An affair of opium smuggling, ship’s papers forged, and customs burked. It was a true story enough, only Franker himself had not been implicated in it. The police had been so long on the track of that crime they had given it up as hopeless. And now here there was the chief criminal, a fine fat bird, dropping into the net of his own free will. The chief inspector rubbed his dry palms together as he thought of the luscious report he would send to the magistracy.
Then he committed Franker to the custody of another prison official, less gaudy than the first, and Franker was led away to the cell.
This was a big, bare, barn-like place of stone, that sometimes contained as many as twenty prisoners huddled indiscriminately together. But just now crime was slack. Franker had the whole cell to himself.
As the gaoler slammed the door on him he fell on his knees with a weeping face, and offered up thanks for this blessed refuge, this safe harbour of retreat from his relentless enemy, this sanctuary. Here, at last, he was free from the fear of pursuit. Here, during the year or two of his imprisonment, he could rest and sleep, rest his mind and find his sleep that sweet relief from the tortures of the last two years which would gradually restore him again to health and sanity.
Even as he prayed he toppled down face forward and lay there quite still, breathing softly, evenly, in peaceful slumber.
The light was fading, there was a red stain of sunset on the wall when he awoke. It was a rattling and clanging of bolts and chains that had roused him. He sat up, blinking stupidly, at first not knowing where he was. Then, as he remembered, he shed tears of joy again, and clasped his hands together in an access of delight.
The sounds drew nearer. The heavy, barred door of the prison chamber was flung open. He saw the burly figure of a gaoler over-shadowing another smaller figure that seemed to be precipitated from behind into the misty vastness of the cell. It fell head-long at Franker’s feet, and lay there stirring feebly like a wounded beetle.
Franker watched his writhings ... and a slow, cold horror grew upon him.
His fellow-prisoner raised himself on all fours, then sat up and squatted there, cross-legged, like a Chinese bonze.
It was Bibi—or Bobo.