Fortune was favouring him, for the boat swung by a rope from the bows, and the boy was at the other end, facing the stern, over which he hung his line. And consequently he was sitting with his back to him who was planning the onslaught upon his peace.
Stan’s thoughts ran fast as he watched through the gap in the side of the junk and completed his plans, getting them so compact and clear that at last, as the boy fished on, it seemed as if he had nothing to do but make a start and succeed; but when at last he was quite strung up to the sticking-point, obstacle after obstacle began to appear and suggest impossibilities.
He was safely hid in the hold of the junk, but the moment he appeared on deck in his white flannels he would be a mark for every eye, from the crews on the high poops and sterns of the great junks to the people on the house-boats and shore, as well as the busy folk paddling here and there in the little sampans which were constantly on the move up, down, and across the river.
He seemed to hear the shout raised, “Foreign devil!” and to see the fishing boy, warned thereby, jumping up in his boat, pulling up the little wooden anchor, and rowing out of his reach, while scores of eager people joined in to hunt him down.
Stan’s venture seemed to become more and more mad, and he breathed hard, feeling that he must give it up. But there was the river before him, one wide-open way, flowing down and ready to bear him onward night and day toward his friends.
But he wanted the boat, and the only way was to seize it—steal it, he told himself, though he comforted himself with the thought that he was a prisoner trying to escape from his enemies, and that such a reprisal would be just.
“I must—I will do it,” he panted. “Oh, I wish I wasn’t such a coward to hesitate like this!—And there’s another fish. He must have caught enough to leave me a good meal, and I am so, so hungry! Now then! Once to be ready!” he muttered, with his old school-games rising before him.
“Twice to be steady!”
He paused here long enough to see the boy hook and draw in another fish, then bait again, and—
Stan was in agony, for the boy hesitated, paused to pick up a basket and examine its contents, and then he seemed as if he were satisfied and about to haul up his anchor and make for the shore.