Phil cut short the pilot’s mirth by taking him by the arm and leading him silently to the door. Once outside the cell the lad showed him the sketch plan of the yamen with the path they must take to reach the room where clothes would be found.
“If we only knew where the sailors are,” Sydney whispered.
Phil shook his head. It might only defeat them, and the sailors would be no better off.
Langdon for the first time realized that he was not in the plot and would have asked many questions, but Phil and Sydney grasped him firmly on each side as if he were their prisoner and marched openly down the stone pavement of the courtyard. The place indicated on the sketch was easily found and Phil, leaving his companions, pushed the door quietly open. The room was lighted by a single swinging lamp, while in one corner sat a Chinaman reckoning laboriously on his abacus, a counting device used by the Oriental races; the click of the small wooden balls as he moved them along their wires sounded distinctly in the quiet of the room.
As Phil closed the door softly behind him the Chinaman glanced up casually, speaking a few words in his guttural tongue. The lad made no reply, but glanced about hastily to make sure those near could not discover what was about to happen. His heart was beating fast. He saw a door beyond the victim which he knew must lead directly into the viceroy’s own apartments; voices, almost inaudible, came to his ears from the rooms on the other side of that slender partition. He saw that he must work quickly and silently. Any moment the door might open and he would be discovered, for his disguise would be useless under the direct gaze of a Chinese mandarin. The treasurer had seen him but indistinctly and had taken for granted that he was Ta-Ling.
HE MEASURED THE STRENGTH
OF HIS ANTAGONIST
Moving silently to the side of the absorbed Chinaman, Phil stood for the fraction of a second looking down on his work. His eyes sought out the curve of the neck in its enveloping robe while he measured the strength of his antagonist. Raising his hands in readiness, he poised them aloft ready to grasp the slender neck within his muscular fingers.
As if by premonition of the danger threatening him, the Chinaman dropped his hands from the abacus and glanced swiftly up into Phil’s face. The next second the midshipman’s hands had encircled his neck and the terrified outcry which the lad saw in his frightened eyes was stifled.
“Hurry, Langdon!” Phil whispered over his shoulder, as the pilot noiselessly entered to dress himself in one of the many robes hanging about the room.