"Well, well," continued Ping Sang soothingly, "we won't do it to-night. To-morrow I'll try and get a look at this Englishman—I may know him and he may know me. Have you seen him yourself, Tsi?" he asked. "Is there anything peculiar about him?"
"No, sir; but the man who saw him go aboard at Aberdeen says he limped badly," answered A Tsi.
"A limp had he? Well, I rather fancy I shall know him, and I rather fancy he would know me," drawled Ping Sang, "though I'll take good care he doesn't recognize me!"
* * * * *
On each side of the entrance to the Victoria Hotel is generally a motley row of coolies squatting at the edge of the pavement with their mat trays containing sweetmeats, matches, or sugar-canes for sale among the rickshaw men who come and go. Among these, next morning, was a fat old man in a dirty pair of blue trousers, with a dirty blue tunic tied round his naked shoulders, clamouring for purchasers as he fanned a swarm of flies off his sugar-canes with his broad mat hat. This was Ping Sang, and all the while he kept his eyes glued on the hotel entrance. He had bribed a coolie to give him his place for the day, and there he squatted in this extremely uncomfortable position. Sportsman as he was, with all his love of luxury, he never did anything by halves, and there he stayed on the chance of seeing the lame Englishman, whilst the sweat ran down his back, and even the morning sun blistered it.
Presently a coolie—and Ping Sang recognized A Tsi—came out of the hotel and passed without apparently noticing him, but he had the forefinger of his left hand extended, whilst the other fingers were doubled up. That meant that the Englishman was not in the hotel. A Tsi sauntered back again. Two fingers of the other hand were extended this time. That was sufficient for the old gentleman. The Englishman had gone to Aberdeen, where the two Amoy junks were anchored. Gladly rising to his feet, Ping Sang stretched his cramped legs, slung his two baskets across his shoulders with a bamboo pole, and trotted down the main street, trying to imitate the usual ambling gait of a street hawker. It was several miles to Aberdeen, and he slowed down very quickly, dropping a sugar-cane every now and then to lighten his load, and eventually came to the outskirts of the town and to the broad road which runs along the edge of the sea. Finally he squatted down at a sharp bend of this road in the shade of a big tree, and waited with his baskets in front of him.
He had arranged for A Tsi to follow him, and presently that invaluable comprador came rapidly along in a tumble-down double rickshaw, still in his coolie dress and with a big bundle under his arm.
After much haggling with the rickshaw man, who did not appreciate the extra weight of Ping Sang's fat little person, the old sportsman got up beside A Tsi, and the coolie drew them along, sweating and grunting.
Half a mile before they arrived at Aberdeen the busy little bay, crowded with native shipping, came in sight, and A Tsi pointed out to his companion two very large junks lashed together in the middle of the harbour.
"These are the two from Amoy. They came in two days ago, and have not yet discharged any cargo. In fact they don't seem to have any," said A Tsi. "If you will wait by the landing-place I will go off to the junks under pretence of selling this bundle of ready-made clothes, and try and find out more about them."