Stan paid no heed for a few moments, but stood waiting for the door to be opened, ready to attack his jailer, whoever he might be, with such Chinese as he knew; but all remained silent, and a feeling of angry indignation swept over the lad, enraged now as the knowledge of his position flashed through him.
“Insolent brutes!” he said half-aloud. “I’m a foreign devil, am I? And I’m to be shut up in the next cage to a great monkey, am I? What do you mean? To make a show of me? Oh, it’s unbearable!”
Tchack!
“You think so too, do you?” cried Stan aloud.
Tchacker!
“You think it’s worse? Well done. You’re a wiser monkey than I thought, then. There, old chap—fellow-prisoner—you shan’t find me a bad friend. Here, peg away!” And half-laughing the while—a laugh full of mocking indignation—Stan thrust the pot down close to the bars. In an instant one long arm was holding it tight against them like a band of bone and muscle, and the other was working to and from it like an animated spoon.
“Poor brute!” said Stan softly, and he raised one hand with extended index-finger to touch the hook-like arm.
Ur-r-r-r-r! came in a savage, malicious snarl, and the free hand came down spang upon his wrist, seizing it with startling violence, and snatching it towards the bars, against which it struck heavily.
There was a momentary struggle, during which in imagination the lad saw his fingers being crushed between two trap-like jaws, and then he was free.
“Why, you savage beast!” he cried fiercely.