The Argus Pheasant Part 3

Ah Sing gravely cudgeled his memory.

"None of your men," he a.s.sured, "was here."

Peter Gross's face fell.

"That's too bad!" he exclaimed in evident disappointment. "I thought sure I'd find 'em here. You're sure you haven't overlooked them? That Frenchie might call for a hop; we picked him out of a hop-joint at Frisco."

"None your men here," Ah Sing repeated gutturally.

Peter Gross rumpled his tousled hair in perplexity.

"We-el," he drawled unhappily, "if those chaps don't get back on s.h.i.+pboard by nightfall I'll have to buy some men from you, Ah Sing. Have y' got three good hands that know one rope from another?"

"Two men off schooner _Marianna_," Ah Sing replied in his same thick monotone. "One man, steamer _Callee-opie_. Good strong man. Work hard."

"You stole 'em, I s'pose?" Peter Gross asked pleasantly.

Ah Sing's heavy jowls waggled in gentle negation.

"No stealum man," he denied quietly. "Him belly sick. Come here, get well. Allie big, strong man."

"How much a head?"

"Twlenty dlolla."

"F. O. B. the _Coryander_ and no extra charges?"

Ah Sing's inscrutable face screwed itself into a maze of unreadable wrinkles and lines.

"Him eat heap," he announced. "Five dlolla more for board."

"You go to blazes," Peter Gross replied cheerfully. "I'll look up a couple of men somewhere else or go short-handed if I have to."

Ah Sing made no reply and his impa.s.sive face did not alter its expressionless fixity. Peter Gross lazily pulled himself up in his chair and extended his right hand across the table. A ring with a big bloodstone in the center, a bloodstone cunningly chiseled and marked, rested on the middle finger.

"See that ring, Ah Sing?" he asked. "I got that down to Mauritius. What d'ye think it's worth?"

Ah Sing's long, claw-like fingers groped avariciously toward the ring.

His tiny, fat-encased eyes gleamed with cupidity.

With a quick, cat-like movement, Peter Gross gripped one of the Chinaman's hands.

"Don't pull," he cautioned quickly as Ah Sing tried to draw his hand away. "I was going to tell you that there's a drop of adder's poison inside the bloodstone that runs down a little hollow pin if you press the stone just so--" He moved to ill.u.s.trate.

"No! No!" Ah Sing shrieked pig-like squeals of terror.

"Just send one of your boys for my salts, will you?" Peter Gross requested pleasantly. "I understand they got here yesterday morning and haven't been seen to leave. Talk English--no China talk, savvy?"

A flash of malevolent fury broke Ah Sing's mask of impa.s.sivity. The rage his face expressed caused Peter Gross to grip his hand the harder and look quickly around for a possible danger from behind. They were alone.

Peter Gross moved a finger toward the stone, and Ah Sing capitulated. At his shrill cry there was a hurried rustle from within. Peter Gross kept close grip on the Chinaman's hand until he heard the shuffling tramp of sailor feet. Smith, Jacobson and Le Beouf, blinking sleepily, were herded on the portico by two giant Thibetans.

Peter Gross shoved the table and Ah Sing violently back and leaped to his feet.

"You'll--desert--will you?" he exclaimed. Each word was punctuated by a swift punch on the chin of one of the unlucky sailors and an echoing thud on the floor. Smith, Jacobson, and Le Beouf lay neatly cross-piled on one of Ah Sing's broken chairs.

"I'll pay for the chair," Peter Gross declared, jerking his men to their feet and shoving them down the steps.

Ah Sing shrilled an order in Chinese. The Thibetan giants leaped for Peter Gross, who sprang out of their reach and put his back to the wall.

In his right hand a gun flashed.

"Ah Sing, I'll take you first," he shouted.

The screen separating them from the adjoining portico was violently pushed aside.

"Ah Sing!" exclaimed a sharp, authoritative voice.

Ah Sing looked about, startled. The purpled fury his face expressed sickened to a mottled gray. Adriaan Adriaanszoon Van Schouten, governor-general of Java, leaning lightly on his cane, frowned sternly at the scene of disorder. At a cry from their master the two Thibetans backed away from Peter Gross, who lowered his weapon.

"Is it thus you observe our laws, Ah Sing?" Van Schouten demanded coldly.

Ah Sing licked his lips. "Light of the sun--" he began, but the governor interrupted shortly:

"The magistrate will hear your explanations." His eagle eyes looked penetratingly upon Peter Gross, who looked steadfastly back.

"Sailor, you threatened to poison this man," the governor accused harshly, indicating Ah Sing.

"Your excellency, that was bluff," Peter Gross replied. "The ring is as harmless as your excellency's own."

Van Schouten's eyes twinkled.

"What is your name, sailor, and your s.h.i.+p?" he demanded.

"Peter Gross, your excellency, first mate of the barkentine _Coryander_ of Boston, now lying in your excellency's harbor of Batavia."

"Ah Sing," Van Schouten rasped sternly, "if these drunken louts are not aboard their s.h.i.+p by nightfall, you go to the coffee-fields."

Ah Sing's gimlet eyes shrank to pin-points. His face was expressionless, but his whole body seemed to shake with suppressed emotion as he choked in guttural Dutch:

"Your excellency shall be obeyed." He salaamed to the ground.

Van Schouten glared at Peter Gross.

"Mynheer Gross, the good name of our fair city is very dear to us," he said sternly. "Scenes of violence like this do it much damage. I would have further discourse with you. Be at the _paleis_ within the hour."

"I shall be there, your excellency," Peter Gross promised.

The governor s.h.i.+fted his frown to Ah Sing.

"As for you, Ah Sing, I have heard many evil reports of this place," he said. "Let me hear no more."