for Peter, and he shouted
his name; and Peter was assured that in the other hand was concealed
the knife or the pistol of his doom.

With these not altogether pleasant ideas commanding his brain he jumped
into the sampan in which the maid from Macassar was smilingly waiting.

Peter saw that his coolie was big and broad, with muscles which stood
out like ropes on his thick, sun-burned arms and legs. He gave the
coolie his instructions, as the sampan occupied by the red-faced man
was all the while endeavoring to wiggle closer. Again the man called
Peter by name, peremptorily, but Peter paid no heed.

"To Kowloon. Chop-chop!" shouted Peter. "_Cumshaw_. Savvy?" He
displayed in his palm three silver dollars and the coolie bent his back
to the sweep, the sampan heeling out from the black ironside like a
thing alive.

Behind them, as this manoeuvre was executed, Peter saw the two duly
accredited agents of the Gray Dragon fall in line. But Peter had
selected with wisdom. The coolie verified with the passage of every
moment the power his ropy muscles implied. Inch by inch, and yard by
yard, they drew, away from the pursuing sampans.

Then something resembling the scream of an enraged parrot sang over
their heads, and he instinctively ducked, turning to see from which of
the sampans this greeting had come.

A faint puff of light-blue smoke sailed down the wind between the two.
Which one? It was difficult to say.

They were beginning to leave the pursuit decidedly in the lurch now.
Peter's coolie, with his long legs braced far apart on the
running-boards, bent his back, swaying like a mighty metronome from
port to starboard, from starboard to port, whipping the water into an
angry, milky foam.

The pursuers crept up and fell back by fits and starts; slowly the
distance widened.

The girl crouched down in the cabin, and Peter, with his automatic in
his hand, waited for another tell-tale puff of blue smoke.

Finally this puff occurred, low on the deck of the larger craft. The
bullet plunked into the water not two feet from the sweep, and the
coolie, inspired by the knowledge that he, too, was inextricably
wrapped up in this race of life and death, sweated, and shouted in the
savage "Hi! Ho! Hay! Ho!" of the coolie who dearly loves his work.

Satisfied as to the origin of both bullets, Peter took careful aim at
the yellow sampan and emptied his magazine, slipping another clip of
cartridges into the oblong ho