kground but
for a loin-band of yellow flesh--shone wet and glistening while he
stirred a dip-net through the liquid mud. Faint in the distance harsh
cries sounded now and then, and the soft popping of small-arms,--tiny
revolts in the reign of a stillness aged and formidable. Crumbling walls
and squat ruins, black and green-patched with mould--old towers of
defense against pirates--guarded from either bank the turns of the
river. In one reach, a "war-junk," her sails furled, lay at anchor, the
red and white eyes staring fish-like from her black prow: a silly
monster, the painted tompions of her wooden cannon aiming drunkenly
askew, her crew's wash fluttering peacefully in a line of blue dungaree.

Beyond the next turn, a fowling-piece cracked sharply, close at hand;
something splashed, and the ruffled body of a snipe bobbed in the bronze
flood alongside.

"Hang it!" complained a voice, loudly. "The beggar was too--Hallo! Oh, I
say, Gilly! Gilly, ahoy! Pick us up, there's a good chap! The bird
first, will you, and then me."

A tall young man in brown holland and a battered _terai_ stood above on
the grassy brink.

"Oh, beg pardon," he continued. "Took you for old Gilly, you know." He
snapped the empty shells from his gun, and blew into the breech, before
adding, "Would _you_ mind, then? That is, if you're bound up for
Stink-Chau. It's a beastly long tramp, and I've been shooting all
afternoon."

Followed by three coolies who popped out of the grass with game-bags,
the young stranger descended, hopped nimbly from tussock to gunwale, and
perched there to wash his boots in the river.

"Might have known you weren't old Gilly," he said over his shoulder.
"Wutzler said the Fa-Hien lay off signaling for sampan before breakfast.
Going to stay long?"

"I am agent," answered Rudolph, with a touch of pride, "for Fliegelman
and Sons."

"Oh?" drawled the hunter, lazily. He swung his legs inboard, faced
about, and studied Rudolph with embarrassing frankness. He was a
long-limbed young Englishman, whose cynical gray eyes, and thin face
tinged rather sallow and Oriental, bespoke a reckless good humor. "Life
sentence, eh? Then your name's--what is it again?--Hackh, isn't it?
Heywood's mine. So you take Zimmerman's place. He's off already, and
good riddance. He _was_ a bounder!--Charming spot you've come to! I
daresay if your Fliegelmans opened a hong in hell, you might possibly
get a worse station."

Without change of manner,