'I will not take them,' the boatman declared, when he heard that two of his proposed passengers were invalids. 'They will die on my boat, and then their spirits will haunt me.'
Neither Ping Wang nor the skipper of the Canton had thought of this objection—a very natural one from a Chinese point of view.
'But these men will not die,' the skipper declared, hurriedly. 'It is only bad eyes that they are suffering from. They have come from Hongkong with Ping Wang, and, if they are not worried, they will soon be well again.'
For a moment the Chinese boatman was silent.
'I will take them,' he said, at length, 'if my honourable brother, Ping Wang, will promise that if they become very ill he will throw them overboard, so that they shall not die in my boat.'
'I promise,' Ping Wang said, and he had no qualms about making that vow, for Fred and Charlie were in splendid health, and it was very unlikely that they would become seriously ill during the two days' journey up-river.
'It seems to me,' Charlie said, when he heard of the arrangement that had been made, 'that I shall never make a really enjoyable trip on water. My first voyage I made as a cook, and had a bullying skipper to worry me. Then I escaped to what I thought was a mission ship, but it turned out to be a rascally coper. On the Canton I had to pretend that I was a Chinaman, and now, if I get ill, I'm to be thrown overboard.'
'You have told the boatman that my brother and I are suffering from bad eyes,' Fred remarked to Ping Wang; 'but he will see at a glance that there is nothing the matter with them.'
'I have thought of that,' Ping Wang answered, 'and have bought a pair of Chinese goggles for each of you. I wonder that I didn't think of them when we were at Hongkong, for they will make your disguise much more complete. At present your eyes do not look at all like Chinamen's.'
Charles and Fred at once put on the goggles which Ping Wang gave them, and the skipper declared that now, if they did not speak aloud, no one would guess that they were not Chinamen.