"I will show you."
Burroughs unfolded and spread out the canvas planes at the sides of the boat.
"Wonderful!" said the Chinaman. "It is very like a butterfly."
"How fine a thing it would be to fly to meet Su Fing, noble captain! That would indeed show at once the matchless qualities of this vessel, and the courage of the illustrious officer who so well fills the place of the chief here."
Chung Pi's simple face expressed the longing and the terror which a child shows when he is invited for the first time to taste some new experience--the first ride on an elephant, or on a hobby-horse at the village fair.
"If you would show me first," he said.
He stepped on to the landing-stage, and stood fascinated as the vessel, skimming the surface until it attained its lifting speed, rose into the air, circled, and returning, alighted gently at the very spot whence it had started. Beyond measure delighted, Chung Pi hesitated no longer. Making sure that the red string sustaining his charm was securely about his neck, he entered the boat, and uttered childish exclamations of wonderment and pleasure as the vessel once more performed the same flight. On landing, he bore himself with a vainglorious swagger before the crowd of excited onlookers. He insisted on taking Burroughs back to his own house for a few melon seeds and cups of tea, and talked incessantly of the sensation he would make when he flew to meet Su Fing.
While they were at tea, with Chin Tai in attendance as interpreter, Lo San, enjoying a certain prestige as the servant of the kind German who had brought so precious a gift, was entertained by the captain's escort. They were exchanging notes with him when the long-expected message was signalled: the watchman on the roof of the yamen had seen a signal on a hill two miles away; the signaller there had received the message from another, and he from another. Su Fing was little more than an hour's journey distant. At once there was a ringing of bells and beating of gongs. Chung Pi, trembling with eagerness, came forth with Burroughs; a procession was formed, and with an armed escort before and behind the chairmen carried their burdens down to the river.
At the landing-stage Lo San approached Burroughs, and said in an undertone--
"Su Fing he no lick all-same. Fellas he say Su Fing hab catchee numpa one beatin' Cheng Tu side. He belongey velly bad temper."