At the extremity of one of these dark, stifling lanes stood a Chinaman, wearing a faded scarlet coat. This man was an old man, with a grey tuft of hair upon his chin, and a queue that was white and short and thin as a monkey's tail. He stood motionless, shading his eyes with the palm of a hand and looking out across the river. As the launch hove into sight he drew back a little, hiding himself in the doorway of an adjacent house. The launch passed within fifty yards of the shore.
He observed Mr Waldron and he observed Sir Thomas Armitage, who was engrossed in his reading. Moreover, he observed Yung How, who slowly raised his right hand and laid it upon the shaven forepart of his head.
At that the man disappeared. He vanished into the gloom of an even narrower side street. Five minutes afterwards he appeared in the open space on the western side of the Temple of the Gods. Here a coolie was standing, holding the bridle of a thick-necked, short-legged Mongolian pony, of the breed common in the north of China but seldom seen in the south. The man with the faded scarlet coat flung himself into the saddle.
"It is the West River!" he cried, and he was off like the wind, riding due north, leaving the suburbs of the great city to his right.
Such an extraordinary incident stands, perhaps, in need of explanation. The judge's party had spent a week in Canton, during which time Mr Waldron had inspected the Five-Story Pagoda, the Water Clock, the temples of the Five Genii and the Five Hundred Gods; he had witnessed theatrical performances and a public execution; he had smelled the smells of Canton.
As for Yung How, he also had not been idle. He had gone by night to a certain opium den in the vicinity of the Mohammedan mosque--the opium den of Ah Wu. Thither we must accompany him if we are to make head or tail of the narrative that follows.
Yung How had appeared before Sir Thomas Armitage. "Master," said he, "I have a brother in Canton."
The judge smiled. He had lived many years in China. He knew that Chinese servants always have brothers and aunts and grandmothers.
"And you want a day's leave, Yung How?" he asked.
"No, master," said Yung How. "Go away to-night, after dinner-time. Come back to-morrow morning."