2
Dusk had fallen when he awakened. He dressed quickly and went below. Tambusami was nowhere in sight; however, he suspected his shadow was not far away. Doubtless the native knew of his appointment in the Chinese quarter, but he determined if possible not to have him at his heels. To this end he took an automobile part of the way, by a roundabout route; then, certain he had eluded his tracker, set out on foot to finish the journey.
An intense vitality lived in every line of his body as he swung along crowded streets, a tall, trim figure in white linens, smoking a cheroot with the air of a globe-trotter trickling through the evening swarm for no other purpose than to absorb atmosphere, instead of a man approaching an uncertain venture.
Native Calcutta was airing itself after a hot day, and a film of color and life unreeled in the early night. He passed two sailors from a British man-o'-war, younger by ten years than himself, clean-clipped chaps. The sight of them brought back the old dream—freedom and the quest for fabulous isles. He rather envied that pair, irresponsibly young. Always there, this dream, lurking in the subconscious, eager for some incident to draw it into the conscious.
From the thronged bazaars he turned into a quarter that was no less crowded, but with people of a different sort. It was as though he had descended into another world, a planet of dirt and filth and sin—sin in its nakedness, as only Asiatic cities know how to strip it of its glamour. A foul artery fed with the virus of the East—beings whose faces were mottles of yellow and brown and chocolate black upon the mephitic gloom. A woman in satin trousers ran out of a balconied house and clutched his arm, whispering an entreaty; she cursed him in bastard English when he thrust her away. Something of psychic consciousness came to him from the street, as though fanned into momentary being were the sparks of old evil.... Babylon and Rome, and the perished cities of the Nile....
Once clear of this humanity-clogged artery with its aura of ancient sin, he found himself in the quieter, though scarcely cleaner, Chinese quarter. Jews, Parsees and Chinamen; black and gilt signs; open doors that, like dragon-mouths, expelled the mingled odors of samshu and soy, of cassia and joss-sticks and opium; an atmosphere that transported Trent to the picturesquely wicked towns of the Straits Settlements.
The Street of the River of the Moon belied its name; it was no more than an alley and it slunk in the shadows of unpretentious houses. Its lights were dim, many-colored globes afloat on warm darkness; it was as mysterious as the numerous slant-eyed yellow men who came and went so soundlessly in its shifting dusks. After several inquiries Trent located the residence of his Excellency the Mandarin Li Kwai Kung—a dark, colonnaded pile. He jerked the leather strap that hung from a panel of the door; heard a muffled tinkle, the padding of feet. The door opened wide enough to permit a yellow face to peer out.
"Tell his Excellency that Mr. Tavernake is here," Trent instructed.
The door closed quickly; again the padding of feet. After a moment the yellow face reappeared. This time the door opened sufficiently for Trent to see a house-boy in a slop-shop suit and a black skull-cap.
"His Excellency sends greetings and bids you enter his dwelling," announced the house-boy.