It was only a moment or two later when Erica opened her eyes again, but
to the still dazed girl it seemed impossible that she was not asleep and
dreaming what she saw about her.
Vaguely she recalled having had some kind of a fall and hearing her
father and Lis cry out in alarm. She could even remember, quite too
vividly for comfort, the following contact of her head with that sharp
wooden corner at the stairfoot.
But this—certainly she had never seen this small but splendid room in
which she was lying. There appeared to be no windows in it, or if there
were they must be hidden by the heavy gold-embroidered curtains of a
deep plum color that lined the walls on all sides. Light was supplied by
several hanging lamps of what looked like beaten silver, with amber
glass, and the room was full of that smell of incense she had noticed on
the companion stairs. She herself was lying on a low divan, with a pile
of softest silk and down pillows propping her up in a slightly raised
position.
For an instant Erica thought she was alone in this strange, gorgeous
room, but when she turned her head on its mound of pillows some one
moved behind her and came around to stand at the side of the divan where
she could see him.
This was the oddest, oldest, most leathery-faced and wrinkled little
Chinaman Erica had ever imagined, who bent over her with a gentle air of
solicitude, and taking one of her hands in his, felt her pulse, nodding
his head slowly as if in time to its beat.
“All is well,” he announced after a moment or two of silence, replacing
Erica’s hand on the couch and standing back a step to regard her
solemnly. “The fall had no consequences of a serious nature, so rest
assured.” His English was perfect in accent and pronunciation, but it
was spoken in a curious sing-song that made it difficult to follow.
In spite of his apparent age, his hair, which he wore in a long queue,
was quite black, and that with his piercing black eyes, and the stiff,
coat-like garment of dark silk which he wore, gave Erica the impression
of something rather severe and gloomy, though not exactly forbidding,
for his glance at her was kindly enough.
Then she caught the sound of footsteps crossing soft carpets, evidently
from some door beyond, and to her vast relief Captain Eric’s merry blue
eyes looked over the solemn little Chinaman’s shoulder.
“All right, daughter?” he asked, quickly, and came over to sit on the
side of the divan, holding both her cold little hands in his big warm
ones. “That was a nasty tumble, my dear. Thank God it was no worse. But
I was sure the good doctor, here, would know what should be done for
you.”
“But where am I, father?” Erica asked, weakly. “And—and who is—_he_?”
She essayed a smile at the wrinkled, yellow old face still staring
kindly down at her, beside her father’s sunburnt and ruddy countenance.
“Why, you are on the _Sea Gull_, Rick,” Captain Eric said, reassuringly.
“And this is the very wise and celebrated physician to His Excellency
the Governor of Canton. The Governor, I ought to add, is otherwise known
to you, my dear, as your Chinese godfather, Sun Li.” He patted the hands
he held very tenderly, while he shook his bushy red head at her in mock
reproof. “Still my tomboy Rick, I see,” he sighed. “A nice way to
present yourself to so eminent a personage as His Excellency the
Governor.”
“You _mean_, father,” Erica gasped, sitting up straight in the shock of
those last words, “that Sun Li is actually on board the _Sea Gull_? That
he came back with you from China?”
“Exactly that,” Captain Eric assured her, smiling at her breathless
excitement. “As perhaps Lis told you, he has been in poor health for
several years, and was finally persuaded by his physician to take a long
sea voyage. He agreed at last, provided he could sail on the _Sea Gull_
with his old friend—meaning your father, Rick. So after some discussion
with the Canton office of our company it was arranged that His
Excellency should charter the _Sea Gull_ for the period of one year, and
sail her whither he chose as his own private yacht. He offered a price,
by the way, that was worth considerably more than the finest cargoes of
tea we could have carried during the same time, and the company agreed
to his doing over the saloon and cabins according to Chinese ideas of
luxury and beauty. So behold the reason for all the gorgeousness that
sent you head first down my companionway, poor little dazzled Ricky!”
Even the solemn Chinese doctor smiled at that; but Erica pushed her
father’s hand aside and sprang determinedly to her feet.
“Where is Sun Li?” she cried, eagerly. “Oh, father, I just must see him,
_quick_!”
The plum-colored hangings were pushed aside at the far end of the cabin,
and Lis stood there, grinning at her with a comical mingling of real
relief and teasing in his eyes.
