CHAPTER XIII

It was only a moment or two later when Erica opened her eyes again, but to the still dazed girl it seemed impossible that she was not asleep and dreaming what she saw about her.

Vaguely she recalled having had some kind of a fall and hearing her father and Lis cry out in alarm. She could even remember, quite too vividly for comfort, the following contact of her head with that sharp wooden corner at the stairfoot.

But this—certainly she had never seen this small but splendid room in which she was lying. There appeared to be no windows in it, or if there were they must be hidden by the heavy gold-embroidered curtains of a deep plum color that lined the walls on all sides. Light was supplied by several hanging lamps of what looked like beaten silver, with amber glass, and the room was full of that smell of incense she had noticed on the companion stairs. She herself was lying on a low divan, with a pile of softest silk and down pillows propping her up in a slightly raised position.

For an instant Erica thought she was alone in this strange, gorgeous room, but when she turned her head on its mound of pillows some one moved behind her and came around to stand at the side of the divan where she could see him.

This was the oddest, oldest, most leathery-faced and wrinkled little Chinaman Erica had ever imagined, who bent over her with a gentle air of solicitude, and taking one of her hands in his, felt her pulse, nodding his head slowly as if in time to its beat.

“All is well,” he announced after a moment or two of silence, replacing Erica’s hand on the couch and standing back a step to regard her solemnly. “The fall had no consequences of a serious nature, so rest assured.” His English was perfect in accent and pronunciation, but it was spoken in a curious sing-song that made it difficult to follow.

In spite of his apparent age, his hair, which he wore in a long queue, was quite black, and that with his piercing black eyes, and the stiff, coat-like garment of dark silk which he wore, gave Erica the impression of something rather severe and gloomy, though not exactly forbidding, for his glance at her was kindly enough.

Then she caught the sound of footsteps crossing soft carpets, evidently from some door beyond, and to her vast relief Captain Eric’s merry blue eyes looked over the solemn little Chinaman’s shoulder.

“All right, daughter?” he asked, quickly, and came over to sit on the side of the divan, holding both her cold little hands in his big warm ones. “That was a nasty tumble, my dear. Thank God it was no worse. But I was sure the good doctor, here, would know what should be done for you.”

“But where am I, father?” Erica asked, weakly. “And—and who is—_he_?” She essayed a smile at the wrinkled, yellow old face still staring kindly down at her, beside her father’s sunburnt and ruddy countenance.

“Why, you are on the _Sea Gull_, Rick,” Captain Eric said, reassuringly. “And this is the very wise and celebrated physician to His Excellency the Governor of Canton. The Governor, I ought to add, is otherwise known to you, my dear, as your Chinese godfather, Sun Li.” He patted the hands he held very tenderly, while he shook his bushy red head at her in mock reproof. “Still my tomboy Rick, I see,” he sighed. “A nice way to present yourself to so eminent a personage as His Excellency the Governor.”

“You _mean_, father,” Erica gasped, sitting up straight in the shock of those last words, “that Sun Li is actually on board the _Sea Gull_? That he came back with you from China?”

“Exactly that,” Captain Eric assured her, smiling at her breathless excitement. “As perhaps Lis told you, he has been in poor health for several years, and was finally persuaded by his physician to take a long sea voyage. He agreed at last, provided he could sail on the _Sea Gull_ with his old friend—meaning your father, Rick. So after some discussion with the Canton office of our company it was arranged that His Excellency should charter the _Sea Gull_ for the period of one year, and sail her whither he chose as his own private yacht. He offered a price, by the way, that was worth considerably more than the finest cargoes of tea we could have carried during the same time, and the company agreed to his doing over the saloon and cabins according to Chinese ideas of luxury and beauty. So behold the reason for all the gorgeousness that sent you head first down my companionway, poor little dazzled Ricky!”

Even the solemn Chinese doctor smiled at that; but Erica pushed her father’s hand aside and sprang determinedly to her feet.

“Where is Sun Li?” she cried, eagerly. “Oh, father, I just must see him, _quick_!”

The plum-colored hangings were pushed aside at the far end of the cabin, and Lis stood there, grinning at her with a comical mingling of real relief and teasing in his eyes.

