This official, who was aged, smiled with delight at having caused the boys to go without much exertion on his part. He wore a hat which reminded Charlie and Fred of a candle-extinguisher. In other respects his costume did not differ from that of any ordinary Chinaman.
'Venerable uncle,' Ping Wang exclaimed as soon as the old man reached them, 'why are your dogs of servants placed in the wooden collars?'
The old man smiled, for in his time he had heard hundreds of prisoners ask that question. Nevertheless he replied, for he always treated prisoners courteously, having seen many respectable men in the position of his questioner.
'Did not my honourable brothers steal a horse that belonged to the foreigners?' he asked.
'Your dogs of servants have not stolen anything.'
The old man laughed incredulously. 'The foreigners say that you did,' he declared.
'They have not seen us.'
'But they have declared to the mandarin that three men stole their horse at daybreak. Therefore you were arrested.'
Having given this very unsatisfactory piece of information, the old man calmly walked away.
When he was out of hearing, Ping Wang said to his friends in misfortune: 'We are arrested for horse-stealing. Some foreigners—missionaries, I imagine, as there are not likely to be any other Europeans in this place—have complained that they have had their horse stolen by three men. Evidently the mandarin, or one of his subordinates, promised to inquire into the matter, and, in order to give the missionaries the impression that they had caught the thieves, ordered the arrest of any three men. Apparently we happened to be passing just as the Yamên runners started out, and therefore they took us. Now the mandarin will inform the missionaries that he has had the thieves caught and punished.'