"I have indeed," said the other. "There is a junk anchored about three _li_ west of the tower. I saw it this afternoon."
"Did you notice how many men were on board?"
"That agrees," said Ling, "with what I already know."
He remained silent for a moment, and then suddenly grasped Frank by an arm and thrust him through the door.
"Come!" he cried. "We have no time to lose."
The next moment Frank Armitage was on the road again, and throughout the early hours of the morning he continued to travel northward, in company with his grim and silent captor. Once the boy dared to speak, asking Ling where they were going; but he was at once ordered to hold his tongue.
"You need what breath you have," observed the Honanese. "I am not here to answer questions."
There was more than a little truth in the first remark, for the boy was obliged to keep up a steady jog-trot mile after mile, with never a halt or a rest by the wayside.
Presently they gained the crest of a chain of low-lying hills. The moonlight was sufficient to enable them to see for a considerable distance. Before them lay a valley--so far as Frank could make out--exceedingly fertile and picturesque, in which was a tall, thin tower, somewhat resembling a short factory chimney, except that at the top there was a narrow, circular balcony protected both from the rain and the powerful rays of the sun by one of those queer-shaped, overhanging roofs that are peculiar to Southern China.
Frank knew at a glance that this was the tower from which, in days gone by, it had been the custom of the Cantonese to throw little children, whose existence had grown irksome to their parents. At one time this barbarous and terrible custom was prevalent in the Middle Kingdom, until finally even the Chinese themselves revolted against the laws that permitted such a crime.
Flooded by the pure light of the moon, the valley appeared a perfect haven of rest. No one would have believed that such a beautiful spot had, in former times, been the scene of such terrible brutality. The tall tower shone like brass, and at its feet the broad waters of the Sang River flowed swiftly to the west.
Ling, still dragging Frank forward, descended the hill, and then turned to the right, towards a clump of trees. It was then, for the first time since they had left Canton, that, of his own accord, he spoke to his prisoner.