some remarks in passing."

The others nodded moodily, too breathless for reply. Nesbit's forehead
bore an ugly cut, Rudolph's bandage was red and sopping. Chantel, more
rueful than either, stared down at a bleeding hand, which held two
shards of steel. He had fallen, and snapped his sword in the rubble of
old masonry.

"No more blades," he said, like a child with a broken toy; "there are no
more blades this side of Saigon."

"Then we must postpone." Heywood mopped his dripping and fiery cheeks.
He tossed a piece of silver to one who wailed in the ditch,--a forlorn
stranger from Hai-nan, lamenting the broken shells and empty baskets of
his small venture.--"Contribution, you chaps. A bad day for imported
cocoanuts. Wish I carried some money: this chit system is
damnable.--Meanwhile, doctor, won't you forget anything I was rude
enough to say? And come join me in a peg at the club? The heat is
excessive."

CHAPTER X

THREE PORTALS

Not till after dinner, that evening, did Rudolph rouse from his stupor.
With the clerk, he lay wearily in the upper chamber of Heywood's house.
The host, with both his long legs out at window, sat watching the smoky
lights along the river, and now and then cursing the heat.

"After all," he broke silence, "those cocoanuts came time enough."

"Didn't they just?" said Nesbit, jauntily; and fingering the plaster
cross on his wounded forehead, drawled: "You might think I'd done a bit
o' dueling myself, by the looks.--But I had _some_ part. Now, that
accident trick. Rather neat, what? But for me, you might never have
thought o' that--"

"Idiot!" snapped Heywood, and pulling in his legs, rose and stamped
across the room.

A glass of ice and tansan smashed on the floor. Rudolph was on foot,
clutching his bandaged arm as though the hurt were new.

"You!" he stammered. "You did that!" He stood gaping, thunderstruck.

Felt soles scuffed in the darkness, and through the door, his yellow
face wearing a placid and lofty grin, entered Ah Pat, the compradore.

"One coolie-man hab-got chit."

He handed a note to his master, who snatched it as though glad of the
interruption, bent under the lamp, and scowled.

The writing was in a crabbed, antique German character:--

"Please to see bearer, in bad clothes but urgent. We are all in danger.
_Um Gottes willen_--" It straggled off, illegible. The signature, "Otto
Wutzler," ran frantically into a blot.

"Can do," said Heywood. "You talkee