he seepage pumps. Hundreds of them
drowned like rats. Len Yang is near the trade route into India.
Leprosy--filth--vermin! God! You should have seen the rats!
Monsters! They eat them. Poor devils! And live in holes carved out
of the ruby mud."

He tore the clump of waste from his left hand and ground it under his
heel.

"And in the center of this frightfulness--his palace! Snow-white
marble, whiter than the Taj by moonlight. But its base is stained red,
a creeping blood-red from the cinnabar. Damn him!"

"No escape?" Peter muttered.

"Escape!" Minion shouted. "_Dang hsin_! They call him the Gray
Dragon. He reaches over every part of Asia. That is no exaggeration.
Take my advice, Mr. Moore, if you have stumbled upon one of his
schemes--_ni chue ba_--don't meddle!"

The white face writhed, and for a new reason Peter smothered the
impulse to tell the agitated Minion what he had seen. Their
conversation drifted to general shipboard matters. When he left he
borrowed the chief engineer's master key on the excuse that he had
locked himself out of the wireless cabin.

Besides a stiffening head wind the ship was now laboring into piling
head seas. Far beyond the refulgence of the scattered lights stars
shone palely. Flecks of streaming white were making their appearance
at the toppling wave crests.

A hail of stinging spray, flung inboard by a long gust, struck Peter's
face sharply as he struggled forward, rattling like small shot against
the vizor of his cap and smarting his eyes. The needle-like drops were
icy cold. The elastic fabric of the _Vandalia_ shivered, her broad
nose sinking into a succession of black mountains. Peak gutters roared
as the cascading water was sucked back to the untiring surface.

Gaining the cross entrance, he braced his strength against the forces
of wind which imprisoned the door, and crept down the passage.

His heart pounded as his groping fingers outlined the cold iron
numerals on the panel. Nervously, he inserted the master key into the
door lock, and paused to listen.

Rhythmic snoring moaned from an opened transom near by. What other
night sounds might have been abroad were engulfed by the imminent
throbbing in the engine-room well.

Stateroom forty-four's transom was closed. The lock yielded. The door
yawned soundlessly. A round, portentous eye glimmered on the opposite
wall. An odor of recently wet paint and of new bed linen met him. The
excited pul