"Perhaps, but not at cards," said Reinhardt. "Zat is skill." He pulled himself up suddenly. "Ze Chinese are indeed extremely skilful. As you English say, zey will catch a weasel asleep."
"And skin him!" said Errington artlessly.
"I have heard of that too," said Burroughs, catching Reinhardt's eyes again fixed on his moustache.
"Is zere any more cabbage?" asked the German, bending forward over the pan.
"No, but there is some parsley," replied Burroughs, in best phrase-book style; and a minute or two afterwards the meal and the difficult conversation came to an end together.
During the pauses each of the party had been busily thinking: Burroughs and Errington of the scheme which they had partially discussed, Reinhardt of the extraordinary circumstances in which he found himself. For once, at any rate, the German felt that he had no trumps. He saw through Burroughs' imposture; and he was pretty sure that the moustache which had fascinated his eyes during the meal was his own. Inwardly boiling with indignation and outraged vanity, he was sportsman enough to enter into the spirit of the situation so far as speech was concerned; his brain was cogitating an exemplary vengeance, and he hugged himself with the thought that the hour of revenge was at hand. The apparent coolness of the Englishmen amazed him. With Su Fing already on his way down the river, their heads were as good as gone. Yet nobody watching them, or listening to their talk, could ever have imagined that their lives hung on a thread.
At the conclusion of the meal, Burroughs said politely--
"I regret the necessity of tying you up again."
"And I," said the German, with equal courtesy, though his eyes were blazing, "I regret to be ze cause of so much trouble."
Burroughs called in his servant and the sentinels, and by their hands Reinhardt was again bound. Chin Tai caught sight of the ear-wads lying beside the German's plate.