"What do you say yourself, Monsieur Brown?" asked the missionary.
"I must risk it, father. I have been long enough in China to know the difficulties and dangers in my way; I don't underrate them, I assure you. But anything is better than this harrowing uncertainty. I could not remain idle; I feel I must do something to clear up the mystery, even though I should be venturing on a forlorn hope."
"Well, my son, I will not dissuade you. Fortune favours the brave, they say. You are determined to go; God go with you! But we must think of how it is to be done."
"I must go as a Chinaman, that is certain. It had better be as a southern Chinaman. Mademoiselle perhaps does not know that the spoken language of the north and south are so unlike that natives of the one can only communicate with the other by written characters or by pidgin English. I can't write Chinese, and if I pretend to be quite illiterate (as indeed I am from the Chinese point of view) I may hope to pass muster. I can speak pidgin English. We had a Canton servant in Shanghai with whom I spoke nothing else, and we use it still with the servants in Moukden."
"But there is a greater difficulty—the difficulty of feature. You would pass better in Canton as a Manchu, than as a Cantonese in Manchuria."
"I can only risk it. A little saffron and henna——"
"And a pigtail, Monsieur Brown?—will you have to wear a pigtail?" said Gabriele.
"Yes, unluckily," said Jack with a rueful smile. "My own hair won't suffice. But false pigtails are common enough in China. I shall ask your help with that, Mademoiselle."
"It would amuse me—if it were not so terribly serious."
"You will go as a Chinaman, then," said the priest. "But you must have a story to tell on the way if you are questioned: have you thought of that?"