“Trust Rick to make a graceful entrance,” he observed. “Say, Miss
Folger, if you’re able to walk, His Excellency wants to see you in his
cabin. He asked me to explain that he would have come to you, but he’s
not allowed to leave his chair by the doctor, here. You know,” he added,
taking a swift step into the room and letting the heavy portières drop
into place behind him, “he’s been pretty seriously ill. This trip is a—a
sort of forlorn hope. He looks a bit better, though, to me, than when I
saw him in his palace in Canton.”
The little Chinese doctor looked up at the boy eagerly.
“You think so, young sir? That is of great encouragement to hear. To me,
who am always with him, he seems to change but little. I cannot trust my
own vision.”
Lis nodded emphatically.
“Looks much less tired to me, sir,” he declared. “His face seems a bit
fuller, too. Shouldn’t be surprised if he’d gained a few pounds in this
long sea trip.”
“That’s what I was telling you, Doctor,” Captain Eric corroborated his
nephew cheerily. “And we’re not through with our rest cure yet, not by a
jugful. Run along with Lis, Ricky, and don’t keep His Excellency
waiting.”
“I—suppose he speaks English, too?” Erica whispered shyly to Lis,
hesitating for a second with her hand on the curtain Lis was about to
pull back for her entrance.
He nodded. “No trouble about that,” he said, and gave his cousin a
little push forward, but gently, for Lis had an almost feminine knack of
understanding, and he guessed how tremendous the moment seemed to her.
He had felt a good deal the same himself when he was first taken before
Sun Li in the Governor’s palace in Canton.
Then he saw Erica draw a deep breath and lift her chin in the old
familiar fashion. Without a word, Lis drew the curtain aside for her and
gave her a little encouraging, approving smile, which Erica failed
entirely to see. All her thoughts were concentrated on what she would
see on the other side of the heavily embroidered portière.
She entered a second room almost as large as the main saloon, and hung
with heavy silken curtains like the latter, only in this case the
hangings were a warm orange with vividly colored embroidery. Later,
Erica learned that the partitions between three of the passenger cabins
had been removed, to make one fair-sized apartment.
This cabin, too, was lighted by hanging lamps instead of daylight, and
in a deep, reclining chair beside a table heaped with books in rich
bindings, Erica beheld for the first time her much-discussed Chinese
godfather. At the first timid glance she sent him, he seemed to the girl
to be all eyes—great, liquid, brilliant black eyes alive with kindness
and a keen intelligence, looking out of a thin face with prominent cheek
bones, and tautly drawn skin the color of old ivory.
“Enter, little Sea Blossom,” said a deep, not unmusical voice, and a
finely modeled, but painfully thin hand was lifted from the gorgeous
brocaded robes that enveloped him, and held out to her in welcome. Sun
Li’s hand, like his face, was not yellow at all, but a warm cream, and
on it the delicate veining stood out clearly.
Erica drew nearer, still timidly, and slipped a confiding hand into the
one stretched toward her. She was conscious of a great rush of pity for
anyone so obviously ill, and with it a most strange and pleasant sense
of having known the owner of the hand long and affectionately. Meeting
her Chinese godfather was like coming home to a near and dear member of
her family. She entirely forgot to be afraid of his strangeness and his
grandeur. But no words came to her for the moment, and she merely stood
there holding the fragile ivory-colored hand in hers, and smiling rather
wistfully down at the thin, tired old face that smiled so valiantly back
at her.
But such unwonted shyness on Erica’s part did not last long, and by the
time her father and Lis had joined them in the orange-hung cabin her
tongue was wagging busily as she described, in answer to quiet, amused
questions from the old Chinese, her home life, the various members of
her family, and her bubbling gratitude for the accumulated gifts that
had come to her during the past fifteen years, on each return voyage of
the _Sea Gull_.
Sun Li—he quickly forbade all attempts at the formal Your Excellency, on
either Lis’s or Erica’s part—seemed so well entertained by his new
visitors, that the elderly physician, creeping in softly after half an
hour’s time, to see how his master did, crept out as softly, his
leathery old face wreathed in smiles, and allowed the racing chatter to
proceed unchecked.
