l, content to rest and consider this. Telegrams
flashed messages under the great bidding of authority, men sprang armed
from stations in every village, the close grip of fate was not more
close than the grasp of the awakened machinery of justice, and in the
centre of its power Mhtoon Pah was helpless as a fly in the web of a
spider.

"He travels fast, and fear is sitting on his shoulder, for he travels
to his death," he repeated over and over, swaying backwards and
forwards.

He had an opium pellet hidden somewhere in his clothes, and he found it
and turned it over his tongue; weariness and sleep conquered the pain,
and Leh Shin sat with his head bent forward in heavy stupor. From this
condition he awoke to lights and noises and the sound of a file working
on iron.

The police had come and Hartley was bending over the boy, talking to him
kindly and reassuring him as far as he could. Upstairs, the heavy thud
of blows on the outer door of the shop echoed through the house with
steady, persistent sound.

Dawn had come in real earnest, and the street, but lately returned from
the excitements of the feast at the Pagoda, was thrilled by a new and
much more satisfying sensation. Three blue-coated, leather-belted
policemen were on the top of the steps that led to the door of the curio
shop, forcing it in. The heavy bolts held, and though the padlocked
chain hung idle, the door resisted all their efforts.

Hartley was down in the cellars, and his way through to the shop was
blocked . . . blocked by the inner door which was also closed from
inside, and somewhere within was Mhtoon Pah. He was very silent in his
shop. No amount of hammering called forth any response, and even when
the door gave way and the bolt fell clattering to the ground, he did not
spring out.

People had sometimes wondered at the curious destiny of the wooden man.
He had been there so long and had done his duty so faithfully. In rain
or shine alike, he had always been in the street, eternally bowing the
passers up the steps. Americans had tried to buy him, and had wished to
take him home to point at other free and enlightened citizens, but
Mhtoon Pah refused all offers of money. The wooden man was faithful to
him, and he in his turn was, in some way, faithful to the wooden man. He
had been there when Mhtoon Pah was a clerk and had indicated his rise,
he had seen him take over possession of the shop, and he had been
witness to many trivial things, and n