ed, her eyes growing wider and
wider. "The boy answered, Dan. He set out wi' ye'r mackintosh full an
hour and a half since."

"What!"

The truth leaped out at Kerry like an enemy out of ambush.

"Who sent that message?"

"Someone frae the Yard, to tell the boy to bring ye'r mackintosh alone
at once. Dan! Dan------"

She advanced, hands outstretched, quivering, but Kerry had leaped out
into the narrow hallway. He raised the telephone receiver, listened for
a moment, and then jerked it back upon the hook.

"Dead line!" he muttered. "Someone has been at work with a wire-cutter
outside the house!"

His wife came out to where he stood, and, clenching his teeth very
grimly, he took her in his arms. She was shaking as if palsied.

"Mary dear," he said, "pray with all your might that I am given strength
to do my duty."

She looked at him with haggard, tearless eyes.

"Tell me the truth: ha' they got my boy?"

His fingers tightened on her shoulders.

"Don't worry," he said, "and don't ask me to stay to explain. When I
come back I'll have Dan with me!"

He trusted himself no further, but, clapping his hat on his head, walked
out to the waiting cab.

"Back to Limehouse police station," he directed rapidly.

"Lor lumme!" muttered the taximan. "Where are you goin' to after that,
guv'nor? It's a bit off the map."

"I'm going to hell!" rapped Kerry, suddenly thrusting his red face very
near to that of the speaker. "And you're going to drive me!"

VI

THE KNIGHT ERRANT

Recognizing the superior strength of his captors, young Kerry soon gave
up struggling. The thrill of his first real adventure entered into his
blood. He remembered that he was the son of his father, and he realized,
being a quick-witted lad, that he was in the grip of enemies of his
father. The panic which had threatened him when first he had recognized
that he was in the hands of Chinese, gave place to a cold rage--a
heritage which in later years was to make him a dangerous man.

He lay quite passively in the grasp of someone who held him fast, and
learned, by breathing quietly, that the presence of the muffler about
his nose and mouth did not greatly inconvenience him. There was some
desultory conversation between the two men in the car, but it
was carried on in an odd, sibilant language which the boy did not
understand, but which he divined to be Chinese. He thought how every
other boy in the school would envy him, and the thought