Throne of Jade Page 0,26

Wilberforce, their mutual political ally, meant to make another push for abolition in the next session of Parliament.

Laurence dashed off another dozen hasty notes, in a hand not very much like his usual, to other correspondents; most of them were naval men, who would well understand the exigencies of a hasty departure. Despite much abbreviation, the effort took its toll, and by the time Jane Roland came to see him once again, he had nearly prostrated himself once more, and was lying back against the pillows with eyes shut.

"Yes, I will post them for you, but you are behaving absurdly, Laurence," she said, collecting up the letters. "A knock on the head can be very nasty, even if you have not cracked your skull. When I had the yellow fever I did not prance about claiming I was well; I lay in bed and took my gruel and possets, and I was back on my feet quicker than any of the other fellows in the West Indies who took it."

"Thank you, Jane," he said, and did not argue with her; indeed he felt very ill, and he was grateful when she drew the curtains and cast the room into a comfortable dimness.

He briefly came out of sleep some hours later, hearing some commotion outside the door of his room: Roland saying, "You are damned well going to leave now, or I will kick you down the hall. What do you mean, sneaking in here to pester him the instant I have gone out?"

"But I must speak with Captain Laurence; the situation is of the most urgent - " The protesting voice was unfamiliar, and rather bewildered. "I have ridden straight from London - "

"If it is so urgent, you may go and speak to Admiral Lenton," Roland said. "No; I do not care if you are from the Ministry; you look young enough to be one of my mids, and I do not for an instant believe you have anything to say that cannot wait until morning."

With this she pulled the door shut behind her, and the rest of the argument was muffled; Laurence drifted again away. But the next morning there was no one to defend him, and scarcely had the maid brought in his breakfast - the threatened gruel and hot-milk posset, and quite unappetizing - than a fresh attempt at invasion was made, this time with more success.

"I beg your pardon, sir, for forcing myself upon you in this irregular fashion," the stranger said, talking rapidly while he dragged up a chair to Laurence's bedside, uninvited. "Pray allow me to explain; I realize the appearance is quite extraordinary - " He set down the heavy chair and sat down, or rather perched, at the very edge of the seat. "My name is Hammond, Arthur Hammond; I have been deputized by the Ministry to accompany you to the court of China."

Hammond was a surprisingly young man, perhaps twenty years of age, with untidy dark hair and a great intensity of expression that lent his thin, sallow face an illuminated quality. He spoke at first in half-sentences, torn between the forms of apology and his plain eagerness to come to his subject. "The absence of an introduction, I beg you will forgive, we have been taken completely, completely by surprise, and Lord Barham has already committed us to the twenty-third as a sailing date. If you would prefer, we may of course press him for some extension - "

This of all things Laurence was eager to avoid, though he was indeed a little astonished by Hammond's forwardness; hastily he said, "No, sir, I am entirely at your service; we cannot delay sailing to exchange formalities, particularly when Prince Yongxing has already been promised that date."

"Ah! I am of a similar mind," Hammond said, with a great deal of relief; Laurence suspected, looking at his face and measuring his years, that he had received the appointment only due to the lack of time. But Hammond quickly refuted the notion that a willingness to go to China on a moment's notice was his only qualification. Having settled himself, he drew out a thick sheaf of papers, which had been distending the front of his coat, and began to discourse in great detail and speed upon the prospects of their mission.

Laurence was almost from the first unable to follow him. Hammond unconsciously slipped into stretches of the Chinese language from time to time, when looking down at those of his papers written