Putting up the cards very carefully, for they had a new value for him, he kow-towed to his illustrious benefactors, as he called the sorry ruffians, and took his way to the riverside. The river was crowded with various craft of the insurgents, and some distance down stream the launch on which the Europeans had been placed was puffing towards Sui-Fu. Lo San, primed with information gleaned from his late hosts, found it now an easy matter to pass himself off as a rebel, especially as he contrived to get possession of a spear which had been incautiously laid down by its owner. Swaggering with a truculent air among the crowd, he soon discovered from their talk that the Europeans had been released, and supposed that his master was among them. But just as he was considering which of the sampans lying at the shore he should appropriate for a night journey to Sui-Fu, he was unlucky enough to catch the eye of a seller of wood, whom he had kicked from the house a day or two before for asking an absurd price. This man also had armed himself with a spear, and letting out a fierce "Hai yah!" he sprang towards Lo San to avenge himself for his kicking, at the same time acquainting people at large with the fact that the wretch was the impudent wind-inflated hireling of a foreign devil. The unhappy consequence was that Lo San was set upon by a dozen others besides the wood-seller, and soundly thrashed a second time for the same offence, an injustice that wounded his soul even more poignantly than the spear-butts his body. But there was compensation even in this, for while his persecutors were belabouring him, they let their tongues wag freely with abuse and objurgation, and the wood-seller taunted him with the loss of his master, who would soon, he said, be "sliced" for the amusement of the august Su Fing. Lo San, when left to himself, reflected that but for this second beating he might have gone down uselessly to Sui-Fu, when his master had been carried in a quite contrary direction. "Even in the blackest thunderstorm there is a flash of lightning," he said to himself, resolving to journey up-stream as soon as he ached less. His misfortunes, however, made him wary. If he purloined a sampan and paddled up the river, he would certainly meet many rebels; and with his self-confidence shaken he could not face the risk of another thrashing. So he resolved to perform the journey to Meichow on foot. He found a secluded nook where he might rest a while; then, still sore, and beginning to feel hungry again, he set off on his long tramp.