A glass of ice and tansan smashed on the floor.  Rudolph was on foot, clutching his bandaged arm as though the hurt were new.

“You!” he stammered.  “You did that!” He stood gaping, thunderstruck.

Felt soles scuffed in the darkness, and through the door, his yellow face wearing a placid and lofty grin, entered Ah Pat, the compradore.

“One coolie-man hab-got chit.”

He handed a note to his master, who snatched it as though glad of the interruption, bent under the lamp, and scowled.

The writing was in a crabbed, antique German character:—­

“Please to see bearer, in bad clothes but urgent.  We are all in danger. Um Gottes willen—­” It straggled off, illegible.  The signature, “Otto Wutzler,” ran frantically into a blot.

“Can do,” said Heywood.  “You talkee he, come topside.”

The messenger must have been waiting, however, at the stairhead; for no sooner had the compradore withdrawn, than a singular little coolie shuffled into the room.  Lean and shriveled as an opium-smoker, he wore loose clothes of dirty blue,—­one trousers-leg rolled up.  The brown face, thin and comically small, wore a mask of inky shadow under a wicker bowl hat.  His eyes were cast down in a strange fashion, unlike the bold, inquisitive peering of his countrymen,—­the more strange, in that he spoke harshly and abruptly, like a racer catching breath.

“I bring news.”  His dialect was the vilest and surliest form of the colloquial “Clear Speech.”—­“One pair of ears, enough.”

“You can speak and act more civilly,” retorted Heywood, “or taste the bamboo.”

The man did not answer, or look up, or remove his varnished hat.  Still downcast and hang-dog, he sidled along the verge of the shadow, snatched from the table the paper and a pencil, and choosing the darkest part of the wall, began to write.  The lamp stood between him and the company:  Heywood alone saw—­and with a shock of amazement—­that he did not print vertically as with a brush, but scrawled horizontally.  He tossed back the paper, and dodged once more into the gloom.

The postscript ran in the same shaky hand:—­

“Send way the others both.”

“What!” cried the young master of the house; and then over his shoulder, “Excuse us a moment—­me, I should say.”

He led the dwarfish coolie across the landing, to the deserted dinner-table.  The creature darted past him, blew out one candle, and thrust the other behind a bottle, so that he stood in a wedge of shadow.

“Eng-lish speak I ver’ badt,” he whispered; and then with something between gasp and chuckle, “but der pak-wa goot, no?  When der live dependt, zo can mann—­” He caught his breath, and trembled in a strong seizure.

“Good?” whispered Heywood, staring.  “Why, man, it’s wonderful!  You are a coolie”—­Wutzler’s conical wicker-hat ducked as from a blow.  “I beg your pardon.  I mean, you’re—­”