Chapter 8

Peter was conscious of a hot stickiness at his throat where the claws had taken hold. Then he concerned himself with the gray shape that lay quite still on the iron deck at his feet. New enemies from other quarters, he realized, might strike at any instant.

Gathering up the limp form, he climbed the ladder to the darkened promenade deck and up another flight through the tarpaulin cover to the boat-deck. Opening the wireless-house door, he deposited his burden gently upon the carpet, and switched on the light. Then he turned the key in the lock, and examined his find. A long, gray bag of some heavy material swathed the small figure from head to foot. There was no sign of life.

Yelping arose from the river. It was still dark. The sampan coolies were out early. Peter listened, becoming thoughtful as a solution seemed to present itself to his problem.

He went out on deck and beckoned to one of them to stand by.

A swaying coolie in the stern of the nearest craft caught sight of him.

"Hie! Hie!" The wagging paddle became mad. The sampan slipped under the towering shadow and brought up with a smack against the moving black hull.

Peter pried up the tarpaulin life-boat cover, dragged out a coil of dirty rope, made one end fast at the foot of the davit, and tossed the other end overside. The coolie caught it and clung.

Re-entering the wireless cabin, Peter opened his pocket-knife and slit the cord at the head.

A mass of curly, brown hair flowed out upon the carpet. There was a silken lisp of underskirts. A faint sigh.

Peter suddenly turned his head. Black, glassy eyes were riveted upon his from the after window. They vanished.

He jumped up, bolted to the deck, and stood still, listening.

The scuffle of a foot sounded on the port side. Some one was running forward. He plunged after. The footsteps stopped sharply coincident with a dull smash, a frantic grunt. The pursued reeled to the deck, groaning.

Peter pounced upon him, grabbed his collar, and dragged him across the deck into the wireless house.

"Mr. Moore, the captain told me----" whimpered Dale.

Peter knocked him into the chair, opened the toolbox, and extracted a length of phosphor-bronze aerial wire. Binding the wiggling arms to the chair, he made the ends fast behind.

Snapping out the lights, he gathered the gray bag into his arms and deposited it on the deck in the narrow space between the life-boat and the edge. He looked down. The coolie was staring up, clinging to the rope, waiting.

The bag slipped down half-way. A warm moist hand clutched at his wrist. A faint moan issued from the unseen lips. He jerked again. The bag came away free, and he tossed it overboard. The yellow current snatched it instantly from sight.

The hand clung desperately at his wrist. "Don't let them----" began a sweet voice in his ear.

He wrapped his legs around the rope and worked his way over the edge. "Arms around my neck!" he commanded hoarsely. "Hold tight!"

Soft arms enfolded him. They dangled at the edge.

The coarse rope slipped swiftly through his fingers, scorching the palms, seeming to rake at the bones in his hand.

A wild shout came from the wireless house. An echo, forward, answered.

They slipped, twisting, scraping, down the rough strand. His hands seemed hot enough to burst. Maddened blood throbbed at his eyes, his ears, and dried his throat. Dimmed lights of the promenade deck soared upward. A glimmering port-hole followed.

For an eternity they dangled, then shot downward.

Something popped in Peter's ears. His feet struck a yielding deck. He staggered backward, sprawled. The rope was whipped from his hand. The warm arms still clung about his neck.

As the world wheeled, a drunken universe, a sullen voice yelped at his ear. The arms loosened.

The _Vandalia_ twinkled closely and was swept into the mist, a blur, a phantom. His hands blazed with infernal fire.

He sat up and looked behind him. The river was murderously dark. Water gurgled under the flimsy bow. The dull tread of feet and a watery flailing behind him advised Peter that the coolie was struggling against the rushing current.

Slowly he became conscious of a weight upon his breast, a low sobbing. A delicate, feminine odor brought him to earth, unraveled his tangled wits.

He was sitting upon the wet floor of the sampan's low cabin. His captive had crept close to him for protection. Protection! He snorted, wondering if the coolie was licensed.

"Hai! Hai! Woo-Sung way." The voice was villainously stubborn.

"Shanghai-way. _Kuai cho_--hurry!" roared Peter. A sigh escaped from the girl. She snuggled closer. "Woo-Sung. _Pu-shih_! Savvy?"

"Hai! Mebbe can do." The sampan reared, braving the direct onslaught of the Whang-poo's swift tide.

A myriad of questions in his brain strove for utterance. But the girl spoke first.

"Who are you?" she whispered. "I am Eileen Lorimer."

"I am--I was the wireless operator of the _Vandalia_."

The coolie paused a moment for breath, then the mad plunging of the paddle sounded again.

"The wireless operator? You heard my call?"

"Been waiting for China's lights--ever since. But how--what?" he demanded.

She was silent a moment. "I know the code. My brother owned a private station. We lived in Pasadena--ages ago. It does seem ages." She stirred feebly. "You don't mind?"

"No, no," he protested.

"I am afraid--such a long time. Weeks? Years?" She shuddered. "I do not know. Oh--I want to go home!"

