The next scene was in the room of a house in the foreign quarter, on the sea wall, called Shameen. Grattan was secreting the ruby in the head of a buckthorn cane. Barely was the secreting done, when a fat mandarin burst in on them with a number of armed coolies at his heels.
The mandarin seemed to be accusing Grattan. Grattan could be seen to shake his head protestingly. Then Grattan and Bunce were searched thoroughly, and the room ransacked. In the utmost chagrin, the mandarin and his coolies left, without having been able to discover anything. A few minutes later, the thieves took their triumphant departure, Grattan exultantly waving the buckthorn stick.
Scarcely breathing, and with staring eyes, the motor boys continued to watch the pictures as they raced over the white screen. What wonder work was this? From Grattan's own lips Matt had heard of the robbery at the Honam joss house, in which Grattan had played such an important part. So far, the pictures had shown it substantially as the details had come from Grattan; there were a few minor differences, but they were insignificant.
From this point, however, Grattan's story and the story as told by the pictures were at variance.
The thieves got into a couple of sedan chairs, each chair carried by four coolies. Apparently, Grattan and Bunce were on their way to the river to embark for other shores. When near the landing, one of the poles supporting the chair in which Grattan was riding broke. The chair fell, the bamboo door burst open, and Grattan tumbled out. One of the coolies picked up the buckthorn cane, and another the sun hat with the pugree. Grattan, in anger, knocked down the coolie who had picked up his hat. The other, coming to his countryman's aid, struck at Grattan with the head of the cane. Grattan dropped to his knees. The cane passed over his head, and the force the coolie had put into the blow carried the stick out of his hand, and sent it smashing against the side of a "go-down."
The head of the cane was broken, and the great ruby rolled over the earth out of the débris, and lay gleaming in the sun under the eyes of the astounded coolies. Then, with the inexplicable timeliness so prevalent in motion pictures, the fat mandarin and his coolies came upon the scene, the mandarin gathering in "Buddha's Eye" with extravagant expressions of joy, and Grattan and Bunce writhing desperately in the hands of the chair men and the mandarin's guard.