I called my men aside and spoke sharply.
“You haven't obeyed orders,” I said. “You, Porter, and you, Barkhouse, were to keep close by me to-night. You didn't do it, and it's only by good luck that the young lady and I were not killed. You, Wainwright, were to follow Tom Terrill. I saw Terrill just now in a gang of Chinese, and you turn up on the other side of a barred door.”
Porter and Barkhouse looked sheepish enough, but Wainwright protested:
“I was following Terrill when he gets into a gang of highbinders, and goes into one of these rooms over here a ways. I waits a while for him, and then starts to look around a bit, and first I knows, I runs up against Porter here hunting for an ax, and crazy as a loon, saying as how you was murdered, and they had got to save you.”
“Well, just keep close to me for the rest of the night, and we'll say no more about it. There's no great damage done—nothing but a sore knuckle.” I was feeling now the return effects of my blow on the coolie's chin. I felt too much in fault myself to call my attendants very sharply to task. It was through me that Luella had come into danger, and I had to confess that I had failed in prudence and had come near to paying dear for it.
“I don't understand this, Mr. Wilton,” said Corson in confidential perplexity. “I don't see why the haythen were after yez.”
“I saw—I saw Tom Terrill,” said I, stumbling over the name of Doddridge Knapp. I determined to keep the incident of his appearance to myself.
“I don't see how he worked it,” said Corson with a shake of the head. “They don't like to stand against a white man. It's a quare tale he must have told 'em, and a big sack he must have promised 'em to bring 'em down on ye. Was it for killin' ye they was tryin', or was they for catchin' yez alive?”
“They were trying to take us alive at first, I think, but the bullets whistled rather close for comfort.”
“I was a little shaky myself, when they plunked against the door,” said Corson with a smile.