t nearly so jaunty as those he used to wear before he went away. His
clothes fell away from him strangely, for illness had wasted him, and
his collar stood out stiffly from his scrawny neck. One leg was gone,
shot away above the knee, and he hobbled painfully down the gangplank
and on to the tender, using his crutches very awkwardly.

The great, brown, muddy Yangtzse! His own river! The ships of the
world lay anchored in the harbour, the ships of all the world! The
tender made its way upward against the rushing tide, and great, clumsy
junks floated downstream. As they neared the dock, crowds of bobbing
sampans, with square, painted eyes--so that they might see where they
were going--came out and surrounded them. A miserable emotion overcame
him. They were his junks--he understood them. They were his sampans,
with their square, painted eyes--eyes that the foreigners pointed to
and laughed at! He understood them all--they were all his!

Presently he found himself upon the crowded Bund, surrounded by a
crowd of men and women, laughing, joyous foreigners, who had come to
meet their own from overseas. No one was there to meet him, but it was
not surprising. He had sent word to no one, because he had no one to
send word to. He was undecided where to go, and he hobbled along a
little, to get out of the crowd, and to plan a little what he should
do. As he stood there undecided, waiting a little, hanging upon his
crutches, two young men came along, sleek, well-fed, laughing. He
recognised them at once--two of his old colleagues in the office. They
glanced in his direction, looked down on his pinned-up trouser leg,
caught his eye, and then, without sign of recognition, passed on.

He was still a half-breed.

ON THE HEIGHTS

II

ON THE HEIGHTS

Rivers made his way to China many years ago. He was an adventurer, a
ne'er-do-weel, and China in those days was just about good enough for
him. Since he was English, it might have seemed more natural for him
to have gone to India, or the Straits Settlements, or one of the other
colonies of the mighty Empire, but for some reason, China drew him. He
was more likely to meet his own sort in China, where no questions
would be asked. And he did meet his own sort--people just like
himself, other adventurers and ne'er-do-weels, and their companionship
was no great benefit to him. So he drifted about all over China,
around the coast towns and back into the interior, to and fro,