Peter the Brazen Part 8

A myriad of questions in his brain strove for utterance. But the girl spoke first.

"Who are you?" she whispered. "I am Eileen Lorimer."

"I am--I was the wireless operator of the _Vandalia_."

The coolie paused a moment for breath, then the mad plunging of the paddle sounded again.

"The wireless operator? You heard my call?"

"Been waiting for China's lights--ever since. But how--what?" he demanded.

She was silent a moment. "I know the code. My brother owned a private station. We lived in Pasadena--ages ago. It does seem ages." She stirred feebly. "You don't mind?"

"No, no," he protested.

"I am afraid--such a long time. Weeks? Years?" She shuddered. "I do not know. Oh--I want to go home!"

The coolie broke into a working sing-song as he struggled. The tide should s.h.i.+ft before long.

"Were you in the loft above Ah Sih King's?"

"Roped! I broke loose."

"The red note?"

"I scribbled with a nail, and threw it before she knocked me down.

That woman was a demon!"

A pale, yellow glow seemed to body forth from the enshrouding mist.

Dawn was breaking. Soon the great river would be alight.

"School-teacher," the girl was murmuring. "A wedding present for her--in Ah Sih King's." A small hand fumbled for his, and found it.

"In the back room they began gibbering at me. And this demon came.

Meaningless words--Ah Sih King leered. Called me the luckiest woman in China."

"But how did you know?"

An empty freighter with propellers flailing half out of water pounded through the yellow mist close to them.

"Hie! Hie!" shrilled the coolie's warning.

Light seeped through the doorway. The outlines of a dark skirt were silhouetted against the scrubbed white floor.

"He said when I saw the lights of China I would go aboard a beautiful s.h.i.+p. She was watching you. Three times our stateroom was changed.

Always at night."

"You used a coil?" Peter was professionally interested on this point.

The girl murmured affirmatively. "She had some affliction. A San Francisco doctor said the electric machine would cure it. And I pretended to use it, too. But it broke down that night."

The yellow light grew stronger. Equipment of the cabin emerged: a crock of rice and fish, a corked jug, a bundle of crude chop-sticks bound with frayed twine, a dark mess of boiled sea-weed on a greasy slab.

He looked down. The girl moved her head. Their eyes met.

Timid, gray ones with innocent candor searched him. s.h.i.+ning dark hair rippled down either side of a pale, lovely face. She was younger than he had expected, more beautiful than he had hoped. Her rosebud of a mouth trembled in the overtures of a smile.

His feelings were divided between admiration for her and horror--she had escaped so narrowly. In the realization of that moment Peter shaped his course. His following thought was of finances.

He brought to light a handful of change. Less than one dollar, disregarding four twenty-cent Hu-Peh pieces; hardly enough to pay off the sampan coolie.

His charge sighed helplessly, thereby clinching his resolution. "I haven't a penny," she said.

He explored the side-pocket of his coat, hoping against fact that he had not changed his bill-fold to his grip. His fingers encountered an unfamiliar object.

The struggling pantheress flashed into his mind. And the wrinkled envelope she had drawn from her satin jacket and pressed into his hand.

Past dealings with Chinese gave him the inkling that he had been unknowingly bribed.

A scarlet stamp, a monograph, was imposed in the upper right corner of the pale blue oblong.

"Money--Chinese bills. Full of them!" Miss Lorimer gasped. "I saw it.

What are they for? And why did that dreadful woman----"

"Jet-t-e-e-ee!" sang the coolie, swinging the oar hard over. The sampan grated against a landing. "Shanghai. _Ma-tou_! _H[=a]n liang bu dung y[=a]ng che l[=a]i_!"

Peter was counting the pack. "Fifty one-thousand-dollar Bank of China bills!"

Excited yelpings occurred on the _ma-tou_. The rickshaw coolies were d.i.c.kering for their unseen fare.

Peter tossed the sampan boy all the coins he had, and left him to gibber over them as he lifted the girl to the jetty. She clung to his arm, trembling, as the coolies formed a grinning, shouting circle about them. More raced in from the muddy bund.

"What are we going to do?" she groaned.

"We are going to cable your mother that you are starting for home by the first steamer," Peter cried, swinging her into the cleanest and most comfortable rickshaw of the lot. "The _Mongolia_ sails this afternoon."

"What will become of you?" she demanded.

Peter gave her his ingenuous smile. "I will vanish--for a while.

Otherwise I may vanish--permanently."

Miss Lorimer reached out with her small white hand and touched his sleeve. They were jouncing over the Su-Chow bridge, on their way to the American Consulate. "Won't I see you again? Ever?" She looked bewildered and lost, as if this strange old land had proved too much for her powers of readjustment. Her rosebud mouth seemed to quiver.

"Are you in danger, Mr. Moore?"

Peter glimpsed a very yellow, supercilious face swinging in his direction from the padding throng.

"A little, perhaps," he conceded.

"Because of me?"