His fat little hands had short stumpy fingers, beautifully manicured and covered with rings, which glistened and twinkled as he raised a dainty Venetian glass to his lips. He was dressed in dark claret-coloured silk robes, with pantaloons of light green, held together with gold knob buttons and gold braid loops, and was undoubtedly a prosperous gentleman and a dandy to boot.
On the opposite side of the fire, sitting bolt upright in an attitude of keen nervous alertness, was Ho Ming himself, a tall, gaunt Manchu, whose long thin fingers, with their prominent tendons, clenched rather than grasped the carved arms of his chair. His light-blue silk over-garment hardly concealed his attenuated figure, and his face was as gaunt as his body, with thin, tightly drawn lips, deeply recessed eyes, and prominent hooked nose.
Between them and behind a carved black wood table, supported by black wood dragons, sat A Tsi, Ho Ming's comprador, almost hidden by the clouds of tobacco smoke circling round him in the dull light of an ancient bronze lantern which swung from the ceiling, and contained a cunningly concealed electric light. He was dressed solemnly in black silk, relieved only by gilt buttons. It was this man who for the last ten days had been searching for any traces of the Pirate Syndicate's intentions, and with several Cantonese sailors selected from his master's vessels had mixed, both on board their ships and in the opium dens and lodging-houses ashore, with all the floating population of Hong-Kong.
"Helston and his ships should be here in a couple of days," said Ping Sang, speaking in Chinese and handing the letter to the anxious Ho Ming; "everything is all right so far."
"Now, Tsi, tell us again what you have been able to discover."
"Nothing, sir, beyond what I have already reported. There are two large junks from Amoy at the Aberdeen Dock, whose crews are strangers to Hong-Kong. Two days before their arrival an Englishman arrived by a coasting steamer which had picked him up at Amoy, and he is now staying at the Victoria Hotel, and one of my men has seen him go on board these junks. From what I can find out, they have a much larger crew than is customary."
"It is very unusual for junks to come down here from Amoy," interposed Ho Ming, glancing keenly from one to the other, and hardly able to restrain his impatience at Sang's apparent indifference or his comprador's stolidity. "Those junks are probably full of explosives, and it would be an easy thing to float them up against any of Helston's ships in the harbour and blow them up. We must do something—we must! Why, the ships may be here any time!"
"My dear Ming," smiled Ping Sang, waving a fat deprecating finger and settling himself more comfortably in his chair, "we must not excite ourselves—that's the only thing we can do at present. We've not the faintest reason for suspecting either the Englishman or his junks; still, we may be able to do some little thing."
"I think it might be wise, just for the sake of curiosity, to burn those junks."
"But think of the law—English law; we are not in China now. ('Thank goodness', or the equivalent in Chinese, piously muttered the comprador). We can't bribe the magistrates here; and think of the risk and the punishment."