Two weeks later Pauline and Harry were sitting in the library. Through the half-closed blinds a soft breeze bore to them the fragrance of carnations and roses.
For the first few days after their return Pauline was so thankful they had not lost their lives that she was reconciled to not having found the treasure. But only for the first few days. She was already growing restless.
"You're wasting time, Harry," she said impatiently. "I'd rather face anything than be bored to death."
"Polly, it's got to stop; it isn't safe, it isn't sensible, it isn't even fun any more. Won't you drop the whole freakish thing and marry me?"
Harry was holding Pauline by the hand as she drew her dainty way out of the library. In laughing rebellion she looked over her shoulder and jeered at him.
"Oh, I thought it was I who was going to be afraid," she said.
"Well, if you aren't, who is going to be?"
"You," she tittered.
He drew her back with a gentle but firm grasp.
"Honestly, Polly, aren't you satisfied yet? Adventure is all right for breakfast or for luncheon once a month, but as a regular unremitting diet it gets on my nerves."
"Still thinking of your own perils?" she volleyed.
Harry's fine keen face took on a look of earnest appeal. He let go her hand, but as she started to run up the stairs he held her with his eyes.
"You dear, silly boy," she cried, returning a step and clasping him in an impetuous embrace. "You are the nicest brother in all the world— sometimes—but just now I think that adventure is nicer than brothers —or husbands. I'm having the time of my life, Harry boy, and I'm going on and on, and on with it until I've seen all the wild and wicked people and places in the world."
Harry caught her hand and smiled down at her in surrender.
A ring at the door bell and the entrance of the maid caused Pauline to flutter up the stairs. They were preparing to attend the Courtelyou's reception that evening to the great Baskinelli, whose musical achievements had been equaled only by his social successes during this, his first New York season.
"Anyway," she twinkled from the top of the stairs, "you needn't be frightened for tonight. Nothing so meek and mild as a pianist can hurt you."
Harry tossed up his hands in mimic despair and started back to the library.
"Yes, I know she is always at home to you, Miss Hamlin," the maid was saying at the door.
"What a privileged person I am," laughed Lucille Hamlin.
She was Pauline's chum-in-chief, a dark, still tempered girl, in perfect contrast to the adventurous Polly. She greeted Harry with the easy grace of old acquaintanceship.
"Still nursing the precious broken heart?" she queried.
"For the love of Michael, me and humanity," he pleaded, "can't you do something? She won't listen to me. I'm honestly, deucedly worried, Lucille."
"You know very well that nobody could ever do anything with Polly. She always had to have her own way—and that's why you love her, though you don't know it, Harry. Shall I run upstairs, Margaret?" she added, turning to the maid.
"No, you're going to stay here," commanded Harry, seizing her hands. "You've got to do something with Pauline. You're the only one who can. She wants a new adventure every day, and a more dangerous one every time. Talk to her, won't you? Tell her it isn't right for her to risk her life when her life is so precious to so many people. No, wait a minute; sit down here. I'm not half through yet."
He drew her, under laughing protest, to a seat beside him on the stairs. She realized suddenly how serious he was. She let her hand rest comradely in his pleading grasp.
"Why, Harry, yes, if it is really dangerous, you know, I'll do anythingI can," she said gravely.
They did not see the cold gray face of Raymond Owen appear at the top of the stairs. The face vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
In her boudoir Polly was laying out her finery of the evening. There came a soft rap at the door.
"Come in," she called, and looked up brightly in Owen's furtive eyes as he opened the door and motioned to her.
"Don't say anything, please, Miss Marvin," he whispered, "just come with me for a moment."
Bewildered by his manner, she followed to the top of the stairs. He directed her gaze to the two young people in earnest conversation below.
It was a picture that might well have startled a less impetuous heart than Pauline's. Harry's hand still clasped Lucille's, and he was leaning toward her in the eagerness of his appeal.
"You, will? You promise? Lucille, you've made me happy," Pauline heard him say.
Through mist-dimmed eyes, dizzily, she saw the two arise. She saw the man she loved clasp Lucille's other hand. She saw the girl who had been her friend and confidante since childhood draw herself away from him with a lingering withdrawal that could mean—ah, what could it not mean? Polly fled to her room.
