adventure entered his soul. No appreciation of a great hazard
bewildered his emotions. The kingdom of romance dwells in the heart,
in the heart roomy enough to house it. And Blake's heart was taken up
with more material things. He was preoccupied with his new list of
addresses, with his new lines of procedure, with the men he must
interview and the dives and clubs and bazars he must visit. He had his
day's work to do, and he intended to do it.

The result was that of Hong Kong he carried away no immediate personal
impression, beyond a vague jumble, in the background of consciousness,
of Buddhist temples and British red-jackets, of stately parks and
granite buildings, of mixed nationalities and native theaters, of
anchored warships and a floating city of houseboats. For it was the
same hour that he landed in this orderly and strangely English city
that the discovery he was drawing close to Binhart again swept clean
the slate of his emotions. The response had come from a consulate
secretary. One wire in all his sentinel network had proved a live one.
Binhart was not in Hong Kong, but he had been seen in Macao; he was
known to be still there. And beyond that there was little that
Never-Fail Blake cared to know.

His one side-movement in Hong Kong was to purchase an American
revolver, for it began to percolate even through his indurated
sensibilities that he was at last in a land where his name might not be
sufficiently respected and his office sufficiently honored. For the
first time in seven long years he packed a gun, he condescended to go
heeled. Yet no minutest tingle of excitement spread through his
lethargic body as he examined this gun, carefully loaded it, and stowed
it away in his wallet-pocket. It meant no more to him than the stowing
away of a sandwich against the emergency of a possible lost meal.

VII

By the time he was on the noon boat that left for Macao, Blake had
quite forgotten about the revolver. As he steamed southward over
smooth seas, threading a way through boulder-strewn islands and
skirting mountainous cliffs, his movements seemed to take on a sense of
finality. He stood at the rail, watching the hazy blue islands, the
forests of fishing-boats and high-pooped junks floating lazily at
anchor, the indolent figures which he could catch glimpses of on deck,
the green waters of the China Sea. He watched them with intent, yet
abstracted, eyes. Some echo of the witchery of thos