“First-chop coffin, plenty much silver”; and again, a little later and very feebly: “Six-piecee—band music—China music—four-piecee gong—four.”
“I promise you, Charlie,” said Wilbur.
“Now,” answered Charlie—“now I die.”
And the low-caste Cantonese coolie, with all the dignity and calmness of a Cicero, composed himself for death.
An hour later Wilbur and Moran knew that he was dead. Yet, though they had never left the hammock, they could not have told at just what moment he died.
Later, on that same afternoon, Wilbur, from the crow's-nest, saw the lighthouse on Point Loma and the huge rambling bulk of the Coronado Hotel spreading out and along the beach.
It was the outpost of civilization. They were getting back to the world again. Within an hour's ride of the hotel were San Diego, railroads, newspapers, and policemen. Just off the hotel, however, Wilbur could discern the gleaming white hull of a United States man-of-war. With the glass he could make her out to be one of the monitors—the “Monterey” in all probability.
After advising with Moran, it was decided to put in to land. The report as to the castaways could be made to the “Monterey,” and Charlie's body forwarded to his Tong in San Francisco.
In two hours' time the schooner was well up, and Wilbur stood by Moran's side at the wheel, watching and studying the familiar aspect of Coronado Beach.
“It's a great winter resort,” he told her. “I was down here with a party two years ago. Nothing has changed. You see that big sort of round wing, Moran, all full of windows? That's the dining-room. And there's the bathhouse and the bowling-alley. See the people on the beach, and the girls in white duck skirts; and look up there by the veranda—let me take the glass—yes, there's a tally-ho coach. Isn't it queer to get back to this sort of thing after Magdalena Bay and the beach-combers?”