Walking rapidly, the boy soon found himself upon the right bank of the river. Though there was as yet no sign of daybreak in the east, several people were already abroad, for the Chinese begin their day's work early in the morning and do not cease till late at night. Parties of men were engaged in loading the junks and wupans which were moored to the wharves and jetties.

Frank walked along the river-side until he found a junk about to sail. He hailed the captain, a tall, sun-burnt Chinaman with his pigtail coiled round the top of his head, who wore hardly any clothes at all. This man informed him that the junk was bound upon a fishing cruise upon the open sea. He readily agreed to take Frank as far as Canton for a small consideration in the way of copper cash; and a minute later, the boy was on board, whilst the junk moved down-stream under full canvas.

Nearly all the relatives of the captain and his crew had come down to the wharf to bid them good-bye. There were small-footed Chinese women, and little round-faced, naked children, each of whom appeared to have eaten so much rice that he looked in danger of bursting. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth--for the Chinese on occasion can be exceedingly emotional--and no sooner was the junk clear of her moorings than the silence of the morning was disturbed by a veritable fusillade of Chinese squibs, rockets and crackers.

Indeed it might have been an Eastern Fifth of November. A great bundle of gunpowder crackers, tied to the poop of the vessel, went off in a kind of feu de joie, sending out so many sparks in all directions that it appeared that the ship was in danger of catching fire. The idea and object of this custom, which is universal throughout China from Tonkin to the Great Wall, is to scare away the evil spirits which might be disposed to embark on board the departing ship. The Chinese believe in the potency and the ubiquity of evil spirits. A European--commonly called "a foreign devil"--is invariably accompanied by a host of such attendant ghosts. Indeed, it is extremely difficult for any man, even a virtuous Chinese, to avoid being shadowed by malignant spooks who desire nothing more than to lead him into calamity and misfortune. There is, as every Chinese is well aware, but one method of driving away these evil spirits, and that is by exploding so much gunpowder and creating such a noise, that they flee in all haste back to the spirit land whence they come.

Frank Armitage observed this ceremony from the forepart of the boat. He had often witnessed such a scene before in the Chinese quarter of the harbour of Hong-Kong, but he had seldom seen such an expensive and gorgeous display. It was evident that the master and owner of the junk was a rich man who could afford to insure his property at the maximum premium. Also, this particular junk had an unusually large pair of eyes painted upon the bows. As the captain himself explained later in the day, if a junk has no eyes it cannot see where it is going. If a junk cannot see where it is going, it will probably, sooner or later, strike a rock or another ship, or run ashore. That would be a disaster for both the junk and its owner. Hence a junk must have eyes the same as a man. This argument is thoroughly Chinese and would be entirely rational provided the painted eyes upon the bows of a Chinese ship were of the slightest practical use.

All that day they sailed down-stream towards the centre of the great valley of the West River. Every mile the country became more and more thickly populated. They passed many villages situated upon both banks of the river, the houses in the majority of cases overhanging the water, supported by heavy wooden piles. The country was exceedingly fertile, being given over almost exclusively to the cultivation of rice. There were few trees and few hills except far in the distance, towards the north, where the foothills of the great Nan-ling Mountains stood forth upon the horizon like a wall.

Late the following afternoon the river joined a wider stream flowing towards the south-east. This Frank at first believed to be the West River itself, but he was informed by the captain of the junk that the Si-kiang was still fifty li to the south.

It was midnight when they turned into the main stream, and soon afterwards they saw before them the bright lights of the city of Sanshui, which is situated about twenty-five miles due west of Canton.

At this place, Frank was in two minds what to do. He might go straight on to Canton and thence down the river to Hong-Kong, at both of which places he would be able to get in touch with his friends. On the other hand, he had every reason to suppose that Men-Ching was at that very moment in the city of Sanshui. The junk had made good headway down the river, and the boy knew that the boat on which Cheong-Chau's messenger had come south was to call at Sanshui to take on a cargo.

Now there is no doubt that Frank Armitage would have been wise had he first considered his own safety. He was already practically out of danger; there was no vital necessity for him to put his head deliberately into the lion's mouth. If his determination appears to be rash, it may be supposed that he was guided by some natural instinct that warned him that, in this case, the most dangerous course was the only means by which his uncle and Mr Waldron could be saved.

