he uttered a few gabbling, barbaric words. A
coolie knelt, and with a rag began to clean the boots, which, from the
expression of young Mr. Heywood's face, were more interesting than the
arrival of a new manager from Germany.

"It will be dark before we're in," he said. "My place for the night, of
course, and let your predecessor's leavings stand over till daylight.
After dinner we'll go to the club. Dinner! Chicken and rice, chicken and
rice! Better like it, though, for you'll eat nothing else, term of
your life."

"You are very kind," began Rudolph; but this bewildering off-hand
youngster cut him short, with a laugh:--

"No fear, you'll pay me! Your firm supplies unlimited liquor. Much good
that ever did us, with old Zimmerman."

The sampan now slipped rapidly on the full flood, up a narrow channel
that the setting of the sun had turned, as at a blow, from copper to
indigo. The shores passed, more and more obscure against a fading light.
A star or two already shone faint in the lower spaces. A second war-junk
loomed above them, with a ruddy fire in the stern lighting a glimpse of
squat forms and yellow goblin faces.

"It is very curious," said Rudolph, trying polite conversation, "how
they paint so the eyes on their jonks."

"No eyes, no can see; no can see, no can walkee," chanted Heywood in
careless formula. "I say," he complained suddenly, "you're not going to
'study the people,' and all that rot? We're already fed up with
missionaries. Their cant, I mean; no allusion to cannibalism."

He lighted a cigarette. After the blinding flare of the match, night
seemed to have fallen instantaneously. As their boat crept on to the
slow creaking sweep, both maintained silence, Rudolph rebuked and
lonely, Heywood supine beneath a comfortable winking spark.

"What I mean is," drawled the hunter, "we need all the good fellows we
can get. Bring any new songs out? Oh, I forgot, you're a German, too.--A
sweet little colony! Gilly's the only gentleman in the whole half-dozen
of us, and Heaven knows he's not up to much.--Ah, we're in. On our
right, fellow sufferers, we see the blooming Village of Stinks."

He had risen in the gloom. Beyond his shadow a few feeble lights burned
low and scattered along the bank. Strange cries arose, the bumping of
sampans, the mournful caterwauling of a stringed instrument.

"The native town's a bit above," he continued. "We herd together here on
the edge. No concession, no bund, nothing."