“Aow!” cried Nesbit, “the bloomin’ coolies!” First to recover, he skipped about, fielding and hurling back cocoanuts.

A small but raging phalanx crowded the gap in the wall, throwing continually, howling, and exhorting one another to rush in.

“A riot!” cried Heywood, and started, sword in hand.  “Come on, stop ’em!”

But it was Nesbit who, wrenching a pair of loose bottles from the path, brandishing them aloft like clubs, and shouting the unseemly battle-cries of a street-fighter, led the white men into this deadly breach.  At the first shock, the rioters broke and scattered, fled round corners of the wall, crashed through bamboos, went leaping across paddy-fields toward the river.  The tumult—­except for lonely howls in the distance—­ended as quickly as it had risen.  The little band of Europeans returned from the pursuit, drenched with sweat, panting, like a squad of triumphant football players; but no one smiled.

“That explains it,” grumbled Heywood.  He pointed along the path to where, far off, a tall, stooping figure paced slowly toward the town, his long robe a moving strip of color, faint in the twilight.  “The Sword-Pen dropped some remarks in passing.”

The others nodded moodily, too breathless for reply.  Nesbit’s forehead bore an ugly cut, Rudolph’s bandage was red and sopping.  Chantel, more rueful than either, stared down at a bleeding hand, which held two shards of steel.  He had fallen, and snapped his sword in the rubble of old masonry.

“No more blades,” he said, like a child with a broken toy; “there are no more blades this side of Saigon.”

“Then we must postpone.”  Heywood mopped his dripping and fiery cheeks.  He tossed a piece of silver to one who wailed in the ditch,—­a forlorn stranger from Hai-nan, lamenting the broken shells and empty baskets of his small venture.—­“Contribution, you chaps.  A bad day for imported cocoanuts.  Wish I carried some money:  this chit system is damnable.—­Meanwhile, doctor, won’t you forget anything I was rude enough to say?  And come join me in a peg at the club?  The heat is excessive.”

CHAPTER X

THREE PORTALS

Not till after dinner, that evening, did Rudolph rouse from his stupor.  With the clerk, he lay wearily in the upper chamber of Heywood’s house.  The host, with both his long legs out at window, sat watching the smoky lights along the river, and now and then cursing the heat.

“After all,” he broke silence, “those cocoanuts came time enough.”

“Didn’t they just?” said Nesbit, jauntily; and fingering the plaster cross on his wounded forehead, drawled:  “You might think I’d done a bit o’ dueling myself, by the looks.—­But I had some part.  Now, that accident trick.  Rather neat, what?  But for me, you might never have thought o’ that—­”

“Idiot!” snapped Heywood, and pulling in his legs, rose and stamped across the room.