or him to give up the idea of entering, of piercing the lines of armed
guards and reaching the room where the master of the City of Stolen
Lives held forth until some later time.

That had been his earlier ambition, but the necessity of discarding the
original plan became hourly more important with the drawing near of the
girl captive.

If he could deliver Miss Vost from this dreadful city, that would be
more than an ample reward for his long, adventurous quest.

He could not sleep. Perched on an ancient leather stool upon the roof
of the wireless building, he kept a nightly and a daily watch with his
eyes fixed upon the drawbridge. A week went by. Food was carried up
to him, and he scarcely touched it. The rims of his eyes became
scarlet from sleeplessness, and he muttered constantly, like a man on
the verge of insanity, as his eyes wandered back and forth over the red
filth, from the shadowy bridge to the shining white of the palace.

Drearily, like souls lost and wandering in a half world, the prisoners
of Len Yang trudged to the scarlet maws of the mine and were engulfed
for long, pitiless hours, and were disgorged, staggering and blinking,
in Tibet's angry evening sun.

The woeful sight would madden any man. And yet each day new souls were
born to the grim red light of Len Yang's day, and clinging remorsefully
to the hell which was their lot, other bleeding souls departed, and
their shrunken bodies fed to the scarlet trough, where they were washed
into oblivion in some sightless cavern below.

It was a bitterly cold night, with the wind blowing hard from the ice
and snow on the Tibetan peaks, when Peter's long vigilance was
rewarded. A booming at the gate, followed by querulous shouts, aroused
him from his lethargy. He looked out over the crenelated wall, but the
cold moonlight revealed a vacant street.

The booming and shouting persisted, and Peter was sure that Miss Vost
had come, for in cities of China only an extraordinary event causes
drawbridges to be lowered.

He slipped down the creaking ladder into the wireless-room. Harrison
was in a torpor, muttering inanely and pleadingly as his long, white
fingers opened and closed, perhaps upon imagined gold.

Peter opened the heavy brass door, and let himself into the deserted
street. The jeweled sandals with which Chang had provided him sank
deep into the red mire, and remained there.

He sped on, until he reached the black shadow of the great