Chang, for he it was--the rascal paid to proceed to China in search of David, paid by Mr. Ebenezer Clayhill--beamed on the soldiers, and followed them into the guard-house eagerly. To speak the truth, the artful scoundrel knew something of the history of Hatsu, and recollected that certain of her people had received punishment for an attack on Europeans. He had come to the city with the intention of stirring up popular hatred of the foreigners, if that were possible, and of setting the people on them. If not here, then elsewhere. And here, there was already a beginning with an excellent excuse for further action; for the faces of the Tartar guard showed that even the mention of foreign devils caused them to grunt with anger.
'Then you have been speaking to them, friend,' said Chang, when he was comfortably seated. 'Tell me their story.'
'There is little in it I was suspicious of them on the instant my eyes fell upon them, in spite of the dusk. Mark you, these foreign devils came in the gloaming, in disguise, and told of letters to Twang Chun, the Excellency who commands the province.'
Chang's crafty features twisted at the mention of the high official, for he recollected that it was he who would have executed him. But he told himself that absence and his change of name, to say nothing of the fact that it was supposed that he had been drowned, made him safe from detection. He laughed loudly at the story.
'And you believed all this?' he asked, feigning incredulity.
'I knew they lied. I was but just telling my comrades that they came to bring plague to us, no doubt to increase the punishment already suffered by our people for the justifiable attack made on others of the same race.'
'Then you told them the truth. The foreign devils will scatter the plague in this city of a certainty if they be not removed. Listen, friends. Who knows of their arrival, who but you?'
'None, none save the deputy-commander,' came the answer. 'They have gone to him to seek a lodging. Their letter to his Excellency Twang Chun will command attention. They will be handsomely lodged.'
'And this deputy-commander; tell me of him.'
Chang's eyes gleamed maliciously as he listened to the reply. He tucked his hands into his baggy sleeves and hugged himself with unrestrained delight. Already he began to feel the weight of that thousand pounds which his rascally employer had promised.