Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/8

 have wrecked the lives of most men. My wife appropriated as much of my personal property as she could readily lay  her hands upon, and in company with an English adventurer left Swatow for parts unknown.

Thank God there were no motherless children left behind her, our only offspring had been taken from us before we  left New York.

How she wept on that cold October afternoon when we laid the little fellow in Greenwood! How she clung to me, how—but there, I have no more to say about it. When she went I swore that I would tear her image alike from my  heart and memory—that I would never raise my finger to  find her. I simply let her go.

It was getting dark when I returned from my spin on the Mesap that evening, and in Cambodia the twilight does not  last long. I remember I had considerable difficulty in making my way among the mass of native boats which  lined the shore, and was not a little preplexed to find the  particular float from which I had started, for the low,  bamboo huts, with their sloping roofs of thatch all looked  alike to my unaccustomed eyes, and it was difficult to tell  one from the other. At last, however, I found it, and making fast, leaped ashore.

Lighting a cheroot I drew on my coat and soon found myself strolling leisurely along the principal street of Panompin, elbowed by Chinamen, Klings, Siamese, all easily distinguishable from the native Cambodians by their peculiar  costumes and facial distinctions. I was intent upon my thoughts, which concerned chiefly the contents of the  windows of the bamboo shops beside me, for just then I  was contemplating a descriptive work upon the manners  and customs of Farther India; and I had long since accustomed myself to habits of observation; for a traveller  with a retentive memory even the most casual stroll is never  taken in vain.

The main thoroughfare of the city runs north and south along the river, and I had proceeded for a considerable  distance—was almost in sight of King Norodom’s palace,  in fact, when a person brushed past me who certainly was  neither Chinese, Kling nor Cambodian, and at the same  time was as different from a European as an Englishman  from a citizen of Timbuctoo.

A man dressed after the fashion of the wealthy native