CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES”
I
Utterbourne sat with impassive face in the house of Tsuda. Finally he said: “We will go to see King.”
Nipek-kem went proudly on ahead with a lantern. He did not know exactly what it was all about—he was just faithfully fulfilling the demands of his destiny.
“I want you to see for yourself, Captain—gn—what I’ve been up against here,” wheezed Tsuda, adding in high-pitched oriental petulance: “For months every damn scrap of business fall on me. He smoke ten—twenty—mebby fifty pipe a day—yes, sir—and then sleep it off—and eat it, too, just like a Malay. You see for yourself when you go in where he is—gn—what a damn job I have of it!”
Utterbourne hummed and made no reply.
When they neared the house, Tsuda volunteered, a sad look in his bright, equivocal eyes: “Last time I pay a friendly visit, Captain, the White Kami throw a chair at me.” Tsuda sighed and shook his long head. “The will of the gods—gn—something we can’t understand....”
“The will of the gods,” mused Utterbourne, a little mystically.
“After that,” Tsuda added, “I keep my distance, you damn bet! A man don’t care to risk his life—no, sir!” And he cringed a little, the posture seeming subtly to add to the impressiveness of his own earlier words—“what I’ve been up against here.”