Peter the Brazen Part 35

Her face bore the pallor of the grave. Her large, l.u.s.trous eyes were sunken, and lines seemed to have been engraved in a face that had previously been as smooth and fair as a rose in bloom.

He felt panic-stricken as she recognized him with an almost imperceptible nod, and he stared at her a trifle longer than was necessary, with his lips slightly ajar, his nails biting into his palms, and he sensed rather than saw, that her beauty had been transformed into one of gray melancholy.

At that juncture, a tinkling voice shrilled up at him from the after cargo-well, and Peter turned to see his small charge, the maid from Maca.s.sar, smiling as she waited for him beside a small pile of silken bundles of the rainbow's own colors. He had not forgotten the Eurasian girl, but he desired to have a parting word with Romola Borria.

He called over the rail, and instructed her of the black pigtail to wait for him in a sampan, and he yelled down to one of the dozens of struggling and babbling coolies, whose sampans swarmed like a horde of c.o.c.kroaches at the ladder's lower extremity.

Romola Borria, alone, was awaiting him, adjusting her gloves, at the doorway of the wireless cabin when he made his way back to that quarter of the ship. She greeted him with a slow, grave smile; and by that smile Peter was given to know how she had suffered.

Her face again became a mask, a mask of death, indeed, as her lids fluttered down and then raised; and her eyes were tired.

He extended his hand, trying to inject some of his accustomed cheerfulness into the gesture and into the smile which somehow would not form naturally on his lips.

"This--is _adieu_--or _au revoir_?" he said solemnly.

"I hope--_au revoir_," she replied dully. "So, after all, you refuse to take my counsel, my advice, seriously?"

Peter shrugged. "I'm rather afraid I can't," he said. "You see, I'm young. And you can say to yourself, or out loud without fear of hurting my feelings, that I am--foolish. I guess it is one of the hardships of being young--this having to be foolish. Wasn't it to-day that I was to become immortal, with a knife through my floating ribs, or a bullet in my heart?

"As I grow older I will become more serious, with balance. Perish the thought! But in the end--shucks! Confucius, wasn't it--that dear old philosopher who could never find a king to try out his theories on--who said:

"The great mountain must crumble.

The strong beam must break.

The wise man must wither away like a plant."

She nodded.

"I am afraid you will never become serious, Mr. Moore. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why I've grown so--so fond of you in this short while. If I could take life--and death--as stoically, as happily, as you--oh, G.o.d!"

She shut her eyes. Tears were in their rims when she opened them again.

"Mr. Moore, I'll make a foolish confession, too, now. It is--I love you. And in return----"

"I think you're the bravest girl in the world," said Peter, taking her hands with a movement of quick penitence. "You--you're a brick."

"I guess I am," she sighed, looking moodily away. "A brick of clay!

Perhaps it is best to walk into the arms of your enemies the way you do, with your head back and eyes shining and a smile of contempt on your lips. If I only could!"

"Why speak of death on a day like this?" said Peter lightly. "Life is so beautiful. See those red-and-yellow blossoms on the hill, near the governor's place, and the poor little brats on that sampan, thinking they're the happiest kids in the world. What hurts them, hurts them; what pleases them, pleases them. They're happy because they don't bother to antic.i.p.ate. And think of life, beautiful old life, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with excitement and the mystery of the very next moment!"

"If I could only see that next moment!"

"Ugh! What a dreary monotony life would become!"

"But we could be sure. We could prepare for--for--well----" She threw up her head defiantly. "For death, I'll say."

"But please don't let's talk of death. Let's talk of the fine time you and I are going to have when we see each other again."

"Will there be another time, Peter?"

"Why, of course! You name that time; any time, any place. We'll eat and drink and chatter like a couple of parrots. And you will forget all this--this that is behind us."

Her teeth clicked.

"To-night," she said quickly. "I'll meet you. Let me see. On the Desvoeux Road side of the Hong Kong Hotel balcony, the restaurant, upstairs, you know."

"Right!" agreed Peter with enthusiasm. "Will we let husband go along?"

Her face suddenly darkened. She shook her head.

"I will be alone. So will you, at seven o'clock. You'll be there, without fail?"

A coolie guarded her luggage near by impatiently. They could hear the sobbing of the J. C. J. pa.s.senger launch as it rounded the starboard counter.

"I forget," said Peter, with his flashing smile. "I'll be dead in an hour. The steel trap of China, you know."

"Please don't jest."

"I'll tell you what I will do. I'll put a tag on my lapel, saying, deliver this corpse to the Desvoeux Road balcony of the Hong Kong Hotel restaurant at seven sharp to-night! Without fail! C. O. D.!"

These last words were addressed to the empty wireless cabin doorway.

The white skirt of Romola Borria flashed like a taunting signal as she hastened out of his sight with the boy who carried her grips.

CHAPTER XI

Wearing a slight frown, Peter made his way through piles of indiscriminate luggage to the port ladder, where his sampan and the maid from Maca.s.sar were waiting.

As he descended this contrivance he scanned the other sampans warily, and in one of these he saw a head which protruded from a low cabin.

The sampan was a little larger than the others, and it darted in and out on the edge of the waiting ones.

The head vanished the instant Peter detected it, but it made a sharp image in his memory, a face he would have difficulty in forgetting. It was a long, chalk-white face, topped by a black fedora hat--a face garnished at the thin gray lips by a mustache, black and spikelike, resembling nothing more closely than the coal-black mustache affected by the old-time melodrama villains.

An hour of life? Did this man have concealed under his black coat the knife which had been directed by the beast in Len Yang to seek out his heart, to snuff out his existence, the existence of a trifling enemy?

As Peter reached the shelving at the foot of the ladder the thought grew and blossomed, and the picture was not a pleasant one. The man in the sampan, as Peter could judge by his face, would probably prove to be a tall and muscular individual.

And then Peter caught sight of another face, but the owner of it remained above-board. This man was stout and gray, with a face more subtly malignant. It was a red face, cut deep at the eyes, and in the region of the large purple nose, with lines of weather or dissipation.

Blue eyes burned out of the red face, faded blue eyes, that were, despite their lack of l.u.s.tre, sharp and cunning.

The hand of its owner beckoned imperiously for Peter, and he shouted his name; and Peter was a.s.sured 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 Maca.s.sar 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.