s. The young men had close-clipped hair and
looked like clever bull-terriers, but the older men wore long pigtails
wound round their heads in black, rope-like coils. The noise of dominoes
thrown out by the man who held the bank and the rattle of dice were
almost the only sounds in the room.

Under one table there was a small shrine, where a diminutive Joss
presided over the fortunes of Chance, but Leh Shin did not go to it as
was his usual habit before he began to play. He even eyed it uneasily
and kept at the further end of the room.

He played with varying success for an hour, for two hours, and the third
hour was running out before he shuffled off down the close passage, his
scanty winnings tied in the corner of a rag stuffed into his belt, and
was let out through the heavily barred doors into the street. The
alley-way was deserted, and Leh Shin went down the kennel into the open
place with the walk of a man who has something definite to do. A beggar,
who had been sitting huddled under the wall of a house opposite, craned
his neck out of the shadows, and followed him quickly.

Leh Shin had passed this last hour deliberately, so as to bring himself
to some appointed place neither earlier nor later than he desired to
get there, and Coryndon woke to the excitement of the chase again as he
followed along the Colonnade. It was easy to walk quickly under the roof
that ran from the entrance down to the turn that led into Paradise
Street, and Leh Shin did not even pause as he passed his own doorway but
made on rapidly until he came out at the far end. The hour was very
late, and the street silent. A drop in the temperature had driven the
sleepers who usually preferred the open to the closeness of walls,
within, and the whole double row of houses slept with gaping windows and
open doors.

Mhtoon Pah's curio shop was entirely closed. Every window had outer
shutters fastened, and no gleam of light showed anywhere, up or down the
high narrow front. When Leh Shin stopped in front of the doorway the
beggar sat down opposite to him a little further down the street, his
head bowed on his bosom. He watched Leh Shin prowl carefully round and
climb with monkey-like agility from the rails to the window-ledge, where
he peered in through the shutters, raising a broken lath to see into the
interior.

Coryndon watched him with intent interest. The night was moonless, he
knew that if a match were struck in the interior of the shop it wo