The Devils Admiral | Page 4

wall. "We appreciate your kindness very much, Mr. Trenholm."
It was then that I first saw the little red-headed man. He was looking in at the door, but scurried away when the Sikh guard inside moved toward him. The little man wore a white canvas navy-cap; but his appearance was dirty and disreputable, and he had the aspect of a beggar. His visage was wizened and villainous and shot with pock-marks under a coppery stubble of red beard, and his little mole-like eyes were that close together that they seemed fastened to his nose.
The clerk kept me waiting for signatures, and finally handed out my gold. As I filled my purse I was conscious of some one behind me, and, glancing over my shoulder, I saw the Rev. Luther Meeker.
CHAPTER II
RED-HEADED BEGGAR AND MISSIONARY
Turning my back on him, I edged toward a desk. It seemed to me that he had not recognized me as the austere man in the bus, or perhaps he chose to pass without encountering me again. He stared about the place, leaning on one leg for a minute as if undecided what to do next, or not quite sure he was in the right establishment.
I could hear voices in a room close at hand, and Meeker turned toward the door, walking silently in his cloth deck-shoes, and passed into the room. I heard a man give a cry of astonishment, followed by a growl of wrath, and Meeker ran out again, retreating backward and holding his hands up in protest.
"My dear sirs!" he whined. "No offence, I am sure! I hope you have taken no offence, for none was intended, and I did not mean to disturb any person--I was simply asking alms for a seamen's chapel, and I do most sincerely beg your pardons, gentlemen."
He went into the street, and a sallow-faced man with a slender malacca cane held in his hand as if it were a rapier, came to the door of the room and said something in French, indignant that he should be disturbed. He waved the cane menacingly after Meeker and slammed the door.
Leaving the bank, I turned toward the Escolta, which is the principal business street of Manila. The shop windows attracted me, and I sauntered for half an hour or more. I wanted a new field-glass, and as I stood on the pavement at a corner and looked in at a jeweller's window I caught the image of Meeker in the glass, which was thrown in a shadow by an awning.
I turned without thinking Meeker could have any interest in what I might do, and saw him half a block away talking to the little red-headed beggar who had looked in at the bank door. Meeker evidently caught me looking at him, for he whispered to the beggar, who hastened away, taking a furtive glance at me over his shoulder as he left. I turned toward Meeker, and he swung away down the street as I approached him, with more nimbleness than I supposed was in his old bones.
"I suppose the pest will be at my heels for the next week," I told myself, annoyed at the way the missionary crossed my path. That was the fourth time I had seen him in an hour, and I dreaded to go to the hotel, sure I would meet him again--for, of course, he could not have gone anywhere else but to the Oriente.
I thought it strange that he should be talking to the little beggar, although it never occurred to me that they were watching me; and, even if they were, I would have not concerned myself much about it. As it was, I ascribed Meeker's embarrassment when I last saw him to what had passed between us in the bus, and concluded that he was trying to avoid me, which I considered a praiseworthy effort on his part.
There was a possibility of orders awaiting me at the hotel; and, although it was not yet noon, I hailed a rig and drove there. The clerk passed over the familiar yellow envelope, and my message read: "Proceed to Hong-Kong for orders." I replied that I would leave at once, and the message was gone before I discovered that there wasn't a steamer for Hong-Kong before the end of the week, five days away.
It would have sounded silly to dispatch another message, telling of lack of steamers. I had supposed a steamer sailed every day or two, and my temper was ruffled at my mistake and the prospect of fretting away a week in the heat of Manila.
A little item in the Times gave me hope. It told of the steamer Kut Sang coming out of dry dock to sail for Hong-Kong that very afternoon with general cargo. There was a bare chance that