rway showed faintly the blacks of
irregularly built houses. Several small windows which looked upon the
court were barred, and there was a door with a grated peephole, where
Angela fancied that she caught the glint of eyes as the lantern swung in a
light breeze. But there was no such _grille_ in the low-browed door which
the guide approached. It stood ajar, and he pushed it open without
knocking.

"Follow, please," he said, "it's better for me to go first." And Angela
followed, with Nick close behind her, down a narrow flight of steps, more
a ladder than a stairway, which descended abruptly from the threshold.
One, two, three flights there were, so steep that you had to go slowly or
tumble on your nose, and then down at the bottom of the third ran a long
passage, where a greenish yellow dusk from some unseen lamp prevailed. The
walls were of unpainted wood, made of slips as thin as laths, and several
doors were roughly cut in it. At the end, one of these doors gaped open,
music of a peculiar shrillness floated out. Also a smell as of musk and
sandalwood drifted through the crack, with small, fitful trails of smoke
or curling mist.

On the other side they were burning incense inside; a Chinese man and a
woman, two tiny children like gilded idols, and three or four Europeans.
The latter were evidently tourists, with a guide. They sat on a rough
bench, their backs to the door; and the Chinaman was perched on a smaller,
higher seat, in front of a rack hung with several odd, brightly painted
Chinese musical instruments. He was playing solemnly and delicately on an
object like a guitar gone mad--so thought Angela--bringing forth a singing
sound, small and crystalline; but, glancing over his shoulder as the
newcomer appeared, at once he snatched up another curious object, smiling
at Angela, as much as to say the change was a compliment to her. The
instrument was of the mandolin type, covered with evil-looking snake-skin,
and having only a few strings, which the player's fingers touched lightly.
Each gave out a separate vibration, though all blended together with a
strange, alluring sweetness, and, underneath, Angela thought that she
could hear, faintly, a wicked impish voice hissing and chuckling, as if
something alive and vilely clever were curled up inside the
instrument--perhaps the spirit of the snake whose skin had been stolen.

The fat man nodded to the children who stood opposite on a piece of
matting, their silk-clad