Be that as it may, he argued thus: from the very moment he escaped from the cave his journey had been extraordinarily uneventful; he saw no reason why it should not continue to be so. If Cheong-Chau's men were in pursuit he had seen nothing of them; he had apparently left them miles behind. He had every reason to be satisfied with his disguise; he was fairly confident that even if he found Men-Ching he would not be recognised, since he knew the old man to be extremely short-sighted. Throughout his journey, he had experienced no difficulty in passing himself off as a Chinese. The barber, the proprietor of the opium den, the fisherman and the captain of the junk--all had taken him to be a native of the country. The boy was sanguine of success; he never dreamt for a moment of failure. He saw no reason why he should not succeed in finding Men-Ching, in tracking the old rascal all the way to Hong-Kong and there having him arrested by the British police authorities. He even considered the possibility of completing the remainder of his journey actually in the company of Men-Ching and his companion.

He therefore asked the captain of the junk to set him ashore. He paid the man according to his agreement, and found himself, at about one o'clock in the morning, in the centre of a very dilapidated and evil-smelling city.

Since he had slept a good deal on board the junk--there being nothing else for him to do--he decided to remain awake until daybreak, keeping a close watch upon the bund, alongside which the junks and river-boats were moored. He felt sure, from what he had overheard in the opium den, that one of the many wupans that lay alongside the wharves was that upon which Men-Ching had come down the river. His object was first to discover the wupan. He would then have no difficulty in finding Men-Ching himself.

The boy seated himself upon the end of a jetty whence he could obtain a good view of the harbour. A watery moon was low in the heavens, and this, together with the stars, illumined the river with an iridescent, ghostly light, by which it was possible to see for a considerable distance.

The hour was as yet too early for the riverside workmen to begin work. The bund was deserted save for a number of rats, which were to be seen quite clearly continually crossing the open space that separated the houses from the ships.

Though the night was warm the air was somewhat damp, and Frank, fearing that he would contract malarial fever, rose to his feet and strolled casually down the jetty. At the corner of a narrow street he came quite suddenly face to face with a most alarming personage.

The expression "face to face" cannot be taken literally, for the man was a giant, and Frank's face was scarcely on a level with his chest. In the shadowy slums of a poverty-stricken Chinese town, at such a ghostly hour as two o'clock in the morning, to find oneself unexpectedly confronted by an individual of the stature of a Goliath and with the countenance of a demon, is an experience well calculated to give a jolt to the nervous system of anyone. To put the truth in a word, Frank Armitage was frightened out of his wits, and these fears were by no means dissipated when the Herculean stranger, without the least warning, grasped him by the collar of his coat and lifted him bodily from off his feet.

"Ha!" the man roared, in the Cantonese of the educated classes. "A river-side thief! A junk rat! A prowler by night! Tell me, friend weasel, have you stolen rice from on board a Canton junk, or a night-watchman's supper?"

"I pray you, sir," cried Frank, "put me down upon my feet again. I am no thief, I assure you, but a peaceable citizen of Wu-chau, who goes upon a visit to his grandfather."

"A peaceable citizen!" roared the man, bursting into laughter. "That's good, indeed. I would have you to know that all citizens are peaceful when they fall into the hands of the mighty Ling."

So if Frank were none the wiser, the reader at any rate is better informed. Frank Armitage had never in his life, to the best of his knowledge, heard of the mighty Ling. The reader, however, has made that extraordinary man's acquaintance. He knows that Ling was not by any means one who could be trifled with, and he has been given some kind of a notion of the character and reputation of this same unmitigated villain who was wont to call himself "the mighty Ling."

The giant set down the boy upon his feet, planting him immediately in front of him.

"I have need of you," said he. "It is possible you may be able to render me some assistance. You doubtless have not failed to observe that the gods have made me too big to hide myself without considerable inconvenience. It is in this regard that you can help me. If you do so faithfully I shall reward you. If you attempt to play the fool with me, you go into the river with a twisted neck. And now, follow, my junk rat! Follow me!"

At that, he grasped the boy by a wrist and, taking such tremendous strides that Frank was obliged almost to run, dragged him along the wharf.