'While the fellow outside will be getting impatient, he'll make more and more noise, and we shall be having some of the Tartar soldiers. That won't suit my plans. There! he's hammering. I'll do it; I'll chance the whole thing. In for a penny in for a pound, isn't a bad motto on some occasions.'
He made up his mind in an instant, and pulled the door open. Listening for a few seconds, and hearing no sound from the interior of the prison, he hurried along to the left, where he guessed the door must be. And at the far end of the gallery, where the shadows lurked, he came upon it, and stood for a while listening to the rat-a-tat-tat of the impatient official outside.
'Open!' he heard the man call, angrily. 'Open for Tsu-Hi. Do not keep me waiting out here where folks may see me.'
David pulled the bolts back swiftly, and tugging at the door dragged it open, keeping himself well within the passage.
'Dog! Why do you keep me so? Sleeping, eh? Sleeping when you should be on duty? Have a care. Though the governor is away from the city on important business, there are yet powers in the hands of his deputy which may make a servant sorrow. A head has been chopped for an offence even less than this.'
If he had expected an answer Tsu-Hi was disappointed, for David still held himself in the background, kow-towing as he judged the gaoler would do, and saying not a word.
'Mustn't open my mouth or he'll see that I'm not a Chinaman, nor even the Tartar officer. If he don't move in precious quick I'll take him by the neck and drag him into the passage.'
Our hero's teeth were set fast together, while he was fully ready for any emergency. Now that matters had gone so far favourably for him, he was determined that this treacherous deputy-governor should not overthrow all his plans. That it was Tsu-Hi a swift glance had told him without error. His hands itched to get a grip of the ruffian, and silence him, but still he bent low, kow-towing humbly; and perhaps it was his silence and his apparent humility which appeased the governor. He stepped into the passage and waited there, his hands tucked out of sight again, while David pushed the door, and shot the bolts home.
'Now lead me to the room occupied by this Chang, who came so unexpectedly to the city.'
To say that David was in a serious dilemma was hardly to describe the situation correctly. He was desperate, for he judged that Tsu-Hi must have some knowledge of the prison, and was it likely that he would expect to discover Chang, a man considered already to be of some importance, in a cell abutting on this dreary passage? Surely there must be guest chambers, guest apartments for the few who came to such a place as a prison for any other reason than to fill the cells?