“Well, would you lend him five dollars and know you’d get the money back?”
“Ti-so he vally good Chinaman, sir.”
“That’s hardly an answer to my question, Ming. He might be a good Chinaman but a rascal to his masters. Is he to be trusted?”
“I trust Ti-so with silver to makee clean. Not one piecee go adrift, sir.”
“All right, Ming; carry on,” concluded the lieutenant.
Raxworthy waited until the messman was out of sight.
“It seems as if I’ve made a mistake, sir,” he confessed.
“Thought so from the first, Raxworthy,” rejoined Poundall. “Well, I’m going ashore; care to come along to the club?”
III
At daybreak next morning, Sandgrub slipped her moorings and stood down the Wu-sung to the estuary of the mighty Yang-tse-kiang, which at its mouth is fifty miles in width.