“Trust Rick to make a graceful entrance,” he observed. “Say, Miss Folger, if you’re able to walk, His Excellency wants to see you in his cabin. He asked me to explain that he would have come to you, but he’s not allowed to leave his chair by the doctor, here. You know,” he added, taking a swift step into the room and letting the heavy portières drop into place behind him, “he’s been pretty seriously ill. This trip is a—a sort of forlorn hope. He looks a bit better, though, to me, than when I saw him in his palace in Canton.”

The little Chinese doctor looked up at the boy eagerly.

“You think so, young sir? That is of great encouragement to hear. To me, who am always with him, he seems to change but little. I cannot trust my own vision.”

Lis nodded emphatically.

“Looks much less tired to me, sir,” he declared. “His face seems a bit fuller, too. Shouldn’t be surprised if he’d gained a few pounds in this long sea trip.”

“That’s what I was telling you, Doctor,” Captain Eric corroborated his nephew cheerily. “And we’re not through with our rest cure yet, not by a jugful. Run along with Lis, Ricky, and don’t keep His Excellency waiting.”

“I—suppose he speaks English, too?” Erica whispered shyly to Lis, hesitating for a second with her hand on the curtain Lis was about to pull back for her entrance.

He nodded. “No trouble about that,” he said, and gave his cousin a little push forward, but gently, for Lis had an almost feminine knack of understanding, and he guessed how tremendous the moment seemed to her.

He had felt a good deal the same himself when he was first taken before Sun Li in the Governor’s palace in Canton.

Then he saw Erica draw a deep breath and lift her chin in the old familiar fashion. Without a word, Lis drew the curtain aside for her and gave her a little encouraging, approving smile, which Erica failed entirely to see. All her thoughts were concentrated on what she would see on the other side of the heavily embroidered portière.

She entered a second room almost as large as the main saloon, and hung with heavy silken curtains like the latter, only in this case the hangings were a warm orange with vividly colored embroidery. Later, Erica learned that the partitions between three of the passenger cabins had been removed, to make one fair-sized apartment.

This cabin, too, was lighted by hanging lamps instead of daylight, and in a deep, reclining chair beside a table heaped with books in rich bindings, Erica beheld for the first time her much-discussed Chinese godfather. At the first timid glance she sent him, he seemed to the girl to be all eyes—great, liquid, brilliant black eyes alive with kindness and a keen intelligence, looking out of a thin face with prominent cheek bones, and tautly drawn skin the color of old ivory.

“Enter, little Sea Blossom,” said a deep, not unmusical voice, and a finely modeled, but painfully thin hand was lifted from the gorgeous brocaded robes that enveloped him, and held out to her in welcome. Sun Li’s hand, like his face, was not yellow at all, but a warm cream, and on it the delicate veining stood out clearly.

Erica drew nearer, still timidly, and slipped a confiding hand into the one stretched toward her. She was conscious of a great rush of pity for anyone so obviously ill, and with it a most strange and pleasant sense of having known the owner of the hand long and affectionately. Meeting her Chinese godfather was like coming home to a near and dear member of her family. She entirely forgot to be afraid of his strangeness and his grandeur. But no words came to her for the moment, and she merely stood there holding the fragile ivory-colored hand in hers, and smiling rather wistfully down at the thin, tired old face that smiled so valiantly back at her.

But such unwonted shyness on Erica’s part did not last long, and by the time her father and Lis had joined them in the orange-hung cabin her tongue was wagging busily as she described, in answer to quiet, amused questions from the old Chinese, her home life, the various members of her family, and her bubbling gratitude for the accumulated gifts that had come to her during the past fifteen years, on each return voyage of the _Sea Gull_.

Sun Li—he quickly forbade all attempts at the formal Your Excellency, on either Lis’s or Erica’s part—seemed so well entertained by his new visitors, that the elderly physician, creeping in softly after half an hour’s time, to see how his master did, crept out as softly, his leathery old face wreathed in smiles, and allowed the racing chatter to proceed unchecked.

