Dragons Blood | Page 7

getting your revenge,'"
"You are then a university's-man?" cried Rudolph, with enthusiasm.
The other nodded gloomily. On the instant his face had fallen as impassive as that of the Chinese boy who stood behind his chair, straight, rigid, like a waxen image of Gravity in a blue gown.--"Yes, of sorts. Young fool. Scrapes. Debt. Out to Orient. Same old story. More debt. Trust the firm to encourage that! Debt and debt and debt. Tied up safe. Transfer. Finish! Never go Home."--He rose with a laugh and an impatient gesture.--"Come on. Might as well take in the club as to sit here talking rot."
Outside the gate of the compound, coolies crouching round a lantern sprang upright and whipped a pair of sedan-chairs into position. Heywood, his feet elevated comfortably over the poles, swung in the lead; Rudolph followed, bobbing in the springy rhythm of the long bamboos. The lanterns danced before them down an open road, past a few blank walls and dark buildings, and soon halted before a whitened front, where light gleamed from the upper story.
"Mind the stairs," called Heywood. "Narrow and beastly dark."
As they stumbled up the steep flight, Rudolph heard the click of billiard balls. A pair of hanging lamps lighted the room into which he rose,--a low, gloomy loft, devoid of comfort. At the nearer table, a weazened little man bent eagerly over a pictorial paper; at the farther, chalking their cues, stood two players, one a sturdy Englishman with a gray moustache, the other a lithe, graceful person, whose blue coat, smart as an officer's, and swarthy but handsome face made him at a glance the most striking figure in the room. A little Chinese imp in white, who acted as marker, turned on the new-comers a face of preternatural cunning.
"Mr. Wutzler," said Heywood. The weazened reader rose in a nervous flutter, underwent his introduction to Rudolph with as much bashful agony as a school-girl, mumbled a few words in German, and instantly took refuge in his tattered Graphic. The players, however, advanced in a more friendly fashion. The Englishman, whose name Rudolph did not catch, shook his hand heartily.
"Mr. Hackh is a welcome addition." He spoke with deliberate courtesy. Something in his voice, the tired look in his frank blue eyes and serious face, at once engaged respect. "For our sakes," he continued, "we're glad to see you here. I am sure Doctor Chantel will agree with me."
"Ah, indeed," said the man in military blue, with a courtier's bow. Both air and accent were French. "Most welcome."
"Let's all have a drink," cried Heywood. Despite his many glasses at dinner, he spoke with the alacrity of a new idea. "O Boy, whiskey Ho-lan suey, fai di!"
Away bounded the boy marker like a tennis-ball.
"Hello, Wutzler's off already!"--The little old reader had quietly disappeared, leaving them a vacant table.--"Isn't he weird?" laughed Heywood, as they sat down. "Comes and goes like a ghost."
"It is his Chinese wife," declared Chantel, preening his moustache. "He is always ashame to meet the new persons."
"Poor old chap," said Heywood. "I know--feels himself an outcast and all that. Humph! With us! Quite unnecessary."--The Chinese page, quick, solemn, and noiseless, glided round the table with his tray.--"Ah, you young devil! You're another weird one, you atom. See those bead eyes watching us, eh? A Gilpin Homer, you are, and some fine day we'll see you go off in a flash of fire. If you don't poison us all first.--Well, here's fortune!"
"Your health, Mr. Hackh," amended the other Englishman.
As they set down their glasses, a strange cry sounded from below,--a stifled call, inarticulate, but in such a key of distress that all four faced about, and listened intently.
"Kom down," called a hesitating voice, "kom down and look-see."
They sprang to the stairs, and clattered downward. Dim radiance flooded the landing, from the street door. Outside, a smoky lantern on the ground revealed the lower levels.
In the wide sector of light stood Wutzler, shrinking and apologetic, like a man caught in a fault, his wrinkled face eloquent of fear, his gesture eloquent of excuse. Round him, as round a conjurer, scores of little shadowy things moved in a huddling dance, fitfully hopping like sparrows over spilt grain. Where the light fell brightest these became plainer, their eyes shone in jeweled points of color.
"By Jove, Gilly, they are rats!" said Heywood, in a voice curiously forced and matter-of-fact. "Flounce killed several this afternoon, so my--"
No one heeded him; all stared. The rats, like beings of incantation, stole about with an absence of fear, a disregard of man's presence, that was odious and alarming.
"Earthquake?" The elder Englishman spoke as though afraid of disturbing some one.
The French doctor shook his head.
"No," he answered in the same tone. "Look."
The rats, in all their weaving confusion, displayed one common impulse. They sprang upward