“Hundreds of suspicions, but no clue. There’s a fellow in a sampan who unnecessarily hoists a white umbrella—I have my best eye on him; and there is said to be a broken-down, past-mending motor-launch in a creek beyond Kemmendine, which I propose, when I have a chance, to overhaul on the quiet. Chinese steamers plying between Japan and Rangoon run stacks of contraband; as soon as one method of landing is discovered they find another; their ingenuity is really interesting to watch. The chief smugglers are never caught—only their satellites, who get about four months’ gaol and never blow the gaff. If they did I wouldn’t give much for their lives.”
“Do you mean to tell me that their employers wouldn’t stick at murder?” cried Shafto aghast.
“They stick at nothing; a murder done second-hand is quite cheap and easy—just a stab with a dah, or long knife, and the body flung into the Irrawaddy; you know the pace of that racing current and how it tells no tales! Well, here we are! You see, for once I can discourse of other things than horses; and, talking of horses, these fellows had better have a bran-mash apiece; but once you get me on cocaine smuggling, I warn you I can jaw till my mouth’s as dry as a lime-kiln.”
CHAPTER XX
THE PONGYE
Late one warm afternoon in January, when Shafto was unusually busy on the Pagoda wharf—consignments of paddy were coming in thick and fast—suddenly, above the din of steam winches and donkey engines, there arose a great shouting, and he beheld an immense cloud of white dust rolling rapidly in his direction.
“Look out, it’s a runaway!” roared a neighbouring worker. “By George, they’ll all be in the river!”
Sure enough, there came a rattle-trap hack gharry at the heels of a pair of galloping ponies. The reins were broken, a yelling soldier sat helpless on the driver’s seat and several of his comrades were inside the rocking vehicle. The animals, maddened with fear, were making straight for the Irrawaddy and, as Shafto rushed forward with outstretched arms to head them off, they swerved violently, came into resounding contact with a huge crane, and upset the gharry with a shattering crash. Several men ran to the struggling ponies; Shafto and another to the overturned gharry and hauled out two privates; number one, helplessly intoxicated; number two, not quite so helpless; the third person to emerge was, to Shafto’s speechless amazement, no less a personage than a shaven priest—a full-grown pongye in his yellow robe! He looked considerably dazed and a good deal cut about with broken glass. Waving away assistance, he tottered over and sat down behind a huge pile of rice stacks. Shafto immediately followed to inquire how he could help him, but before he had uttered a word, the pongye, who was much out of breath, gasped:
“Bedad! that was a near shave!”
Could Shafto believe his ears?
“Whist! now, and don’t let on!” he continued, staunching a cut with a corner of his yellow robe—which he presently exchanged for Shafto’s handkerchief—“the fright knocked it out of me!”