nning.

Half an hour after Miska had disappeared into the little house near
the corner, the hidden door in the damp cellar below "The Pidgin
House" opened and a bent old woman, a ragged, grey-haired and dirty
figure, walked slowly up the rickety wooden stair and entered a bare
room behind and below the shop and to the immediate left of the den
of the opium-smoker. This room, which was windowless, was lighted by
a tin paraffin lamp hung upon a nail in the dirty plaster wall. The
floor presented a litter of straw, paper and broken packing-cases.
Two steps led up to a second door, a square heavy door of great
strength. The old woman, by means of a key which she carried, was
about to open this door when it was opened from the other side.

Lowering his head as he came through, Chunda Lal descended. He wore
European clothes and a white turban. Save for his ardent eyes and
the handsome fanatical face of the man, he might have passed for a
lascar. He turned and half closed the door. The woman shrank from
him, but extending a lean brown hand he gripped her arm. His eyes
glittered feverishly.

"So!" he said, "we are all leaving England? Five of the Chinese sail
with the P. and O. boat to-night. Ali Khan goes to-morrow, and Rama
Dass, with Miguel, and the _Andaman_. I meet them at Singapore. But you?"

The woman raised her finger to her lips, glancing fearfully towards
the open door. But the Hindu, drawing her nearer, repeated with subdued
fierceness:

"I ask it again--but _you_?"

"I do not know," muttered the woman, keeping her head lowered and
moving in the direction of the steps.

But Chunda Lal intercepted her.

"Stop!" he said--"not yet are you going. There is something I have to
speak to you."

"Ssh!" she whispered, half turning and pointing up toward the door.

"Those!" said the Hindu contemptuously--"the poor slaves of the black
smoke! Ah! they are floating in their dream paradise; they have no
ears to hear, no eyes to see!" He grasped her wrist again. "They
contest for shadow smiles and dream kisses, but Chunda Lal have eyes
to see and ears to hear. He dream, too but of lips more sweet than
honey, of a voice like the Song of the Daood! _Inshalla!"_

Suddenly he clutched the grey hair of the bent old woman and with one
angry jerk snatched it from her head--for it was a cunning wig.
Disordered, hair gleaming like bronze waves in the dim lamplight was
revealed and the great dark eyes of Miska looked out from t