"Master rang," said he.
"Yes," said Sir Thomas. "Yung How, please order a ricksha for Mr Waldron, to take him to the King Edward Hotel."
The man bowed--if an almost imperceptible downward movement of the head may be so described.
"Yes, master," said he.
Stepping upon the verandah, he picked up the empty glass which had contained Mr Waldron's whisky-and-soda. Holding this in his hand, as if it were something sacramental, Yung How stalked gravely from the room.
That night, tossing restlessly upon his bed in the stifling heat of the breathless tropic night, Mr Hennessy K. Waldron, of Paradise City, Nev., dreamed of heathen gods.
[CHAPTER II--OF AH WU'S OPIUM DEN]
The small river-launch steamed away from the narrow creek which divides Canton city from the island of Shamien. The Chinaman at the wheel navigated the little craft into the very midst of the clustered shipping, the mass of junks and river-boats that thronged the entrance to the creek. Her prow cutting the water in a long, arrow-shaped, feathery wave, the launch gained the fairway of the main river, and thence worked up-stream. Seated in a comfortable chair in the bows, a cigar in his mouth and a pair of field-glasses in his hand, was Mr Hennessy K. Waldron, of Paradise City, Nevada, U.S.A.
Sir Thomas Armitage drew a basket-chair into the shade afforded by an awning. There he produced his spectacles and, opening a book, settled himself to read. His nephew, with his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, was occupied with an oil-bottle in the little engine-room.
In the stern of the launch stood Yung How, with folded arms. His dark face was expressionless. For all that, his eyes were fixed upon the northern bank of the river, where the houses of the city were so close-packed that a man standing with outstretched arms in one of the narrow streets could have touched with his finger-tips the walls on either side.