[CHAPTER I.]
THE RED JEWEL.
Craft and greed showed in the eyes of the hatchet-faced Chinaman. He seemed to have been in deep slumber in the car seat, but the drowsiness was feigned. The train was not five minutes out of the town of Catskill before he had roused himself, wary and wide-awake, and looked across the aisle. His look and manner gave evidence that he was meditating some crime.
It was in the small hours of the morning, and the passenger train was rattling and bumping through the heavy gloom. The lights in the coach had been turned low, and all the passengers, with the exception of the thin-visaged Celestial, were sprawling in their uncomfortable seats, snoring or breathing heavily.
Across the aisle from this criminally inclined native of the Flowery Kingdom was another who likewise hailed from the land of pagodas and mystery; and this other, it could be seen at a glance, was a person of some consequence.
He was fat, and under the average height. Drawn down over his shaven head was a black silk cap, with a gleaming red button sewn in the centre of the flat crown. From under the edge of the cap dropped a queue of silken texture, thick, and so long that it crossed the Chinaman's shoulder and lay in one or two coils across his fat knees.
Yellow is the royal color in China, and it is to be noted that this Celestial's blouse was of yellow, and his wide trousers, and his stockings—all yellow and of the finest Canton silk. His sandals were black and richly embroidered.
From the button and the costume, one at all informed of fashions as followed in the country of Confucius might have guessed that this stout person was a mandarin. And that guess would have been entirely correct.
To go further and reveal facts which will presently become the reader's in the logical unfolding of this chronicle, the mandarin was none other than Tsan Ti, discredited guardian of the Honam joss house, situated on an island suburb of the city of Canton. He of the slant, lawless gleaming eyes was Sam Wing, the mandarin's trusted and treacherous servant.
A Chinaman, like his Caucasian brother, is not always proof against temptation when the ugly opportunity presents itself at the right time and in the right way. Sam Wing believed he had come face to face with such an opportunity, and he was determined to make the most of it.