dered by a sense of dampness in
his right leg. He patted it with his hand, inquisitively, and found it
wet.

He stooped down and felt his boot. It was full of blood. It was
overrunning with blood. He remembered then. Binhart had shot him,
after all.

He could never say whether it was this discovery, or the actual loss of
blood, that filled him with a sudden giddiness. He fell forward on his
face, on the bottom of the rocking sampan.

He must have been unconscious for some time, for when he awakened he
was dimly aware that he was being carried up the landing-ladder of a
steamer. He heard English voices about him. A very youthful-looking
ship's surgeon came and bent over him, cut away his trouser-leg, and
whistled.

"Why, he 's been bleeding like a stuck pig!" he heard a startled voice,
very close to him, suddenly exclaim. And a few minutes later, after
being moved again, he opened his eyes to find himself in a berth and
the boyish-looking surgeon assuring him it was all right.

"Where's Binhart?" asked Blake.

"That's all right, old chap, you just rest up a bit," said the
placatory youth.

At nine the next morning Blake was taken ashore at Hong Kong.

After eleven days in the English hospital he was on his feet again. He
was quite strong by that time. But for several weeks after that his
leg was painfully stiff.

X

Twelve days later Blake began just where he had left off. He sent out
his feelers, he canvassed the offices from which some echo might come,
he had Macao searched and all westbound steamers which he could reach
by wireless were duly warned. But more than ever, now, he found, he
had to depend on his own initiative, his own personal efforts. The
more official the quarters to which he looked for cooeperation, the less
response he seemed to elicit. In some circles, he saw, his story was
even doubted. It was listened to with indifference; it was dismissed
with shrugs. There were times when he himself was smiled at, pityingly.

He concluded, after much thought on the matter, that Binhart would
continue to work his way westward. That the fugitive would strike
inland and try to reach Europe by means of the Trans-Siberian Railway
seemed out of the question. On that route he would be too easily
traced. The carefully guarded frontiers of Russia, too, would offer
obstacles which he dare not meet. He would stick to the ragged and
restless sea-fringes, concluded the detective. But