The Pagan Madonna - Page 4/141

For several minutes Ling Foo stared at the oblong blackness; then with a

hysterical gurgle he ran to the door, slammed and bolted it, and leaned

against the jamb, sick and faint, yet oddly relieved. He would not now

have to account to the police for the body of an unknown white man.

A queer business. Nothing exciting ever happened along this part of

Woosung Road. What he had witnessed--it still wasn't quite

believable--belonged to the water front. Things happened there, for these

white sailors were a wild lot.

When the vertigo went out of his legs, Ling Foo cat-stepped over to the

scattered embroidered jackets and began mechanically to replace them on

the counter--all but two, for these were speckled with blood. He

contemplated them for a space, and at last picked them up daintily and

tossed them into a far corner. When the blood dried he would wash them out

himself.

But there was that darkening stain on the floor. That would have to be

washed out at once or it would be crying up to him eternally and recasting

the tragic picture. So he entered the rear of the shop and summoned his

wife. Meekly she obeyed his order and scrubbed the stain. Her beady little

black eyes were so tightly lodged in her head that it was not possible for

her to elevate her brows in surprise. But she knew that this stain was

blood.

Ling Foo solemnly waved her aside when the task was done, and she

slip-slapped into the household dungeon out of which she had emerged.

Her lord and master returned to his alcove. Ah, but the pipe was good! He

rocked slightly as he smoked. Three pipefuls were reduced to ashes; then

he wriggled off the cushion, picked up his cash counter and began

slithering the buttons back and forth; not because there were any profits

or losses that day, but because it gave a welcome turn to his thoughts.

The storm raged outside. Occasionally he felt the floor shudder. The

windows ran thickly with rain. The door rattled. It was as if all objects

inanimate were demanding freedom from bolts and nails. With the tip of his

long, slender finger Ling Foo moved the buttons. He counted what his

profits would be in Manchurian sables; in the two Ming vases that had come

in mysteriously from Kiao-chau--German loot from Peking; counted his

former profits in snuff bottles, and so on.

The door rattled furiously.

Ling Foo could consider himself as tolerably wealthy. Some day, when this

great turmoil among the whites subsided, he would move to South China and

grow little red oranges and melons, and there would be a nook in the

gardens where he could sit with the perfume of jasmine swimming over and

about his head and the goodly Book of Confucius on his knees.