IN THE CHINESE DEN
It was several minutes before Ruth could accustom her sight to the uncertain, flickering flame of the torches with which the cavern was illuminated. There was, too, a small fire on a stone hearth and above it a stone and cement chimney that portrayed ingenuity in its building.
The cavern was a natural one, but man had made of it a not impossible habitation. She felt rugs under her feet as she was drawn along by the King of the Pipes, and when her eyes became accustomed to the half-gloom of the place she saw that there were several low tables and a couch or two, the latter likewise covered with rugs.
Not only had some ingenuity been expended in fitting up the cave, but the furnishings must have occasioned the expenditure of considerable money. It was not at all the sort of place that she would have expected the queer old man to occupy on the lonely island.
She was so much interested in Chessleigh’s state, however, that she gave small attention to these other things. When she could break away from the King of the Pipes she flung herself down upon her knees beside the recumbent young man and raised his head in her arms.
Chess had received a hard blow from the Chinaman’s club. And he had not uttered a word. The latter fact caused Ruth more alarm than anything else. She feared that he was very badly injured, although he was not insensible.
But there was no blood on his head and face. She passed her hand swiftly over his crown and found an unmistakable lump there, a lump raised by the blow. But, looking more closely into his half open eyes she saw more intelligence in their expression than she expected.
Indeed, as she peered closely at him she distinctly saw him wink his left eye, and this act, with the bright look in his eyes, warned her that Copley was playing possum.
Having been felled by the blow, and feeling himself out-matched by the Chinamen who had come jabbering to the scene, Chess had displayed much more helplessness than he need have shown. But Ruth decided that he was very wise to do this, and she was much relieved to discover this to be the fact. She did nothing to attract the attention of their captors to his real condition. She moaned over him, and made little pitying sounds as though she thought he had been very seriously hurt by the blow he had received.
The King of the Pipes put his clawlike hand upon her shoulder again.
“Let him alone. He will have to have his head off, of course. No hope for it. But I will try to postpone your decapitation until the thirty-first day of June, which comes when there are two Sundays in the same week. Eh? Isn’t that shrewd? As King of the Pipes I have to show great astuteness. Oh, great astuteness!”
“I am sure you will help us, sire,” murmured Ruth, standing up once more and looking appealingly at the queer old man.
“Well, I will do what I can. But, remember, we kings can’t do what we once could. Seems to me I told you that before. The war did the business for us. And I would not dare suggest taking a consort. The Pipes would never stand for it.”
“Whom do you call ‘the Pipes’?” Ruth asked wonderingly.
“Look about you. See them? Already they are beginning to smoke up again. And it is a dirty smell. I have to go out and roam about the island to get away from it. Dreadful! To give up my throne room to nasty little brass pipes. Ugh!”
While he was speaking the girl stared about her, now better able to see the place and the people in it. There were at least half a dozen men. And all were Chinamen, as far as she could see, although not all were dressed in blouse and loose trousers and wadded slippers—the usual costume of the un-westernized Chinaman.
Two of the men were lying down, and there were tiny lamps sputtering on the low stools, or tables, set close to their heads. They held long-stemmed pipes with small brass bowls, and had begun to smoke something that had a very pungent and disagreeable odor.
Ruth’s mind had begun to clear. She remembered the heavy boxes she and Chess had seen brought ashore, and the Chinaman in the speed launch, and then the yellow-faced woman being taken on this very day toward the American shore. The whole puzzle began to fit together like a piece of patchwork.
Chinamen; a high-powered boat going back and forth across the St. Lawrence; a hidden cave on this supposedly uninhabited island; the heavy boxes; the smoking of this vile paste which she now saw a third Chinaman dip out of a tiny bowl, on a stick, and drop into his pipe in the form of a “pill.”
Opium!
If these men—and the white men of the speed launch—did any smuggling it was not diamonds they smuggled. It was opium. And they were probably running Chinese across the border as well. Ruth knew that she was in a very serious predicament when she had swiftly thought this out, if she had not realized it before.
What would these evil-looking yellow men do to her—and to poor Chess? The latter, she was relieved to feel, was biding his time. But what chance was likely to arise which would lead to their escape from this cavern?
She looked about the place. Two of the yellow men were between her and the passage through which she and her companion had been dragged. If she wanted to, she could not make a dash for liberty.
She turned again to the bedraggled and ragged-haired old man, curiosity about whom had led to this predicament. The King of the Pipes was watching her with eyes that glittered like a bird’s.
“Hush!” he whispered, moving nearer again. “You cannot escape. The Pipes are very strong and very agile. They would not let you. To tell the truth, they fear so much for my safety that I haven’t the freedom myself that I would sometimes like.”
“Can’t you leave this place?” Ruth asked softly.
“Hush!” he warned her in his usual stealthy way. “Don’t speak of it. Of course a king can do no wrong, and naturally a king can do as he pleases. Otherwise, what is kingship? But it is always well to bow to the peculiarities and the prejudices of one’s subjects. They do not like me to leave the throne-room at certain times. So I do not attempt to do so. When you met me before, my dear, there was nobody on the island but myself. But to-night you see how many are here, and more yet to come.”
“More Chinamen?” she whispered.
“No. Perhaps no more of the Pipes,” and she thought he showed involuntary disgust of the opium-smokers. “But other subjects of mine who must be catered to. Oh, dear, yes! Being a king is not all it is cracked up to be, I assure you.”
For some reason Ruth felt more alarm because of this last statement of the poor old man than of anything that had gone before. She realized that he, of course, really had no influence with the opium smugglers. But she began to understand that there were other men coming here who might be more savage than the Chinamen.
She remembered that there had been several white men in the launch when she had observed it, and that on one occasion Horatio Bilby had been one of them. Now, Ruth felt not only a great distaste for Bilby, but she feared him exceedingly.
It might be that the red-faced fat man who had so fretted Mr. Hammond and her about Wonota, had only crossed the river in the launch as a passenger. He might have no close connection with the opium smugglers.
But knowing Bilby as she did, Ruth could imagine that he might be mixed up in almost any illegal business that promised large returns in money. If he would attempt to steal the Indian girl, why would he not join hands with opium smugglers and Chinese runners, if he saw a possibility of gain in those industries?
She wished she might talk to Chess and learn just what was working in his mind at that moment. She was quite sure that he was by no means as stunned as he appeared to be.
She approved of his feigning, for as long as these men did not seek to injure her, why should he incur their further notice? He lay on the rug, quite as though he was helpless; but she knew he was alert and was ready, if occasion arose, to show much more agility than the Chinamen or the old King of the Pipes dreamed.