In an instant the crowd had gathered, the fraud was
discovered, the police had run up. And what could this young Roumanian
do who did not know a word of Chinese, but explain matters in the sign
language? And if he could not be understood, what explanation could he
give?
Zinca and I ran down to him.
"My Zinca--my dear Zinca!" he exclaims, pressing the girl to his heart.
"My Kinko--my dear Kinko!" she replies, while her tears mingle with his.
"Monsieur Bombarnac!" says the poor fellow, appealing for my
intervention.
"Kinko," I reply, "take it coolly, and depend on me. You are alive, and
we thought you were dead."
"But I am not much better off!" he murmurs.
Mistake! Anything is better than being dead--even when one is menaced
by prison, be it a Chinese prison. And that is what happens, in spite
of the girl's supplications and my entreaties. And Kinko is dragged off
by the police, amid the laughter and howls of the crowd.
But I will not abandon him! No, if I move heaven and earth, I will not
abandon him.
CHAPTER XXVII.
If ever the expression, "sinking in sight of port," could be used in
its precise meaning, it evidently can in this case.
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