'We ought to go at once,' said Ping Wang; and, after shaking hands with the skipper, the three travellers quitted the Canton, and made their way towards the boat.
In less than five minutes the three travellers reached the spot where it was moored. It was a long, heavy boat. The cargo was packed in the middle of the boat, and near the stern was a roughly-made awning, composed of mats and dirty-looking cloth, which had been erected for the comfort of Ping Wang's invalids.
Charlie and Fred walked aboard in silence, and assumed invalids' airs with so much success that the boatman, believing them to be seriously ill, said to Ping Wang, as he passed him, 'Honourable brother, do not forget the promise which you made to your worthless servant—that if the honourable lords with sore eyes get worse you will throw them into the river.'
'Have I not promised you?' Ping Wang asked, haughtily. 'Do you doubt my word?'
The boatman protested, humbly, that Ping Wang's word could not possibly be doubted by his disreputable servant, adding, moreover, that he lived simply to obey him.
The wooden seats under the awning were hard and uncomfortable, and Charlie, Fred, and Ping Wang were soon tired of sitting there, especially as they dared not talk, for fear of being overheard. Once Ping Wang caught the boatman peeping under the awning. He seized him quickly, and demanded his reason for prying on the sick travellers.
'Noble brother,' the boatman answered, trembling with fear, 'I wanted to see if they were dying.'
'They are getting better,' Ping Wang declared. 'It is a good thing for you that they are not dying, for their father is as rich as a mandarin; and if I had to throw them overboard he would certainly have you executed.'
Ping Wang's romancing had the desired effect. The boatman shook with fear, and, kowtowing before Ping Wang, groaned aloud.
'I shall be glad if they will die in my boat,' he declared, without the slightest intention of intimating that he hoped that Charlie and Fred would die. He was too excited to speak calmly: for, though he dreaded the spirits, he had a greater fear of mandarins.