“The wateh too black now; I no likee; I want see mo chun,” falteringly said the little one.
They could see the dim outlines of great ships with their lights sending long, narrow rays across the dark of the ocean. They looked like stars, and made one feel as if they were not alone on the vast waters.
“We go home now—see mo chun; get nice hot tea,” said the father, in a kind tone, as he clasped the little figure closely to him, and started to row home. Of course Lo Luen did not really feel afraid, with her father so near, and said: “I no ’flaid; but I likee go fast. I cold and hungly—that’s all.”
Her father smiled in the dark as he murmured consolingly, “Yes—that’s all.”
Lo Luen was thinking, as she crouched there, nestled up against ho chun, “How pletty those dolls were; I be so happy if I had one—just one, foh my velly own.”
The moonbeams lit up the water in a silvery path, and as Lo Luen looked at this path and thought how very beautiful it was, she noticed something floating in the light and bounding up and down on the waves. It looked like a big lump of seaweed.
“What is that, ho chun?” she said, with childish curiosity.
“Oh, I think just a piece of wood or a bunch of kelp; you likee get it, little girl?”
“Yes, we see what it is,” she said.
It seemed determined to get away from them, for almost every time they were near enough to touch it a big wave would come, and take it away in the dark, and it would be lost to sight for a while. But soon the light revealed it right within reach. Ho chun put out his hand and grasped it, and putting it on the fish said: “We see when we get home,” and rowed away as fast as he could.