“Mott Street is as safe as Fifth Avenue—but you must keep your eyes open.”
—The Lieutenant in Chinatown.
THROUGH the dim, chasm-like streets Kenyon followed Forrester; and always there clung to him the feeling that there was lurking along, in the thicker shadows behind them, a soft-footed someone whose intentions were as unknown as him- or her-self.
The section was strange to Kenyon. Overhead the mist seemed to cling stickily to a wilderness of fire-escapes, and by degrees the air became impregnated with a peculiar odor.
“It’s decidedly Asiatic,” commented Kenyon, as he sniffed this. “Unless I am very much mistaken we are approaching New York’s Chinatown.”
“You are right,” answered Forrester. “We’ll be in the midst of it in a moment.”
True to his word they suddenly turned a corner, and a little way ahead saw the glare of incandescent lights, the strange, oriental-looking shops and filthy doorways of the Yellow Quarter. The slant-eyed Celestials thronged the streets, some lank and wolf-like, others fat and placid, but all members of murderous Tongs, and for the most part carrying deadly weapons concealed in their loose blouses. Here and there was a blue-coated policeman; now and then a white woman with painted cheeks and sunken eyes could be seen staring through the dirty panes of an upper window. Suddenly a great, illuminated sign flared into view which bore the name in letters formed of hideous green light:
THE FAR EAST
“This, I suppose, is the place you spoke of,” said Kenyon.
Forrester nodded.
“This way,” he directed. They did not enter by the wide, glaring door of the place, in which stood some drunken marines, a Chinaman or two, and a clump of women of the street. Instead they used a small, dark, side door, and after descending a narrow passage found themselves in a room in which a fat old Chinese woman sat crouched upon a mat before what looked like an iron pot full of red coals. Immediately upon their entrance she began a muttering in her own sing-song tongue, but never once lifted her eyes. Before going to South America to join Nunez in his expedition against Uruguay, Kenyon had served the Chinese Government in the brief war with Japan. So he was more or less familiar with the language.
“Curse-laden beast of a white devil!” crooned the hag. “And have you come back, once more? May there be no dawn in your days, forever; and may the gates of sorrow close you in!”
“A very gentle-dispositioned old lady,” was Kenyon’s amused thought. “Apparently Forrester is not very popular with her.”
But Forrester did not understand the old woman’s words, nor did he pay the slightest attention to her.
“I’ll have to ask you to remain here for a few moments,” said he to Kenyon, in an apologetic tone. “You see, it’s necessary for me to locate the people we want; and these places are regular rabbit warrens when you get into them right.”
He left the room by another door. Kenyon sat upon the edge of a table and listened to the mutterings of the hag, for she had continued in her reviling, still keeping her eyes bent downward.
“Fatherless worm!” she proclaimed. “Your pale eyes are like the fish, and your soul is as narrow as my thumb-nail.”
From somewhere in the distance came a fit of coughing, weak, ominous, rattling.
“Yo has the mind of an infant to trust to the white devils. The more he coughs the more he trusts.” She held her fat, lumpy hands over the coals and spat contemptuously upon the floor. “He should keep his eyes and his knife sharp. The ghosts of his holy ancestors watch from the past and expect much.”
“One of the unassimilated,” thought Kenyon.
As the woman paid no heed to him he approached a curtained space from beyond which came the sound of many voices. Drawing the curtain he saw a huge, low-ceilinged room with walls painted with gaudy dragons, scenes from the Chinese mythology, and glaring with electric lights. It was crowded with people, gathered about small tables, drinking tea from tiny cups, and eating of the many and curious Chinese dishes which the place supplied. The hard-faced youth from the lower east side was there, in plenty, with his “girl”; a slumming party of scared-looking women and embarrassed young men occupied a far corner; meek, hollow-chested celestials of the cooley class smoked cheap cigarettes over their pots of tea, while those of the dominant type, attired in loud American dress, discussed their many trades and filthy incomes in the unknowable slang of their kind.
“The regular thing, as far as I can see,” thought Kenyon. “I suppose Mr. Hong Yo is the head of the company and a thrifty man of business. But I’ll do well not to be taken in by appearances, however. These yellow fellows have the ingenuity of the devil for blinds of different sorts. While the ‘Far East,’ as they call it, may be a very pretty business proposition, still it may serve to cloak a less conventional trade than restaurant keeping.”
