of the tower,
upon which the remainder had evidently been built. In many respects
it was a singular room, but the feature which caused me the greatest
amazement was this:--it had no windows!

In the deep alcove formed by the tower sat Van Roon at a littered table,
upon which stood an oil reading-lamp, green shaded, of the "Victoria"
pattern, to furnish the entire illumination of the apartment. That
bookshelves lined the rectangular portion of this strange study I
divined, although that end of the place was dark as a catacomb. The
walls were wood-paneled, and the ceiling was oaken beamed. A small
bookshelf and tumble-down cabinet stood upon either side of the table,
and the celebrated American author and traveler lay propped up in a long
split-cane chair. He wore smoked glasses, and had a clean-shaven, olive
face, with a profusion of jet black hair. He was garbed in a dirty red
dressing-gown, and a perfect fog of cigar smoke hung in the room. He did
not rise to greet us, but merely extended his right hand, between two
fingers whereof he held Smith's card.

"You will excuse the seeming discourtesy of an invalid, gentlemen?" he
said; "but I am suffering from undue temerity in the interior of China!"

He waved his hand vaguely, and I saw that two rough deal chairs stood
near the table. Smith and I seated ourselves, and my friend, leaning his
elbow upon the table, looked fixedly at the face of the man whom we
had come from London to visit. Although comparatively unfamiliar to the
British public, the name of Van Roon was well-known in American literary
circles; for he enjoyed in the United States a reputation somewhat
similar to that which had rendered the name of our mutual friend,
Sir Lionel Barton, a household word in England. It was Van Roon who,
following in the footsteps of Madame Blavatsky, had sought out the
haunts of the fabled mahatmas in the Himalayas, and Van Roon who had
essayed to explore the fever swamps of Yucatan in quest of the secret
of lost Atlantis; lastly, it was Van Roon, who, with an overland car
specially built for him by a celebrated American firm, had undertaken
the journey across China.

I studied the olive face with curiosity. Its natural impassivity was
so greatly increased by the presence of the colored spectacles that my
study was as profitless as if I had scrutinized the face of a carven
Buddha. The mulatto had withdrawn, and in an atmosphere of gloom and
tobacco smoke, Smith and I sat st