t you
do not belong here--that you are in more trouble than I am. For what can
a man of your rank have to do in a little town like this!"

He was not displeased with her. "The ancient sage," he said slowly,
"mounted himself upon a black ox and disappeared into the western
wilderness of Thibet. Doubtless others, too, seek seclusion for much
thinking."

"But you are not the hermit kind," she declared boldly. "You belong to
those who stay and fight. Yet here you are, separated from your people
and your people's graves--alone and sorrowful."

"As for my living people, they are best without me; as for my people
dead, I neither worship their dust nor propitiate devils. The wise one
said, 'Why talk forever on of men who are long gone?'"

"Yet----" she persisted.

He left the stove and came near her. "You are a woman, but you know
much. You are right. My heart is heavy for a thing I cannot do--for the
shattered dreams of the men of Hukwang." He beat his palms together
noiselessly, and moved to and fro on soft sandals. "Those dreams were of
a young China that was to take the place of the old--but that died
unborn."

She followed his words with growing interest. "I have heard of those
dreams," she answered; "they were called 'reform.'"

"Yes. And now all the dreamers are gone. They had voyaged to glean at
Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and in the halls of Oxford. There were 'five
loyal and six learned,' and they shed their blood at the Chen Chih Gate.
One there was who died the death that is meted a slave at the court of
the Son of Heaven. And one there was"--his face shrank up, as if swiftly
aging; his eyes became dark, upturning slits; as one who fears pursuit,
he cast a look behind him--"and one there was who escaped beyond the
blood-bathed walls of the Hidden City and gained the Sumatra Coast.
Then, leaving Perak, in the Straits Settlements, he finally set foot
upon a shore where men, without terror, may reach toward higher things."

"And was he followed?" she whispered, comprehending.

"He fled quietly. For long are the claws of the she-panther crouched on
the throne of the Mings."

Both fell silent. The Chinese went back to the stove, where the fire was
dying. The white woman, wide awake, and lost in the myriad of scenes his
tale had conjured, sat by the table, for once almost forgetful of her
charge.

The dragging hours of darkness past, Anthony Barrett found sane
consciousness. He was pale, yet strengthened by his