ic,
and favoring breezes gave every promise of landing the _East India_ in
port with the fastest record of the season. Bets went higher and higher
on each day's running, and the excitement was intense each evening in
the smoking-room when the numbers most likely to win the next day's pool
were auctioned off to the highest bidder.

It was the afternoon of the fourteenth day, thirty-six hours out from
San Francisco, that Mr. Frederick Reynolds, who had bet more, drunk
more, talked more, and laughed more than any man on board, suddenly came
to his full senses. Then it was that he went quietly to his luxurious
state-room with its brass bed and crimson hangings, and took a
forty-two caliber revolver from his steamer trunk. Slipping a cartridge
into the cylinder, he sat breathing heavily and staring impatiently
before him.

From outside above the roar of the ocean, came the tramp of the
passengers on deck, and the trivial scraps of conversation that floated
in kept side-tracking his thoughts, preventing their reaching the
desired destination.

The world, which he had sternly resolved to leave, seemed determined to
stay with him as long as possible. He heard Glass, the actor, inquiring
for him, and in spite of himself he felt flattered; he heard the pretty
girl whose steamer chair was next his, make a conditional engagement
with the high-voiced army-officer, and he knew why she left the matter
open; even a plaintive old voice inquiring how long it would be before
tea, caused him to wait for the answer.

At last, as if to present his misery in embodied form, he produced a
note-book and tried to concentrate his attention upon the items therein
recorded. Line after line of wavering figures danced in impish glee
before him, defying inspection. But at the foot of the column, like
soldiers waiting to shoot a prisoner, stood four formidable units
unquestionably pointing his way to doom.

As be looked at them Reynolds's thoughts got back on the main track and
rushed to a conclusion. Tearing the leaf from the book, and crushing it
in his hand, he jumped to his feet. Seized with a fury of self-disgust,
he pulled off his coat and collar, and with the reckless courage of a
boy put the mouth of the revolver to his temple.

As he did so the room darkened. He involuntarily looked up. Framed in
the circle of the port-hole were the head and shoulders of Tsang Foo.
Not a muscle of the yellow face moved, not a tremor of the slanting
eyel