And I must beg you
to excuse me. But although a ship may sink by the side of the jetty, we
must not conclude that she is lost. That Kinko's liberty is in danger,
providing the intervention of myself and fellow passengers is of no
avail, agreed. But he is alive, and that is the essential point.
But we must not waste an hour, for if the police is not perfect in
China, it is at least prompt and expeditious. Soon caught, soon
hanged--and it will not do for them to hang Kinko, even metaphorically.
I offer my arm to Mademoiselle Zinca, and I lead her to my carriage,
and we return rapidly towards the _Hotel of the Ten Thousand Dreams_.
There I find Major Noltitz and the Caternas, and by a lucky chance
young Pan-Chao, without Dr. Tio-King. Pan-Chao would like nothing
better than to be our interpreter before the Chinese authorities.
And then, before the weeping Zinca, I told my companions all about
Kinko, how he had traveled, how I had made his acquaintance on the
journey. I told them that if he had defrauded the Transasiatic Company
it was thanks to this fraud that he was able to get on to the train at
Uzun Ada. And if he had not been in the train we should all have been
engulfed in the abyss of the Tjon valley.
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