The Cossack captain sat his horse side by side with the Manchu a few paces in advance of his troop. As Bob approached, amid perfect silence, he noticed that the Manchu leant quickly forward and peered at him with an interest greater than the circumstances seemed to warrant. Something in the man's face was familiar to Bob, who, as the Manchu turned half round to speak to the Russian officer, saw that he had only one ear. He remembered him clearly now. He was the man who had been saved from drowning by the Sardinia,—the man from whom Bob himself had saved Kobo's half-throttled servant Taru in the Ueno Park. It was Kobo's old enemy, the Manchu Tartar, Chang-Wo. The discovery did not tend to reassure Bob, but for all his tremors at the dangerous possibilities of the situation, he knew that his only chance was to maintain an air of utter fearlessness, and no one could have guessed from his undaunted attitude that he felt he was in a very tight place.
The Cossack captain looked hard at him for a moment, then gruffly addressed him, presumably in Russian.
Bob shook his head, saying, in the best French he could command, that he was sorry he was not familiar with the Russian tongue. To his surprise, the Cossack did not understand him. Bob had believed that every educated Russian knew French, and such ignorance seemed to prove this officer a boor.
"So much the worse for me," thought Bob.
The Cossack said a few words to the Manchu, who bent over and began a catechism in pidgin English, interpreting each answer as he received it to the Russian. Bob was surprised: on board the Sardinia the man had professed to know no English. He had some difficulty at first in understanding the strange idiom, but the general purport of Chang-Wo's questions was clear.
"What-side belongey?"
"I am a British subject."
"What you pidgin?"
"I am in the Japanese service."
"What-for you Japan-side?"