. The muscles under his
tunic-sleeve, which clung to his arm from the moisture of perspiration,
rippled and flexed and hardened.

His face--the clean, handsome face of well-lived youth--was quite
dreadful to look upon--flushed to a fiery red and distorted. His lips
were skinned back over his white teeth.

The thunder of his roar fairly shook the green quartz pillars, between
which the smug, green Buddha smiled complacently, impervious to the
rages of foolish mankind.

Peter sprang upon the heels of that roar like a mass of wonderfully
controlled steel at the crouching figure, a figure whose countenance
was suddenly wet and white.

He tore the carbine from the fingers of the nearest guard before that
one could collect his wits.

The Mongolian sprawled over backward, and in the second instant the
heavy butt of the carbine came down with a shuddering crash upon the
skull-cap of the man who would no longer rule Len Yang!

With such tremendous vigor was that blow delivered that the walnut
stock, as tough as iron, shivered into splinters, which swam in the
bursting brains of the victim.

Screaming, Peter swung the stock again, and again, as if he would beat
his wretched victim to a pulp. Nothing but the barrel and breech
mechanism remained.

His murderous intention seemed to be to remove, to obliterate for all
time, the hideous face, to wipe out by means of his brute strength the
gray countenance.

Suddenly he sprang away from him with the elastic stride of a panther.
Kahn Meng, the traitor, was next.

And as he leaped Kahn Meng slipped from his own pocket a revolver and
dodged Peter's blow.

Peter staggered backward, reaching the center of the room, dragging the
bloody and bent carbine barrel in a red trail. There he stopped,
swaying, toppling.

Darkness was assailing him. He was sinking into a pit. And the heart
was fluttering, laboring treacherously under the poison created in his
blood by fury.

The green lights spun.

He threw the carbine barrel at the complacent Buddha, where it clanked
to the marble flags. And he withered like the lotus, sprawling upon
his back with his eyes tightly shut, the color fast disappearing from
his complexion.

And his head was reclining upon the small, tan boots of Eileen.

CHAPTER XVI

Somewhere in the distance a sweet-voiced temple bell resounded
dreamily. Vague odors of sandalwood and wistaria swam in the soft,
cool air. A ray of warm sunlight fell