bious safety
of the cloistered road, other men of the Gray Dragon, posted for such a
contingency, let loose a shower of bullets from adjoining windows.

But the gods were for the time being on the side of Peter. These shots
all went wild.

Shuddering, with teeth chattering and eyes popping, Peter dove through
the matted hedge, dashed into the street, and down the street, lighted
at intervals with its pin-points of mysterious light.

He came to the incline station, and his footsteps seemed weighted,
dragging. And the clock in the station, as he dashed past, showed one
o'clock.

He plunged down the first sharp twist of the hair-pin trail, fell,
picked himself up dusty and dizzy, with his left arm swinging
grotesquely as he ran.

And behind him, riding like the dawn wind, he seemed to feel the
presence of a companion, of a silent rickshaw which rattled with a
grisly occupant; and a voice, the voice of Romola Borria, shrill and
terrible in his ear, cried: "Wait! Oh, wait!"

But the spectre was more real than Peter could imagine.

It was quite awful, quite absurd, the way Peter stumbled and plunged
and fell and stumbled on down the hill; past the reservoirs which
glittered greenly under their guardian lights.

How he managed to reach Queen's Road in that dreadful state I cannot
describe. He dashed down the center of the deserted road, with rudely
awakened Sikhs calling excitedly upon Allah, to stop, to stop!

But on he sped, straight down the center of the mud roadway, past the
Hong Kong Hotel, now darkened for the night, and past the bund.

Would the sampan be waiting? Otherwise he was now bolting headlong
upon the waiting knives of the Gray Dragon's men. No sampan in the
whole of Victoria Harbor was safe to-night, but one. Would the one be
waiting? Upon that single hope he was staking his safety, his dash for
life.

He sped out upon the jetty.

Where could he seek refuge? The _Persian Gulf_? The _King of Asia_?
The transpacific liner lay far out in a pool of great black, glittering
under sharp, white arc-lights forward and aft as cargo was lifted from
obscure lighters and stowed into her capacious hold.

Yet he must go quickly, for in all China there was no safety for him
this night.

A shadow leaped out upon the jetty close upon his heels. But Peter did
not see this ghost.

The sampan coolie, asleep upon the small foredeck of his home, shivered
and muttered in his strange dreams. By his gar