring of gas-jets; far above them the stars shone clear in the blue sky beyond the roofless court. round the patio ran a wide balcony, dimly lighted, where men were drinking at little tables or leaning over to look down at the game, and there was a scurrying to and fro of deft, white-robed chinese waiters. round the games there was absolute silence, except for the click of the counters, the rattle of the coin, and the impassive voice of the dealer as he announced, “number one side!”
elliott pushed into the nearest group till he could see the table. opposite to him sat the dealer, a yellow portuguese half-caste, his hands full of small gilded counters; and beside him the croupier leaned over shallow boxes of gold, silver, and bills. the centre of the table was covered with a large square piece of sheet lead, with each side numbered, and coins scattered about the sides and corners. the dealer filled both his slim, dirty hands with the gilded counters and counted them out in little piles of four each. there were two counters left over.
“number two side!” he announced, wearily.
those who had staked their money upon the second side of the leaden square were at once paid three times their stake by the croupier; those who had placed their bets at the corner of the first and second, or the second and third were paid even money. the dealer again plunged his hands into the great heap of shining counters.
round the table men of all conditions, nationalities, and colours hung upon the dropping of the bits of gilded metal. there were coolies staking their small silver coins, hongkong merchants, white and chinese, putting down sovereigns and bank of england notes, half a dozen english men-of-war’s men gambling away their pay, and a few tourists playing nothing at all. there were japanese there, sikhs from hongkong, and a couple of wild malays. the desertion of the streets was explained. the whole moribund life of the colony throbbed in these fierce ulcers.
elliott had seen the game often enough already to understand it, and he was determined not to play. the money henninger had given him was going fast enough as it was. he watched the game, however, with considerable interest, and began to predict the numbers mentally. there was a run on the even numbers. four came up three times in succession, then two, then four again, then three, one, and again back to the even numbers. elliott watched the handful of gilded discs that the dealer was counting out, and long before the end was reached he felt certain of what the remainder would be, and usually he was right. if he had only played his predictions, he calculated that he would then have won three or four hundred dollars. he might as well have had it as not; he remembered the wonderful winning at roulette in nashville, and the money in his pocket almost stirred of itself. he had a couple of sovereigns in his hand before he knew how they came there, but it was too late to play them on that deal.
he waited, therefore, and elbowed himself through the crowd to be nearer the table. this change in position brought him close behind the shoulder of a tall man with gray hair, who was leaning anxiously across the table as the gilded counters slipped through the dealer’s delicate fingers. elliott glanced abstractedly aside at the man’s face, and the shock of surprise made him forget the game.
it was certainly his clerical-looking friend of the steamer, though his face no longer wore its expression of sweetness and repose. he was desperately intent on the game, that was evident. as the counters were cast out his lips moved counting “one, two, three, four!” he had his hand full of gold coins, and three sovereigns lay before him on number two.
“number four side!” the dealer proclaimed.
the old man groaned audibly. the croupier swept in the losing stakes and paid out the winning ones with incredible celerity. there was a pause, while fresh bets were made. the old man looked from one side of the square to another with agonized perplexity, fingering his coin. finally he put down three sovereigns on the fourth side, and almost immediately changed his mind and shoved them across to the third.
elliott did not play. the surprise of this encounter had brought him to himself, and he watched the man, wondering. it was plain that the old man was no gambler; he did not even make a pretence at assuming the imperturbable air of the sporting man. he was childishly agitated; he looked as if he might cry if his bad luck continued. elliott called him a fool, and yet he was sorry for him.
“joss-pidgin man,” he heard a coolie whisper to another, indicating the inexpert player with contempt.
number four side won, and the old man lost again upon the next deal. his handful of gold was diminishing, but he staked six sovereigns upon the second side of the square. “oh, lord! oh, lord, help me!” elliott caught the murmur from his moving lips. elliott was disgusted, sick and sorry at the pitiful sight, and yet it was none of his business. the man turned once and looked him full in the face with absent eyes that saw nothing, faded blue eyes that were full of weak tears.
“number one side!” called the dealer, and the six sovereigns were raked in by the bank. the old man now had six coins left, and he staked three of them without hesitation on the second side as before. squeezed against his side, elliott could feel his thin old arms trembling with painful excitement.
