Foggy consciousness. A roaring like that of the ocean on a rockbound coast. He seemed to be floating in a medium of ice. Once his dragging arm scraped a wet, slippery timber. The journey seemed to be taking him down--down--into the earth, and slowly he began to rise.
Gradually he became aware of innumerable pinpoints of light in a shield of purple darkness. These might have been stars, or the lights of a great city. Next he heard the low gurgle of water, as of a stream splashing through wilderness.
He felt very faint, but the vapor clouds in his brain were beginning to clear away. Next he was badly shaken up, yet he was conscious of no pain. Remorseful eyes stared into his from the face of a candle-white spectre, and in the background a tall, half-naked giant swayed from side to side in a pink glow.
Where, then, were Jen and his Chinese?
He vaguely sensed the dawn; it came to him as an old experience, a sort of groping memory out of a gloriously romantic past. And the swaying giant he decided in a moment of rare clarity to be a sampan coolie.
The pink glow increased, became pale yellow, while a deep blueness figured in it. A swollen sun came and paved a bloody path across a lake of roiled brown, and the water hissed with a white foam.
His jaws were aching; a queer emptiness in his chest caused him long and perplexing speculation. There were shouting voices aloft, and a gleaming black wall slowly took form above him. He made out the pointed heads of rivets.
"Are you awake?" The voice, low and sibilant, emerged from the candle-white face.
He had been dreaming, too, during this fantastic journey. Once he had plainly distinguished a field of waving corn. He seemed to be back in California.
"Eileen," he murmured, surprised at the feebleness of his voice.
"No, no," came the reply. "It is Romola. I--I am leaving you!"
"Ah! Where is Jen?"
Bellowing inquiry came down to them: "Who is that? What do you want?"
The girl called back: "The wireless operator. He is sick. Drop the ladder. Send down some one to carry him."
The sampan was swinging about, and the coolie was paddling like mad.
"River boat--for Ching-Fu?" Peter gasped.
"No. The King of Asia. Peter--can you understand? I am leaving you! This is good-by! I--I--we will never see each other again. I--I couldn't turn you over to that man!"
"But the candle----" Peter was miserably confused. "You raised it--once! I said no!"
Romola seemed to become rather hysterical. "I tricked them, Peter! Oh, won't you understand? I do love you, Peter! I couldn't give you to them!"
"No," he muttered; "I don't understand. I--I'm dizzy."
The voice was bellowing again.
"Is that Peter Moore? What's happened to him?"
"He's sick--sick! Send down a watchman. Hurry! This tide is carrying us away!"
Something bounded into the sampan. A brown coil was flattened against the gleaming black wall.
But Peter could not understand. He was back again in the cellar under Romola's house, mumbling insanely about a candle-light. Perhaps he dreamed that hot lips were pressed lingeringly against his own. Over and over he heard a fading voice; it was saying: "Good-by!--Ch'ing!"
The glaring sun was in his face. He shut his eyes. The lips seemed to be torn from his in a cry of anguish. Strong arms encircled his waist, and he was no longer aware of the motion of the sampan.
It was late in the day when Peter opened his eyes again, closed them, and stared at the mattress and springs of a bunk over his head. He was lying on his back in his stateroom. Smoky afternoon sunlight, reflected from a shimmering surface, sparkled and bubbled against the white enameled wall.
His head was aching a little, and there were numerous jumping pains in various parts of his body. He had been dreaming. All of these things that had come and gone with the fading of the night were figments of a slumbering brain. The last portion of the dream which he could visualize distinctly was his act of arising from a wireless machine in a house that had gone mad, to confront a tall Chinese who wore a ridiculously stubby pigtail, like that of Jen, the deck-steward.
He sat up, governed by a sudden worry. Where were the Whipple girls and Anthony? What had become of that dashing British lieutenant, Milton Raynard?
Peter arose hastily from bed, and examined a pale and gaunt countenance in the small mirror above the wash-stand. Dark lines had come under his eyes, and the deep-blue pupils seemed to kindle with a peculiar brilliancy. He had seen that look in other eyes, and another fragment of the dream came back to him. He licked his dry lips, tasting a flavor not unlike that of opium fresh from the poppy, and of almonds.
He filled the wash-basin with cold water, took a long breath, and immersed his face for a half minute. Gasping, he came out of it with pink starting into his cheeks, and his mental faculties somewhat better organized.
When he emerged from his stateroom, attired in a fresh white uniform, with his gold-and-white cap set at a jaunty angle on his head, he looked like a different man. His skin was glowing, and a youthful heart was sending recuperative tingles all over his body.
Peter took a turn about the promenade deck in search of Anthony, and was hailed by his room-boy, who had some mail for him.
