"He shall not escape me," said he, talking aloud to himself. "The old fool would be wiser to haul down the sail of the wupan and throw himself upon my mercy."
Frank, summoning to his aid all his moral courage, decided to question the man outright, taking the bull by the horns.
"Why do you want this man Men-Ching?" he asked.
Ling looked up, lifting his black eyebrows, and then chuckled.
"Men-Ching carries upon his person certain letters," said he. "I would have you to know that those letters are worth thousands of dollars."
Frank Armitage was so much astonished that it was some moments before he could recover his presence of mind. How was this man, of all people, in possession of such information? Ling was certainly not a member of Cheong-Chau's brigand band. It was only a week before that Men-Ching had been entrusted with the letters--indeed, he had not been given possession of them until immediately after they were written. The whole thing was a mystery that Frank was in no position to solve.
Sitting amidships in the boat, the man continued to chuckle.
"I will find him in Canton," said he. "He is certain to go to the house of Ah Wu. There I will find him. I will take possession of those letters. A score of men could not prevent me. If Men-Ching hands them over quietly all will be well. If he resists, I cannot say what will happen." And Ling shrugged his shoulders.
Frank was dismayed. It took him some time to realise the extreme gravity of the situation. There was something in the aspect of the boisterous Honanese giant, seated immediately before him, that made the boy feel quite sure that Ling seldom failed in any enterprise he undertook. The man was at once clever, strong and unscrupulous. He meant to obtain those letters, and Frank felt quite sure that he would not fail to do so.
That brought the boy face to face with the fact that the lives of his uncle and Mr Waldron were in the greatest danger. Ling no doubt intended to appropriate the ransom, thus foiling Cheong-Chau. In these circumstances, there could be but little doubt that the brigand chief, robbed of what he already regarded as his own property, would put both his captives to death out of sheer fiendish spite.