“That junk passed us before we left the island,” Rocky observed, gloomily making talk.
Doane's gaze followed his down-stream; then at a sound like distant thunder, he turned and listened. “What's that?” asked the boy.
Doane looked up into the cloudless, blazing sky. “That would be the guns at Hankow,” he replied.
The lictors were landed first to seek carts in the village. Then all were taken ashore in the small boat. His excellency smilingly, with unfailing poise, talked with Doane of the beauties of the river; even quoted his favorite Li Po, as his quiet eyes surveyed the hills that bordered the broad river:=
“'The birds have all flown to their trees,
The last, last lovely cloud has drifted off,
But we never tire in our companionship—
The mountains and I,'”=
The line of unpainted, springless carts, roofed with arched matting, yellow with the fine dust of the highway, moved, squeaking, off among the hills. Following close went the women and the servants. The junk swung deliberately out and off down the river.
Doane, declining a cart, walked beside that of his excellency; Rocky Kane, deadly pale, his mouth set firmly, beside Miss Hui Fei. And so, through the peaceful country-side they came to the long brick wall and the heavily timbered gate house by the road, and, pausing there, heard very faintly the soft tinkling of the little bronze bells within. It was late afternoon. The shadows were long; and the evening birds were twittering among the leafy branches just within the wall.