“number one side!”
a kind of explosive sob burst from the player’s lips. he followed his money with hungry eyes as it was gathered up, and then his glance wandered about the circle of white and brown faces with a pitiful appeal. his eye met elliott’s; it was full of a hurt, bewildered disappointment. the old man put out his hand to stake his last pieces.
elliott grasped his arm, on a sudden impulse.
“don’t play any more,” he said, in a low tone. “you’ve got no luck to-night.”
the player looked blankly at him, and tried to pull away his arm.
“stop it, i say,” reiterated elliott. “you’d better come away with me. you don’t know anything about this game.”
“who are you? i don’t know you. you’re trying to rob me, but i’ll get my money back in spite of you.”
“you old fool, i’m the best friend you’ve got in this house. you come right along with me,” said elliott, energetically, trying to drag the gambler away from the table.
he resisted with a sort of limp determination, but elliott hauled him through the circle of players that immediately closed up behind them. no one troubled to look around; the game went on, and the dealer announced, “number four side!”
“now put your money in your pocket. we’ll go out,” elliott ordered, wondering at himself for taking so much trouble. for aught he knew, the man might have been able to afford a loss of thousands. the unlucky player fumbled tremulously with his sovereigns, and elliott was finally obliged to tuck them away for him.
the guard at the gate let them out, and elliott resolved to take precautions against his protégé’s returning to the game.
“you see this sahib?” he said to the coolie. “him have lost allee cash. you no pay him go inside no more, savvy? no more cash, him makee plenty bobbery. you savvy?”
“savvy plenty, master,” replied the coolie, with a knowing grin.
“you’ll thank me for this to-morrow, if you don’t now,” said elliott. “where do you intend to go?”
the old man made no immediate answer, but he leaned limply on elliott’s arm, apparently in a state of nervous collapse. unexpectedly he turned away, hid his face in his hands against the white wall of the house, and began to sob.
“oh, here! this won’t do. confound it, man, brace up! don’t break down before a chinaman,” cried elliott, irritated and sorry.
“i have fallen again!” moaned the gambler, hysterically. “i am vile—yes, steeped in sin. forty-seven pounds gone in an hour! and my one hope was to live a life that would tell for the cross in this pagan land. i am weak, weak as water, and i have taken my child’s bread and cast it unto the dogs. they robbed me. my god, why hast thou forsaken me? i hoped to win ten times my money—i needed it so!”
elliott seized him by the arm and dragged him down the street in the ivory moonlight. the old man’s face was ivory-white, and great tears trickled from the faded blue eyes.
“don’t touch me,—i am not fit for you to touch me! i never gambled before. if i only had it back again—forty-seven pounds—two months’ savings. i will get it back. let me go. i will win this time!”
“you’ll get a knife in your back if you go there again. i’ve left word to keep you out. for heaven’s sake, keep cool!” implored elliott, in great distress. he had never seen an old man break down before. it wrung his heart, and he made a clumsy attempt at consolation.
“cheer up, now. you’re not broke, are you? i can lend you a pound or so, if you need it. you’ll feel better in the morning.”
they reached a little park at the angle of two streets, and the gamester threw himself upon a bench. he had ceased to weep, but he looked at elliott with a tragic face.
“you know little,” he said, sombrely. “you are young and strong, but satan stands at your back as surely as he does at mine. pray, therefore, lest you also fall into temptation.”
elliott could think of nothing to say in reply to this.
“as for me, it is too late. and yet,” throwing his hands up despairingly, “thou knowest, o lord, if i have not served thee—laboured for thee in pagan lands with all my strength. wasted, wasted! what was i to strive against the adversary? i thought that i had begun a new life where all my errors would be forgotten, and now it is crushed—gone—and my child will starve among strangers.”
“tell me all about it. it’ll make you feel better, and maybe i can help you,” elliott adjured him, afraid that he would grow hysterical again. “first of all, what’s your name? you said you were a bookkeeper, or something, didn’t you?”
the victim of chance seemed to cast about in his memory. “my name is eaton,” he announced at last, and stopped.
“well, and what about your new life and your child? you haven’t gambled them away, have you? is your family in hongkong?”
eaton transferred his gaze blankly to elliott’s face, and allowed it to remain there for some seconds.
“you seem to be a good man,” he said, finally.
“not particularly, but i’d like to help you if i can,” replied the adventurer.
“my little girl is coming to hongkong. i sent for her—from the states. she will arrive to-morrow, and i have no money.”
“you sent for her? you sent for an american child to come to hongkong in the rainy season? you ought to be shot!” elliott ejaculated.
