"You're tired, dear. Lie down for a few minutes and rest. Do—to please me."
She smiled. "To please you," she repeated, as she leaned back among the cushions which he placed for her, and he closed the door.
"Your niece is going to take a little nap," he explained to the missionary. "Here are some prints of the new battleships. I must ask you to excuse me for a moment. Saki will serve dinner directly."
"Oh, certainly—of course," murmured Newbegin, recovering from semi-consciousness.
The boy sprang up the hatch.
"Here, McGaw!" he ejaculated, rushing to where his midshipman stood watching the swarm of sampans that covered the lake around the Dirigo. "Get up steam! Do you hear? Get up steam as fast as you can! I'm going to hike out of this!"
"All right, sir," replied McGaw in a rather surprised tone. "We can't get off any too soon to please me. Did you ever see such a hole? Hello! What's all that?" He pointed to a highly decorated sampan coming rapidly toward them, before which the others parted of their own accord, making a broad line of water to the Dirigo.
"By Godfrey! It's the mandarin!" cried the boy. "Where's Yen? Here you, Yen! Go make mucha laugh for the erfu!"
The sampan, however, turned out not to contain the erfu. A small, fat Chinaman in the mandarin's livery stood up and bawled to Yen through his hands.
"He say," translated Yen over his shoulder, "Wu no come. Viceroy soldier man make big fight—kill plenty—Wu finish. Allight now everybody. Missionary come back. Wu no make smoke, anyway. He long, long way off. This fella lika Melican naval officer maka lil kumsha[2] for good news. Kumsha for maka mucha laugh."