rushed in the cradle of Bobbie's great arms.

Peter looked down into the green valley with tears standing in his
grave, blue eyes. The caravan was slowly winding out upon the trail.
In five weeks it would leave Kalikan, the last soil of China, on the
frontier of India.

Peter felt exceedingly happy as he hastened down the hillside to catch
the caravan.

PART II

THE BITTER FOUNTAIN

CHAPTER I

She bends over her work once more:
"I will weave a fragment of verse among the flowers of his robe,
and perhaps its words will tell him to return."
--LI-TAI-PE.

The newly arrived wireless operator of the Java, China, and Japan
liner, _Persian Gulf_, deposited his elbows upon the promenade
deck-rail, and cast a side-long glance at the Chinese coolie who had
taken up a similar position about a bumboat's length aft. And the
coolie returned his deliberate stare with a look of dreamy interest,
then quickly shifted his glance to the city which smoldered and
vibrated across Batavia's glinting, steel-blue harbor.

Without turning his head the wireless man continued to watch sharply
the casual movements of this Chinese, quite as he had been observing
him since they had left Tandjong Priok in the company's launch and come
out to the _Persian Gulf_ together.

He had suspected the fellow from the very first, and he was prepared,
on the defensive; yet he was willing and eager to take the offensive
should this son of the yellow empire so much as show the haft of his
kris, or whisper a word of counsel in his ear. The latter he feared
quite as much as the former, for it would mean many things.

As the fellow sidled a little closer, Peter was aware that the man was
making queer signals with his slanting eyes for the purpose of
attracting his attention, without arousing the curiosity or interest of
any persons who might be observing the two.

Whereupon Peter turned on his left heel, walked to the other's side and
gave him a stare of deliberate hostility.

The coolie moved backward a few inches by flexing his body; his feet
remained as they were. And as Peter ran his eye from the black crown
hat to the faded blue jacket, the black-sateen pants, which were
clipped about the ankles, giving them a mild pantaloon effect, and to
the black slippers with their thick buck-soles, the coolie smiled.

It was a smile of arrogance, of self-satisfaction. Indeed, it was the
smile of a hunter who has winged his prey