"Take only the left half of that word, and what have you?"
"'Lightning,'" read Heywood.
"The right half?"
"'Boat.'"
"Take," the padre ordered, "this one; left half?"
"'Lightning,'" repeated his pupil. "The right half--might be
'rice-scoop,' But that's nonsense."
"No," said the padre. "You have the secret. It's good Triad writing.
Subtract this twisted character 'Lightning' from each, and we've made
the crooked straight. The writer was afraid of being caught. Here's the
sense of his message, I take it." And he read off, slowly:--
"A Hakka boat on opposite shore; a green flag and a rice-scoop hoisted
at her mast; light a fire on the water-gate steps, and she will come
quickly, day or night.--O.W."
Heywood took the news coldly. He shook his head, and stood thinking.
"That won't help," he said curtly. "Never in the world."
With the aid of a convert, he unbarred the ponderous gate, and ventured
out on the highest slab of the landing-steps. Across the river, to be
sure, there lay--between a local junk and a stray _papico_ from the
north--the high-nosed Hakka boat, her deck roofed with tawny
basket-work, and at her masthead a wooden rice-measure dangling below a
green rag.
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