d have been; when from
somewhere far below him, he heard a cry and the noise of several voices,
all raised into indistinct clamour.

"More than one man," he thought, as his heart beat quickly. "_More than
two_," he added, in wonder as he strained in the effort of listening.

The noise died out, and one low wail, continuous and plaintive, filled
the blank of dark silence. Coryndon felt for his matches, and knelt on
the floor, feeling before him with his hands. The crying had ceased, and
he touched the edge of a step. A long, steep flight began just under his
hand.

He leaned back and held the match-box in his hand, knowing that he
could not venture the descent in the dark, and as he took out a match a
new sound caught his ear. A man was running in the dark. He heard him
stumble over the lower steps as he panted fiercely and he broke into a
cry as he ran, a strange, mad, sobbing cry, and he still gasped and gave
out his wordless wail as he tore past Coryndon and on along the passage
and into the shop.

Coryndon heard the door bang behind him, he heard the sound of some
heavy thing being dragged before it. The footsteps and the voice were
not those of Leh Shin, and Coryndon knew that Mhtoon Pah had fled like a
man pursued by devils, and had barricaded himself in.

For a moment Coryndon paused, and then lighted a match. Close under his
feet was the perilous edge of a staircase leading sheer down into a
well-like depth of blackness. A thin scream came up to him, and without
waiting to consider, he ran down quickly. At the bottom he found Mhtoon
Pah's overturned lantern, and relighting it, he followed the
intermittent call of fear that echoed through the damp, cavernous place
he found himself in.

A closed door stood at the end of a narrow passage, and from the further
side of the door a stifled sound of terror came persistently. Leh Shin
sat in a huddled heap against the door, and Coryndon stooped over him,
throwing the light from the lantern he carried upon him.

"I looked into his eyes," said the Chinaman, in a weak voice, "and once
more he overcame me. His knife rent my arm, and I fell as though dead."

Coryndon supported him to his feet. His mind was working quickly.

"Canst thou stand by thyself?" he asked impatiently.

The Chinaman gave a nod of assent, and Coryndon hammered on the door,
throwing all his weight against it, until it cracked and fell inwards
under the nervous force of his slight frame.

What