“One of them big carved wooden idols, Cap’n Mike, painted all red and yellow and white.”
“And it looks to me as if he stumbled into a headquarters of this bunch of thugs that has been dealing out sudden death to prominent Chinese citizens, Johnny. Anyhow, he ran afoul of some kind of a ‘head-devil,’ as he calls it, and was left for dead.”
“Then it’s possible that Bill knows the secret of this organization of cock-eyed murderers,” excitedly cried the engineer.
“The same notion is in me own mind,” replied O’Shea.
A dusty man just then rode a bicycle into the door-yard and dismounted to give the shipmaster a yellow envelope.
“I guess you’re Captain Michael O’Shea,” said he. “The station agent got this telegram for you and asked me to stop and deliver it, seein’ as I was passin’ this way. How are you, Mr. Kent? Seen anything of that pesky firebug? I see you’ve got a new hired man in the garden.”
“I’m thankful to say the firebug is letting me alone,” gravely answered the engineer.
“I cal’late he heard the selectmen had offered a reward for him and he lit out of this neighborhood.”
The messenger departed, and Captain O’Shea, glancing at the telegram, crumpled it in his fist and vouchsafed with a laugh:
“’Tis from the man in New York, the agent in charge of that voyage to the Persian Gulf. For political reasons the job is postponed a matter of six months or so, and maybe it will be declared off altogether. The charter is cancelled and my contract along with it.”