The coolie broke into a working sing-song as he struggled. The tide should shift before long.

"Were you in the loft above Ah Sih King's?"

"Roped! I broke loose."

"The red note?"

"I scribbled with a nail, and threw it before she knocked me down. That woman was a demon!"

A pale, yellow glow seemed to body forth from the enshrouding mist. Dawn was breaking. Soon the great river would be alight.

"School-teacher," the girl was murmuring. "A wedding present for her--in Ah Sih King's." A small hand fumbled for his, and found it. "In the back room they began gibbering at me. And this demon came. Meaningless words--Ah Sih King leered. Called me the luckiest woman in China."

"But how did you know?"

An empty freighter with propellers flailing half out of water pounded through the yellow mist close to them.

"Hie! Hie!" shrilled the coolie's warning.

Light seeped through the doorway. The outlines of a dark skirt were silhouetted against the scrubbed white floor.

"He said when I saw the lights of China I would go aboard a beautiful ship. She was watching you. Three times our stateroom was changed. Always at night."

"You used a coil?" Peter was professionally interested on this point.

The girl murmured affirmatively. "She had some affliction. A San Francisco doctor said the electric machine would cure it. And I pretended to use it, too. But it broke down that night."

The yellow light grew stronger. Equipment of the cabin emerged: a crock of rice and fish, a corked jug, a bundle of crude chop-sticks bound with frayed twine, a dark mess of boiled sea-weed on a greasy slab.

He looked down. The girl moved her head. Their eyes met.

Timid, gray ones with innocent candor searched him. Shining dark hair rippled down either side of a pale, lovely face. She was younger than he had expected, more beautiful than he had hoped. Her rosebud of a mouth trembled in the overtures of a smile.

His feelings were divided between admiration for her and horror--she had escaped so narrowly. In the realization of that moment Peter shaped his course. His following thought was of finances.

He brought to light a handful of change. Less than one dollar, disregarding four twenty-cent Hu-Peh pieces; hardly enough to pay off the sampan coolie.

His charge sighed helplessly, thereby clinching his resolution. "I haven't a penny," she said.

He explored the side-pocket of his coat, hoping against fact that he had not changed his bill-fold to his grip. His fingers encountered an unfamiliar object.

The struggling pantheress flashed into his mind. And the wrinkled envelope she had drawn from her satin jacket and pressed into his hand. Past dealings with Chinese gave him the inkling that he had been unknowingly bribed.

A scarlet stamp, a monograph, was imposed in the upper right corner of the pale blue oblong.

"Money--Chinese bills. Full of them!" Miss Lorimer gasped. "I saw it. What are they for? And why did that dreadful woman----"

"Jet-t-e-e-ee!" sang the coolie, swinging the oar hard over. The sampan grated against a landing. "Shanghai. _Ma-tou_! _H[=a]n liang bu dung y[=a]ng che l[=a]i_!"

Peter was counting the pack. "Fifty one-thousand-dollar Bank of China bills!"

Excited yelpings occurred on the _ma-tou_. The rickshaw coolies were dickering for their unseen fare.

Peter tossed the sampan boy all the coins he had, and left him to gibber over them as he lifted the girl to the jetty. She clung to his arm, trembling, as the coolies formed a grinning, shouting circle about them. More raced in from the muddy bund.

"What are we going to do?" she groaned.

"We are going to cable your mother that you are starting for home by the first steamer," Peter cried, swinging her into the cleanest and most comfortable rickshaw of the lot. "The _Mongolia_ sails this afternoon."

"What will become of you?" she demanded.

Peter gave her his ingenuous smile. "I will vanish--for a while. Otherwise I may vanish--permanently."

Miss Lorimer reached out with her small white hand and touched his sleeve. They were jouncing over the Su-Chow bridge, on their way to the American Consulate. "Won't I see you again? Ever?" She looked bewildered and lost, as if this strange old land had proved too much for her powers of readjustment. Her rosebud mouth seemed to quiver. "Are you in danger, Mr. Moore?"

Peter glimpsed a very yellow, supercilious face swinging in his direction from the padding throng.

"A little, perhaps," he conceded.

"Because of me?"

The yellow face reappeared and was swallowed again by the crowd, as a speck of mud is engulfed by the Yangtze.

Miss Lorimer repeated her question. Peter shook his head in an extravagant denial, and helped her down from the rickshaw. They had stopped before the consulate in the American quarter.

"I'm leaving you here," he said.

"But--but I like you!" her small voice faltered. "Aren't you going to explain--anything? Is this--is this all?"

Peter smothered his rising feelings under an air of important haste. "Your way lies there"--he pointed down river. "For the present mine lies here"--and he jerked a thumb in the general direction of Shanghai's narrow muddy alleys.

"Shall I--won't you--gracious!" Miss Lorimer stared into her left hand. Two one-thousand-dollar Bank of China bills were folded upon it. She was confused. When she looked back the young man who had miraculously delivered her from an unguessable fate had been spirited with Oriental magic from her sight.