'You be slippy and don't waste time talking,' cried Dick, beginning to fathom his chum's meaning. 'Going to provide him with another covering, eh?' he grinned. 'You don't mean that you're----'
'Here, help me with these boots. I thought I should never be able to get into them. Now I'm a bit doubtful that I'll be successful in pulling them off. Ah, thanks. Chang, your shoes are far more comfortable. Don't you trouble to put these boots on. You won't want 'em. You ain't going to walk.'
'Because, you see,' added Dick, enjoying the discomfiture of the rascal immensely, 'you'll be carried--carried, Chang. Got it?'
It was evident that the wretch had, for he shivered and whined as he sat on the edge of the _kang_. But David took no more notice of him for the moment. He coolly dressed himself in the clothes this secret enemy had been wearing, and then walked out of the cell. A quarter of an hour later, when Jong arrived on the scene, and the scrunch of wheels was heard outside on the road, two men stood ready to accompany the party.
'Carry out the baskets,' whispered one, who seemed to be none other than the man who had come to warn the inhabitants of Hatsu of the foreign devils. 'You will give all orders till we are out of the city.'
It took but five minutes to load those two heavy baskets on the cart, and then the party set forward, Chang, and to all who peeped at him, the noble deputy-governor following closely. David, as he stepped along the white, moon-lit road in the garments lately worn by Chang, could hardly believe that the fortunes of his little party had been so utterly changed. It was hard to credit the fact that the pompous individual beside him, at whose nod men cringed, was indeed, and in fact none other than, his chum Dick, while it brought a broad smile to a face, which he struggled hard to keep impassive, when he thought of the contents of the baskets. Could it actually be that those long, creaking shapes hid in their depths the mighty Tsu-Hi, deputy-governor of the walled city of Hatsu, and Chang, conspirator, villain, the hired ruffian of Ebenezer Clayhill?
But the gates of the city were yet before them. A challenge there, a shriek from the burdens the cart carried, the smallest untoward event would change their fortunes, and might yet land himself and Dick back in the prison, there to await the execution which had been promised.