He dropped these missives absently into his pocket, made further inquiries, and learned that Anthony and the Misses Whipple had come to the steamer shortly before sunrise in the launch belonging to the river gunboat Madrusa.
Then he knocked at Anthony's door. A tired snore, emanating from the transom, broke into a sleepy complaint.
The door opened; Anthony stared at him as if in the presence of a ghost. "Great Scott! I thought you were dead!" He rubbed his eyes to accelerate wakefulness.
Peter chuckled. "What happened? Both girls safe?"
"How did you get here alive?"
"I came down by sampan. The princess detained me."
Anthony shivered. "We thought you were with us. Somebody put out all the lights!" He shivered again. "Raynard wanted to go back--so did I. We didn't dare! The girls, you know." He dropped his head, as if ashamed.
"How is Peggy?"
Anthony frowned, hesitated. "Peter, she--she thinks you're a quitter! She thinks you ran away at the big moment!"
Peter grinned. "That can be cleared up. Did you enjoy--the game? Did you succeed? That's all I'm worrying about."
Anthony looked at him suspiciously. "That was not a put-up job. Why--I shot a man!" He became anxious. "Will there be a row?"
"Not a bit--if you keep your mouth shut."
"Oh, I'll do that! But that dead Chink! Ugh!"
"Forget him," advised Peter cheerfully. "I still don't know what Peggy had to say."
"What do you mean?" Anthony gave him a blank stare.
"Does she think----"
A light of understanding came into Anthony's clear gray eyes. "Oh, I made a little mistake," he confessed weakly. "It--it isn't Peggy; it's Helen! We're engaged! You see, Helen is such a--a quiet and reserved sort of girl. Just my kind! Peggy--well, you know, I decided she was a little too--too wild!"
A long, low gray launch was chugging alongside when Peter made his way back to the promenade-deck. At the upper extremity of the companion-ladder which reached down to the river's surface was standing a slim and youthful figure in blue, with wisps of golden hair flying about in the soft spring breeze.
She leaned anxiously and expectantly over the rail as a tall and commanding young man in the white uniform of his majesty's naval service climbed up eagerly toward her. The young officer leaped gracefully over the rail, seized both hands of the girl, and his eyes were shining.
Peter's deep-blue eyes unaccountably took on an expression of moist sadness; yet he was grinning.
He climbed up to the boat-deck, unlocked the wireless room, and for the first time recalled the mail in his hip-pocket. Leisurely he scanned the post-cards first, highly colored ones, which had been forwarded from the San Francisco Marconi office, emanating from friends scattered in many parts of the world. One was from Alaska; another from Calcutta, India, from that splendid fellow, Captain Bobbie MacLaurin.
He opened the letter, and his eyes fell upon familiar handwriting. He suddenly felt shocked; the sentences began swimming. The letter was from Eileen, dated Nanking. Words stood out whimsically, like thoughts assailing a tired brain, clamoring for recognition.
... You are the stubbornest man! ... Do you imagine I ever cared for that puppy? Why, Peter--why didn't you wait? I'd have scratched his eyes out! Of course, he kissed me! But the point is, my dear, I didn't realize until it was all over.... I suppose I should have jumped into the ocean when you left me so angrily. But I didn't. I came to China on the Empress of Japan. I am now at the Bridge Hotel, in Nanking, on my way to Ching-Fu, where you may find me. Just to show you that I can have adventures, too!
"Great guns!" said Peter. He wondered if he could catch the Nanking express; there was a Chinese steamer leaving Nanking for up-river to-morrow noon.
There was a humble voice at his elbow. A deck-boy was grinning dreamily at him; a queer flicker darted across his green eyes, vanished.
"Jen!" exclaimed Peter, glimpsing an abbreviated pigtail.
"Aie!" said the deck-boy.
"The man from the Jen Kee Road place!"
The deck-steward seemed puzzled. "My no savvy," he said. His look became dreamy again, reminiscent.
"But you can speak English as well as 'pidgin,'" declared Peter, frowning. "You did last night!"
"My savvy 'pidgin,'" said Jen brightly. "China allatime funny place! China no can savvy allatime funny people! Funny!"
"What's that?" snapped Peter. He was baffled and angry. Had Jen played the leading part in the mysterious and grim comedy of last night, or was he only a work coolie, a deck-steward, harmless, innocuous, babbling happily in his limited knowledge of a strange language?
The deck-boy was pointing up-river with a long, yellow finger.
Peter stared. And he saw nothing, nothing but a great red sun with its lower half enveloped in a glowing pool of green and red smoke into which arose the black spars of ships from all over the world.
