"Somebody tried to steal Moon Ying--that’s what has happened," said Laura Kendrick indignantly.
"Who did it? When? Did they attack the house?" I cried, startled at the promptness with which my warnings had been fulfilled.
"Come right up-stairs," said Laura, impulsively seizing my arm and leading me. "You shall hear at first-hand for yourself."
This sudden captivity gave me so pleasant a thrill that for a moment I forgot Moon Ying and my responsibilities, and betrayed such inclination to loiter that I was sharply ordered to "walk faster." So in a minute or two I found myself entering a room where Moon Ying, with pale and frightened face, leaned back among the pillows that covered a reclining chair, and Mercy Fillmore, at Moon Ying’s side, looked at us with anxious eyes.
"This is Mr. Hampden, Moon Ying--the man who rescued you from Chinatown," said Laura. "Tell him what happened to you."
Moon Ying’s resources of English were scant at best, and between fright, excitement and shyness, it took much prompting and explanation from Laura and Mercy before her story was fairly begun. But when all the tangled threads were straightened out the tale ran thus:
Moon Ying had of late spent an hour or two in the middle of the day, taking the air and the sun, on the lawn behind the house. An hour before she had been assisted to her sunny corner by Mercy, who had, after a time, returned to the house. Suddenly the back gate had opened, and a Chinaman had slipped in.
"Him small man--old man--all same Chung Toy you one time see," said Moon Ying in her plaintive voice.
The picture of Little John with his wizened face, his white, horse-hair mustache and his scant chin-whiskers, rose before me.
"Did he come alone?" I asked, incredulous of his boldness in venturing thus by himself.
"Him say two men come ’longside him, but I no see. Him talk velly soft--say I come Chinatown, him makee me velly nice dless--get velly fine house--find me velly good husband. I tell him go ’way, I too muchee sabby him. One time I thlink him good man--now I heap sabby him tell big lie--no got nice dless--no got fine house--no got good husband--I all time stlay Miss Kenlick. Him get velly mad--him say velly bad thling. Then him say I no go alongside him, two men come takee me so--" and Moon Ying raised her pretty little hands and gripped fiercely at the air, with the motion of one throttling a victim.