He had, an hour before, come to Ching-Fu from the boat; and Eileen had
left Ching-Fu for a trip to Kialang-Hien, a village of the third order
some fifty _li_ distant, the morning before. Whether to follow or wait
was the question.

Somewhere afield a valiant bronze gong called infidels to the feet of
an insufferable clay god.

Peter's flow of thought was interrupted. Unnoticed a girl--at first
glance the virtuous daughter of a mandarin--was approaching. Her
abruptness and her appearance caught him so completely off guard that
he held his breath and stared at her rather wildly. And she in turn,
as if fascinated, stared back as wildly at him.

His first guess was inaccurate. She was no mandarin's daughter, this
one. She was young and exquisitely slim, with wisdom and sadness
written upon her colorless face, and he was informed by a single glance
at her exploring bright eyes and the straightness of her fine black
brows, that she was half-breed, Eurasian.

Those shining eyes, not unlike twin jade beads, were sparkling. Her
lips were thin and as red as betel. Her garb was satin, bright with
gold filigree and flashing gems; and her dainty feet were disfigured
rather than adorned by bright-red sandals. Her feet, however, were not
the "feet of the lily," for the lithe grace of her stride was ample
proof that they had not been bound.

The dying sun outlined through the folds of her bizarre garment ankles
straight, slender, and probably naked.

Rosy color moved swiftly into her satiny complexion while, with a
pretty, inquisitive frown, she scrutinized him; and then, with a flick
of her black eyelashes, she ran toward the arched doorway, leaving
Peter to ponder, and scratch his blond head, and demand amazing
explanations of himself.

It was a dominating trait in Peter never to lose time securing
information that was interesting to him; but the old proprietor, with
his wise and varnished smile, could vouchsafe very little of
consequence.

The young woman, he admitted, was named Naradia. She was accompanied
by her husband, a young Chinese of high birth, who manifested no more
signs of activity to an outward world than a baffling secretness.

The two of them had arrived from down-river on a sailing junk the week
before. The husband's name was Meng, he believed, and since he had
come, the old man declared, many strange and warlike faces had
mysteriously appeared in Ching-Fu.

Such visitors were not uncommon in