placid-eyed Chinaman and gesticulating
in his face.

"Don't you see," Blake at last heard her crying, "he doesn't know what
I'm saying! He doesn't understand a word of English!" And then, and
then only, it dawned on Blake that every word the woman was uttering
was intended for his own ears. She was warning him, and all the while
pretending that her words were the impetuous words of anger.

"Watch this man!" he heard her cry. "Don't let him know you 're
listening. But remember what I say, remember it. And God help you if
you haven't got a gun."

Blake could see her, as in a dream, assailing the Chinaman with her
gestures, advancing on him, threatening him, expostulating with him,
but all in pantomime. There was something absurd about it, as absurd
as a moving-picture film which carries the wrong text.

"He 'll pretend to take you to the man you want," the woman was
panting. "That's what he will say. But it's a lie. He 'll take you
out to a sampan, to put you aboard Binhart's boat. But the three of
them will cut your throat, cut your throat, and then drop you
overboard. He 's to get so much in gold. Get out of here with him.
Let him think you 're going. But drop away, somewhere, before you get
to the beach. And watch them all the way."

Blake stared at the immobile Chinaman, as though to make sure that the
other man had not understood. He was still staring at that impassive
yellow face, he was still absorbing the shock of his news, when the
outer door opened and a second Chinaman stepped into the room. The
newcomer cluttered a quick sentence or two to his countryman, and was
still talking when a third figure sidled in.

Those spoken words, whatever they were, seemed to have little effect on
any one in the room except the woman. She suddenly sprang about and
exploded into an angry shower of denials.

"It's a lie!" she cried in English, storming about the impassive trio.
"You never heard me peach! You never heard me say a word! It's a lie!"

Blake strode to the middle of the room, towering above the other
figures, dwarfing them by his great bulk, as assured of his mastery as
he would have been in a Chatham Square gang fight.

"What's the row here?" he thundered, knowing from the past that power
promptly won its own respect. "What 're you talking about, you two?"
He turned from one intruder to another. "And you? And you? What do
you want, anyway?"

The three contending figures, however, i