“A very great man in his own land,” the captain declared. “Governor of the province. Also a man high in favor at the imperial court, it is whispered. Where thy father got the name of Sun Li, I know not. Perchance it is some little name of friendship by which he chooses to be known to thee, to hide his true rank. But for Captain Eric’s sake he was exceedingly gracious to me and heard all my tale of Lister’s disappearance with much interest. At its conclusion he promised to have search made for the lad and to send word if he were found. He bade me return to America, since, after all, even for thy cousin’s sake, I could not hold up the _Spray_ and her cargo indefinitely. A captain’s duty is first of all to his owners. And I had exhausted all my resources in the search. If the governor could not find him, surely I could do nothing.” The door at their backs was suddenly flung open violently, and Tommy, his blue eyes wide with a kind of startled horror, stood on the threshold, staring at the two outside. “What’s that you’re saying about Lis?” he cried. “I heard Rick call out his name and something about not leaving him behind. What’s the matter?” Erica ran to him and clasped his arm with two strong, nervous young hands. “Tommy, don’t look like that, please, dear,” she begged, her voice thick with the tears she was trying so hard to hold back. “And it isn’t sure yet that he—— Sun Li is having a search made for him, and—and Sun Li’s governor of Canton, Tommy, so you see, he can do——” Tommy cut her short, “_Where is Lis?_” he demanded, his glance going from Erica to the big figure of Captain Bartlet on the porch. The captain shook his head helplessly, tried for words, and choked ignominiously. There was something heart-breaking about the tense questioning of Tommy’s blue eyes, before which the bluff, kindly old sailor felt all the sympathetic attempts at reassurance he wanted to utter seem useless. He looked pleadingly at the girl between them. “Tommy, we don’t know,” Erica said, bravely, tightening her grasp on her cousin’s arm. “You’ll have to help us, dear, because we’ve got somehow to tell your mother.” “All right,” the boy said, briefly. “Tell me first.” And he added, just as Erica herself had done, “He isn’t—_dead_, Rick?” “We don’t know, dear,” Erica repeated, and for a little moment her red head went down on Tommy’s arm and one big, uncontrollable sob shook her. But almost instantly she had herself in hand once more, and, lifting her head, repeated in a steady voice the story Captain Bartlet had just told her. Tommy listened quietly, only wincing once, when she came to the departure of the _Spray_, leaving Lis behind her. “What did Sun Li think, sir?” he said of Captain Bartlet when Erica was done. “Was he—at all hopeful, sir?”