BIG BELLEW AND THE CHINEE MAID
by
Milton Hayes
and
Cuthbert Clarke (1920)

A man was found stiff, cold and bound,
On the steps of a 'Frisco pier,
His dead eyes glared, as if Hell had bared
The nethermost pits of fear;
And this is the story of Big Bellew,
And a maid... and the Mandarin Hi-Chen-Foo.
Big Bellew ran a risk or two
In the freights of his leaky scow,
And many a load transhipped, and stowed,
From the hold to some Chinee dhow,
For the Yellowmen dream, and pay their fee,
And the trail of the Poppy gets lost at sea.
On one of his jaunts he struck the haunts
Of the Mandarin Hi-Chen-Foo...
A venomous Chink, with a lust for drink,
And the traffic of Big Bellew;
And the Mandarin traded, and paid the toll,
And the price of his dream was his daughter's soul.
Big Bellew was no beauty, and he wasn't improved that night,
There was some roughhouse and a knife was flashed,
And Skipper Bellew got badly gashed,
And his face showed a fresco the Chinks had done,
But he carried his deal and the maid he'd won,
And he stuck to his bargain tight.
Then dope went out of favour,
And running it ceased to pay,
So Big Bellew took a poker joint,
On the waterfront 'Frisco way,
And a little pale face would oft be seen
To peep from the door of Bellew's shebeen,
As tho' the tides' eternal roll,
Had secrets to tell to her heathen soul,
And the zephyrs that soughed thro' the Golden Gate
Would whisper, "The Gods of the Poppies can wait."
One night, when stakes were mounting high
And drinks were off the shelf,
A Yellowman came, and watched awhile,
Then took a hand himself;
And when a Chinee gambles, and at "pay up" hasn't gained,
There's a jigsaw plot, and a chowchow scheme that a wise
man wants explained.
But Big Bellew saw gold to win,
And the spell of the Poppy was closing in.
The Yellowman came again to play, then brought his friends along,
And 'twas certain soon that class saloon
Would end as a pigtail jamboroon
Chinks upstairs, and chinks below,
Till hardly a white man cared to go,
And the eyes of the Chinee Maid were bright,
For the Spell of the Poppy was closing tight.
It came at last... a fake half done...
A curse... and Bellew with a loaded gun,
But the soul of the big man failed his head,
His brain was drugged with a nameless dread.
His eyes were fixed on a baleful face
That leered from the door of that Godless place,
And vengeance from Poppyland faced Bellew,
In the eyes of the Mandarin Hi-Chen-Foo;
And China makes certain when vengeance is loosed,
And the Curse of the Poppy came home to roost.
A sudden crash-out goes the light,
A pigtail deftly twisted... tight,
Then silence thro' the brooding night,
And the Poppy has worked her spell.
A man was found... stiff, cold and bound,
On the steps of a 'Frisco pier;
His dead eyes glared, as if Hell had bared
The nethermost pits of fear;
And this is the story of Big Bellew,
And a maid and the Mandarin Hi-Chen-Foo.