care not to be overheard. He caught
his breath with surprise. The glance revealed five stolid,
yellow-brown faces turned toward him, five pairs of black, oblique-set
eyes regarding him intently. Five Japanese! They were interested in
him, there was the thrill. Martin sensed some connection between
himself and the five. That envelope in his inner pocket!

"You weesh to speak weeth me, yais?"

The drawling voice compelled his attention.

"Yes--alone," said Martin.

Spulvedo nodded. He turned and waddled fatly around the farther end of
the bar, and Martin rejoined him at the other end of the room.

"You are the messenger we expect, yais?" purred Spulvedo.

"I wish to see Captain Carew," stated Martin. "I was told to see you
and ask for him; told you would conduct me to him. Is he here?"

"Yais, you see heem," answered Spulvedo.

He turned to a door in the wall behind him and unlocked it. He opened
it a crack and held whispered parley with some one within. Then he
turned to Martin.

"Thees way--come!" he bade.

Martin brushed through the door, opened just wide enough to admit his
body. He expected the greasy saloonkeeper to follow, but instead that
worthy slammed the door upon him and turned the lock. Martin was left
alone in pitch darkness.

He stood still, nonplused by that cavalier desertion and disturbed by
the darkness. He stretched out both arms and touched two walls. He
was in a hallway. Alone? The air about him seemed to be filled with
rustlings. He fancied he heard breathing. He took a tentative step
forward, arm outstretched. A cold, clammy hand grasped his wrist and
drew from him a startled yelp.

"Have no afraid," soothed a soft voice. "I make show he way to he
hon'ble."

There was, it seemed, more than one fashion in spoken English at the
Sign of the Black Cruiser; this fellow did not talk like Spulvedo.
Martin's eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness, and he made out
the vague outlines of a short figure before him. The figure moved, and
the clutch on his wrist urged him to follow.

They moved forward some twenty paces, passed through a door, and
encountered a stairway leading upstairs at right angles to the passage
they had just traversed. It was not so dark here; a gas light burned
somewhere in the hall upstairs, and a moiety of its glow found its way
below.

His conductor released his wrist, and commenced to ascend the stairs.
Martin, as he started to follow,