put the swagger stick in my hand, and I tossed it in the air and caught it. The guard stepped forward, but Wan Shih was striding over and the priest left matters to his boss. Wan Shih looked down at us severely. I tossed up the stick, caught it, and smiled at him. The point of that stick was carefully out of sight under my leg.
“More of a trick to that than you’d think,” I said lightly.
He did not respond. He just gave us one long, steady look that took in everything. Then he turned his back and walked back to Rosoff. The priest looked after him—and I set the point of that swagger stick to the cord about Alan’s feet. I pressed twice. Those razor edges of steel went through the water-rotted straw rope like paper.
“Take it easy, now,” I said. “I’m in on this deal.”
He nodded and sat motionless. It was no simple matter to pick at my own leg-rope under the eyes of the guard, but he suspected nothing in that swagger stick, and presently I was able to move my legs slightly.
At this moment Rosoff, pulled to his feet by two priests, came staggering over to us. He was an unpleasant sight, with a smear of rainy blood over one side of his head, and both his arms in pawn. He came to us and planted a hearty kick in my side.
“Hang me, will you?” he said. “You damned American rat! I’ll teach you something.”
Mary started forward. Rosoff turned on her with a gesture—except for his hurt hand, he would have struck her where she stood.
“Be quiet, girl!” he snarled. “Keep your place until I want you.”
“That’s what they call Hun blood, Alan,” I observed to Groot. “Pleasant chap, eh?”
Rosoff went purple. “Throw him into the river!” he ordered the priest who stood over us. I gave Alan a warning frown, and he relaxed.
I did not blame Mary for fainting. It was rather a brutal affair—all of us there in the whirling rain, Rosoff standing over us with demoniac fury in his handsome face, and those impassive yellow brutes ready to do anything at his word. Neither Alan nor I had any illusions. We knew that the end was here and now.
My only desire was to do as much damage as I could before going under. The priest put down his rifle, grinned, and called one of his two comrades. Wan Shih and the third stood watching.
The two stooped to pick me up.
I was just as glad that Mary had gone out, as the theosophist chaps say. The point of that little stick took the man above me square in the throat—just a peck, no more and no less. The other was stooping over to pick up my legs; I could see the three scars in his scalp where the sacred punk had burned into him at his initiation. As the first man grunted and fell, he straightened up in surprise, and I gave him the stick in the stomach. I think it went clear through him.
Groot and I came to our feet at the same instant. Rosoff was already backing away, cursing us luridly.
Wan Shih jerked out an automatic and fired. The third priest banged away with his rifle. The boatmen were coming on the jump, Groot and I went for the crowd, knowing that we would go down but meaning to go down hard.
I saw Alan stagger, and flung my little stick. That was the last trick in my bag, and the best. The point caught Wan Shih in his open mouth. Then—the third priest fired at me point blank, and I laughed as I went down.
CHAPTER IX
“For They’re Hangin’ Danny Deever—”
The same scene—the same place on the river shore, the same driving rain, the same fringe of boats. I opened my eyes, rather astonished that hell was like this. Then I coughed and clutched at the flask which my friend Lieutenant Ch’en, of the yamen guard, was holding to my lips.
“Do it again,” I said. “Do it again, and don’t waste it! I’m partial to Scotch.”
Ch’en grinned happily and obeyed my command like a dutiful man.
“Why didn’t that chap hit me?” I inquired.
“I hit him first,” said Ch’en, “Look around, sir!”
He helped me to my feet. The first thing that I saw was one of the river patrol launches nosing in close to the shore. Wan Shih’s boatmen were being tied up by our soldiers.
Wan Shih himself, pretty well bled but still ripe for hanging, was being trussed up, and Baron Rosoff was marching to the shore three inches ahead of a bayonet.
“Look here, don’t hurt the baron!” I exclaimed hastily. “I have my heart set on seeing him stretch hemp, lieutenant!”
“Oh!” This from Mary, who rose from the figure of her uncle and caught my hand. “Oh! I thought—I thought—”
“Thoughts don’t count,” I said cheerfully. “Deeds are more important, Mary—”
And I kissed her in the rain, as the poet said.
“Where am I?” murmured Groot, as a soldier helped him up. He was pretty groggy—a bullet had clipped him over the head and downed him.
“Paradise!” I informed him. “Lieutenant Ch’en, kindly prove a ministering angel to my future uncle by marriage! Quickly, or he’ll protest that he’s a prohibitionist—”
Ch’en, grinning like a jovial fiend, shoved the flask at Alan Groot, who choked down several swallows before he realized that he had broken a lifelong rule. Then he gave me one sad look and gasped for air.
“What has happened?” he demanded, blinking so hard at me and Mary that she drew away in rosy confusion. “Why, who are these men?”
“They dropped in for tea or something,” I said, “How about it, Ch’en? How the devil did you get here at what Professor Groot would call a highly opportune moment?”
Lieutenant Ch’en saluted.
“We received your notes last night, sir. Also, the body of John Li was recognized at headquarters. I was sent out today to take a look at this river, and being given a free hand, decided to do it under cover of the storm to avoid observation. We had thought we made out shooting, and as we came in past the river mouth we heard the shooting here. We were only a hundred feet from the mouth of this river, sir. If we’d been five minutes earlier, we would have been in time to capture the whole crowd. Another boat is following us, sir.”
He saluted again. We looked up to see a second cutter come in toward the shore.
“Very good, lieutenant—snappy work!” I told him. “You take a dozen men in your launch and go on up to the Heart-resting-place. Clean it up. Raid it. There’s a wireless station on the roof garden. Round up everybody in sight, and don’t hesitate to shoot. Miss Fisher and I will join the prisoners and go to town in the other launch—”
“See here!” exclaimed Groot. “Sam, you’ve got to let me go with your friend! Don’t forget that my books and things are at the temple—and besides, I’m going to take a gun and have a hand in the proceedings. By George, my boy, I believe that I’ve waked up!”
I reached out and took him by the hand.
“Go
