led me that before," he said quickly. "Come outside."

He flung back a hurried sentence to the merchant, caught Rudolph's arm,
and plunged into the crowd. The yellow men gave passage mechanically,
but with lowering faces. Once free in the muddy path, he halted quickly,
and looked about.

"Might have known," he grumbled. "Never called me 'Foreign Dog' before,
or 'Jesus man,' He set 'em on."

Rudolph followed his look. In the dim light, at the outskirts of the
rabble, a man was turning away, with an air of contempt or unconcern.
The long, pale, oval face, the hard eyes gleaming with thought, had
vanished at a glance. A tall, slight figure, stooping in his long robe,
he glided into the darkness. For all his haste, the gait was not the
gait of a coolie.

"That," said Heywood, turning into their former path, "that was Fang,
the Sword-Pen, so-called. Very clever chap. Of the two most dangerous
men in the district, he's one." They had swung along briskly for several
minutes, before he added: "The other most dangerous man--you've met him
already. If I'm not mistaken, he's no less a person than the Reverend
James Earle."

"What!" exclaimed Rudolph, in dull bewilderment.

"Yes," grunted his friend. "The padre. We must find him to-night, and
report."

He strode forward, with no more comment. At his side, Rudolph moved as a
soldier, carried onward by pressure and automatic rhythm, moves in the
apathy of a forced march. The day had been so real, so wholesome, full
of careless talk and of sunlight. And now this senseless picture blotted
all else, and remained,--each outline sharper in memory, the smoky lamp
brighter, the blow of the hilt louder, the smell of peanut oil more
pungent. The episode, to him, was a disconnected, unnecessary fragment,
one bloody strand in the whole terrifying snarl. But his companion
stalked on in silence, like a man who saw a pattern in the web of
things, and was not pleased.

CHAPTER V

IN TOWN

Night, in that maze of alleys, was but a more sinister day. The same
slant-eyed men, in broken files, went scuffing over filthy stone, like
wanderers lost in a tunnel. The same inexplicable noises endured, the
same smells. Under lamps, the shaven foreheads still bent toward
microscopic labor. The curtained window of a fantan shop still glowed in
orange translucency, and from behind it came the murmur and the endless
chinking of cash, where Fortune, a bedraggled, trade-fallen goddess,
split hair