ILLUSTRATIONS

_"Good-by! A pleasant voyage"_ ... Frontispiece

_Rudolph was aware of crowded bodies, of yellow faces grinning_

_He let the inverted cup dangle from his hands_

_He went leaping from sight over the crest_



CHAPTER I


A LADY AND A GRIFFIN

It was "about first-drink time," as the captain of the Tsuen-Chau, bound
for Shanghai and Japan ports, observed to his friend Cesare Domenico, a
good British subject born at Malta. They sat on the coolest corner in
Port Said, their table commanding both the cross-way of Chareh Sultan el
Osman, and the short, glaring vista of desert dust and starved young
acacias which led to the black hulks of shipping in the Canal. From the
Bar la Poste came orchestral strains--"Ai nostri monti"--performed by a
piano indoors and two violins on the pavement. The sounds contended with
a thin, scattered strumming of cafe mandolins, the tinkle of glasses,
the steady click of dominoes and backgammon; then were drowned in the
harsh chatter of Arab coolies who, all grimed as black as Nubians, and
shouldering spear-headed shovels, tramped inland, their long tunics
stiff with coal-dust, like a band of chain-mailed Crusaders lately