In Owen's subtle secret battle to retain control of the Marvin millions fate had never so befriended him. None of all the weapons or ruses that he had used to prevent the faithful attachment of Harry and Pauline was as potent as this little seed of jealousy.
Pauline rang for her maid.
"Tell Miss Hamlin that I am not at home," she said in a voice that started haughtily but ended in a sob.
"But, Miss Marvin—" Margaret tried to demur.
"Tell Miss Hamlin that I am not at home," repeated Pauline.
Lucille had just started up the stairs, leaving Harry with a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
"Well, even if I caret do anything with that wild woman," she laughed back at him, "you know Pauline bears a charmed life. Nothing has ever happened to her yet. Guardian angels surround her—as well as heroes."
Harry walked into the library. The agitated Margaret met Lucille on the stairs.
"Miss Marvin is—Miss Marvin is not at home," the girl said, flushing crimson.
Lucille paused, dumfounded.
"But, Margaret, you know I thought—I really thought she was, at home, Miss Hamlin. I hope you won't be offended with me."
"I insist upon seeing her," cried Lucille. "I don't believe you are telling me the truth. I'm going right up to her room."
Margaret burst into tears.
Lucille quickly reconsidered. Indignation took the place of astonishment. She hurried down the stairs and rushed through the door without waiting for Margaret to open it.
Pauline, back in her own room, vented her first rage in tears. With her hot face pressed against the pillow, she sobbed out the agony of what she thought her betrayal—her double betrayal, by courtier and comrade at once. But the tears passed. Too vital was the spirit in her, too red flowing in her veins was the blood of fighting ancestors, too strong the fortress of self-command within the blossoming gardens of her youth and beauty for the word surrender ever to come to her mind.
True, she had found an adventure that stirred her more deeply than the peril of land or sea or sky could have done. Here was a thrill that had never been listed among her intended tremors. She sent for Owen.
Masked as ever in his suave exterior and his manner of mingled obsequiousness and fatherliness, he came instantly.
"Mr. Owen, have you known—have you known that this was going on?"
"I feel that it is my duty to know what concerns you—even what concerns your happiness, Miss Marvin," he answered.
"You mean?"
"I mean that I have long had my suspicions."
But again the very perfection of his deceit brought Pauline that feeling that she had had since childhood that sense of an insidious influence always surrounding her, always menacing and yet never revealed. This influence, which Owen seemed to embody, was the antagonist of that other mysterious power, so real and yet so inexplicable, that warded and protected her—the spirit of the girl that had stepped from the mummy.
But Pauline had seen with her own eyes; she did not need any word ofOwen's to convince her of the falsity of her lover.
She was quite calm now. She dressed with the utmost care. Margaret, who had seen her in such anger only a short time before, was surprised at her sprightliness and graciousness. A slightly heightened color that only added to the luster of her loveliness, was the single sign of her inward thoughts. She summoned her own car and left the house alone.
The drawing room of the Clarence Courtelyou mansion was ablaze with light. There was a little too much light. The Clarence Courtelyou always had a little too much of everything.
There was a little too much money; there was a little too much gold leaf decoration in the drawing room, a little too much diamond decoration of Mrs. Courtelyou, and, if you were so fastidiously impolite as to say so, a little too much of Mrs. Courtelyou herself.
But Mrs. Courtelyou was struggling toward gentility in such an amiable way that better people liked her. The motherliness and sweet sincerity of her—the fact that she loved her frankly illiterate husband and worshipped, almost from afar, her cultured daughters was the thing that brought her down from the base height of the "climbers" and lifted her kindly, harmless personality to the high simplicities of the elite.
She made the natural mistake that other wealthy mendicants at the outer portals of society have made the mistake of pounding at the gates. Instead of letting the splendor of her charitable gifts, the gracefulness of her simplicity, carry her through, she went in for the gorgeous and the costly.
As a sort of crowning glory she began to "take up" artists and actors and musicians. She gained the good graces of the best of them, and in her kindly innocence she won the worship of the worst.
It was thus that she came to the point of holding a reception forBaskinelli.
Not that any one had heard anything black, or even shadowy, against Baskinelli. He had arrived recently from abroad, his foreign fame preceding him, his prospective conquests of America fulsomely foretold, his low brow decorated in advance with laurel.
