"Your brother died a natural death," said the first officer with a lowering look; "and even if that were not the case, the most of the suspicion would fall on you instead of me. And so surely as I stand here, I swear to you, that if you upset my plan I'll manage matters so you'll be condemned as the murderer of your brother. Since his death nothing stands in our way except this boy. Now, if he should—accidentally—follow in the footsteps of his father, he would surely go to heaven, that is, if what the priests teach is true. If he does not die now in the days of his innocence, ten chances to one, he will grow up to be as reckless and worthless as ourselves. It would be the greatest luck imaginable for him, if now—by chance, of course,—he were to make his journey to heaven."
"True, most true. I wish that I had died when I was his age," groaned the Captain.
"You leave all with me. The boy is on board. That is enough—"
CHAPTER IV.
With the Priest of the God of the Golden Fish.
On the south side of the island of Hongkong are a number of small villages occupied by fishermen. Any one of these hidden away under the shade of the great bamboos may be taken as a type of all the others. The little houses have roofs made of reeds and bundles of twigs, but these do not serve so well for protection from wind and weather as the thick foliage of the overhanging trees. On the beach fishing nets are spread to dry; and in the calm waters of the little bay a number of poor old junks ride lazily at anchor. One of these is drawn up on the shore and the men are examining the haul of fish just brought in. Women and children with baskets and buckets are hurrying down to the beach to do their part in the work of sorting. The large shining blue fishes with bands of blue and rose-red and the yellow ones with spots of red and green they pack in small baskets between rows of green leaves. The lobsters, always plentiful, they place in baskets having compartments so that they cannot get at each other and mangle their bodies fighting; the oysters they throw into a large common bucket, keeping out the small and inferior ones to carry to their huts to use for food. Whenever wind and weather permit the men go off on fishing expeditions, and this is the usual scene which attends their home coming. Then, according to whether the haul has been a good or a poor one, Lihoa, the oldest man in the village, says: "We will take to the God of the Sea who rides on the Golden Fish a thank offering," or "The God who rides on the Golden Fish is angry with us; we must pacify him with strips of gold-paper." And, regularly on an appointed day, the old man goes up to the cell of the priest carrying the thank- or the sin-offering, as the case may be, to the God with the dreadful goggle eyes who rides a gilded sea-monster.
On the day on which the crosses had been erected on the Cathedral of the Holy Saviour Lihoa and his people had had a miserably small catch of fish.
"My children," cried Lihoa, "what crime against the God of the Golden Fish have you committed? So small a haul as this we have not had for a year and a day. The New Year is at hand. How can we have our usual celebration with only a sapeck or two in our pockets?"
"How shall we celebrate the New Year?" cried one. "How shall we appease the God?" wailed others mournfully.
An old Chinaman, whose wrinkled face looked like parchment cried out: