the Winged Victory of the Louvre. The queer phase of the dream
was this, she was at no time a woman; she was symbolical of
something, and he followed to learn what this something was. There
was a lapse of time, an interval of blackness; then he found his
hand in hers and she was leading him at a run up the side of the
mountain.

His heart beat wildly and he was afraid lest the strain be too
much; but the girl shook her head and smiled and pointed to the top
of the mountain. All at once they came to the top, the faded blue
sky overhead, and whichever way he looked, the horizon, the great
rocking circle which hemmed them in. She pointed hither and yon,
smiled and shook her head. Then he understood. Nowhere could he see
that reaching, menacing Hand. So long as she stood beside him, he
was safe. That was what she was trying to make him understand.

He awoke, strangely content. As it happens sometimes, the idea
stepped down from the dream into the reality; and he saw it more
clearly now than he had seen it in the dream. It filled his
thoughts for the rest of the day, and became an obsession. How to
hold her, how to keep her at his side; this was the problem with
which he struggled.

When she came in after dinner that night, Ruth was no longer an
interesting phenomenon, something figuratively to tear apart and
investigate: she was talismanic. So long as she stood beside him,
the Hand would not prevail.

CHAPTER XVI

Ah cum began to worry. Each morning his inquiry was properly
answered: the patient was steadily improving, but none could say
when he would be strong enough to proceed upon his journey. The
tourist season would soon be at ebb, and it would be late in
September before the tide returned. So, then, fifty gold was
considerable; it would carry Ah Cum across four comparatively idle
months. And because of this hanging gold Ah Cum left many doors
open to doubt.

Perhaps the doctor, the manager and the girl were in collusion:
perhaps they had heard indirectly of the visit paid by Mr.
O'Higgins, the American detective, and were waiting against the
hour when they could assist the young man in a sudden dash for
liberty. Why not? Were not his own sentiments inclined in favour of
the patient? But fifty gold was fifty gold.

One morning, as he took his stand on the Hong-Kong packet dock to
ambush the possible tourist, he witnessed the arrival of a tubby
schooner, dirty gray and blotched as though she had run thr