Mrs. Courtelyou added him to her collection with the swiftness and directness of the entomologist discovering a new bug. She herself loved music—without understanding it very deeply—and Baskinelli, whatever might be his other gifts, could summon all the cadences of love from the machines that people call a piano—engine of torture or instrument of joy.
For half an hour Harry paced at the foot of the stairs.
"I wonder if she's ever coming," he fumed to himself. "It takes 'em so long to do it that they drive you crazy, and when it's done they're so wonderful that they drive you crazy."
"Did you—did you wish anything, sir?" asked the butler, entering.
"No—just waiting for Miss Pauline, Jenkins—just waiting," sighedHarry.
"Why—if I may presume to tell you, sir—Miss, Marvin has gone to the reception," said Jenkins.
"Gone!" Harry cried abruptly, hotly, then remembered that he was speaking to a servant and swung into the reception room.
He put on his hat and coat and rang for Jenkins again.
"How long ago was it that Miss Pauline went out?"
"Almost an hour ago, sir."
Harry slammed his way out of the door. It was not until he was in the car on his way to the Courtelyous that he began to think—began to think with utterly wrong deductions, as lovers always do.
"I must have said too much," he told himself. "She's crazy about these wild pranks and she thinks I'm a stupid goody-goody. What a fool I was to try to prevent her!"
"You aren't very nice, Mr. Marvin, to snub my pet musician—my very newest pet musician," Mrs. Courtelyou rebuked him, as he entered.
"I didn't mean it. I was waiting for—why, my car went to pieces," he explained. "Is Pauline here?"
"Here? She is the only person present. Baskinelli hasn't spoken a word to any one else. He won't play anything unless she suggests the subject. I am glad Mr. Owen is here to protect her."
From the scintillant, filmy mist of women around the piano Lucille emerged. She came swiftly to Harry's side.
"What is the matter?" she asked.
"What is? Tell me." he replied. "What did you say to her?"
"I didn't see her, Harry. She sent word that she was not at home."
"You don't mean—not after you started upstairs."
"Yes—and she hasn't spoken to me all evening."
"And she left me waiting at home for half an hour. It's outrageous."
Harry strode across the floor just as the music ceased, and Baskinelli arose, bowing to the applause of his feminine admirers.
"May I ask the honor to show to you Madame Courtelyou's portrait of myself? It is called 'The Glorification of Imbecility,'" he said as he proffered his arm to Pauline.
He was a small man, with sharp features shadowed by a mass of flowing, curling hair—the kind of hair that has come to be called "musical" by the irreverent. The sweep of an abnormal brow gave emphasis to the sudden jut of deep eye sockets, and a dull, sallow skin gave emphasis to the subtle sinister light, of the eyes themselves.
Pauline accepted the proffered arm of the artist, but daintily, laughingly, she turned him back to the piano.
"You haven't yet escaped, Signor Baskinelli," she said. "We have not yet heard 'Tivoli,' you know."
"Tivoli," he cried, with hands upraised in mock disdain. "Why, I wrote the thing myself. Am I to violate even my own masterpieces?"
There was a twitter of mocking protest from the women. Baskinelli began to play again.
"Pauline, may I speak to you—just a moment?" Harry's vexed voice reached her ear as she stood beside the piano. She turned slowly and looked into his bewildered, angry eyes.
"A little later—possibly," she answered, and instantly turned back to Baskinelli.
From her no mask of music, no glamour of others' admiration could hide the predatory obsequiousness of Baskinelli. She was not in the least interested in Baskinelli. She had loathed him from the moment when she had looked down on his little oily curls. But if Baskinelli had been Beelzebub he would have enjoyed the favor of Pauline that evening—at least, after Harry had arrived.
The glowing piquant beauty of Pauline enthralled Baskinelli. He had never before seen a woman like her—innocent but astute, daring but demure, brilliant but opalescent. When at last they strolled away together into the conservatory his drawing room obeisances became direct declarations of love.
Pauline began to be frightened.
She fluttered to the door of the conservatory. But there she paused. Voices sounded from the end of a little rose-rimmed alley. They were the voices of Harry and Lucille.
