Dragon Dance Read Online Free PDF Page A

now?”
    â€œWell, they could have chopped us on the spot and tossed us overboard. I think they may be curious about us.”
    â€œWould you say that’s good?”
    â€œBetter than the ocean.”
    â€œI suppose so,” Simon said. “You know what? I’m hungry again. Very hungry.”
    â€œToo bad,” Brad said. “That’s the trouble with Chinese food.”
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    Day was well advanced when the cabin door was unbolted and thrown open. A Chinese with a dagger gestured towards Brad. Simon got up, too, but was waved back.
    Brad said: “Looks like I have the call for first breakfast.”
    â€œDon’t eat all the ham and eggs.”
    â€œI don’t guarantee that. But I’ll save you a coffee.”
    The door was slammed and bolted behind him,and footsteps shuffled away. Simon’s wisecracking mood was replaced by an emptiness unrelated to hunger. He was fettered, on a junk in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, at the mercy of a bunch of Chinese about whom he knew nothing except that they were engaged in the slave trade. Even Brad’s notion that they had been spared death because their captors were curious took on a less cheering aspect as he considered it. Curiosity could involve a determination to find things out, by any necessary means. He recalled tales of Chinese torture. Comic book stuff, he told himself—but what was a situation in which you were chained and on a Chinese junk except comic book stuff?
    It was a long time before the cabin door opened again. The same Chinese indicated he should come out, and then pushed him in the direction he was to go. He had to climb stairs to the upper deck—not easy in leg irons. When he faltered, the Chinese pricked him sharply with the dagger.
    He was taken to a cabin in the middle of the upper gangway. An announcement was made at the door, in respectful tones, and he was pushed inside.
    It was a different world. There were paintingsand decorated silks on the walls, patterned rugs on the floor, silk-shaded hanging lamps in the corners of the room. A sofa bed was heaped with cushions, and at the far end a Chinese sat cross-legged on a luxurious divan, smoking an odd-looking pipe. It was the man with the gun. He had a long face and drooping moustache, and wore a crimson robe. When he lifted his hand to dismiss the guard, Simon noticed manicured fingernails.
    As the door closed, the man spoke a few words, in a calm quiet voice. Getting no response, he spoke again. This time, though still not understanding it, Simon recognized the language as something like Chumash, the Indians’ tongue.
    The Chinese beckoned Simon to approach. He hobbled across the cabin, and another gesture directed him to kneel. Standing in front of him, the Chinese produced a gleaming bronze disk, attached to a black silk cord, from a pocket in his robe. A flick of his fingers set the disk spinning.
    Simon looked at it and then looked away. A perfumed hand pulled his head back. The disk still spun. He looked through and past it, visualizing other scenes: a Saturday afternoon’s cricket and the sunbursting through after rain, his dog Tarka doing her begging act for chocolate, a winter evening and the smell of roasted chestnuts . . .
    Abruptly the disk’s spinning was halted. The Chinese put it away and tugged a silken rope, sounding a bell somewhere outside. The guard returned and prodded Simon to the door. He was pushed down the gangway to a narrow deck section which ran alongside the stern castle, and further aft to a small quarterdeck where the anchor lay with its coiled chain in a shallow well.
    Simon was close by the bulwark rail, beyond which the swell of water stretched to a hazy horizon. He suddenly wondered about Brad, aware that it would take only a quick heave from the guard behind him to send unwanted goods over into the ocean’s depths. Had that happened to Brad? He didn’t have