"'Tisn't that, sir. The police couldn't help."
"Why not?"
"Why, it seems he's breaking no law. There's no bar to private smoking. I've been trying to get around him somehow, but there doesn't seem to be anything we can do. He says the white man has a right to stay here, and he has a right to keep him."...
"Keep him! Well, by God!"
"I suppose Chris must have a little money banked somewhere," continued the mate miserably. "Li Chwan'll never let go of him while it lasts."
"And you mean we got to leave him after all—leave the ol' chief to rot where he lays?"
"Unless he wants to—to come away of his own motion," stammered Sutton. "I thought he'd come quite easy when he saw the three of us. But he won't. He doesn't want to—and that's the dreadful fact. And—and—only look at him now!"
His fascinated gaze had coasted back to the face on the cushions. It might have been cut from tan marble, impassive and stern, and we saw what he meant—though perhaps not as vividly as he saw—the wretched incongruous tragedy of such a face in such a setting.
"So this is the end of your grand scheme!" said Captain Raff bitterly.