Baskinelli was at her side again.
"If I have said anything—done anything to offend," he said, with affected contrition, "you will let me make my lowliest apologies, won't you?"
Pauline hardly heard him. She was intently listening to the low pitched voices.
"I—I think I will run back to the others," she cried suddenly.Baskinelli was left alone.
"I congratulate you, Signor, on the success of the evening," said a voice at his shoulder. "There are few among the famous who can conquer drawing rooms as well as auditoriums."
The musician turned to face the ingratiating smile of Raymond Owen.
"I thank you—I thank you, sir. But I do not believe you. My 'conquest' has turned to catastrophe. I have lost everything."
"You mean that you are dissatisfied with the applause?" asked Owen.
"No! No! Applause is nothing from the many. There is always one in his audience to whom he plays from his soul."
"And that one—tonight?"
"The lovely Miss—what, now, is her name—Marvin. She bewitches me —and she scorns me."
"Signor Baskinelli, there are other places than drawing rooms, or even conservatories, in which to capture those who captivate."
"I—do I quite grasp your meaning, Mistaire Owen?" He tried to disguise the suspicion under an accentuated accent.
"I think so, Monsieur Picquot."
At the name Baskinelli turned livid. He made a movement as if he would lunge at the throat of Owen, but his fury withered under the glassy smile.
"So—we met in Paris?"
"Once upon a time—a little incident in the Rue St. Jeanne. A young woman was concerned in that incident—and was not heard of afterward."
"And you are trying to blackmail me for the death of Marie Disart!Ha! That is a jest," cried Baskinelli.
"I am trying to do nothing of the kind. I simply reminded you of the little affair. I know as well as you that it was all beautifully cleared up, and a man is still in prison for it. I know you are as safe here as that man is in jail, Signor Baskinelli."
"What are you talking about, then?"
"The little woman that so charmed you here. I remarked merely that those who are captivated can capture."
"Not in this country—not among the Puritans. One must be good— and unhappy."
"You haven't forgotten your little friends, Mario, and Di Palma and Vitrio? They are all respected residents of New York. We know, where they might be found."
"At Cagliacci's?"
"Precisely. Dining upon the best of spaghetti and the richest of wines, and paying for it at the point of a stiletto."
"But—ha! You are talking nonsense. We could not find them; they could not find us."
"We might telephone and try," suggested Owen. "Cagliacci, you know, is now up-to-date. He has a telephone. He considers it a sign of respectability."
"And then what do you propose?"
"Picquot—I mean Signor Baskinelli, I propose nothing. Unless possibly there might be—after the reception—a little motor trip to Chinatown. It might amuse the ladies."
"You are right. I will invite them all," said Baskinelli.
"And how about calling up Marie at Cagliacci's just as an old friend?"
"It might be best."
They moved together down the corridor and Owen directed their way to a little study secluded from all other apartments of the great house.
"You seem to be familiar with the home of our gracious hostess," remarked Baskinelli.
"I make it a rule to be familiar with all homes in which Miss Marvin is entertained."
"Miss Marvin? You are, then a relative?"
"I am her guardian."
"Ah-h! You have control—perhaps—of certain small sums bequeathed to her?"
"Yes."
"And you would like to have as few persons as possible in the Chinatown party?"
"As few as possible."
In a place known only as Cagliacci's, in the dreg depths of Elizabeth street, the ringing of the telephone bell was much more startling, much more unusual than the crash of a pistol shot or the blast of a bomb.
The habitu's moved quietly to the door that leads to the roofs, while Pietro Cagliacci himself wiped the dust-covered receiver on his apron and put it to his ear.
He spoke softly, tersely. The conversation was very brief. Within a minute after he had hung up the receiver three grimy-clad, grim-visaged men left the place silently.
Harry and Lucille came out of the conservatory.
"I tell you there wasn't anything said between us that could have caused it," he was saying. "I was fighting the whole thing hard, but I was fighting it like a beggar. I am always a beggar with Pauline."
"But you told her it wasn't right that she was risking other people's lives?"
"No, I told you to tell her that."
In spite of her distress over Pauline's coldness, Lucille burst into laughter.
They were just emerging into the music room. Pauline, like the others, turned at the unexpected sound. She gave one glance at the two and turned haughtily away.
