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Then into the room, writhing as if in fearful agony, his hands palsied, his face a-drip and, except for dark blotches about the mouth, green-hued, his eyes wild and sunken, fell, rather than tottered, Anthony Barrett. "Fong Wu," he pleaded, from the floor at the other's feet, "you helped my wife when she was sick, now help me. I'm dying! I'm dying! Give it to me, for God's sake! give it to me."
He caught at the skirt of Fong Wu's blouse. The Chinese retreated a little, scowling. "What do you want?" he asked. A paroxysm of pain seized Barrett. He half rose and stumbled forward. "You know," he panted, "you know. And if I don't have some, I'll die. I can't get it anywhere else. She's found me out, and scared the drug-clerk. Oh, just a little, old man, just a little!"
He picked up a rude stool and set it by the table. She sank weakly upon it, letting the whip fall. "Thank God! thank God!" she sobbed prayerfully, and buried her face in her arms. Throughout the long hours that followed, Fong Wu, from the room's shadowy rear, sat watching. He knew sleep did not come to her.
Barrett again took up her rides for the mail. When she did, Fong Wu did not fail to be on his porch as she passed. For each evening, as she cantered up the road, spurring the mustang to its best paces, she reined to speak to him. And he met her greetings with unaccustomed good humor. Then she went by one morning before sunrise, riding like the wind.
As she sprang from it, light-footed and smiling, and mounted the steps, she indicated him politely to the Chinese. "This is my husband," she said. "I have told him how kind you were to me last night." Fong Wu nodded. Barrett hastened to voice his gratitude. "I certainly am very much obliged to you," he said.
But no one was loitering near except Fong Wu, and his face was the picture of dull indifference. That night, long after the hour for Mrs. Barrett's regular trip, and long past the time for his supper-song, Fong Wu heard slow, shuffling steps approach the house. A moment afterward, the knob of his door was rattled. He put out his light and slipped a knife into his loose sleeve.
The warm shadows of a California summer night were settling down over the wooded hills and rocky gulches about Fong Wu's, and there was little but his music to break the silence. Long since, the chickens had sleepily sought perches in the hen yard, with its high wall of rooty stumps and shakes, and on the branches of the Digger pine that towered beside it.
"Is it not possible for you to buy fowls of all the same colour?" the "Owner" wanted to know. Ah Fong stared in hopeless bewilderment, trying to grasp his master's meaning. "My no savvy, sah," he said, shaking his head. "Can you not buy your chickens, or my chickens, rather, all one colour? White, for preference, as the weather is hot."
Ah Fong had already given a dubious approval to the sex and quality of the fowls inside and naught remained but to submit the proper oath and remove the head of the unfortunate victim.
She went out, guiding her husband's footsteps, and helped him climb upon the mustang from the height of the narrow porch. Then, taking the horse by the bridle, she moved away down the slope to the road. Fong Wu did not follow, but closed the door gently and went back to the ironing-table. A handkerchief lay beside it a dainty linen square that she had left.
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