The Girl from Hong-Kong: A Story of Adventure Under Five Suns — page 162: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“4b6 THE GIRL FROM HONG-KONG. The Mongolian says not a word, but his face is wreathed in smiles, for has he not ‘had a chance to see the most excellent mandarin don his fighting clothes and lay several of the brown-skinned dogs out, while his own naked kriss, once owned by a yellow pirate of the Malacca Straits, has kissed the air. He looks at the several wounded rascals, and then at his crooked blade, as though it would give him exquisite pleasure to test its temper upon them, for Pekoe Tay is only a Chinaman after all, and quite devoid of the finer sentiments such as should govern the actions of a vic- torious soldier. There is no opportunity to escape the searching eye of his master, and Pekoe Tay’s conscience tells him the most excellent mandarin would sternly rebuke’ such” methods of reducing the number of the foe. Hence, he is compelled by stress of circumstances to omit that, to him, pleasant exercise, and leave three vindictive wounded land pirates behind to recover and possibly do more evil in the world. It is Pekoe Tay’s policy to kill, not scotch, such cumberers of the earth, : perhaps not a Christianlike but very practical dogma, The Celestial has no difficulty in escorting his party to the street, nor are they set upon in the dark by any of their late foes, whose demoralization has been too thor- ough to allow of so speedy a recovery. | comicbooks.coun