The record was scraping its last. Applause came from the dancers, in which she joined. The Manila Kid wound the machine again, and the dancers swung again into motion.
“I am asking too much of you,” she murmured. “But I have been frighten'. I coul'n' think wha' to do.”
He had to set his teeth on the burning phrases that rushed from his long unpractised heart, eager for utterance. “I will take you back to your father,” he said.
In his mind it was settled. Whatever strange events might lie before them, they should not take her to Peking. His own life, as well as hers, stood in the way. It had come to that with him.
It was near to midnight when the Yen Hsin, on advices from Hankow, headed again upstream. At the first throb of the engine the white passengers stopped dancing and came out on deck. There was gaiety, even a little cheering.
It was perhaps two hours later when Doane, asleep in his cabin, heard the shots, confused with the incidents of a dream. But at the first screams of the women below decks he sprang from his berth. Some one was banging on his door; he opened; the second engineer stood there, coatless and hatless, a revolver in his hand, and a little blood on his cheek.
“All hell's broken loose below,” said the young Scotchman. “Chief's down there. I tried to get to him, but—God, they're all over the place—fighting one another.”
“Who are, MacKail?” Doane hurriedly drew on trousers and coat, and thrust his feet into his slippers.
“The viceroy's soldiers. Revolutionary stuff.”
Doane got his automatic pistol from a drawer in the desk; quickly filled an extra clip with cartridges; went forward. The Scotchman had already gone aft.