by telling him that I'm John Keith. And I'll tell him this
story of Miriam Kirkstone from beginning to end. I'll tell him of that
dais you've built for her--your sacrificial altar!--and tomorrow Prince
Albert will rise to a man to drag you out of this hole and kill you as
they would kill a rat. That is my answer, you slit-eyed, Yale-veneered
yellow devil! I may die, and Peter Kirkstone may die, but you'll not
get Miriam Kirkstone!"

He was on his feet when he finished, amazed at the calmness of his own
voice, amazed that his hands were steady and his brain was cool in this
hour of his sacrifice. And Kao was stunned. Before his eyes he saw a
white man throwing away his life. Here, in the final play, was a
master-stroke he had not foreseen. A moment before the victor, he was
now the vanquished. About him he saw his world falling, his power gone,
his own life suddenly hanging by a thread. In Keith's face he read the
truth. This white man was not bluffing. He would go to McDowell. He
would tell the truth. This man who had ventured so much for his own
life and freedom would now sacrifice that life to save a girl, one
girl! He could not understand, and yet he believed. For it was there
before his eyes in that gray, passionless face that was as inexorable
as the face of one of his own stone gods.

As he uttered the words that smashed all that Kao had planned for,
Keith sensed rather than saw the swift change of emotion sweeping
through the yellow-visaged Moloch staring up at him. For a space the
oriental's evil eyes had widened, exposing wider rims of saffron white,
betraying his amazement, the shock of Keith's unexpected revolt, and
then the lids closed slowly, until only dark and menacing gleams of
fire shot between them, and Keith thought of the eyes of a snake. Swift
as the strike of a rattler Kao was on his feet, his gown thrown back,
one clawing hand jerking a derringer from his silken belt. In the same
breath he raised his voice in a sharp call.

Keith sprang back. The snake-like threat in the Chinaman's eyes had
prepared him, and his Service automatic leaped from its holster with
lightning swiftness. Yet that movement was no swifter than the response
to Kao's cry. The panel shot open, the screens moved, tapestries
billowed suddenly as if moved by the wind, and Kao's servants sprang
forth and were at him like a pack of dogs. Keith had no time to judge
their number, for his brain was centered in the race with Kao's
d