McLean was the second engineer, a sober Scot who augmented his earnings by loaning money to the crew at interest. The murderous rate which he charged reinforced him somewhat against the big chances necessary in dealing with lawless, ship-jumping wanderers. Yet his losses were smaller than men believed. McLean had a sleepless gray eye—only one, but that sufficed—and a memory for faces and wrongs as remorseless as temporal things can be. He never accounted a debt lost until he had seen the dead body of the debtor and found it barren. He was a profound believer in the smallness of the world and in the efficacy of time. He had money banked in all the Oriental seaport towns from Aden to Yokohama. He was a money-lender by nature. The sea was a means, not a labour of love. In a word it was wisdom to keep away from McLean; and if that were impossible, the next best thing was to pay what he had coming with interest in full, for he had a way of overturning cities and draining seas for his own. The white man on watch had seen the more favoured members of the crew return from the port in song and sottishness. He thought of the lights of Shanghai up the river, beyond fourteen miles of foul marsh mist. His own various and recent miseries had often recurred. On this night that the _John Dividend_ dropped anchor off the Shanghai port, they brought the white man a kind of madness. There was nothing in particular to watch. Overside, the sea and dark were one, though the ship was surrounded by Chinese junks. Some of the junks were manned by begging lepers, but the needy would have fared ill from the mercy of the _John Dividend’s_ crew. As if moved by an involuntary impulse, the white man tumbled forward into the dark. The junks shot toward the splash, like a school of sharks after a chunk of pork. The nearest dragged in the prize, and the forward deck of the _John Dividend_ was left without a watch. This was not exactly a loss, since the missing man as a sailor was equally worthless above and below, but there was a bad debt and a bad name left behind, consequently a memory. McLean held the memory and the missing man’s note for five pounds. Dawn was upon the water as the junk approached the city. From either bank came the shrill voices of the river-dwellers not unlike the waking sound of winged scavengers. Hoarse shouts were heard ahead. The American buried his face while the last drunken party of the _John Dividend_ pulled past, headed for the ship. When the voices could be heard no more, the fugitive raised his head, shuddering. It was then that he noticed the other occupant of his own junk—a hairless female without hand, without teeth, with an empty socket in the place of one eye. She manipulated the oars by means of straps attached from her wrists to the handles. A child was in her lap, and the child was so far clean.