Presently a coolie—and Ping Sang recognized A Tsi—came out of the hotel and passed without apparently noticing him, but he had the forefinger of his left hand extended, whilst the other fingers were doubled up. That meant that the Englishman was not in the hotel. A Tsi sauntered back again. Two fingers of the other hand were extended this time. That was sufficient for the old gentleman. The Englishman had gone to Aberdeen, where the two Amoy junks were anchored. Gladly rising to his feet, Ping Sang stretched his cramped legs, slung his two baskets across his shoulders with a bamboo pole, and trotted down the main street, trying to imitate the usual ambling gait of a street hawker. It was several miles to Aberdeen, and he slowed down very quickly, dropping a sugar-cane every now and then to lighten his load, and eventually came to the outskirts of the town and to the broad road which runs along the edge of the sea. Finally he squatted down at a sharp bend of this road in the shade of a big tree, and waited with his baskets in front of him. He had arranged for A Tsi to follow him, and presently that invaluable comprador came rapidly along in a tumble-down double rickshaw, still in his coolie dress and with a big bundle under his arm. After much haggling with the rickshaw man, who did not appreciate the extra weight of Ping Sang’s fat little person, the old sportsman got up beside A Tsi, and the coolie drew them along, sweating and grunting. Half a mile before they arrived at Aberdeen the busy little bay, crowded with native shipping, came in sight, and A Tsi pointed out to his companion two very large junks lashed together in the middle of the harbour. "These are the two from Amoy. They came in two days ago, and have not yet discharged any cargo. In fact they don’t seem to have any," said A Tsi. "If you will wait by the landing-place I will go off to the junks under pretence of selling this bundle of ready-made clothes, and try and find out more about them." They stopped the rickshaw some hundred yards from the centre of the village, paid their grumbling coolie, and then Ping Sang trudged down to the landing-place with his baskets of sugar-canes, and squatted by the road-side, in spite of the hostile looks of the vendors already there. A Tsi followed at some distance, got into a _sampan_, and was sculled out to the junks. Ping Sang watched him clambering over the ship’s sides; but almost immediately afterwards he noticed that a scuffle was going on and saw A Tsi thrown overboard, and, missing his boat underneath, fall with a splash into the sea, bundle and all. He swam ashore easily and scrambled up the beach with a very rueful countenance, amidst the shrieks of laughter of the coolies along the sea-shore, who had gathered to see the fun. As he passed Ping Sang he made a previously agreed-upon sign, which meant that the Englishman was aboard, then he entered an eating-house across the road.