Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil

The night was sweltering hot, even for Hong Kong. The town clock had just chimed a quarter-past ten, and though the actual sound of the striking had died away, the vibration of the bells lingered for nearly half a minute on the murky stillness of the air. In spite of the exertions of the punkah coolie, the billiard-room of the Occidental Hotel was like the furnace-doors of Sheol. Benwell, of the Chinese Revenue cutter Y-Chang , and Peckle, of the English cruiser Tartaric , stripped nearly to the buff, were laboriously engaged upon a hundred up; while Maloney, of the San Francisco mail-boat, and I, George De Normanville, looked on, and encouraged them with sarcasms and utterly irrational advice. Between times the subdued jabbering of a group of rickshaw coolies, across the pavement, percolated in to us, and mingled with the click of the billiard balls and the monotonous whining of the punkah rope; then the voice of a man in the verandah upstairs, singing to the accompaniment of a banjo, drifted down, and set us beating time with our heels upon the wooden floor.

The words of the song seemed strangely out of place in that heathen land, so many thousand miles removed from Costerdom. But the wail of the music had quite a different effect. The singer's voice was distinctly a good one, and he used it with considerable ability:

Half a dozen other voices took up the chorus, and sent it rolling away over the litter of sampans alongside the wharf, out to where the red and blue funnel boats lay at anchor half a mile distant. The two players chalked their cues and stopped to participate.

The music ceased amid a burst of applause.

"Sixee, sixee – sevenee-three," repeated the marker mechanically.

"Give me the rest, you almond-eyed lubber," cried Peckle with sudden energy; "we'll return to business, for I'll be hanged if I'm going to let myself be beaten by the bo'sun tight and the midshipmite of a bottle-nosed, unseaworthy Chinese contraband."

Maloney knocked the ash off his cigar on his chair-arm and said, by way of explanation, "Our friend Peckle, gentlemen, chowed last night at Government House. He hasn't sloughed his company manners yet."

Benwell sent the red whizzing up the table into the top pocket, potted his opponent into the right-hand middle, by way of revenge, and then gave the customary miss in baulk.

"A Whitechapel game and be hanged to you," said Peckle contemptuously. "I'll bet you a dollar I – Hullo! who's this? Poddy, by all that's human! Watchman, what of the night? Why this indecent haste?"

The newcomer was a short podgy man, with a clean-shaven red face, white teeth, very prominent eyes, large ears, and almost marmalade-coloured hair. He was in a profuse perspiration, and so much out of breath that for quite two minutes he was unable to answer their salutations.

"Poddy is suffering from a bad attack of suppressed information," said Benwell, who had been examining him critically. "Better prescribe for him, De Normanville. Ah, I forgot, you don't know one another. Let me introduce you – Mr. Horace Venderbrun, Dr. De Normanville. Now you're acquent, as they say in the farces."

"Out with it, Poddy," continued Peckle, digging him in the ribs with the butt of his cue. "If you don't tell us soon, we shall be sorrowfully compelled to postpone our engagements to-morrow in order to witness your interment in the Happy Valley."

"Well, in the first place," began Mr. Venderbrun, "you must know – "

"Hear, hear, Poddy. A dashed good beginning!"

"Shut up, Peckle, and give the minstrel a chance. Now, my Blondel, pipe your tuneful lay."

"You must know that the Oodnadatta – "

"Well – well, Skipper – Perkins, martinet and teetotaller; chief officer, Bradburn, otherwise the China Sea Liar! What about her? She sailed this evening for Shanghai?"

"With a million and a half of specie aboard. Don't forget that! Went ashore in the Ly-ee-moon Pass at seven o'clock. Surrounded by junks instantly. Skipper despatched third officer in launch full steam for assistance. Gunboat went down post haste, and, like most gunboats, arrived too late to be of any use. Apologies, Peckle, old man! Skipper and ten men shot, chief officer dirked, first saloon passengers of importance cleaned of their valuables and locked up in their own berths. The bullion room was then rifled, and every red cent of the money is gone – goodness knows where. Now, what d'you think of that for news?"

"My gracious!"

"What junks were they?"

"Nobody knows."

"The Ly-ee-moon Pass, too! Right under our very noses. Criminy! Won't there be a row!"

"The Beautiful White Devil again, I suppose?"

"Looks like it, don't it? Peckle, my boy, from this hour forward the papers will take it up, and – well, if I know anything of newspapers, they'll drop it on to you gunboat fellows pretty hot."

"If I were the British Navy I'd be dashed if I'd be beaten by a woman."

"Hear, hear, to that. Now for your defence, Peckle."

"Go ahead; let me have it. I'm down and I've got no friends; but it's all very well for you gentlemen of England, who sit at home in ease, to sneer. If you only knew as much as we do of the lady you wouldn't criticise so freely. Personally, I believe she's a myth."

"Don't try it, old man. We all know the Lords Commissioners will stand a good deal, but, believe me, they'll never swallow that. They've had too many proofs to the contrary lately."

I thought it was time to interfere.

"Will somebody take pity on a poor barbarian and condescend to explain," I said. "Since I've been in the East I've heard nothing but Beautiful White Devil – Beautiful White Devil – Beautiful White Devil. Tiffin at Government House, Colombo – Beautiful White Devil; club chow, Yokohama – Beautiful White Devil; flagship, Nagasaki – Beautiful White Devil; and now here. All Beautiful White Devil, and every yarn differing from its predecessor by miles. I can tell you, I'm beginning to feel very much out of it."

Each of the four men started in to explain. I held up my hand in entreaty.

"As you are strong, be merciful," I cried. "Not all at once."

One of the silent-footed China-boys brought me a match for my cigar, and held it until I had obtained a light. Then, throwing myself back in the long cane chair, I bade them work their wicked wills.

"Let Poddy tell," said Peckle. "He boasts the most prolific imagination. Go on, old man, and don't spare him."

Venderbrun pulled himself together, signed for silence, and, having done so, began theatrically: "Who is the Beautiful Devil? Mystery. Where did she first hail from? Mystery. What is her name, I mean her real name, not the picturesque Chinese cognomen? Mystery. As far as can be ascertained she made her first appearance in Eastern waters in Rangoon, July 24, 18 – . Got hold of some native prince blowing the family treasure and blackmailed him out of half a million of dollars. A man would never have come out of the business alive, but she did, and what is more, with the money to boot. Three months later the Vectis Queen went ashore, when forty-eight hours out of Singapore, junks sprang up out of nowhere, boarded her in spite of stubborn resistance on the part of the ship's company, looted her bullion room of fifty thousand pounds and her passengers of three thousand more."