In Macao | Page 4

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 lights of the oil lamps. The streets were deserted as usual, here and there a policeman, hooded like a pilgrim, sauntered leisurely along, or the Chinese watchman with drum and clapper woke the echoes of the lonely ways warning thieves of his approach.
The only illuminated houses were fan-tan houses