to Stuart desperately and was
immovable. Thereupon the huge quadroon, running across the room,
swept them both up into his giant embrace, man and woman together,
and bore them down by the sunken doorway into the cellars below!

The shop door fell inwards, crashing down the four steps, and Dunbar
sprang into the place, revolver in hand, followed by Inspector Kelly
and four men of the River Police, one of whom carried a hurricane
lantern. Ah-Fang-Fu had just descended after Miguel and closed the
heavy door.

"Try this way, boys!" cried Kelly, and rushed up the stair. The four
men followed him. The lantern was left on the floor. Dunbar stared
about him. Sowerby and several other men entered. Suddenly Dunbar saw
Gaston Max lying on the floor.

"My God!" he cried--"they have killed him!"

He ran across, knelt and examined Max, pressing his ear against his
breast.

Inspector Kelly reaching the top of the stairs and finding the door
locked, hurled his great bulk against it and burst it open.

"Follow me, boys!" he cried. "Take care! Bring the lantern, somebody."

The fourth man grasped the lantern and all followed the Inspector up
the stair and out through the doorway. His voice came dimly:

"Mind the beam! Pass the light forward...."

Sowerby was struggling with the door by which Miguel and Ah-Fang-Fu
unseen had made their escape and Dunbar, having rested Max's head upon
a pillow, was glaring all about him, his square jaw set grimly and his
eyes fierce with anger.

A voice droned from a bunk:

_"Cheal kegur men ms ka-dheer!"_

The police were moving from bunk to bunk, scrutinising the occupants.
The uproar had penetrated to them even in their drugged slumbers.
There were stirrings and mutterings and movements of yellow hands.

"But where is 'The Scorpion'?"

He turned and stared at the wall from which the matting had been
torn. And out of the little niche in the cunningly masked door the
green-eyed joss leered at him complacently.

PART IV

THE LAIR OF THE SCORPION

CHAPTER I

THE SUBLIME ORDER

Stuart awoke to a discovery so strange that for some time he found
himself unable to accept its reality. He passed his hands over his
face and eyes and looked about him dazedly. He experienced great
pain in his throat, and he could feel that his neck was swollen. He
stared down at his ankles, which also were throbbing agonisingly--to
learn that they were confined in gyves attached by a short chai