A sound near the window made him turn.  An imp in white and red livery, Peng, the little billiard-marker from the club, stood hurling things violently into the outer glare.

“What thing you do?” called Rudolph, sharply.

Some small but heavy object clattered on the floor.  The urchin stooped, snatched it up, and flung it hurtling clean over the garden to the river.  He turned, grinning amiably.  “Goo-moh? ning-seh.  How too you too,” he chanted.  “I am welly? glat to-see you.”  A boat-coolie, he explained, had called this house bad names.  He, Peng, threw stones.  Bad man.

“Out of here, you rascal!” Rudolph flicked a riding-whip at the scampering legs, as the small defender of his honor bolted for the stairs.

“What’s wrong?”

Heywood appeared promptly at the door.

From the road, below, a gleeful voice piped:—­

“Goat-men!  Baby-killers!”

In the noon blaze, Peng skipped derisively, jeered at them, performed a brief but indecorous pantomime, and then, kicking up his heels with joy, scurried for his life.

“Chucked his billet,” said Heywood, without surprise.  “Little devil, I always thought—­What’s missing?”

Rudolph scanned his meagre belongings, rummaged his dressing-table, opened a wardrobe.

“Nothing,” he answered.  “A boat-coolie—­”

But Heywood had darted to the rack of Mausers, knelt, and sprung up, raging.

“Side-bolts!  Man,” he cried, in a voice that made Rudolph jump,—­“man, why didn’t you stop him?  The side-bolts, all but two.—­Young heathen, he’s crippled us:  one pair of rifles left.”

CHAPTER XIV

OFF DUTY

The last of the sunlight streamed level through a gap in the western ridges.  It melted, with sinuous, tender shadows, the dry contour of field and knoll, and poured over all the parching land a liquid, undulating grace.  Like the shadow of clouds on ripe corn, the red tiles of the village roofs patched the countryside.  From the distant sea had come a breath of air, cool enough to be felt with gratitude, yet so faint as neither to disturb the dry pulsation of myriad insect-voices, nor to blur the square mirrors of distant rice-fields, still tropically blue or icy with reflected clouds.

Miss Drake paused on the knoll, and looked about her.

“This remains the same, doesn’t it, for all our troubles?” she said; then to herself, slowly, “‘It is a beauteous evening, calm and free.’”

Heywood made no pretense of following her look.

“‘Dear Nun,’” he blurted; “no, how does it go again?—­’dear child, that walkest with me here—­’”

The girl started down the slope, with the impatience of one whose mood is frustrated.  The climate had robbed her cheeks of much color, but not, it seemed, of all.

“Your fault,” said Heywood, impenitent.  “Merely to show you.  I could quote, once.”