The coolies refused stolidly to budge, and by sign threatened to put down the chairs upon the ground; all the while jabbering and gesticulating wildly to each other and to the mob, which appeared on the point of engulfing the foreigners in its noisome embrace. CHAPTER V THE VICEROY’S TREACHERY The gaping crowd pressed ever closer. Phil could feel the fetid breath of those nearest him; he saw a big Chinaman emerge from the dense throng and push his way to Langdon’s chair; the lad would have cried out a warning, but all happened with such lightning-like swiftness that he had not found his voice before the bold Chinaman had released his hold upon the pilot’s coat, and had fallen back into the arms of his countrymen nearest him, a deep red stain upon his closely shaved head, while Langdon waved menacingly his Colt revolver, the blunt butt of which had successfully cowed the would-be leader. Fortunately for the foreigners, a troop of mounted soldiers arrived on the scene at this juncture and brutally cleared the way, trampling under their horses’ feet the nearest of the mob, chained as they were by the mass of humanity behind them. Presently the chairs were again in motion; the soldiers now keeping the crowd in check, and in a few minutes more the embassy arrived in front of the yamen, the official residence of the viceroy. The heavy, grotesquely painted doors were quickly opened, and closed sharply in the faces of the unruly crowd. The naval men alighted from their chairs, well satisfied to have escaped so easily from a disagreeable situation; but the pilot was not so well pleased. “We’re in for it, I fear,” he confided to Phil; “that was another insult. The viceroy knew we were coming and he doubtless planned that we should be mobbed, holding his soldiers back to give us a few unpleasant minutes.” “What would that Chinaman have done to you?” Phil asked gravely. “It was an act of bravado,” Langdon answered smilingly, the picture of the discomfited man in his mind; “but if he had succeeded in pulling me from the chair it would have been serious; a leader is all these people need.” “Pretty tight squeak, eh, Langdon?” Commander Hughes asked while they waited for the summons to approach the audience-chamber. “It looked bad for a time, sir,” the pilot replied; “if some one had thrown a stone, we’d have been mobbed then and there, and the soldiers would have been powerless to save us. Not in my ten years among these people have I seen such a menacing mob. We must deal boldly with the viceroy, sir, or else we’ll not get out of the city alive.” “Is it really as bad as that?” the captain asked anxiously.