The rickshaw boy was still making guttural sounds, softly plucking at his sleeve. The shafts of the rickshaw were close to his feet. But Peter was still undecided.
"Allee right," said Peter, briskly. "French concession."
That was the direction in which the other rickshaw was headed.
He climbed aboard, and they veered out into the north-bound traffic. The girl in the rickshaw was about one block in the lead, and had no intention evidently of accelerating her coolie's pace or of turning back. She had left all decision to him, and his decision was to ask her a few questions.
His coolie trotted heavily, looking neither to the right nor left, with his pigtail snapping from side to side, as his head bent low.
"Follow lan-sî veil—savvy?"
"My savvy," returned the coolie, heading toward the narrow alley of filth and sputtering oil dongs, breathing the odor of refuse, of cooking food.
Peter's heart was beginning to respond to the excitement. Did she have some message to convey to him that she could not trust to the openness of the bund at the jetty?
Suddenly the rickshaw ahead swerved sharply to the right into an alley that was perfectly dark. Its single illumination was a pale-blue light which burned before a low building set apart from the others at the far end.
Here the first rickshaw stopped. A ghostly figure seemed to float to the ground. There was a clink of coins. A door opened, letting out a wide shaft of orange light which spattered across the paving, flattening itself against the grim wall of the building across the way.