Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/212

 might find comfort, rest. Hung Long Tom scarcely knew what to do. He longed to return home and yet he dreaded it It would make remembrance too keen a thing. It would chop off the years of his life, until only memory of youth remained. Lotus Blossom, where was she now? When her gay presence passed from Hung Long Tom's life, half of him died. But Canton might do Scobee good. The future was a sinister thing to contemplate.

It was worth any trouble, any risk, to try to bring peace to the boy. Hung Long Tom did not for a moment imagine that he would be indicted for the death of Lotus Blossom. Her very passing was forgotten after all these years. Life in China is very cheap. Thousands of men have been hired to die for other men. For the equivalent of a few hundred dollars that would leave the relatives of the martyr in something approaching affluence, untold numbers of Chinamen were willing to die. China is a curious country because her people have suffered every emotion. They have feasted and they have starved, they have been little more