“she was all i had, and i am an old man. i was going to begin a new life, with her help, and now i have lost the money i had saved for her coming.”
“what in the world made you go up against that cursed game, then?” cried elliott, wrathfully.
“i wanted money—more money. i had a chance to make a fortune. i dare say you have never known what it is to feel ready to turn to anything to make a little money—anything, even to evil. and yet this was for a good purpose. but now i have nothing. tell me what to do.”
“i can lend you twenty pounds,” said elliott, after cogitating for a little. “that ought to tide you over your present difficulty, and you’ve still got your job, i suppose. yes, i’ll put twenty pounds in your daughter’s hands when she arrives, on the condition that she doesn’t give you a cent of it.”
“you will lend me twenty pounds—you—a stranger?” cried eaton, with a stare. “you—i can’t thank you, but i will pray—no, i can’t even pray!” he put his head on the back of the bench and sobbed. “you must forgive me,” he said, raising his head again. “i have never found so much kindness in the world. you are right; do not trust me with a cent. i am not fit to be trusted.”
“oh, yes, you are. i shouldn’t have said that,” encouraged elliott, feeling horribly embarrassed. “and now, when is your daughter coming?”
“on the southern mail steamer. it touched at yokohama eight days ago, and it’s due to arrive here to-morrow afternoon.”
“very good. we’ll go back to victoria in the morning, and we’ll both meet the steamer. but what possessed you to send for her at this time of year? hongkong is bad enough for strong men.”
“my girl is all i have in the world, and i haven’t seen her for so long,” replied eaton, visibly brightening. “maybe it was a father’s selfishness, but i reckon she needs my care.”
“your care!” said elliott, brutally. “where are you going to sleep to-night? come with me to my hotel.”
“i had planned such a happy home,” eaton went on, as they walked through the moonlit streets. “i have had a hard life, but i had hoped to settle here in comfort with my little girl. we can do it, can’t we?”
“i suppose so,” replied elliott. “though it seems to me that hongkong is a mighty poor place for a happy home.”
“it isn’t the place; it’s the love and peace,” the gambler prattled on, cheerfully. he appeared quite happy and restored in having thrown his cares upon elliott’s shoulders. “i have fallen into sin more than once already, but the lord knows how sorely i have repented, and his grace is abounding. don’t you think they must have cheated me in that place?”
“oh, no. you were just out of luck. you should never play when you are out of luck,” said elliott, sagely.
“it seems to me that i ought to have won. i suppose you have gambled sometimes. did you ever win?”
“occasionally.”
“well, luck or not, i shall never stake money again. i have been treated with more mercy than i deserve. i just begin to realize the horrible pit that i barely escaped. what would have become of me? i hardly dare to think of it. you have saved me, perhaps soul as well as body.”
“oh, stop it!” elliott exclaimed.
“i don’t think of myself so much as of my little girl. i shall tell her the whole story, and she will know how to thank you better than i can.”
“you’ll do nothing of the sort!” cried elliott, angrily. “she’ll have troubles enough in this pestilential place without that.”
during the night elliott more than once repented of his bargain, which seemed likely to involve his having the eaton family slung round his neck to the end of his stay in the east. the old man was well-intentioned enough; he bristled with high resolutions; but he was clearly as unfit for responsibility as a child. elliott deeply pitied the unfortunate daughter, but he could not feel himself bound to assume the position of guardian to the pair. he determined to meet the steamer as he had promised, hand over the promised twenty pounds, and henceforward avoid the neighbourhood of both father and daughter.
the returning boat left macao at ten o’clock the next morning, and they reëntered the steam and rain of hongkong harbour. at three o’clock the big southern mail steamer loomed slowly in sight through the haze, surrounded by a fleet of small junks and shore boats. eaton and elliott boarded her before any one had landed. her decks were crowded with passengers, hurrying aimlessly about, staring over the rail or standing guard upon piles of luggage.
elliott was making his way through the throng when some one touched his arm.
“mr. elliott! is it possible you are here? what are you doing? i thought you were in india. i was so frightened—oh!”
“margaret—miss laurie! don’t faint!” gasped elliott, shocked into utter bewilderment, and scarcely believing his eyes or ears.
“i’m not going to faint. i never faint,” said margaret, weakly. “but i was so startled and frightened. did you know my father was here?”
“maggie!” cried eaton, pushing past him, and in a moment the old man, whose face beamed like the sun, had his daughter in his arms.
