“Now you're going to talk,” she cried to Hoang, as the bound Chinaman sat upon the beach, leaning his back against the great skull. “Charlie, ask him if they saved the ambergris when the junk went down—if they've got it now?” Charlie put the question in Chinese, but the beach-comber only twinkled his vicious eyes upon them and held his peace. With the full sweep of her arm, her fist clinched till the knuckles whitened, Moran struck him in the face.
“Now will you talk?” she cried. Hoang wiped the blood from his face upon his shoulder and set his jaws. He did not answer.
“You will talk before I'm done with you, my friend; don't get any wrong notions in your head about that,” Moran continued, her teeth clinched. “Charlie,” she added, “is there a file aboard the schooner?”
“I tink um yass, boss hab got file.”
“In the tool-chest, isn't it?” Charlie nodded, and Moran ordered it to be fetched.
“If we're to fight that crowd,” she said, speaking to herself and in a rapid voice, thick from excitement and passion, “we've got to know where they've hid the loot, and what weapons they've got. If they have a rifle or a shotgun with them, it's going to make a big difference for us. The other fellow escaped and has gone back to warn the rest. It's fight now, and no mistake.”
The Chinaman who had been sent aboard the schooner returned, carrying a long, rather coarse-grained file. Moran took it from him.
“Now,” she said, standing in front of Hoang, “I'll give you one more chance. Answer me. Did you bring off the ambergris, you beast, when your junk sank? Where is it now? How many men have you? What arms have you got? Have your men got a rifle?—Charlie, put that all to him in your lingo, so as to make sure that he understands. Tell him if he don't talk I'm going to make him very sick.”
Charlie put the questions in Chinese, pausing after each one. Hoang held his peace.
“I gave you fair warning,” shouted Moran angrily, pointing at him with the file. “Will you answer?”