Rick continued, "Don't try to tell us
you were going to use it in our defense. Men don't pull the pins on
grenades until they're ready to toss them. That one had our name on it."

Ko shrugged. "I see you've convinced yourselves. It's useless for me to
say anything further." He shut his mouth obstinately, nor could they get
anything further out of him.

Zircon motioned to Sing. "Tie him up. Then post guards. We'll stay here
for the night." He turned to the boys. "I think it's safe to make a
fire. We can have some supper and then turn in. I'll take first watch
with one of the bearers. Scotty will take the second, Rick the third,
and Sing the last." He opened the chamber of his rifle and extracted the
shell, then put the rifle down. "I'm hungry," he said, grinning.
"Nothing like a good fight to work up an appetite."

Scotty laughed. "You talk like a Marine," he said admiringly.

The night passed without incident, and the entire party was awake at
dawn. Over breakfast, they discussed the affair again. Like the
discussion of the night before, it proved futile. There were simply too
many questions that had no answers.

Rick summed it up. "We've found Long Shadow and the Chinese with the
glass eye. Or rather they've found us. And it's obvious they're out for
blood. It scares me to think of what would have happened on the junk if
the Englishman and Bradley hadn't taken a hand."

"I'd like to know how they knew we were coming," Scotty said.

Zircon drained the last of his coffee. "I don't think they did know. We
walked into Canton Charlie's and asked for Chahda. We put the finger on
ourselves, so to speak. They probably assumed that anyone asking for
Chahda was an enemy. Obviously, they had some sort of contact with
Chahda, otherwise he wouldn't have cabled the descriptions after stating
that he was in danger."

"That sounds right," Rick agreed. He looked over to where Worthington Ko
was having a cup of tea under the watchful eye of Sing. "What do we do
with our fat chum?"

"Keep him for a hostage," Scotty suggested.

Zircon shook his head. "A good idea, but not practical. It would require
that we guard him constantly and that would be a nuisance. No, I think
we had better leave him and push on for Korse Lenken as rapidly as
possible. Now that we know our danger is from Chahda's enemies and not
from casual bandits, we are forewarned."

"Then what do we do with him?" Rick asked.

"Leave him here, afoot. His friends