shadowy form move in the gloom and clear his
path, and it added the last touch of panic to his mind.

He leaned against an outer pillar for support, and gradually the noise
of the street drew him back again to reality and to the solid facts of
life once more. He had been badly scared, for in some cases when nothing
that can be expressed in words takes place, an infinitely greater thing,
that no words can express, has occurred mentally. To Leh Shin's
bewildered mind it was clear that he had actually felt a Joss breathe
upon him, and that he had heard its footsteps follow him across the
marble floor; the Joss who had shaken the curtains and extinguished the
candles.

Still bewildered, Leh Shin crossed the courtyard and sat down on the
kerb; his head swam and he felt along his legs with shaking hands. A
belated fruit seller went by, and he bought a handful of dates, stuck on
a small rod and looking like immense beetles, and as he ate his
confidence in life gradually returned. The Joss was at a safe distance
in his house and there was the street to give courage to his heart; the
street where men walked safe and secure, and where a worse fear than the
fear of death did not prowl secretly.

After a little while, he got up from the stifling dust and walked slowly
on. The streets flared with lights and the gold letters painted large on
signboards in huge Chinese characters shone out, making a brave show.
There were open restaurants where he could have gone in, and there were
houses of entertainment, hung with paper lanterns, that invited passers
with a sound of music, but Leh Shin continued his mechanical walk,
having another purpose in his mind.

He turned out of the lighted glare of the shops and struck along a back
alley, where one street lamp gave the sole illumination, and stopping at
a low, arched door cut deep in a wall, he knocked and was admitted.
Inside the entrance was another door heavily clamped with iron, which
gave admission down a long, narrow passage to a room beyond. It was a
small room, not unlike a prison, with heavy iron bars against the
corridors, and it was quite bare of furniture except for two deal
tables, around which a crowd of men stood playing for money with
impassive faces and greedy, grasping hands. There was no mixture of race
among the men who gambled; they were all Chinese, most of them clad in
indigo-blue trousers and tight vests, though some of them wore white
shirts and rakish straw hat