Wu Ling was thoughtful. Apparently he was watching some of the porters at work in a distant corner of the warehouse.
“Which Image you have?” he enquired. “Body or Soul?”
“I haven’t undone the case,” the young man answered. “I don’t care which it is, so long as the jewels are in it.”
“You think you get the jewels?” Wu Ling asked gently.
“If they are there, I shall,” was the dogged reply. “Superstitions are all very well in a way, but a wooden image is a wooden image, after all.”
Wu Ling said nothing. There was a curious significance about his silence which seemed somehow to embarrass his visitor, who rose presently to his feet and looked around. He was inspired with a desire to change the conversation.
“What an amazing place this is!” he exclaimed. “I suppose you have some wonderful Chinese things.”
“We spend life collecting them,” Wu Ling answered. “In return you see what we give,” pointing to the bales of calico and woollen goods and the crates of bicycles. “Perhaps you care buy some curios?”
Gregory Ballaston shook his head.
“No money,” he confessed. “I shall have to get a credit from the purser as it is.”