He still stood with the curtain in his hand, peering through into the main room of the place, when the door from the street swung open and a man and woman entered the restaurant. At sight of the latter Kenyon grew suddenly rigid and his breath hissed through his teeth. Not that he could see her face, for a heavy veil concealed that, nor her form, for she was wrapped in a long, loose cloak. But there was something about her, in her way of holding herself, in her supple walk, in the proud uplift of her head, that brought back to him the girl of the hansom cab.
“It’s she,” he whispered. “It is she. But what under heaven is she doing here, and in the company of a man like that?”
Her escort was indeed a most remarkable-looking person. He was a well-built, determined-looking man; but his face was death-like in its pallor and his head was swathed in bandages. As he walked toward a corner table, he swayed weakly and the girl kept him upon his feet. But the frequenters of the “Far East” were accustomed to strange night sights and the newcomers got scarcely a glance save from the slumming party.
They had barely got seated when Kenyon heard a step behind him, and, turning, found Forrester just closing the door.
“Ah, you’ve been surveying the outer circle,” smiled the giant, good-naturedly. “You have nothing quite like it in South America, I think.”
“Not exactly. But there are strange sights there, also. The low coffee houses at Rio are as picturesque; and even the Chinese have little the advantage of the Latin when it comes to vice.”
“No doubt you are right. But Hong Yo and Farbush are awaiting you in Hong’s place.” He looked inquiringly at Kenyon, and after a pause of some length asked: “I say, what is your candid opinion of Farbush?”
Kenyon shrugged his shoulders.
“How can I form an opinion of a person of whom I know so very little,” he replied, cautiously.
“Well, you have heard how he has conducted his share of the game. Surely you must have arrived at some sort of a conclusion, from that.”
Kenyon shook his head slowly; his assumption of calm neutrality was perfect.
“You will pardon me, I know,” he said, suavely. “But I’d rather not express myself upon so, to me, vague a point.”
“I would like to know, and Hong would like to know, just how you stand, right there.” There was a serious note in the young man’s voice that at once caught Kenyon’s attention. “I don’t want to give you the notion, though, that we have split into factions, or are even inclined to do so,” he added, hastily.
“I should hope not,” added Kenyon, gravely.
“But we should like some sort of an expression from you, just the same,” persisted Forrester.
“At a later time I shall be only too glad to express myself fully and completely.” There was a finality in Kenyon’s tone that was unmistakable. “Until that time comes, I prefer not to go upon record.”
“Very well, then,” replied Forrester, sulkily. “Of course it is no great matter either way. But I, for one, prefer to have a good clear light upon my path and not to leave anything to the future.” Then he crossed to the old hag, and bending over her began whispering.
“Not leave anything to the future!” was Kenyon’s mental exclamation. “Great Cæsar! What would he do in my shoes, I wonder? I am banking upon the future, entirely, for my light; the present seems only to intensify the darkness.”
Forrester continued his whispering to the woman; so Kenyon once more drew aside the curtain and looked into the large room where sat the people of the night. His first rapid glance was directed toward the corner where he had last seen the girl and the man with the bandaged head; but they were not there, and his keen eyes ran over the room eagerly.
“They have gone!” he breathed. “And where?” But he had little time to think about it, for Forrester spoke to him, and he had to give him his attention.
“Faing Sen, here, will lead you to those whom you are to meet,” said Forrester, indicating the hag. “Follow her, and don’t wonder at the road or anything you might see. As I remarked before, this is a regular rabbit warren.”
The fat old woman arose.
“May seven times seven hundred evils beset your path,” she wished, in her confidence that she was not understood. “And may the gods look darkly upon your children’s birth.”
That he understood what the old woman said Kenyon kept to himself. But he remarked to Forrester, with a laugh, “Faing Sen does not seem to be in a good temper to-night.”
“No. But then that is her normal condition. She hates the white devil, I understand. I know nothing of her lingo, and she pretends to know scarcely any English. But I succeed in getting along, somehow, when I’m here.”
“Will the tall devil follow Faing Sen?” inquired the old woman, beckoning Kenyon. She had lighted a candle and stood awaiting him in the doorway which Forrester had used. “Has he no manners that he should keep her waiting. Much fine-smelling wood shall she burn to the four-handed joss to-morrow, that the white devil’s eyes turn to water in his head.”
She passed through the doorway and Kenyon followed; as he turned, about to close the door after him, he caught a glimpse of Forrester as he stealthily drew aside the curtains and looked into the public room. Then Kenyon saw the curtains fall back in place, and saw Forrester turn with an anxious look; hurry through the other door, and disappear.