edroom, caught up the written list from a table, and
for a moment stood as if dreaming. Before him the Mausers, polished and
orderly, shone in their new rack against the lime-coated wall. Though
appearing to scan them, Rudolph saw nothing but his inward confusion.
"After all this man did for me," he mused. What had loosed the bond,
swept away all the effects?

A sound near the window made him turn. An imp in white and red livery,
Peng, the little billiard-marker from the club, stood hurling things
violently into the outer glare.

"What thing you do?" called Rudolph, sharply.

Some small but heavy object clattered on the floor. The urchin stooped,
snatched it up, and flung it hurtling clean over the garden to the
river. He turned, grinning amiably. "Goo-moh? ning-seh. How too you
too," he chanted. "I am welly? glat to-see you." A boat-coolie, he
explained, had called this house bad names. He, Peng, threw stones.
Bad man.

"Out of here, you rascal!" Rudolph flicked a riding-whip at the
scampering legs, as the small defender of his honor bolted for
the stairs.

"What's wrong?"

Heywood appeared promptly at the door.

From the road, below, a gleeful voice piped:--

"Goat-men! Baby-killers!"

In the noon blaze, Peng skipped derisively, jeered at them, performed a
brief but indecorous pantomime, and then, kicking up his heels with joy,
scurried for his life.

"Chucked his billet," said Heywood, without surprise. "Little devil, I
always thought--What's missing?"

Rudolph scanned his meagre belongings, rummaged his dressing-table,
opened a wardrobe.

"Nothing," he answered. "A boat-coolie--"

But Heywood had darted to the rack of Mausers, knelt, and sprung up,
raging.

"Side-bolts! Man," he cried, in a voice that made Rudolph jump,--"man,
why didn't you stop him? The side-bolts, all but two.--Young heathen,
he's crippled us: one pair of rifles left."

CHAPTER XIV

OFF DUTY

The last of the sunlight streamed level through a gap in the western
ridges. It melted, with sinuous, tender shadows, the dry contour of
field and knoll, and poured over all the parching land a liquid,
undulating grace. Like the shadow of clouds on ripe corn, the red tiles
of the village roofs patched the countryside. From the distant sea had
come a breath of air, cool enough to be felt with gratitude, yet so
faint as neither to disturb the dry pulsation of myriad insect-voices,
nor to blur the square mirrors of distant rice-fi