"Come," I said abruptly; "let's go below and talk it over. It's getting chilly here."
The doctor and I had an important interview with Mai Lo that very evening. The man was evidently on guard before the door of his dead master's room; for, the moment one of us approached the state cabin, there was Mai Lo confronting him, although the mandarin had been seen at quite another part of the ship a short time before. At such times the expressionless face and unfathomable beady eyes were turned toward us like those of a basilisk, and they impressed me with an uneasy sensation in spite of the fact that I felt that he alone was helpless to oppose us in anything we might decide to do.
But it was not our cue at present to antagonize Mai Lo, but to win his confidence. My father had already loudly declared in the Manchu's hearing that the body of Prince Kai must be buried at sea, and considering Mai Lo's prejudices it was not unreasonable to suppose that he looked upon us as his enemies.
Our first act in the comedy we were playing was to send Uncle Naboth to explain to the attendant that Captain Steele regretted the necessity of disposing of the body of his master at sea; but because the _Seagull's_ medicine chest contained no drugs or chemicals with which to embalm or preserve the body, there was no way to avoid this sea-burial if we wished to preserve the health of all on board.
Mai listened in apparent apathy to this explanation, which he had doubtless understood before, and the doctor and I waited a couple of hours to give him time to think it over before we sought him out and with mysterious gestures beckoned him to follow us to my own cabin. This he did, but would not close the door and sat in a position where he could keep an eye upon the locked door of the state cabin.
"Mai Lo," said I, "you know that Prince Kai and I became friends before he died, and that he wished me to go to his palace at Kai-Nong and there perform for him certain services, the details of which are secret and must not be confided to anyone--even to you, his most faithful servant."
He listened to me calmly, and then nodded his head.
"The Prince well knew his body would be lowered into the waters of the sea," I continued, "and he was resigned to the necessity. We Americans do not care very much what becomes of our bodies when we are dead, but I know you Chinese feel differently about it, and it has made me unhappy to think I could not take the body of my friend Kai to China and place it in the burial-halls of his ancestors. Dr. Gaylord and I were conversing upon this subject, a short time ago, when he informed me that his science had taught him a way to preserve a body for a long period without the use of the usual drugs; but it is a method that requires great skill and labor, and constant watching, and is, moreover, very expensive."