Thus uneasy, depressed, more nervous than he had ever been in his life before, he was running towards the landing-stage, not giving a glance beyond, when an exclamation from Lo San caused him to lift his eyes. Then he saw something that shot a cold shiver through him. This was the last straw. A quarter of a mile beyond the landing-stage, coming round a bend in the river, was the nose of a launch which he instantly recognized as Reinhardt’s. It would reach the stage about the same time as his own vessel. The game was up! Reinhardt was certainly on board; the launch had never been seen on the river without him. He would certainly betray the pseudo-German. There had never been any love lost between them. They had parted in anger. And with a man of Reinhardt’s temperament the "rape of the lock," the explanation of which would flash upon him the moment he caught sight of it adorning Burroughs’ lip, would supply the fiercest motive for revenge. Burroughs turned his head away from Chung Pi; he could no longer keep up the forced smile, which he felt must have become an awful grimace. Always a little slow of thought, he did not remember, for a moment or two, that in his story to Chung Pi he had unwittingly provided himself with an avenue of safety. All at once the recollection flashed upon him: he was Lieutenant Eitel Reinhardt, of the gunboat _Kaiser Wilhelm_. The moustacheless German was his brother! "My brother! my brother!" he shouted excitedly. Lo San looked at him in amazement. Was his master mad? Then he, too, remembered. "My honourable master’s brother," he exclaimed to Chung Pi. The captain’s broad face gleamed with interest and satisfaction. This new arrival was the very man who had arranged the gifts for Su Fing, whom his brother had so unfortunately missed, of whose money he himself had a hundred dollars safely tucked into his pouch. "Brothers are as double cherries," he said. "The coming of your august relative is as the shining of the morning sun on the closed petals of a rose." Burroughs bowed as Lo San translated, feeling that another word would make him shout with maniacal laughter. With a turn of the wrist he ran the boat alongside the landing-stage, just a second or two before the launch came up at the farther end. With Chung Pi he stepped off, observing that Reinhardt was standing at his gangway, waiting for his heavier and more cumbersome vessel to be brought alongside. And almost wishing that the planks might part, and plunge him into the water and oblivion, he walked forward to meet his fate. CHAPTER XV REINHARDT IN THE TOILS Burroughs and the smiling captain were still some few yards away from Reinhardt’s gangway; Reinhardt was staring with puzzled curiosity at the tall German with the moustache so like his own lost treasure; when Burroughs whispered to Lo San--