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Updated: May 2, 2025
A band of them was scouring the country, thirty or more, down from Mongolia. Abject terror was on every face. The whole village was under its spell. "We must push on," said Withers, "we must hasten." The shroff was very fearful, but as he was to be compradore now, to do the work of a European, he could not show fear.
He stood eyeing the young Chinese accountant, and the shroff looked him back fairly in the eye, and the same thought passed through both minds. A younger man would do just as well as compradore, and here was the younger man at hand, waiting. "Let's go down to the godowns," said Withers, and the two walked out of the office together, in the direction of the quais.
One day, after an absence of two weeks, young Withers returned to his Tientsin office, which wore a somewhat deserted air. The shroff was clicking on his abacus, and left off snicking the beads up and down to remark casually that the compradore had gone.
Prowlers, made bold by the long silence in the nunnery, came and went under the very walls of the compound. In the court, beside a candle, Ah Pat the compradore sat with a bundle of halberds and a whetstone, sharpening edge after edge, placidly, against the time when there should be no more cartridges.
Young Withers visualised his dignified compradore the figure of fun to irreverent American crowds. He sincerely wished to preserve him from what he felt must be an unpleasant experience. He was even more anxious to protect his old friend from what would probably be in store for him, than through any selfish desire to retain his services. "Come back again four month," observed Li. "Not long time.
The compradore grinned, and in a tone of great unconcern called out that the pair were not in the garden. "Walkee so." He pointed down the passage to the main gate, and hooked his thumb toward the right, to indicate their course. "Makee finish, makee die now," he added calmly; "too muchee, no can." Rudolph experienced his first shock of terror, like an icy blow on the scalp.
A glass of ice and tansan smashed on the floor. Rudolph was on foot, clutching his bandaged arm as though the hurt were new. "You!" he stammered. "You did that!" He stood gaping, thunderstruck. Felt soles scuffed in the darkness, and through the door, his yellow face wearing a placid and lofty grin, entered Ah Pat, the compradore. "One coolie-man hab-got chit."
"Nothing to do, nothing to fret about, till the compradore reports. Wonderful too good to be true." For a long time, lying side by side, they might have been asleep. Through the dim light on the white walls dipped and swerved the drunken shadow of a bat, who now whirled as a flake of blackness across the stars, now swooped and set the humbler flame reeling.
Loose earth underfoot warned them not to stumble over the new-raised mound beside the pit, which yawned slightly blacker than the night. Kempner's grave had not been quieter. The compradore stood whispering: they had found the tunnel empty, because, he thought, the sappers were gone out to eat their chow. "We'll see, anyway," said Heywood, stripping off his coat.
He waved a dignified farewell from the rail, and young Withers, on the dock, watched the departure of his old compradore with infinite misgivings. Four months, including the passage both ways, proved much too long a time in which to see America. Li returned unexpectedly one day, within half that time, a silent and broken man.
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