Ah Sing's gimlet eyes shrank to pin-points. His face was expressionless, but his whole body seemed to shake with suppressed emotion as he choked in guttural Dutch:
"Your excellency shall be obeyed." He salaamed to the ground.
Van Schouten glared at Peter Gross.
"Mynheer Gross, the good name of our fair city is very dear to us," he said sternly. "Scenes of violence like this do it much damage. I would have further discourse with you. Be at the paleis within the hour."
"I shall be there, your excellency," Peter Gross promised.
The governor shifted his frown to Ah Sing.
"As for you, Ah Sing, I have heard many evil reports of this place," he said. "Let me hear no more."
While Ah Sing salaamed again, the governor strode pompously away, followed at a respectful distance by Peter Gross. It was not until they had disappeared beyond a curve in the road that Ah Sing let his face show his feelings. Then an expression of malignant fury before which even the two Thibetans quailed, crossed it.
He uttered a harsh command to have the débris removed. The Thibetans jumped forward in trembling alacrity. Without giving them another glance he waddled into the building, into a little den screened off for his own use. From a patent steel safe of American make he took an ebony box, quaintly carved and colored in glorious pinks and yellows with a flower design. Opening this, he exposed a row of glass vials resting on beds of cotton. Each vial contained some nail parings.
He took out the vials one by one, looked at their labels inscribed in Chinese characters, and placed them on an ivory tray. As he read each label a curious smile of satisfaction spread over his features.