Chow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner the night
before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war. His hand was
shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were aching so dreadfully
that he did not read over the order. It was only a Chinago's life he was
signing away, anyway. So he did not notice that he had omitted the final
letter in Ah Chow's name. The order read "Ah Cho," and, when Cruchot
presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the person of Ah Cho.
Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a wagon, behind two
mules, and drove away.

Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme and
beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules headed
south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to be brought
back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work well.
Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day. There had
been a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot sweated, and Ah
Cho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with the least concern.
He had toiled three years under that sun on the plantation. He beamed and
beamed with such genial good nature that even Cruchot's heavy mind was
stirred to wonderment.

"You are very funny," he said at last.

Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot
spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all
foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.

"You laugh too much," Cruchot chided. "One's heart should be full of tears
on a day like this."