Al, close at his back.

"Here's your gun," Al said. "I'll stay."

The servant appeared among the trees, approaching rapidly and calling
anxiously. George put the weapon in his pocket and caught both his
brother's hands in his own.

"God bless you, old man," he murmured; "and"--with a final squeeze of
the hands--"good luck!"

"I'm coming," he called to the servant, and turned and ran through the
trees toward the carriage.

THE CHINAGO

"The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs."
--Tahitian proverb.

Ah Cho did not understand French. He sat in the crowded court room, very
weary and bored, listening to the unceasing, explosive French that now
one official and now another uttered. It was just so much gabble to Ah
Cho, and he marvelled at the stupidity of the Frenchmen who took so long
to find out the murderer of Chung Ga, and who did not find him at all.
The five hundred coolies on the plantation knew that Ah San had done the
killing, and here was Ah San not even arrested. It was true that all
the coolies had agreed secretly not to testify against one another; but
then, it was so simple, the Frenchmen should have been able to discover
that Ah San was the man. They were very stupid, these Frenchmen.

Ah Cho had done nothing of which to be afraid. He had had no hand in
the killing. It was true he had been present at it, and Schemmer, the
overseer on the plantation, had rushed into the barracks immediately
afterward and caught him there, along with four or five others; but what
of that? Chung Ga had been stabbed only twice. It stood to reason that
five or six men could not inflict two stab wounds. At the most, if a man
had struck but once, only two men could have done it.

So it was that Ah Cho reasoned, when he, along with his four companions,
had lied and blocked and obfuscated in their statements to the court
concerning what had taken place. They had heard the sounds of the
killing, and, like Schemmer, they had run to the spot. They had got
there before Schemmer--that was all. True, Schemmer had testified that,
attracted by the sound of quarrelling as he chanced to pass by, he had
stood for at least five minutes outside; that then, when he entered, he
found the prisoners already inside; and that they had not entered just
before, because he had been standing by the one door to the barracks.
But what of that? Ah Cho and his four fellow-prisoners had testified
that