_"Yak pozee!"_ (Very good) he muttered.
Chunda Lal raised his finger.
"Be very careful, Ah-Fang-Fu!"
"Allee time velly careful."
"But admit no more of them to come in, these strangers."
_"Tchee, tchee!_ Velly ploper. Sometime big feller come in if Pidgin
palaber or not. Pidgin never lude to big feller."
"Your life may depend on it," said Chunda Lal impressively. "How many
are here?"
Ah-Fang-Fu turned at last from his cards, pointing in three
directions, and, finally, at Gaston Max.
"Four?" said the Hindu--"how can it be?"
He peered from bunk to bunk, muttering something--a name apparently--
after scrutinizing each. When his gaze rested upon Max he started,
stared hard, and meeting the gaze of the one visible eye, made the
strange sign.
Max repeated it; and Chunda Lal turned again to the Chinaman. "Because
of that drunken pig," he said, pointing at Bill Bean--"we must wait.
See to it that he is the last."
He walked slowly up the stairs, opened the door at the top and
disappeared.
CHAPTER VIII
THE GREEN-EYED JOSS
Sinister silence reclaimed the house of Ah-Fang-Fu. And Ah-Fang-Fu
resumed his solitary game.
_"He_ recognised 'Le Belafre'" whispered Max--"and was surprised to
see him! So there are three of the gang here! Did you particularly
observe in which bunks they lay, doctor. _Ssh!"_
A voice from a bunk had commenced to sing monotonously.
_"Peyala peah,"_ it sang, weird above the murmured accompaniment of
the other dreaming smokers and the _wash-wash_ of the tide--_"To
myn-na-peah-Phir Kysee ko kyah .
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