"Then you come with me, and you shall be flends again. The yielding tongue endures: the stubborn teeth pelish. Now you have had confidence in me, I will be open too. Pidge has been gambling."
"I know," said Burroughs gloomily.
"And he owes a thousand dollars or mo'e. We must save him flom the men who have led him away, and turn him flom gambling. I asked him to plomise not to gamble again: he would not; plaps for you he will."
"I don't know," said Burroughs. "He is so touchy, you know; can't bear to be advised. We shall have to go very carefully to work. But there's a hope in what has happened lately. He can't really bear me a serious grudge, because he took the trouble to recover my flying boat and send it back to me."
"Hai! How was that?"
Burroughs told of the theft of the vessel, and of what had happened since. Mr. Ting listened attentively, and then related a curious story.
On his way up the river he had met the captain of a junk whom he occasionally employed, and in conversation with him learnt of a strange experience that had befallen him not far above Sui-Fu. He had been sailing down in his junk, and called at a riverside village to take on some goods. Having stowed his cargo, and wishing that the junk should reach Sui-Fu before night, for fear of the river pirates, he sent her on under charge of his mate, while he remained to negotiate a certain business transaction with an up-country merchant whose arrival at the village had been delayed.
On the completion of his business, just before sunset, he started in a sampan manned by two men, expecting to overtake the junk before she anchored for the night. Much to his alarm, when only three or four miles above the port, he discovered that a boat was dogging him. He did not know whether the crew were pirates or police: it was now too dark to distinguish; but as a matter of precaution he ordered his men to pull into the bank, and wait until the boat passed.
When he got within the shadow of some trees overhanging the stream, he was more alarmed than ever: the pursuers were also making for the bank. He was quaking in his shoes; but the boat, instead of coming directly towards him, passed by at a distance of some thirty yards, and disappeared.
He waited until it had had time to get out of earshot, and resumed his journey. But he had hardly gone a quarter-mile down stream, when he heard a low hail, and then the sound of several voices. Steering again into the bank, he looked down the river, upon which a crescent moon was throwing a pale light. And then he saw the boat re-appear, towing what looked like a launch into mid-stream. At the same moment he heard the throbbing of a motor vessel, and from round a bend in the river there came a large launch, which hove to as it reached the boat.