sing of his heart outsounded the engines.

He shut the door cautiously, not to awake the occupants of the berths,
and fancied he could again hear the warning sibilance of the whisper,
but in sleep, perhaps drawn through unconscious lips.

Eagerly, his hand slipped over the enameled wall and found the electric
switch. Turning, to cover all corners of the stateroom he snapped on
the light.

Stateroom forty-four, through whose doorway he could have sworn to have
seen a sandaled foot vanish less than three hours previous, was empty!

The blue-flowered side curtains of the white enameled bunks were draped
back in ornamental stiffness. Below the pillows the upper sheets were
neatly furled like incoming billows on a coral beach. He threw open
the closet door. Bare! Not one sign of occupancy could he find, and
he looked everywhere.

As he made to leave the room a small oblong of white paper was thrust
under the door. He hesitated in surprise, stooped to seize it and
flung open the door. A gust of night, wind--the slamming of a
door--and the messenger was gone.

Tremblingly, he unfolded the paper. His eyes dilated. Hastily
scrawled in the lower right-hand corner of the otherwise blank leaf was
a replica of the blurred sign that had caused such consternation on the
part of Lo Ong.

The ideograph had twice been brought to his attention. It was
apparently a solemn warning. Should he heed it? He felt that he was
watched. But the porthole glowed emptily.

Lighting a cigarette, he dropped down to the bunk, cupped his chin in
his palms, and frowned at the green carpet.

He was being frustrated, by persons of adroit cunning. It was
maddening. This had ceased to be an adventurous lark. It was to
become a fight against weapons whose sole object seemed to be to guard
the retreat of some evil spirit.

It occurred to him suddenly that he should be grateful upon one score
at least: He had not lost the trail, for the symbols were unchanged.

But from that point the trail vanished--vanished as abruptly as if its
design had been wiped off the earth! Sharp eyed and eared, alertness
night after night availed him nothing. And not until the twinkling
lights of Nagasaki were put astern, when the _Vandalia_ turned her nose
into the swollen bed of the Yellow Sea, did the traces again show
faintly.

CHAPTER VII

That a recrudescence of those involved in the murky affair might be
imminent was the thought induced i