A moment later, passing forward along the corridor beside the engine room, he heard his name: “Mr. Doane! If you please!” This in English.
He turned. Just within the doorway of one of the low-priced cabins stood a pedler he had observed about the lower decks; a thin Chinese with an overbred head that was shaped, beneath the cap, like a skull without flesh upon it; the eyes concealed behind smoked glasses.
“May I have a word with you, Mr. Doane?”
The mate considered; then, stooping, entered the tiny cabin. The pedler closed the door; quietly shot the bolt; then removed his cap and the queue with it, exposing a full head of stubbly black hair, trimmed, as is said, pompadour. The glasses came off next; discovering wide alert eyes. And now, without the cap, the head, despite the hair and the seriously intellectual face, looked, balanced on its thin neck, more than ever like a skull.
“You will not know of me, Mr. Doane. I am Sun Shi-pi of Shanghai. I was attached, as interpreter, to the yamen of the tao-tai. I left his service some months ago to join the republican revolutionary party. I was arrested shortly after that at Nanking and condemned to death, but his excellency, the viceroy—”
“Kang?”
“Yes. He is on this boat. He released me on condition that I go to Japan. I kept my word—to that extent; I went to Japan—but I could not keep my word in spirit. My life is consecrated to the cause of the Chinese Republic. Nothing else matters. I returned to Shanghai, and was made commander there of the 'Dare-to-dies.' You did not know of such an organization? You will, then, before the winter is gone. We shall be heard from. There are other such companies—at Canton, at Wuchang—at Nanking—at every center.”
Doane seated himself on the narrow couch and studied the quietly eager young man.
“You speak English with remarkable ease,” he said.
“Oh, yes. I studied at Chicago University. And at Tokio University I took post-graduate work.”