"No doubt, but unfortunately--"
"Unfortunately--what?"
"Unfortunately, I have not succeeded with Wang," he said. "I failed to
move his Celestial, heart--that is, if there is such a thing. He told me
with horrible Chinese reasonableness that he could not let us pass the
barrier, because we should be pursued. He doesn't like fights. He gave
me to understand that he would shoot me with my own revolver without
any sort of compunction, rather than risk a rude and distasteful
contest with the strange barbarians for my sake. He has preached to the
villagers. They respect him. He is the most remarkable man they have
ever seen, and their kinsman by marriage. They understand his policy.
And anyway only women and children and a few old fellows are left in the
village. This is the season when the men are away in trading vessels.
But it would have been all the same. None of them have a taste for
fighting--and with white men too! They are peaceable, kindly folk and
would have seen me shot with extreme satisfaction. Wang seemed to think
my insistence--for I insisted, you know--very stupid and tactless. But a
drowning man clutches at straws. We were talking in such Malay as we are
both equal to.
"'Your fears are foolish,' I said to him.
"'Foolish? of course I am foolish,' he replied. 'If I were a wise man,
I would be a merchant with a big hong in Singapore, instead of being a
mine coolie turned houseboy.
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