hold.

"Mebbee a wicked Joss backside holee, He catchee Pilats," said Wan
Lee, gravely.

Hickory began to whimper, Patsey drew back, Polly alone stood her
ground, albeit with a trembling lip.

"Let's say our prayers and frighten it away," she said, stoutly.

"No! No!" said Wan Lee, with sudden alarm. "No frighten Spillits!
You waitee! Chinee boy he talkee Spillit not to frighten you."[A]

[Footnote A: The Chinese pray devoutly to the Evil Spirits _not_ to
injure them.]

Tucking his hands under his blue blouse, Wan Lee suddenly produced
from some mysterious recess of his clothing a quantity of red paper
slips which he scattered at the entrance of the cavern. Then drawing
from the same inexhaustible receptacle certain squibs or fireworks,
he let them off and threw them into the opening. There they went off
with a slight fizz and splutter, a momentary glittering of small
points in the darkness and a strong smell of gunpowder. Polly gazed
at the spectacle with undisguised awe and fascination. Hickory and
Patsey breathed hard with satisfaction; it was beyond their wildest
dreams of mystery and romance. Even Wan Lee appeared transfigured
into a superior being by the potency of his own spells. But an
unaccountable disturbance of some kind in the dim interior of the
tunnel quickly drew the blood from their blanched cheeks again. It
was a sound like coughing followed by something like an oath.

"He's made the Evil Spirit orful sick," said Hickory, in a loud
whisper.

A slight laugh that to the children seemed demoniacal, followed.

"See," said Wan Lee, "Evil Spillet be likee Chinee, try talkee him."

[Illustration]

The Pirates looked at Wan Lee not without a certain envy of this
manifest favouritism. A fearful desire to continue their awful
experiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, was
taking possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swift
transitions of childhood, immediately began to extemporise a house
for the party at the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parental
foresight, gathered the fragments of the squibs to build a fire for
supper. That frugal meal consisting of half a ginger biscuit,
divided into five small portions each served on a chip of wood, and
having a deliciously mysterious flavour of gunpowder and smoke, was
soon over. It was necessary after this, that the Pirates should at
once seek repose after a day of adventure, which they did for the
space of forty seconds in singula