"Only natives, as you say, sir," returned Nivin slowly—"which is Malay and poor to jest with, besides frequently carrying a creese. They're a sober-minded breed, sir. Quite superior and fit for respect in their way."
But Tunstal had been leaning to watch the river traffic, and here he prodded the other to look. Just passing them at the moment came a clumsy proa that had worked upchannel on the last of the tide under sweeps—a singular blot of color. Alow and aloft, from her tub cutwater and forward-sloping rail to her languid wings of matting, she was grimed an earthy, angry red. Her sailors were smeared with the same stain, their head rags and kilts and their bare arms and knotted fingers at the oars, so that she and they seemed to swim in a sullen, an infernal conflagration, and the sunrise slanting across the river reaches picked spar and rope and savage-dyed group with dabs of ruby and vermilion and dull citrine.
"It's a cinnabar boat," said Nivin as they stared down at that silent crew of ensanguined devils.
"From the mines. I know," nodded Tunstal. "Up the river—what? I heard about those mines. Van Goor, that pop-eyed little chap—an agent for some mining company, I believe—he was telling us last night around fourth-drink time. It appears these mercury miners are imported Kwangsi coolies. About as low a race as crawls, with peculiar customs of their own. They trade with the country people for supplies, and they drive some queer trades. Did you ever happen to hear yourself, chief?"
"There's no lack of tales."
"Maybe, but this is the only real one I got a smell of—pity Van Goor wasn't a bit thirstier. He said a famine has been raging in some coast district or other and the villagers are keen to sell. At the same time the commodity naturally loses weight, through starvation, and the coolie gangs buy by the pound. So a canny village will pool its food to fatten up a few—Ah!"
The ore boat had drawn level with them, so near they might have tossed a biscuit to the rude decks. And there under the break of the poop they saw three women, scarcely more than girls, crouched against the bulkhead. One raised her face for an instant, a face struck out like a pallid, sharp-carven cameo from its ruddy setting—struck out with the poignant, mute intimacy that sometimes springs between craft and craft across a widening gulf. A vivid and unforgettable face!
The head boatman snarled, and the ragged creatures huddled from sight like nestlings under shadow of a hawk, while the proa swept in toward an upper jetty.