Page 126 - The English Carnival 7

him.” He tried to arouse himself by directing his mind to the ingots the Chinamen had
spoken of, but it would not rest there; it came back headlong to the thought of sweet

water rippling in the river, and to the almost unendurable dryness of his lips and throat.
The rhythmic wash of the sea upon the reef was becoming audible now, and it had a
pleasant sound in his ears; the water washed along the side of the canoe, and the paddle
dripped between each stroke. Presently he began to doze.

He was still dimly conscious of the island, but a queer dream texture interwove with his
sensations. Once again it was the night when he and Hooker had hit upon the Chinamen’s
secret; he saw the moonlit trees, the little fire burning, and the black figures of the

three Chinamen silvered on one side by moonlight, and on the other glowing from the
firelight and heard them talking together in pigeon-English for they came from different
provinces. Hooker had caught the drift of their talk first, and had motioned to him to
listen. Fragments of the conversation were inaudible, and fragments incomprehensible. A
Spanish galleon from the Philippines hopelessly aground, and its treasure buried against

the day of return, lay in the background of the story; a shipwrecked crew thinned by
disease, a quarrel or so, and the needs of discipline, and at last taking to their boats never
to be heard of again. Then Chang-hi, only a year since, wandering ashore, had happened
upon the ingots hidden for two hundred years, had deserted his junk, and reburied them
with infinite toil, single-handed but very safe. He laid great stress on the safety it was a

secret of his. Now he wanted help to return and exhume them. Presently the little map
fluttered and the voices sank. A fine story for two, stranded British wastrels to hear!
Evans’ dream shifted to the moment when he had Chang-hi’s pigtail in his hand. The
life of a Chinaman is scarcely sacred like a European’s. The cunning little face of Chang-
hi, first keen and furious like a startled snake, and then fearful, treacherous, and pitiful,
became overwhelmingly prominent in the dream. At the end Chang-hi had grinned, a

most incomprehensible and startling grin. Abruptly things became very unpleasant, as
they will do at times in dreams. Chang-hi gibbered and threatened him. He saw in his
dream heaps and heaps of gold, and Chang-hi intervening and struggling to hold him
back from it. He took Chang-hi by the pig-tail--how big the yellow brute was, and how

he struggled and grinned! He kept growing bigger, too. Then the bright heaps of gold
turned to a roaring furnace, and a vast devil, surprisingly like Chang-hi, but with a huge
black tail, began to feed him with coals. They burnt his mouth horribly. Another devil
was shouting his name: “Evans, Evans, you sleepy fool!” or was it Hooker?

He woke up. They were in the mouth of the lagoon.

“There are the three palm-trees. It must be in a line with that clump of bushes,” said
his companion. “Mark that. If we, go to those bushes and then strike into the bush in a
straight line from here, we shall come to it when we come to the stream.”

They could see now where the mouth of the stream opened out. At the sight of it Evans

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