was ready to depart, and stood before the
ex-butler a well-dressed, intellectual, but very debauched-looking
gentleman. Being evidently well acquainted with the regime of the
establishment, he pressed an electric bell beside the door, presented
Soames with half-a-sovereign, and, as Said reappeared, took his
departure, leaving Soames more reconciled to his lot than he could ever
have supposed possible.

The task of cleaning the room was now commenced by Soames. Said
returned, bringing him the necessary utensils; and for fifteen minutes
or so he busied himself between the outer apartment and the bathroom.
During this time he found leisure to study the extraordinary mural
decorations; and, as he looked at them, he learned that they possessed a
singular property.

If one gazed continuously at any portion of the wall, the intertwined
figures thereon took shape--nay, took life; the intricate, elaborate
design ceased to be a design, and became a procession, a saturnalia;
became a sinister comedy, which, when first visualized, shocked Soames
immoderately. The horrors presented by these devices of evil cunning,
crowding the walls, appalled the narrow mind of the beholder, revolted
him in an even greater degree than they must have revolted a man of
broader and cleaner mind. He became conscious of a quality of evil
which pervaded the room; the entire place seemed to lie beneath a spell,
beneath the spell of an invisible, immeasurably wicked intelligence.

His reflections began to terrify him, and he hastened to complete his
duties. The stench of the place was sickening him anew, and when at
last Said opened the door, Soames came out as a man escaping from some
imminent harm.

"Di," muttered Said.

He pointed to the opened door of a second room, identical in every
respect with the first; and Soames started back with a smothered groan.
Had his education been classical he might have likened himself to
Hercules laboring for Augeus; but his mind tending scripturally, he
wondered if he had sold his soul to Satan in the person of the invisible
Mr. King!

XVII

KAN-SUH CONCESSIONS

Soames' character was of a pliable sort, and ere many days had passed
he had grown accustomed to this unnatural existence among the living
corpses in the catacombs of Ho-Pin.

He rarely saw Ho-Pin, and desired not to see him at all; as for Mr.
King, he even endeavored to banish from his memory the name of that
shadowy being. The memory of t