Fred flushed, and felt an overpowering desire to plant one good blow between the man's sulky, sneering eyes.
"Oh, well," he said, "settle it yourself. You asked my advice and I've given it. When the Chinese authorities are getting ready to deal with you, don't blame me, that's all."
Kanuka turned to his men and talked to them rapidly and in low tones. So far as Fred could judge, the old crone and the youngest of the bandits, who, he afterward learned, was her son, were advocating his liberation. The rest clamoured for blood. The chief seemed undecided, and fingered his knife nervously. At last he spoke to his followers sharply, with an abrupt gesture of dismissal. To Fred's relief they all filed out, leaving him alone with the chief.
"They think it would be foolish to let you go," said the latter. "Dead men tell no tales. But they are beasts—pooh! As you say, I am an intelligent man. You shall not die to-night. In the morning we shall see."
He knelt again beside his prisoner and rummaged his pockets thoroughly, drawing out their contents and surveying them by the light of the lamp. The papers he threw contemptuously into the fireplace; the silver change and small articles he thrust into his own pouch. Fortunately Fred had taken a purse containing about fifty dollars worth of gold pieces, to use on his trip. To the Manchurian this was an enormous sum of money, and it did not occur to him to examine his captive's belt, which contained a much larger amount.
"Look here, old chap," said Fred, as Kanuka rose to his feet with his plunder, "ease up these ropes a little, will you? They cut me, and I want to sleep."
The man gave a contemptuous grunt, and, bestowing a kick on the helpless prisoner, retired without a word. Again Fred's blood boiled, but he realised his utter helplessness, and lay quietly, trying to concoct some plan for escape, or for action, on the following day.
It was evident that he had fallen into the hands of that dangerous and as yet only partly understood power, the Boxer element of north-eastern China. In 1901 these bandits, or highwaymen,—for such they really were, and are—terrorised a district extending from Newchwang to Kirin. Their operations were so systematic and successful that Chinese as well as foreign merchants finally had come to recognise their authority, and it is said that an office was actually established in the port of Newchwang where persons desiring to import goods might secure insurance against molestation from the robbers. When the insurance was paid for, the bandit agent gave the merchant a document and a little flag, and with this document in his possession, and the flag nailed to his cart or boat, he travelled in safety.