You shall lose sight of us during this tedious and uneventful last lap up stream. It is enough to say that we appeared to have shaken off finally the gang which had pursued us with such dogged hatred--it may be they continued their search up the main stream of Yangtze River--and that by the middle of June we had come to the small obscure town of Kiai, where we engaged ponies and grooms and now, a party ten strong, struck out westward across "unknown" Asia. CHAPTER VII STORM AND PERIL AND STRESS We began our land journey in high spirits. Whatever perils nature might be holding up her sleeve, our human enemies were left far behind; and it wasn't till now that I realised fully the racking strain of suspense we had undergone since we fled for our lives out of Shanghai. Good was it, too, as we advanced in file, to look back over our shoulders at the sturdy bearers and the wiry hill-ponies that carried the outfit for our expedition. But most satisfactory of all was the thought that we were travelling with Saunders Philipson. Poyning and I had now reached the pitch of confidence when a man believes in his leader's ultimate success as a certainty. The Chinese servants had known Philipson longer than we, and their trust in him seemed by that much the more implicit. Even the native bearers, after a few days of the master who seemed to know their wants so well and speak their language so fluently and pick out their small shirkings with such intimate comprehension, were beginning to fall under the magic of his radiant personality. The third night out, we pitched camp and dined in the nearest approach to elegance we were to know for many a long day. Lo Eng excelled himself in the kitchen--we hadn't yet reached the period of canned foods--and Philipson produced three bottles of red wine which he called upon us to help him empty. 'Let us clean it up,' he cried. 'We cannot count on re-stocking the bins for many months--which will fall upon me, at least, with grave hardship--but it will be merely teasing ourselves to make these bottles spin out for a day or two. Besides which, corked wine is never nice. Come, let us pledge success to our journey in a good deep pull!'