kept his position. I felt a somber sense of gathering tragedy. In
his face was a growing detachment from everything about him; he
hardly knew that we were there, that he ate and slept, and took his
seat by the boat. All of us felt this, but with many it meant merely
remarking that "the Chink is getting off his head," and a wish that
he would not obtrude his grief when we were filled with the joy of
sunny skies and a merry company.

The tragedy came sooner than expected by me. I had cast a thought to
my understanding that the philosophy of Confucius did not contemplate
self-destruction, and had been divided between relief and wonder that
it was so.

It was dusk of Monday. The sun had sunk behind the glowing rim of
the western horizon, and the air was suffused with a trembling rose
color, when Leung Kai Chu tapped at my cabin-door, which gave on the
boat-deck. I opened it, and he bowed, and handed me an image. It was
of porcelain, precious, and I was at a loss to know whether he had
felt the need of a little money and had brought it to sell, or had
been impelled to give it to me because of my feeble efforts to cheer
him. I made a gesture which might have meant payment, but he raised
his hand deprecatingly, and for the first time I saw him smile,
and I was afraid. He bowed, and in the mandarin language invoked
good fortune upon me. He had the aspect of one beyond good and evil,
who had settled life's problem. When he left me I stood wondering,
holding in my hands the majestic god seated upon the tiger, the symbol
of the conquest of the flesh.

I heard a shout, and dropping the image, I rushed aft. Leung Kai
Chu had thrown himself over the rail just by the purser's office. A