He closed the book; laid on the table his European watch; and sat for a long time in meditation. As the hands of the watch neared the hour of three in the morning, he took from the bag a box of writing materials, a small red book and a bottle of white pills.
The leaves of the book were the thinnest gold. On one of these he inscribed, with delicate brush, the Chinese characters meaning “Everlasting happiness.” Tearing out the leaf, then, he wrapped loosely in it one of the pills—these were morphine, of the familiar sort manufactured in Japan and sold extensively in China since the decline of the opium traffic—and swallowed them together. He inscribed and took another, and another, and another.
Gradually a sense of drowsy comfort, of utter physical well-being, came over him. The pupils of his eyes shrunk down to the merest pin-points. His head drooped forward. His frail old body fell on the bed and lay peacefully there as his spirit sought its destiny in the unchanging, everlasting Tao.
CHAPTER XIII—HIS EXCELLENCY SPEAKS
IT was daybreak. Doane, standing in his cabin by the opened window, looked out with melancholy in his deep-set eyes over the muddy low reaches that border the Wusung. It was a familiar scene; indeed he knew it better than any spot in his native land—the railroad along the bank, the brick warehouses, the native village of Wusung, the inevitable humble families in the fields gathering in the last crops of the season.
Overhead the laopan was shouting, tackle creaked, the crew half sang, half grunted their chanties. From the cruisers, one after another, floating musically on the still air, came the call of bugles—the reveille of the American navy. So these were ships from home. The stars and stripes would soon, at “colors,” be rippling from each gray stem.... There was an ache in his heart.
Then other noises came—a little confusion of them, somewhere here on the junk—excited whispers, a sound that might have been sobbing, and then—yes!—the low wailing of women.
He turned; listened closely. Light feet came running along the corridor. A familiar, lovely voice called his name, brokenly. Then Hui Fei drew aside his curtain. Her cheeks were stained with tears.