pole. Indeed, not a sound was created by his entrance, not even the
rustling whisper of bare feet on dry grass. It seemed very ominous,
mysterious, and ghostly.

The gray shadow floated into the candle-light, which waved and quivered
a little as the still air was disturbed. Peter was conscious that he
was being acutely examined. Not a muscle of his face twitched. He
continued to breathe regularly, with the heaviness of a man steeped in
sleep. Tentatively he permitted his lids to raise.

The intruder's back was toward him. He was bending with slow stealth
over the mandarin's face. What was the fellow doing?

Peter caught the glint of metal, or glass. At the same time a
powerful, sickening odor spread through the tent.

Peter groped for the naked dagger, bounded up from the couch with a
nervous cry, and burled the steel up to its costly jeweled hilt in the
foremost shoulder.

Without a sound the man in gray turned part way round, and a shudder
ran through him, causing the folds of his garment to flap slightly. He
sank down with a sigh like wind stealing through a cavern, and his
fingers clawed feebly in the leaping shadow.

Peter detected a tiny glass vial spilling out its dark, volatile fluid
upon the dust. He picked it up, but it was snatched from his hand.
The dull pig-eyes of Chang stared very close to his, with the
stupefaction of sleep still extending the irises into round dark pools.
The vial was in his hand, and he was sampling its odor, waving it
slowly back and forth under his wide nostrils. He shouted, and
turbaned men filed into the tent, and carried the gray figure away.

The hand of Chang rested upon Peter's shoulder, and in a voice that
throbbed with the sonorousness of a Buddha temple-gong he said:

"You have rendered me a service for which I can never sufficiently
repay you--for I value my life highly! In the morning your mind will
have forgotten what has taken place. Try to sleep now. You will
obey--promptly!"

The candle sputtered and jumped, as if it were striving mightily to
lengthen its golden life if only for another minute; and went out.

From Chow Yang to Lun-Ling-Ting all the land could not provide costlier
raiment than Peter found at his bedside when the long, high-keyed cries
of the mule men opened his eyes upon another morning.

When camp was broken up, long before the sun became hot, he was given a
small but able mule; and he rode down the valley toward India at