He led the way up the steps with the carven hand rail to the poop; gave the laopan a careless kick; stepped around the steersman's covered pit and out astern on the high projecting gallery.
“Now,” he said, fixing his one eye on Her, “where's this place?”
She turned away to the pots of flowers that stood closely spaced just within the elaborate woodwork of the railing. There were chrysanthemums, white, yellow and deep Indian red; highly cultivated double dahlias; red lotus blossoms; and tuberoses that filled the fresh morning air with their heavy perfume. “Well?” Connor added explosively.
“I said I'd tell you by sunrise, Tex,” she said, coolly pleasant; and hummed, very softly, a music-hall tune, bending over a spreading lotus blossom with every appearance of ingenuous girlish interest. After a moment, she went on, “The thing now is to get this junk up the river as fast as it will go.”
“Where to?” He was controlling his voice, but his face, usually expressionless, was brutally clouded...."Push me just a little farther, Dix, and you'll go overboard. And there won't be any flowers at the funeral. By God, I'm not sure I wouldn't enjoy it. You got me into this business! Now if you—”
“Better control yourself, Tex,” said she; straightening up before him. “I may have got you in, but it's a real job now. You've got to go through. And you're going to need me. The place is a few miles this side of a town called Huang Chau, on the north hank.”
“Beyond Hankow?”
“No, below. It's only a matter of hours getting up there, if you'll just get this junk started.”
“How'll we know it when we get there?”
“All we've got to do is ask a native, anywhere along the bank, where Kang Yu lives—his old home.”