She could think only of him toiling wretchedly in the mines
or quarries, striving against a fate as unfriendly, as unyielding, as a
wall of cold granite.

The Gray Dragon sank back, with his chest heaving. His features were
working. The spasm had exhausted him; and the green brilliance gave
his gray skin a ghastly pallor. He lifted a small silver hammer and
brought it down upon the belly of a large bronze gong.

There was a stir behind them.

With the same cold hate in his expression as he addressed himself again
to the lovers, who clung together like small children, pitiful objects
indeed in this hall of pitiless green.

"The others are coming; their fate will be yours--you lovers!"

He turned to address words in dialect to the Mongolian on his right,
and in the space Eileen's breath came warmly upon Peter's ear.

"Are you armed?" she whispered.

His nod was hardly perceptible. He dropped his hand into his pocket,
and at that instant his arms were pinioned. The revolver was snatched
from his fingers.

The malicious green eyes were staring beyond them.

Peter heard a low sob, instantly stifled. Naradia, with bloodshot
eyes, was searching his face in distress. Her black hair had been
arranged in a heavy braid, which ran down her back in a glistening rope.

Kahn Meng's sad eyes lingered on Peter's for a moment, sparkling with
guilt, and his face was crestfallen. Plainer than any words could have
said, his expression cried out: "I have failed! I am sorry."

Then he advanced to the throne, taking his stand at the Gray Dragon's
side, a maneuver which was thoroughly mystifying to Peter.

The Gray Dragon seemed to ignore his presence. To Peter he said: "You
recognize your companion of last night? The man with a legion of a
thousand loyal men at his back?"

Peter nodded, muttering.

The Gray Dragon waved Kahn Meng to one side. "He is my son. He is my
son by my faithful wife! Do you understand that, Peter Moore?"

"Your son? And he will carry on your work?"

"Precisely that! You have expressed it neatly, Peter Moore. The Gray
Dragon will carry on the work of the Gray Dragon!"

The mystery of Kahn Meng was cleared aside. Fury directed at his
treachery swelled in Peter's breast and burst. It was as though a
torch had been applied. The flame of an ancient ancestral fire, when
men fought for their lives and their loves with clubs, and nails, and
teeth, burst into his brain and into his breast