Dragon's blood

tide. Rudolph, desperately choked, continued leaping upward against an insufferable power of gravity, or straining to run against the force

fragments, unmistakably French. They sounded close at hand, discordant matins sung by a mob of angry children. Once or twice a weary, fretful voice scolded feebly: "Un-peu-de-s'lence! Un-peu-de-s'lence!

know, sphere of influence, and that rot. Game played out up here, long ago, but they keep hanging on.--Bath's ready, when you like." He broke out laughing. "Di

gloomy vault of ablution. Charcoal fumes, however, and the glow of a brazier on the dark fl

ter safe?"

d impatiently f

ckh. User's risk." An inaudible mut

was an enveloping reminder, he made t

now on, it's pure heads and tails. We're all under fire together." Glancing out of window at the murky sky, he added thoughtfully, "One excellent side t

gent odor overwhelmed and steeped the senses. Rudolph's chair jostled through hundreds and hundreds of Chinese, all alike in the darkness, who shuffled along before with switching queues, or flattened against the wall to stare, almost nose to nose, at the passing foreigner. With chairpoles backing into one shop or running ahead into another, with raucous cries from the coolies, he swung round countless corners, bewildered in a dark, leprous, nightmare bazaar. Overhead, a slit of cloudy sky showed rarely; for the most part, he swayed along indoors, beneath a dingy lattice roof. All points of the compass vanished; all streets remained alike,--the same endless vista of mystic characters, red, black, and gold, on narrow suspended tablets, under which flowed the same current of pig-tailed men in blue and dirty white. From every shop, the same yellow faces stared at

bols, the small, familiar placard--"Fliegelman and Sons, Office." Heywood led the way, past two ducking Chinese clerks, into a sombre room, stone-floored, furnished stif

amp flickered on a European desk. "Here's your cell. I'm off--call for you later. Good luck!"--Wheeling in

e mystic automatons, nodding and smoking by the doorway. Beyond them, across a darker square like a cavern-mouth, flitted the living phantoms of the street. It seemed a fit setting for his fears. "I am lost," he thou

oof, the rain tra

his accounts proved a relief. Working at high tension, Rudolph wrestled through disorder, mistakes, falsification; and little by little, as the sorted piles

able courtesy with his clerks. One after another, strange figures, plump and portly in their colored robe

discourse that ended more darkly than it began, retired with fatuous nods and smirks of satisfact

azaret, but sipped a little of the dark Kirin brew, and plunged again into his researches. Alone with his lamp and ru

" Heywood's voice woke him, sudden a

ge seizure returned,--exile, danger, incomprehensibility, settled down upon him, cold and steady as the rain. Tea, at Heywood's house, was followed by tobacco, tobacco by sherry, an

aces to the club, can we? Ladies' Night--what larks!" He caught up h

from his chair to sh

e it. All the fun they get. Be an ass, like the rest of us.

unded their cues long enough to shake his hand. "Mr. Nesbit,--Sturgeon--Herr Kempner--Herr Teppich,"--he bowed stiffly to each, ran the battery of their inspection, and found himself saluting three other persons at the end of the room, under a rosy, moon-

ying, "Miss Drake, and--how

t struck one with singular force, like the shrewd, kind brightness of his eyes, light blue, and oddly benevolent, under brows hard as granite. "Sit

of homely comfort. A feeble return, however, and brief: in the pauses of talk, misgiving swarmed in his mind, like the leaping vermin of last night. The world into which he had been thrown still appeared disorderly, incomprehensible, and dangerous. The plague--it still

Cockney speech, he stood chalking his cue at a window. "I say, what's the mat

ng like enthusiasm. "Now we'll brighten up! By Jove,

end, with an alacrity that seem

the padre's group, but halted beside the players. Whatever he said, they forgot their game, a

led Heywood, "when the

, heaved the gray bullet-head

the padre. "Why,

ent weariness, but r

d. But to-night--Her journey, you know. She's r

ng open a battered piano, and dragged Chante

an blushed,

tammered. "Really,

ack into his c

" he whispered to Rudolph

iard-players joined the circle, with absent, serious faces. The singer cleared his throat, took on a pret

trow, of m

hat an at

s flushed again with honest satisfaction. But in the full s

his face white and strangely wrought. "I had meant," he said, with painful prec

inly to his fe

"It is well that you know. There is no danger here, more than--I am since disinf

s invaded the room. Then Heywood's book of

from his chair, raging. "

e dark-eyed girl st

" she said quietly. "I

The outbreak of voices was cut short; the whole company stood, like Hom

need any one. Personne. Very sudden. He went to the school sick this mornin

ap on the green field

" he said bitterly.

voice of this first victim,--the peevish voice which cried so weakly for a little silenc

hey regarded one another silently, a rustle, a flurry, sounded on the stairs. A woman stumbled into the loft, sobbing, crying something inarticulate, as she ran bl

Gilly, with a helple

ah told me. Why did you ever let me c

s a dream. He knew them, with a pang. This trembling, miserable h

e her on the rattan couch, and clasping her like a child, nodded t

was firs

tool in leap-frog fashion, and struck a droll simultaneou

qu' j'

se

n je sui

with the same spirit, swung into the chorus. The tumbled white figure on the couch clung to her refuge, h

was now the single coward in the room. But was she? The question was quick and revolting. As quickly, a choice of sides was forced on him. He understood these people, recalled Heywood's sa

ma Tonkikí, m

s qui m' font

ll' que j'ai

it joined the