he fish-tail stripes chased in a more lively shoal. The gleaming
potter, below his rosy cairn, stared. The mourners forgot their grief.

Heywood, after his impulse of rescue, stood very quiet.

"You saw," he repeated dully. "You all saw."

The clutching figure, bolt upright in the soaked remnant of prison
rags, had in that leap and fall shown himself for Chok Chung, the
Christian. He had sunk in mystery, to become at one forever with the
drunken cormorant-fisher.

Obscene delight raged in the crowded boat, with yells and laughter, and
flourish of bamboo poles.

"Come away from the window," said Heywood; and then to the white-haired
doctor: "Your question's answered, padre. Strange, to come so quick." He
jerked his thumb back toward the river. "And that's only first blood."

The others had broken into wrangling.

"Escaped? Nonsense--Cat--and--mouse game, I tell you; those devils let
him go merely to--We'll never know--Of course! Plain as your nose--To
stand by, and never lift a hand! Oh, it's--Rot! Look here,
why--Acquitted, then set on him--But we'll _never_ know!--Fang watching
on the spot. Trust him!"

A calm "boy," in sky-blue gown, stood beside them, ready to speak. The
dispute paused, while they turned for his message. It was a
disappointing trifle: Mrs. Forrester waited below for her husband, to
walk home.

"Can't leave now," snapped Gilly. "I'll be along, tell her--"

"Had she better go alone?" suggested Heywood.

"No; right you are." The other swept a fretful eye about the company.
"But this business begins to look urgent.--Here, somebody we can spare.
You go, Hackh, there's a good chap."

Chantel dropped the helmet he had caught up. Bowing stiffly, Rudolph
marched across the room and down the stairs. His face, pale at the late
spectacle, had grown red and sulky, "Can spare me, can you?--I'm the
one." He descended, muttering.

Viewing himself thus, morosely, as rejected of men, he reached the
compound gate to fare no better with the woman. She stood waiting in the
shadow of the wall; and as he drew unwillingly near, the sight of
her--to his shame and quick dismay--made his heart leap in welcome. She
wore the coolest and severest white, but at her throat the same small
furbelow, every line of which he had known aboard ship, in the days of
his first exile and of his recent youth. It was now as though that youth
came flooding back to greet her.

"Good-morning." He forgot everything, except that for