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Updated: June 23, 2025
The tender one had fallen, there at the foot of the joss, and Kwen Lung, his teeth gleaming like a rat like a devil turns to meet him. So he is when her man strike him, once. Just once, here." She rested her hand upon her heart. "And he falls and he coughs. He lie still. For him it is finished. That devil heart has ceased to beat. Ah!" She threw up her hands, and: "That is all.
I'm goin' to tell yer. I see old Kwen Lung's daughter " "I didn't know 'e 'ad one," murmured Harley. "Then you don't know much!" shouted the fireman. "I knew years ago, but 'e kept 'er stowed away somewhere up above, an' last night was the first time I ever see 'er. It was 'er shriek wot 'ad reached me, reached me through the smoke.
I'd sleep easier at sea if I knew old Kwen Lung 'ad gone west on a bloody rope's end." For fully ten minutes after the fireman had departed Paul Harley sat staring abstractedly in front of him, his cold pipe between his teeth, and knowing his moods I intruded no words upon this reverie, until: "Come on, Knox," he said, standing up suddenly, "I think this matter calls for speedy action." "What!
I asked after old Kwen Lung, but, of course, 'e was out gamblin', as usual; so after old Ma Lorenzo 'ad made me comfortable an' gone out I 'ad the place to myself, and presently I dozed off and forgot all about bloody ship's bunkers an' nigger-drivin' Scotchmen." He paused and looked about him defiantly.
Somebody come in at the winder, but 'oo it was or wot it was I can't tell yer, not for fifty quid. When I woke up, which is about 'arf an hour before you see me, I'm all alone see? There's no sign of Kwen Lung nor the gal nor old Ma Lorenzo nor anybody. I sez to meself, wot you keep on sayin'. I sez, 'You're dreamin', Bill." "But I don't think you was," declared Harley. "Straight I don't."
I had never before visited Kwen Lung's, but the fame of his golden joss had reached me, and I know that he had received many offers for it, all of which he had rejected. It was whispered that Kwen Lung was rich, that he was a great man among the Chinese, and even that some kind of religious ceremony periodically took place in his house.
When I sez to myself, 'Bill, I sez, 'put out to sea; you're amongst Kaffirs, Bill. It occurred to me as old Kwen Lung might wonder 'ow much I knew. So I beat it. But when I got in the open air I felt I'd never make my lodgin's without a tonic. That's 'ow I come to meet you, mates. "Listen I'm away in the old Seahawk in the mornin', but I'll tell you somethink.
A drunken pig comes here and finds his way in, so I give him the smoke and presently he sleeps, but it makes delay, and I don't know how soon Kwen Lung, that yellow demon, will wake. For he is like the bats who sleep all day and wake at night. "At last the sailor pig sleeps and I call softly to my dear little one that the time has come.
Old Kwen Lung conveniently kept out of the way still playing fan-tan, no doubt! But Ma Lorenzo was in evidence. She blandly declared that Kwen Lung never had a daughter! And in the absence of our friend the fireman, who sailed in the Seahawk, and whose evidence, by the way, is legally valueless what could we do?
I don't take much stock in Chink gals in general, but this one's mother was no Chink, I'll swear. She was just as pretty as a bloomin' ivory doll, an' as little an' as white, and that old swine Kwen Lung 'ad tore the dress off of 'er shoulders with a bloody great whip!"
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