ind him, he made his way slowly and silently, by the dim light of the
stars, round the sleeping bivouac. And it was not until he had
completed the entire circumference of the circle and was back again at
his starting-point, that it occurred to him that he had not particularly
noticed Ling, who, of course, ought to have been lying asleep where
Frobisher had left him.

At once the Englishman's dormant suspicions again awoke into full
activity, and, lighting the lantern, he proceeded to repeat his
investigation, going his rounds in the opposite direction this time;
and, sure enough, when he came to the place where he had left Ling
lying, the spot was vacant--Ling had disappeared.

"Now what in the world is the explanation of this?" Frobisher asked
himself testily. "I'm certain there is something fishy about the
fellow, and I would give a trifle to be able to discover what game it is
that he's playing. Where, in the name of Fortune, has he got to now, I
wonder?"

As the thought passed through his mind he heard a sudden, suspicious
sound right on the other side of the camp. The idea it conveyed to him
was that a man had tripped or fallen over something; and this suggestion
was strengthened when, immediately afterward, certain low muttered words
in the Korean tongue, which sounded remarkably like a string of hearty
expletives, issued from the same quarter. And the voice was undoubtedly
that of Ling.

Frobisher whipped the revolver out of his pocket and leapt like a deer
in the direction of the sound, arriving on the spot just in time to
discover Ling sitting upright on the dewy grass, alternately rubbing his
head and his shins. The Englishman stood looking down at the other for
a few moments, and in that brief interval found time to notice that his
feet were soiled and plastered with fresh clay, which had certainly not
been on them when Frobisher had left him half an hour previously. It
was also certain that he could not have accumulated that clay within the
confines of the camp, for the space where the wagons had been drawn up
was carpeted entirely with grass, and there was no vestige of clay
anywhere within the circle. Frobisher therefore felt more convinced
than ever that Ling was something very different from what he
represented himself to be.

"Well, Ling," he remarked sternly, after a pause, during which the
Korean had been vigorously rubbing himself, "what's happened to you?
Where have you been; what hav