indifference which comes with the final disintegration of the
fibres of conscience. He had an objective now.



CHAPTER IV


The tourists returned to the Sha-mien at four o'clock. They were
silent and no longer observant, being more or less exhausted by the
tedious action of the chairs. Even Ah Cum had resumed his Oriental
shell of reserve. To reach the Sha-mien--and particularly the Hotel
Victoria--one crossed a narrow canal, always choked with rocking
sampans over and about which swarmed yellow men and women and
children in varied shades of faded blue cotton. At sunset the
swarming abruptly ceased; even the sampans appeared to draw closer
together, with the quiet of water-fowl. There is everywhere at
night in China the original fear of darkness.

From the portals of the hotel--scarcely fifty yards from the
canal--one saw the blank face of the ancient city of Canton. Blank
it was, except for a gate near the bridgehead. Into this hole in the
wall and out of it the native stream flowed from sunrise to sunset,
when the stream mysteriously ceased. The silence of Canton at night
was sinister, for none could prophesy what form of mob might
suddenly boil out.

No Cantonese was in those days permitted to cross to the Sha-mien
after sunset without a license. To simplify matters, he carried a
coloured paper lantern upon which his license number was painted in