He cured her. He brought her back to life and hope and strength. By some means he instilled into that frail and timid heart the courage of a lioness. But he did one thing, unknown to her, of which she might not have approved.
There was a tripartite function of Li Sin's: Firstly there was that of the merchant, whose duty it was to discover and barter rare and costly things. Secondly came the physician's, to heal body and mind. Thirdly came that of the Manchu prince, to dispense justice.
He called Hong Kop, his body-servant, to him—that subtle and inscrutable Cantonese. He looked at the card on which he had scribbled an address, an address he had extracted from Mrs. Eaton.
"Hong Kop, you will go at once to Colon, in Panama," he announced.
The Cantonese nodded.
"You will go to this address—a gambling-house—and there you will pick up the trail of John Eaton. You will pick up the trail and follow it until you find him. And when you do find him—"
He paused for an instant. Again the Cantonese bowed.
"You will kill him, Hong Kop."
Six feet tall, spare as a lance, tanned to a deep brown, hatchet-faced and yet handsome in some daredevil, hypnotic way, with eyes that glinted with the vindictive sheen of a rifle-barrel, mouth twisted slightly,—enough to show the cruelty hidden within—Roderick Dreghorn lounged into the store with Irene Johns. There was an amused smile on his powerful face, as though it pleased him whimsically to accompany his fiancée on a shopping expedition, to meet her queer friends.
"Li Sin," she said, "this is the man I am going to marry."