en Dan there, safe and
happy at his mother's side. Was he entitled to disregard the happiness
of his wife, the life of his boy, the honourable name of Sir
Noel Rourke, because an outcast like Peters had come to a fitting
end--because a treacherous Malay and a renegade Chinaman had, earlier,
gone the same way, sped, as he suspected, by the same hand?

"My resources are unusual," added Chada, speaking almost in a whisper.
"I have cash to this amount in my safe------"

So far he had proceeded when he was interrupted; and the cause of the
interruption was this:

A few moments earlier another dramatic encounter had taken place in a
distant part of the house. Kerry Junior, having scientifically tested
all the possible modes of egress from the room in which Lady Pat was
confined, had long ago desisted, and had exhausted his ingenuity in
plans which discussion had proved to be useless. In spite of the novelty
and the danger of his situation, nature was urging her laws. He was
growing sleepy. The crowning tragedy had been the discovery that he
could not regain the small, square window set high in the wall from
which he had dropped into this luxurious prison. Now, as the two sat
side by side upon a cushioned divan, the woman's arm about the boy's
shoulders, they were startled to hear, in the depths of the house, three
notes of a gong.

Young Kerry's sleepiness departed. He leapt to his feet as though
electrified.

"What was that?"

There was something horrifying in those gong notes in the stillness of
the night. Lady Pat's beautiful eyes grew glassy with fear.

"I don't know," replied Dan. "It seemed to come from below."

He ran to the door, drew the curtain aside, and pressed his ear against
one of the panels, listening intently. As he did so, his attitude grew
tense, his expression changed, then:

"We're saved!" he cried, turning a radiant face to the woman. "I heard
my father's voice!"

"Oh, are you sure, are you sure?"

"Absolutely sure!"

He bent to press his ear to the panel again, when a stifled cry from his
companion brought him swiftly to his feet. The second door in the room
had opened silently, and a small Chinaman, who carried himself with a
stoop, had entered, and now, a menacing expression upon his face, was
quickly approaching the boy.

What he had meant to do for ever remained in doubt, for young Kerry,
knowing his father to be in the house and seeing an open door before
him, took matters into hi