Lis sat silently listening, for the most part, and after a while Captain Eric followed the old doctor out of the cabin, and was gone for quite a time, on business of his own, leaving his daughter’s tongue still wagging in lively fashion, and Sun Li hearing her with obvious amusement and pleasure showing on his usually impassive countenance.

When the Captain did return, it was to announce that he had sent a boat ashore with a message to Mrs. Folger, stating that he was planning to keep both children on board all night and would bring them ashore with him early the following morning.

“I also told her that the Governor would accompany us, and that I hoped she would have a worthy Nantucket dinner ready for him,” he added, smiling at the intent group before him. “A change of cooking may tempt your appetite, my friend, and that is what we want to happen just now. Ricky, supper will be served in the saloon in twenty minutes. Better go to your cabin and wash your hands. I’ll show you where you are to bunk tonight. Lis is to share my quarters. By the way,” he added, his smile broadening, “I fancy, from something Sun Li told me before you arrived that you will find a chest in your cabin, with some things in it that may interest you. Only don’t lose track of time, you flighty child, and keep us waiting.”

Erica sprang eagerly to her feet, and flashed the invalid a glance of ecstatic delight. “You—you’re the most _wonderful_ person, godfather,” she cried, clasping her hands over her heart with a gesture that set them all laughing. “Aunt Charity never would let me wear the beautiful gifts you sent me—not till I’m grown up. But while you’re here, I guess I can dress up all I want to. That’s only polite to Sun Li, father, isn’t it?” she questioned, anxiously, and went off to explore, much relieved, when Captain Eric nodded indulgent acquiescence.

The minute she was inside the tiny cabin that had been allotted to her, Erica saw that it must have been planned for her when Sun Li had refitted the _Sea Gull_ for the present voyage, way on the other side of the world. The walls were hung with palest peach-blossom silk, heavily embroidered with wistaria and tender green leaves. The built-in bunk had been upholstered in cream and gold satin, and was heaped with pillows of all colors of the rainbow, most of them shaped like flowers. The carpet on the floor was pale gold, with cherry blossoms running riot across it, and there were two marvelous hanging lamps of silver and jade that matched the pattern of the key Sun Li had sent her by Lis months ago.

Erica stood in the middle of the room, and drew a breath of sheer unbelief and protest. She _must_ be asleep. She was dreaming of some scene in the _Arabian Nights_, not standing in a cabin on her father’s ship anchored in Nantucket Harbor. Only—only, if it were actually a dream, that meant she would have to wake up.

She experienced an impulse to tiptoe softly, to avert such a catastrophe, and then her attention was switched rapidly to a fresh surprise, as her eye fell for the first time on a small oblong chest of carved teakwood, bound in hammered silver, that stood at the foot of the white-and-gold bunk. It was about two and a half feet long by a foot wide, and two feet high, and sticking out of its beaten silver padlock was a key so evidently the twin of the one she wore about her neck, that Erica gave a funny little squeak of astonishment and fell on her knees beside it, worshipfully.

Inside, when the heavy lid had been impatiently flung back, she found rolls of uncut silks, some in plain colors, some heavily embroidered in delicate blossom designs, and on top of these the full straight trousers of heavy silk, the knee-length tunic coat, and a pair of small silken, heel-less slippers, such as a Chinese girl would wear. The lovely, exotic garments were a cool jade-green in color, embroidered in silver and rose, and there were cunning green silk tassels on the slippers, with a string of jade beads tucked into one small slipper-toe, and a similar string of rose agate in the other.

Erica uttered a regular war whoop of ecstasy, and caught the slippers, necklaces and all, up in two suddenly trembling hands to cuddle them against her soft, flushed cheek. Then, her mood veering, without waiting for further exploration she began to undress with business-like haste.

Ten minutes later the door of her cabin opened rather hesitantly and a strange, slim little Chinese figure, with an incongruous crop of short red curls dancing excitedly above its jade-green silks, stepped out into the narrow passageway leading to the saloon. And at the same moment a startled cry broke from Lis, who had just emerged from the captain’s cabin, a door or two farther away.

”_For Pete’s sake_, Ricky!” Lis gasped, and fell silent for lack of adequate words.