Page:Pacific Monthly volumes 9 and 10.djvu/133



THE MYSTERY OF LO WAN SEE

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was early yet for sailing:, but there was a Chinaman standing in the stern of the boat, slowly unwinding^ a heavy line on which there was a lar^e three- pronged spoon-hook and a knot of red calico. He threw it overboard and let the line run out with the tide, while he sat down to the sort of splendid con- templation in which Chinamen excel. He might have been Confucius evolv- ing a new axiom.

He was a homely fellow, very tall and rather darker than the averag^e. He had eyes, too, that were a little off color, as Chinese eyes go ; but other- wise he was not notable, except for a certain raw-boned ungainliness of fig- ure and a great red seam across his left cheek, where he had been slashed some-

how, probably with a sa- bre. He wore an ordinary pair of dark blue cloth trousers, a heavy cloth jacket of Chi- nese cut, and had his pigtail tucked un- der a round black felt hat. The only thing that was remarkable about him was his power of passive concentration.' He didn't catch anything. He sat there leaning on the guard-rail, with his eyes fixed on thfe far summit of the Fraser Mountains, dreaming of those peaceful things which enable Chinamen to sit by the hour like brass idols, staring into space. Now and then his gaze would shift from the snow-clad peaks to the horizon of the Sound, and his wrinkled parchment lids would drop till his keen, queer-colored eyes peeped out through two narrow slits, alert, in- quisitive, expectant. Then they would suddenly dart away and lapse into the serenity of mountain-gazing. It was like the quick spring of a snake which recovers itself and coils again in am- bush.

He had been there an hour, probably, when all at once his fingers seemed to close a little tighter on the line. He jerked it a bit, as though he had inti- mation of a fish. About his thin lips there played an expression as signifi-

cant as it was inscrutable. Away off from shore there was a small row boat, moving lazily down the Sound. The Chinaman lifted one hand and waved it rapidly through the air. The boat changed its course a bit. The man who was rowing seemed to be taking his bearings. He pulled the boat around in a circle, and suddenly his oars swung with a strong stroke forward. Then he shipped them for about ten minutes, while he leaned over the side of the boat. You could not see at that dis- tance what he was doing, but the line in the Chinaman's hands became taut and he gripped it fast.

"Well, ril be darned!" exclaimed a stevedore who had been guying the fisherman from the wharf, **if he clidn't have a bite! Hey, there, John! you've got a whale!"

The Chinaman did not stir, except to draw out a cigarette and light

it lazily. The stevedore lost his inter- est, or he might have seen that the line around the thin, mud-colored hands was being wound up slowly, a turn at a time, furtively made.

The Dode was about r^ady to clear. The wharf agent was chatting with the steward.

"where'd you get that Chinaman?"
 * T say, Jim," he said, winking,

"Oh, he's all right!" replied the other. "He's not an immigrant. He's got his papers all right and is traveling with his coffin. He's agent for a big Foo Chow tea house. He took a whole stateroom with a double berth, and he had his coffin put in the upper. There was a big time about it, but the purser soaked him for another fare."

"It must be cheerful," observed the wharf agent, "traveling with your cof- fin."

The bell rang and the whistle blew. A man with a large cape coat and a fur collar rushed up the gangplank, carry- ing a satchel. He wore a slouch hat pulled low over his face. His move-