“Tap, tap, tap.” It was the tapping of a stick upon the ground, and a man in the dress of a coolie, with a saucer-shaped hat upon his head, turned the corner of the road, coming in the direction of Nikko. He was tapping the ground before him with a staff. He was blind.
“What an awful-looking face!” said Leslie, as the figure approached. “Look, Mac! Did you ever see the like of that?”
One sees many extraordinary and sinister faces in the East, but the face of the on-comer would have been hard to match, even in the stews of Shanghai.
The nose seemed to have been smashed flat by a blow. The face was flat and possessed an awful stolidity, so that at a little distance one could have sworn that it was carved from stone. It impressed one as the countenance of a creature long in communion with evil.
The two Scotchmen held motionless to let this undesirable pass, but he must have possessed some sixth sense, for instead of passing he stopped and begun to whine.
He spoke in a light, flighty, chanting voice, like the voice of a man either insane or delirious.
“What’s he say?” asked Leslie.
“He’s a Chinee, and wants money.”
“Tell the beast to go.”
“Says he knows we’re foreigners.”