e, there!" Heywood patted his shoulder. "I didn't mean--Here, have
a drink."

The man drained the tumbler at a gulp; stood without a word, sniffing
miserably; then of a sudden, as though the draught had worked, looked up
bold and shrewd.

"Do you?" he whispered. "Do _you_ dare go to the place I show you, and
hide? You would learn."

Heywood started visibly, paused, then laughed.

"Excellent," he said. "_Tu quoque_ is good argument. Can you smuggle
me?--Then come on." He stepped lightly across the landing, and called
out, "You chaps make yourselves at home, will you? Business, you know.
What a bore! I'll not be back till late." And as he followed the
slinking form downstairs, he grumbled, "If at all, perhaps."

The moon still lurked behind the ocean, making an aqueous pallor above
the crouching roofs. The two men hurried along a "goat" path, skirted
the town wall, and stole through a dark gate into a darker maze of
lonely streets. Drawing nearer to a faint clash of cymbals in some
joss-house, they halted before a blind wall.

"In the first room," whispered the guide, "a circle is drawn on the
floor. Put your right foot there, and say, 'We are all in-the-circle
men,' If they ask, remember: you go to pluck the White Lotus. These men
hate it, they are Triad brothers, they will let you pass. You come from
the East, where the Fusang cocks spit orient pearls; you studied in the
Red Flower Pavilion; your eyes are bloodshot because"--He lectured
earnestly, repeating desperate nonsense, over and over. "No: not so. Say
it exactly, after me."

They held a hurried catechism in the dark.

"There," sighed Wutzler, at last, "that is as much as we can hope. Do
not forget. They will pass you through hidden ways.--But you are very
rash. It is not too late to go home."

Receiving no answer, he sighed more heavily, and gave a complicated
knock. Bars clattered within, and a strip of dim light widened. "Who
comes?" said a harsh but guarded voice, with a strong Hakka brogue.

"A brother," answered the outcast, "to pluck the White Lotus. Aid,
brothers.--Go in, I can help no further. If you are caught, slide down,
and run westward to the gate which is called the Meeting of
the Dragons."

Heywood nodded, and slipped in. Beside a leaf-point flame of peanut-oil,
a broad, squat giant sat stiff and still against the opposite wall, and
stared with cruel, unblinking eyes. If the stranger were the first white
man to enter, this motionless