The old rock that used to be the Chinese pirates’ stronghold and tall look-out, but on which England has now built Greater Britain’s loveliest holding—there is no lovelier spot on earth—sparkled in the hot sunlight. The bamboos quivered on the peak, the blue bay danced and laughed. The sampans pushed and crowded in the harbor, the rickshaws rolled and ran along the bund, Europe and Asia jostled each other on the streets and on the boats.

Muir stood on the ship’s white deck holding Wu Li Chang’s hand, and taking a long last look at the city of Victoria and at the old island it threatened to overspread, and in parts did, bulging out into and over the sea. His thoughts were long thoughts too. He had come to Hong Kong little more than a boy, academic honors thick upon him, but life all untasted. Few Europeans had seen China as he had, and almost he sickened to leave her. He was going home. In a month or two he would see his mother, who was very much to him. But China quickened and pulled at his heart. He knew that he would not forget China.

The boat slipped slowly off, backing like a courtier from the queenly place. And the man and the boy stood without a word and watched the unmatched panorama dim to nothingness. The small yellow hand lay cold and passive in the big, warm, white one. Presently Wu drew his palm gently from his friend’s, and turned quietly away and walked to the saloon stairs. Muir turned too, and watched the quaint, gorgeous figure as it went—so pitifully magnificent, so pathetically lonely—but did not follow. He understood that the boy wished to be alone. And he himself was glad to be alone just then.

Two hours later, when the dressing warning went, he found his charge in their cabin. Wu had no wish for dinner. He had been crying—almost for the first time in his life; the Chinese rarely weep—and besides, he was very sick. Muir dressed without speaking much, and when dinner was served mercifully left the boy to himself and his pillows.

Across China an old man in shabby robes left his rice untouched, and bowed long before the ancestral tablets of his race.

And that night in her sleep Wu Li Lu gave a little cry; she had cut a tooth.

CHAPTER VII
A Tortured Boyhood

ON the whole, young Wu enjoyed the voyage. He liked the way the foreign women eyed his clothes; not one of them had garments half so fine. He liked the motion of the boat when once he had mastered it. There were snatches of absorbing sightseeing at Colombo and at Malta. And in those days one had to change boats between Hong Kong and Southampton. He had much to think of when he chose to sit alone. He had Muir to talk with when he liked to talk. And the captain, on whose left hand he sat at table from Hong Kong to Colombo, was friendly without patronage and played a good game of chess.