from the
head in the scuffle, and a wonderful mass of dark hair had tumbled down
about the gray-clad shoulders. An excited, protesting face had turned
toward him. It was a woman those chunky aliens were urging along the
hallway, a woman clad in a man's gray overcoat. A white woman--a young
and beautiful woman!

Martin crouched on the bed's edge and panted to recover his breath.
The scuffling without grew faint, a door slammed, and the house was
again quiet.

Martin's mind was awhirl, but uppermost in the confusing chaos was that
startling picture, photographic in its clearness, of the squat
outlanders surrounding the protesting figure. A woman--a white
woman--in the hands of these yellow men!

Surely he had seen aright. It was an ill light in the hall, but he had
looked from a dense darkness, and had seen clearly. And had he not
heard her voice? And seen the feminine tresses tumble about the
gray-clad shoulders as the cap came off? There was some faint stirring
of memory in connection with the thought of that gray, mannish apparel,
but Martin was too excited to notice it. He was possessed by the
event. He had caught a glimpse of the angry, vivid face. Angry, that
was it--not fear, but anger, in her bearing. They had not wanted him
to observe the incident, the outrage. They had offered him violence.
They had slammed and locked the door. He was prisoner.

By this time, Martin, a thoroughly aroused young man, was again at the
door. He, Martin Blake, would not submit to maltreatment and
imprisonment! He would find out what this yellow crew was doing with
that girl.

In the back of his excited mind danced grim shadows of the tales every
San Franciscan knows; stories of white slaves, of white women being
seen entering Oriental dens, and being lost forever to the world that
knew them; of horrible relics of womanhood being discovered years after
in some underground cave of Chinatown. Sickening thoughts!

Martin yanked at the door and pounded upon the panel. His blows echoed
without, but brought no other response. He lifted his foot and drove
his boot against the door. It shivered and splintered.

Before he could kick a second time, there came a cry from the hall, a
hurried footfall, and the door was unlocked. Martin jerked it open.
Confronting him was the Japanese who had been his guide, who had gone
to "make prepare" Captain Carew.

"You come now," announced the little man, bowing courteously.