A launch, sporting the colors of the Hong-Kong Yacht Club, coughed alongside, and stopped within hailing distance. A man with a chest like the bastion of a fortification towered in the bows, and, opening his mouth, began to speak. At that moment another launch, bearing the imperial flag of China, shot out of a slip, clove through a village of sampans, and made for the Russian flag-ship. All the ships in the harbor raised their whistles on high, and presently the Russian flag-ship ran out a gun and commenced an interminable salute. The din was awful. And all the noise was because one ordinary man who happened to be a viceroy was going to take lunch with another ordinary man who happened to be an admiral.
The man in the bows of the yacht-club launch continued to speak, and, in spite of the screaming whistles and the booming guns, what he said was perfectly audible to the sick man leaning over the rail of the Rohilla.
"You are Mr. Wareing, of course," he
