In Macao | Page 4

over some loss at the fan-tan table; they
say he won five hundred Mexicans last week and then lost that sum
doubled."
"That may be so, Robert, but our approaching marriage is a great cross
to him. It is hard to tell what Pedro's thoughts are; his eyes are like our
Macao windows of isinglass and let very little light either way."
The winding road between ruined walls of gray stone, half covered
with clinging ficus, spanned by broken arches, with here and there a
fallen urn, led them through picturesque turns and by mossy steps to
the foot of the huge black cross erected before the empty church.
Neither spoke; they did not care for words and the only expression
which framed itself audibly was that oft repeated jubilate of health and
youth, "How beautiful it is to live!"
Dim in the distance, of almost the same shade as the sky, rose the
White Cloud Hills; lesser hills more distinct in waving outline lay
before them; then rocky promontories and islands with grotesque forms
like the twisted dragons of Chinese embroideries, and the low stretch
which marked the position of the wonderful city of Canton. On the
yellow water here and there were junks with tanned sails and gay
banners; islands with graceful pagodas were seen, and the huge white
cathedral of the near dependency of Taipa. Then in the foreground at
their very feet was Macao, a feast of colour, red roofs, many-hued walls,

green trees and brilliant gardens, beautiful as the jewel-set sheath of a
Venetian dagger, with its poison and death-dealing wickedness hidden.
Dom Amaral with his wife had gone to the new cathedral to services;
their well appointed chairs had scarcely left the court and the gates
been bolted behind them when Dom Pedro came from his room. His
face had changed greatly since the day before; the loss of sleep and the
bitterness of his heart had made him look pale and thin. For the first
time in his life he had spoken harshly to his valet, and that meek
Celestial wore an expression of grief and surprise, for Pedro Amaral,
whatever his faults, did not have the vulgar one of venting his spleen
upon his inferiors, so that his lifelong servant was at a loss to account
for the sudden change.
Dom Pedro walked to the library and drawing the curtains behind him
sat down before the cases filled with brilliant steel. Suddenly he looked
away and picked up a book from the table, opening it at random but
constantly his eyes reverted to the cases before him. Slowly his features
relaxed and with a broken sigh he was about to replace the book when a
small photograph card fell from its pages; the face was that of Robert
Adams, the book Priscilla's "Common Prayer." Like a flash the old
lines came back in his forehead; he went to the case and opening the
glass doors, carefully took down a small, silver sheath, the work of
some artist of Goa, wherein the influence of both India and Europe
showed in the execution. The pressure of a button pushed out a grooved
dagger which fitted so low in the sheath as to show only the head of its
jeweled hilt. Dom Pedro removed the dagger, wrapped it in his
handkerchief and then putting it in his breast pocket replaced the empty
sheath in its old position.
III.
The government of Macao derives its greatest revenue from the
licensing of gambling houses, and these form one of the principal
attractions in the city to the European from Hong Kong as well as the
native Portuguese and Chinese. Whatever fault the visitor finds, on
moral grounds, with these houses he must admit the fact that they are
quiet and orderly, while the picturesqueness of the life within them and

that peculiar glamour which varnishes all that pertains to a great
gambling hall where fortune shows herself directly face to face with us,
has a charm which hides the immorality from even the most
straight-laced Puritan.
One of these houses was the favourite and nightly resort of Dom Pedro,
where he played high or low according to the state of his finances at the
moment. Dom Amaral, though himself a devotee of the fan-tan table,
observed with fear this controlling passion of his son which he believed
would some day destroy the comfortable fortune he had amassed with
so many years of labour.
Adams would have certainly preferred to spend the whole evening in
the family circle, but Dom Pedro urged him with so much, and such
unusual kindness to accompany him to the gambling house that he
consented, and at about eleven o'clock the two young men left the
Praya and walked into the town beneath the soft