He succeeded in getting four other boys to join, and they all took their oaths very solemnly. Now that they were really highbinders they must begin to kill somebody. Not ever having killed anybody, they did not know how to go about it, or on whom to begin.
_Mo chun_ noticed the boys carrying on a great deal of private conversation, and she wondered what it could be; so that night, after Sing Lee had burned his punks before the god, and had eaten his bowl of rice with chopsticks, she said to him: “What for you allee time whisper? You no eat--you no sleep; tell me! what you think?”
_Mo chun_ was such a dear little brown mother, and he loved her so, that when she looked at him with her slanting velvet eyes, and asked him to tell her, he just had to, that was all. He was not afraid of her, for Chinese mothers do not punish their children, and anyway--the secret was too good to keep, so why not tell her? She never laughed at him like _ho chun_. So he crept close up against the warmth of her silken blouse--he could feel her tender mother heart beating beneath it--and he gazed at the polished hair and the pretty mouth as he talked.
“_Mo chun_--I likee be like big man--like _ho chun_. I get boys togeddeh; we be highbinders, allee samee _ho chun_.
“_Ho chun_ velly fine man; he kill heap of people; I likee do that, but, _mo chun_, my beautiful blossom, I no likee _ho chun_ to kill Chong Sing; he heap good--he bling me candy.”
“What you mean, little boy? How you _sabe_ (know) _ho chun_ kill Chong Sing? Speak!--tell me!”
“Oh, _mo chun_ of mine, I no sleep at night; I no can help--I hear _ho chun_ say Chong Sing must die. I velly solly; he heap good man--I likee.”
_Mo chun_ was sorry too, for she knew him to be a good man, but she knew there was no use to say anything. If they had decided upon his death there was nothing to be said.
The next day Sing Lee set forth with his little band of highbinders to find some one to kill. _Mo chun_ had said: “You must not really kill them, you _sabe_, just pletend kill.”
Suddenly, as they marched on, a bright thought struck little Sing Lee. “Suppose I tell Chong Sing?--he live near--I know the way, and--he was kind to me.”
He then confided his secret to his trusty men, and they marched on, through the narrow streets, till they came to the home of the good Chong Sing--the man who was to be killed.