The tug Raven took our towline and we warped out, swung around, and were headed for the open sea within a few minutes. The engineer had steam up in the donkey, and the winches turned. Our crew were used to fore-and-aft canvas, and Slade took the turns as the halyards came to the revolving drums, being helped, as I may say, by his second mate, who held the peak as he held the throat.
We snatched stoppers upon them as the sails came to the mastheads, and in less time than it takes to tell we had all save the headsails on the Tanner, and were standing out. The tug dropped back, and came alongside, taking her lines.
"Stand by fer yore passengers," bawled a red-headed fellow, grinning from the pilot house.
I now saw a crowd of yellow-tails gathering on the tug's deck. Fifty-seven of them, all told, led by a giant yellow man in a skullcap and long, braided cue. A chattering babble of Chink talk, and the big fellow hustled the crowd to the rail, up the schooner's side, and on deck in less than a minute.
Bundles, packages, clothes, came with them, and Slade gave up the premeditated job of searching them in a few moments as he saw the yellow men gather up their belongings and crowd about the break of the poop, jamming in a mass right under the edge from where Gantline leaned over and gazed down at them in sour amazement and distrust.
"Me makee dem tlake-a down, down," cooed the giant leader in a sing-song voice, pointing with his hand at the crowd of Chinamen.
"Yes, git below—git out an' be quick about it," snarled the old man from above him. "You're blockin' the decks—slam 'em in the alleyways, git 'em out the way," he continued to Slade and myself.
"No lika men high, a-a-h, aye, makee down, down," sang the giant, with a glint in his little slits of eyes.
He was an ugly animal. Talk about your Oriental being a degenerate! Well, that fellow was nothing degenerate physically. He was six feet four, and about half as wide across the hulking shoulders. A thin-lipped mouth ran clear across his face; his nose was flat, like an African's. A whitish-blue scar had ripped his pleasing features from eye to chin on the starboard side, and his head was enormous.
The hair was shaved close up to the limits of that skullcap of black silk, and from under its lower end there dropped a cue about a fathom long, all done up with silk cords and stuff, until a pretty little black tassel was plaited into the end, surmounted by a Matthew Walker knot and a couple of Turks' heads.