carefully by hand, was a tiny heart, bleeding.

And that was the only message.

PART III

THE GREEN DEATH

CHAPTER I

"Oh! Chiang Nan's a hundred li, yet in a moment's space
I've flown away to Chiang Nan and touched a dreaming face."
--TS'EN-TS'AN.

A young man can get himself into trouble in China.
He may refuse to eat the food that is pushed into his
mouth at a Chinese banquet by the perfectly
well-intentioned man sitting beside him. In that case he will
hardly do more than arouse the contempt of his
beneficiary and his host. He simply shows that he lacks
good Chinese table manners, for at a Chinese banquet
it is proper to stuff food into your companion's mouth,
no matter how full his stomach may be.

Another way to offend the Chinese is to refuse a gift.

But these are minor things. The surest method to
arouse the suspicion, dislike and animosity of China is
deliberately to keep your affairs shrouded in mystery.
Discuss your important business secrets in loud shouts;
no one will pay the slightest attention. But whisper
mysteriously in your friend's ear, and spies will attend
you! Leave a note-book filled with precious data
plainly in view upon your dressing-table, and your
room-boy won't for the life of him peek into it. Lock
that same note-book away in a dressing-table drawer,
and your room-boy will move heaven and earth to find
out what it's all about!

The time of the day was mid-forenoon; the time of
the year was spring. The low, mournful voice of a
temple gong floated across the race of brown water.
River _fokies_, on sampans and junks, were singing their
old work song, the Yo-ho--hi-ho! of the ancient river, as
their naked, broad backs bent to the sweeps. A
pleasant breath of perspiring new earth was drifting down
the great stretch of yellow water on a light, warm wind.

Peter had taken his favorite stand on the upper-boat
deck, where the wireless shack was situated, with
one hand wrapped loosely about a davit guy, the other
thoughtfully rattling a cluster of keys in his pocket.

Spring is for youth, and Peter was young; yet he
did not reflect in any way the mood of the new season.
He felt gloomy and depressed. Life seemed an empty,
a dreary thing to Peter, because he could see himself
getting nowhere.

In spite of the sweet candor of the young spring
day, one of the first sounds that came to his ears as he
stood there, in the shadow of the life-boat, w