"Ten thousand one hundred," said Jim; and even as he
spoke he made a sudden gesture with his hand, his face
changed, and I could see that he had guessed, or
thought that he had guessed, the mystery. As he
scrawled another memorandum in his note-book, his hand
shook like a telegraph operator's.
"Chinese ship," ran the legend; and then in big,
tremulous half-text, and with a flourish that overran
the margin, "Opium!"
"To be sure," thought I, "this must be the secret." I
knew that scarce a ship came in from any Chinese port
but she carried somewhere, behind a bulkhead or in some
cunning hollow of the beams, a nest of the valuable
poison. Doubtless there was some such treasure on the
FLYING SCUD. How much was it worth? We knew not;
we were gambling in the dark. But Trent knew, and
Bellairs; and we could only watch and judge.
By this time neither Pinkerton nor I were of sound
mind. Pinkerton was beside himself, his eyes like
lamps; I shook in every member. To any stranger
entering, say, in the course of the fifteenth thousand,
we should probably have cut a poorer figure than
Bellairs himself.
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