"Ze invoice will prove it: I show you zat to-morrow when we go to ze office."
Before night he had made a private arrangement with Feng Wai that the goods should be invoiced at the original price, and that the difference should be made up by Reinhardt himself. His intention was to recoup himself by an adjustment in his private ledger under what an Englishman would call "squeeze." The invoice, consequently, satisfied Errington that there was no foundation for Burroughs' suspicion, and he nourished a deep resentment against his old friend for harbouring it. Reinhardt was, of course, careful to file the altered contract note among his private papers: to alter the figures back again could hardly be done so neatly as to escape the notice of one so keen as Errington.
Thus Errington became an inmate of Reinhardt's house, and the breach between the two friends widened. In a place where there is only a small community of white men, a disagreement of this kind is at once set right, or it becomes far more acute. With Errington, the mere idea that he could be suspected by his friend of such a trick as he had accused him of rankled more and more as time went on. He found himself harbouring bitter thoughts, not only of him, but of Mr. Ting; for in his perverted state of mind he was ready to listen to Reinhardt's suggestions that the Chinaman had profited by his father's losses, and was actually enjoying a wealth which, if right were done, would be his own.
By and by his bitterness of spirit was if possible aggravated by the suspicion that Reinhardt cheated at cards. Being more continuously in the German's company, he noticed little things, slight manifestations of character, which had before escaped him. He watched his host more and more carefully, and though he was unable to bring the matter home to him, he grew at length almost convinced that Reinhardt was a swindler. This, coming upon the loss of his friend, which in his better moments he felt deeply, so worked upon him that he found his situation unendurable, and applied to his firm for a transfer still farther up the river. The managers at first hesitated, but his threat to resign unless his application was granted, coupled with reports of his business aptitude from all with whom he had come in contact, produced the result he desired. Rather than lose his services, the firm put him in charge of a small sub-branch at Chia-ling Fu.
CHAPTER VI
MR. TING SPEAKS OUT
During the whole of the winter there had been much speculation among the European residents in the treaty ports as to the cause of the unrest disturbing many different parts of the country. Disorder of one kind or another is always smouldering in China. Sometimes it is due to the oppression of the officials, sometimes to hatred of the foreigners, often to obscure causes which not even the older white residents in the country can understand.
For some time past there had been risings in various districts which puzzled even the acutest and most experienced. A rumour had gradually arisen that they were due partly to the secret societies which supported predatory bands in many parts of the empire, partly to direct incitement from without. Germany had always expected far greater things from her possession of Kiauchou than had actually sprung from it. Her appetite for colonial extension had grown by what it fed on, and been whetted especially by her successful deals with France over Morocco. Her colonial party hungered after a big slice of the Middle Kingdom, but while China was at peace with herself and the rest of the world, there was little that Germany could do, without risking armed opposition on the part of other interested Powers.
From time immemorial it has been the custom of strong states desiring territorial aggrandisement to make an opportunity of fishing in troubled waters. Many people in China now said that German agents were at work in more than one part of the empire, stirring up the forces of disruption which were always latent in the country. Whether rightly or wrongly, Burroughs had begun to suspect, from various small matters that fell under his observation, that Reinhardt was such an agent. His comprador reported that the German had been seen in communication with the river pirate who had been captured in the attack on Mr. Ting. He said that it was whispered in native circles that German money had bribed the officials to connive at the bandit's escape. At first Burroughs merely smiled at these reports, but they were so persistent that, taken in connection with Reinhardt's frequent unexplained absences, they at last made an impression upon him. Perhaps there was something in them after all.
From the newspapers which he received regularly from Shanghai he learnt that the German fleet in Chinese waters was to be strengthened by the addition of several river gunboats, for the protection of German subjects who might be threatened by the growing disorder. Inasmuch as the disturbances were not as yet serious--no more alarming than the outbreaks that occur about every five years in one part or another--Burroughs shrewdly suspected that in this case the wish was father to the thought. It was becoming a favourite move of German diplomacy to send a gunboat to some centre of disorder, which could only be removed by some one paying compensation. When, therefore, the smouldering disaffection broke into an active rising about a hundred and fifty miles up the river from Sui-Fu, a German gunboat was moved up as far as she could proceed with safety, and several launches were sent still farther.