he same time drove his fist into a yielding paunch.

With a groan the Chinese staggered back against the shop window, caving
in a pane with his elbow. Peter raised his fist to strike again.

Then a monumental figure, with a clean turban coiled about his head,
strode austerely into the circle of yellow light.

"_Ta dzoh sh[=e]n m[=o] szi_?"

"Thief," said Moore simply, indicating the broken shop window.

"L[=a]o sh[=e]n l[=a]o sh[=e]n!" growled the sikh. He seized the
luckless window-breaker by both shoulders, backed him against an iron
trolley-post, and strapped him to it.

With a jovial, "Allah be with you!" Peter Moore continued his stroll
toward the bund. Now that the trailer was out of his way for the night
at least, he could make his way in peace to the Palace bar and find out
what might be in the wind for him.

As he crossed Nanking Road where it joined the bund, a frantic shout,
mingled with a scream of fear or of warning, impelled him to leap out
of the path of a rickshaw which was making for him at a breakneck
speed. A white face, with a slender gloved hand clutched close to the
lips, swept past.

Peter gasped in surprise quite as staggering as if the girl in the
rickshaw had slapped him across the face. He shouted after her. But
she went right on, without turning.

"Licksha?" A grinning coolie dropped the shafts of an empty rickshaw
at Peter Moore's heels.

He ceased being angry as a softer glow crept into his veins. The
rickshaw turned to the right, following the other, which occupied the
center of the almost deserted bund, and speeding like the wind.

"_Ni chue ba_!" shouted Peter Moore. The girl seemed to be headed for
the bund bridge. But why? A number of questions stormed futilely in
his brain. Why had the girl ignored him? Why had she not gone aboard
the _Manchuria_, as she had promised?

The coolie joggled along, his naked legs rising and falling
mechanically. The wireless operator drew the folds of the kimono more
closely about his throat, for the night air blowing off the Whang-poo
was chill and damp.

At the bridge the rickshaw ahead suddenly stopped, waiting. Peter
Moore drew alongside, and leaped to the ground.

The near-by street-light afforded him the information that he had made
a mistake. Undeniably similar to the girl he had sent away on the
_Manchuria_ that morning was the young lady in the rickshaw. She had
the same white, wistful face, the same alert, appea