Adventure, November 1915 — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

eo te ta ee Aen Seen Mite 42 , spread of canvas, the handicap would be larger. Beyond all this, the combination, of which Henley was now palpably little more than a figurehead beside the calm, calculating Oriental, did not know the secret of the caves. If they arrived first, however, they would undoubtedly defend the island easily enough by guarding the solitary reef passage until they had ran- sacked every square foot of it. In an eight- hundred-mile trip to leeward, he figured feverishly, he could afford to give the Let Lehua eighteen hours’ start, and within one hour more they would, in all proba- bility, be on their way. Then the peril of Peggy, the fear that the Chinaman would not keep his word, the final threat of Henley, sped through his brain in a mental phantasmagoria which his will strove to keep in focus and safe pro- portion. He’ put the lock of Peggy’s hair within his breast pocket, telling himself it was a talisman involuntarily bestowed by the Chinaman. His arms, thanks to his chaf- ing, were regaining some of their use, though his shoulders seemed stiffening as he clutched the bars of the grille that Henley had left unshuttered and peered into the gloom of the passage. Far to one side a lamp dimly showed the door of the room where the smokers were sleeping out their poppy dreams. There was little hope of help from that direction. Undoubtedly they were friends or servants of the shrewd head Chinaman who had so suddenly as- sumed the mastery of the situation. Addams tingled in every nerve with the desire to batter the smooth, shrewd face of his late Chinese captor and to come to hand- grips with Henley. He shook the bars in raging inability. The door across the passage opened, and the acrid tang of opium stole out with the figure of a stout Chinaman who emerged, stretching himself before he closed the door. The light from within and that of the lamp in the passage revealed his features. It was Ah Sing, the Chinaman of Pearl Harbor, the servant of Stevens, the man who was to go with them at his master’s suggestion. Addams hissed between his teeth in a low but piercing note. Ah Sing turned at the sound as Addams lit a match at the grille. : “Ah Sing,” he whispered, ‘“‘come here.”’ The Chinaman closed the door and came Adventure wonderingly toward him, looking curiously at the face behind the bars. “Ah Sing,’ repeated Addams. “You know me. You remember, yesterday, at Pearl Harbor? Mr. Stevens’s friend? Speak quiet.” “Eyah!” exclaimed the Chinaman. ‘Sure I sabby you. You write catch Misteh Stevens with cable. You catch?” “Sure, Ah Sing, I catch,” said Addams. “T’ve not got the cable message here. It’s at the hotel, but Mr. Stevens says all right. He says you are to come, too.” ““Sabby that all light,”’ answered Ah Sing. “T catch um cable, too. I go ‘long of you. Wha’ mally you here. You come all same me—smoke pipe?”’ “T got locked in, Ah Sing,” said Addams, cautiously foregoing lengthier explanations. “Can you let me out? Also my friend is somewhere, locked in, too.” Ah Sing fumbled with some bolts and swung open the door. As Addams stepped free, an old Chinaman came from the room across the passage and spoke to Ah Sing, who chattered volubly with him. The lat- ter led the older man back into the cellar. “You come along; us make talk one min- ute,” he said to Addams. “This man he speak Tuan Yuck; he say you stop here one-two week,” he went on in a low whisper. “Tuan Yuck he velly big man, all same he head Quong Sing Tong. This man he ’flaid let you go. I don’ know, mebbe, suppose you give him plenty money, all li?! He no like Tuan Tuck, plenty hate but plenty “flaid.. You give him, I think mebbe, thlee, fo’ hundred dolla, he go ’way, go China mebbe. Tuan Yuck no find!” “T’ll give him five hundred if he’ll come with me to the hotel,” said Addams. The two chattered in what seemed to Addams an interminable chant of useless syllables. “All li’,’ said Ah Sing at length. “He come hotel. Now he show you your flend, we go.” Z The older Chinaman, apparently the keeper of the place, with a gesture for stealth, went down the passage and un- barred a heavy door. Beyond, a ladder led down another flight underground. Close to its foot was a door, fastened without by a heavy cross-piece of iron. Ah Sing had brought the lamp from the corridor, and as the door opened Winton appeared, pale JOO CEOMMUG (CO) <S