Lis sat silently listening, for the most part, and after a while Captain
Eric followed the old doctor out of the cabin, and was gone for quite a
time, on business of his own, leaving his daughter’s tongue still
wagging in lively fashion, and Sun Li hearing her with obvious amusement
and pleasure showing on his usually impassive countenance.
When the Captain did return, it was to announce that he had sent a boat
ashore with a message to Mrs. Folger, stating that he was planning to
keep both children on board all night and would bring them ashore with
him early the following morning.
“I also told her that the Governor would accompany us, and that I hoped
she would have a worthy Nantucket dinner ready for him,” he added,
smiling at the intent group before him. “A change of cooking may tempt
your appetite, my friend, and that is what we want to happen just now.
Ricky, supper will be served in the saloon in twenty minutes. Better go
to your cabin and wash your hands. I’ll show you where you are to bunk
tonight. Lis is to share my quarters. By the way,” he added, his smile
broadening, “I fancy, from something Sun Li told me before you arrived
that you will find a chest in your cabin, with some things in it that
may interest you. Only don’t lose track of time, you flighty child, and
keep us waiting.”
Erica sprang eagerly to her feet, and flashed the invalid a glance of
ecstatic delight. “You—you’re the most _wonderful_ person, godfather,”
she cried, clasping her hands over her heart with a gesture that set
them all laughing. “Aunt Charity never would let me wear the beautiful
gifts you sent me—not till I’m grown up. But while you’re here, I guess
I can dress up all I want to. That’s only polite to Sun Li, father,
isn’t it?” she questioned, anxiously, and went off to explore, much
relieved, when Captain Eric nodded indulgent acquiescence.
The minute she was inside the tiny cabin that had been allotted to her,
Erica saw that it must have been planned for her when Sun Li had
refitted the _Sea Gull_ for the present voyage, way on the other side of
the world. The walls were hung with palest peach-blossom silk, heavily
embroidered with wistaria and tender green leaves. The built-in bunk had
been upholstered in cream and gold satin, and was heaped with pillows of
all colors of the rainbow, most of them shaped like flowers. The carpet
on the floor was pale gold, with cherry blossoms running riot across it,
and there were two marvelous hanging lamps of silver and jade that
matched the pattern of the key Sun Li had sent her by Lis months ago.
Erica stood in the middle of the room, and drew a breath of sheer
unbelief and protest. She _must_ be asleep. She was dreaming of some
scene in the _Arabian Nights_, not standing in a cabin on her father’s
ship anchored in Nantucket Harbor. Only—only, if it were actually a
dream, that meant she would have to wake up.
She experienced an impulse to tiptoe softly, to avert such a
catastrophe, and then her attention was switched rapidly to a fresh
surprise, as her eye fell for the first time on a small oblong chest of
carved teakwood, bound in hammered silver, that stood at the foot of the
white-and-gold bunk. It was about two and a half feet long by a foot
wide, and two feet high, and sticking out of its beaten silver padlock
was a key so evidently the twin of the one she wore about her neck, that
Erica gave a funny little squeak of astonishment and fell on her knees
beside it, worshipfully.
Inside, when the heavy lid had been impatiently flung back, she found
rolls of uncut silks, some in plain colors, some heavily embroidered in
delicate blossom designs, and on top of these the full straight trousers
of heavy silk, the knee-length tunic coat, and a pair of small silken,
heel-less slippers, such as a Chinese girl would wear. The lovely,
exotic garments were a cool jade-green in color, embroidered in silver
and rose, and there were cunning green silk tassels on the slippers,
with a string of jade beads tucked into one small slipper-toe, and a
similar string of rose agate in the other.
Erica uttered a regular war whoop of ecstasy, and caught the slippers,
necklaces and all, up in two suddenly trembling hands to cuddle them
against her soft, flushed cheek. Then, her mood veering, without waiting
for further exploration she began to undress with business-like haste.
Ten minutes later the door of her cabin opened rather hesitantly and a
strange, slim little Chinese figure, with an incongruous crop of short
red curls dancing excitedly above its jade-green silks, stepped out into
the narrow passageway leading to the saloon. And at the same moment a
startled cry broke from Lis, who had just emerged from the captain’s
cabin, a door or two farther away.
”_For Pete’s sake_, Ricky!” Lis gasped, and fell silent for lack of
adequate words.