“It’s decidedly Asiatic,” commented Kenyon, as he sniffed this. “Unless I am very much mistaken we are approaching New York’s Chinatown.”
“You are right,” answered Forrester. “We’ll be in the midst of it in a moment.”
True to his word they suddenly turned a corner, and a little way ahead saw the glare of incandescent lights, the strange, oriental-looking shops and filthy doorways of the Yellow Quarter. The slant-eyed Celestials thronged the streets, some lank and wolf-like, others fat and placid, but all members of murderous Tongs, and for the most part carrying deadly weapons concealed in their loose blouses. Here and there was a blue-coated policeman; now and then a white woman with painted cheeks and sunken eyes could be seen staring through the dirty panes of an upper window. Suddenly a great, illuminated sign flared into view which bore the name in letters formed of hideous green light:
THE FAR EAST
“This, I suppose, is the place you spoke of,” said Kenyon.
Forrester nodded.
“This way,” he directed. They did not enter by the wide, glaring door of the place, in which stood some drunken marines, a Chinaman or two, and a clump of women of the street. Instead they used a small, dark, side door, and after descending a narrow passage found themselves in a room in which a fat old Chinese woman sat crouched upon a mat before what looked like an iron pot full of red coals. Immediately upon their entrance she began a muttering in her own sing-song tongue, but never once lifted her eyes. Before going to South America to join Nunez in his expedition against Uruguay, Kenyon had served the Chinese Government in the brief war with Japan. So he was more or less familiar with the language.
“Curse-laden beast of a white devil!” crooned the hag. “And have you come back, once more? May there be no dawn in your days, forever; and may the gates of sorrow close you in!”
“A very gentle-dispositioned old lady,” was Kenyon’s amused thought. “Apparently Forrester is not very popular with her.”
But Forrester did not understand the old woman’s words, nor did he pay the slightest attention to her.