Presently I could make out three blurred figures fighting their way
slowly against the storm across the compound. One was the guide;
the second was the mandor, naked save for a cotton sarong around his
waist; the third was a stranger.
The trio came up on the veranda--the stranger hanging behind, with an
apologetic droop of his head. He was a white man, in a suit of dirty,
ragged linen. It took but one look to place him. I had seen hundreds of
them "on the beach" in Singapore,--there could be no mistake. "Loafer"
was written all over him--from his ragged, matted hair to the fringe
on the bottom of his trousers. He held a broken cork helmet, that had
not seen pipe-clay for many a month, in his grimy hands, and scraped
one foot and ducked his dripping head, as I turned toward him with
a gruff,--
"Well?"
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, in a harsh, rasping voice, "but I heard
that the American Consul was here. I am an American."
He looked up with a watery leer in his eyes.
"Go on," I said, without offering to take the hand of my
fellow-countryman.
He let his arm fall to his side.
"I ain't got any passport; that went with the rest, and I never had
the heart to ask for another."
He gave a bad imitation of a sob.
"Never mind the side play," I commented, as he began to rumble in
the bottomless pocket of his coat. "I will supply all that as you go
along. What is it you want?"
He withdrew his hand and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
"Come in out of the rain and you won't need to do that," I said,
amused at this show of feeling.
"I thought as how you might give a countryman a lift," he whined.