. The other men took the oath in the
same fashion.

'Will they keep it?' Charlie inquired, when Ping Wang had made known to
Fred and him the nature of the oath.

'I cannot be sure of it,' Ping Wang said.

'I will keep this rifle until we reach the end of our river-trip,' Fred
declared.

Shortly after the sun had set, the boat arrived at the place where Ping
Wang had decided to land.

'The foreigners and I will not land until daybreak,' he said to the
boat-owner. 'Moor the boat. It will be safer for us to begin our journey
by daylight,' Ping Wang said to Charlie and Fred, after telling them
that they were to remain on board until the morning. 'I have not
travelled by the road we are going to take since I was a small boy, and
consequently it is not familiar to me. There is another road which leads
to Kwang-ngan, but it is more frequented than the one by which we are to
travel. Our road is a round-about one, and rarely used since the shorter
road has been made. I hope that we shall meet very few people.'

'How far shall we have to walk before we reach the first village?'
Charlie asked.

'About five miles; and Kwang-ngan is six miles beyond that.'

'Then we shall be there to-morrow night, I suppose?'

'I hope so. By-the-bye, do you feel hungry?'

'Very,' Charlie answered, speaking for Fred as well as for himself.

'Then I'll ask the boat-owner to sell us a couple of ducks I know he has
on board.'

Ping Wang returned to his friends presently, holding in his hands two
well-cooked ducks.

'We shall soon polish these off,' Charlie said, as he, Fred, and Ping
Wang took their seats under the awning, with the ducks on a big wooden
plate on their knees.

'Your appetite always was enormous,' Fred remarked. 'But I was thinking
whether we ought not to save one of them. Ping Wang, shall we have any
difficulty in obtaining food to-morrow?'

'I don't think so,' Ping Wang replied. 'However, it would be a good
thing to save one of the birds until the morning, so that we may have a
good meal to start the day.'

One duck was therefore kept, and the other eaten. Ten minutes after the
meal, Charlie, Fred, and Ping Wang were sound asleep, with the duck near
them on the wooden dish in which it had been served up. When they awoke
at daybreak the dish was where they had left it, but the duck had
disappeared.

'This is serious,' Ping Wang said. 'One of the boatmen must have stolen
it. I will ask them.'

He did so; but the m