Baskinelli was bustling about, making up an impromptu excursion party.
"Ha! You people of New York—you do not know what is in New York. All Europe is here—and you never cross Fourteenth street—I mean to say Fifth avenue."
"It is more dangerous to cross Fifth avenue than to cross the ocean— that's probably the reason," said Harry. "The traffic cops along the Gulf Stream are so careful."
Pauline stopped Baskinelli's intended reply. She wanted Harry to be ignored utterly. Her anger had made him flippant. His flippancy had put the seal of completeness upon her anger.
A flutter of polite alarm attended Signor Baskinalli's invitation.
From the sheltered glitter of a Fifth avenue drawing room to Chinatown was a plunge a little too deep.
But Baskinelli was insistent and Pauline was his ardent and efficient recruiting officer. Quite a troop train of limousines carried the invaders to the uncelestial haunts of the Celestials.
Baskinelli rode in the car with Pauline and Owen. He had cast off the dignity of the master musician and assumed an air of whimsical recklessness. Harry and Lucille were in the following car.
"Oh, please stop fidgeting," exclaimed Lucille.
"I'm as nervous as you are."
"I know," said Harry, "but I hate to have her alone with that little black snake for five minutes."
"Owen is with them."
"Owen is worse."
The machines drew up in Chatham Square, and the little procession that moved across to Doyers street—dainty slippers on blackened cobblestones, light laughter tinkling under the thunder of the "L," human brightness brushing past the human shadows from the midnight dens —made contrasts picturesque as a pageant in a catacomb.
Pauline, on the arm of the chattering Baskinelli, led the way.
"Isn't this splendid?" she exclaimed. "I am sure you won't disappoint me, Signor Baskinelli. I hope you aren't going to show us a happy Chinese family at supper. Only the most dreadful sights amuse me."
"Ali, but we, must not take risks," replied Baskinelli. "There are some beings in the world, Miss Marvin, so exquisitely precious that a man would commit sin if he placed them in peril."
"But only the worst and wickedest places," she admonished Baskinelli.
He leaned suddenly very near to her.
"Do you really mean that, Miss Marvin?" he asked.
"Indeed I do," she answered.
"Very well. But first we shall go to the new restaurant. It is yet too early for the worst and wickedest to be abroad or rather to seek their lairs."
They climbed a brightly lighted staircase into one of the ordinary Chinese restaurants of the better sort which are conducted almost entirely for Americans, and where Boston baked beans are as likely as not to nudge almond cakes on the bill of fare and champagne flow as commonly as tea.
They gathered around one of the larger of the cheaply inlaid tables, and Baskinelli took command of the feast.
Harry sat in grim silence, watching Pauline like a protecting dragon. Lucille was sick at heart and repentant of coming. The others chatted merrily among themselves. But by common consent Pauline seemed to have been surrendered to the attentions of the evening pest, who had become a midnight host.
He leaned toward her with an ardor that he did not even attempt to disguise. "You are the most wonderful woman in—"
"Please make it the universe," pleaded Pauline. "There are so many most wonderful women in the world."
"No, let us say chaos," he whispered. "The chaos of a man's heart can be ruled only by the charming uncertainty of woman."
The intensity of his words brought to Pauline again the twinge of alarm. Unconsciously she looked around for Harry. It was the last thing in the world she had meant to do. She was angry at herself in an instant, for his fixed, guarding gaze was upon her. She met his eyes and turned quickly to Baskinelli.
"Chaos? I've always loved that word," she flashed. "There must be so many lovely adventures where there are no laws."
"I said the chaos in a man's heart could be ruled by a woman," saidBaskinelli.
The impudence of this sudden love making moved her unexpectedly to defiance.
"Please let it be ruled, Signor Baskinelli," she said, turning away from him.
Baskinelli had sense enough to see that he had gone too far. He turned to the others as the soft-footed Orientals began to spread the mixed and mysterious viands on the table.
He glanced at Owen. By the slightest movement imaginable, by the least uplift of his black brows, Owen answered. For the first time Baskinelli knew that the lovely quarry he pursued had a protector— and no mean, no weak protector.
But the arrival of the repast quickly covered the general embarrassment. Everybody could see that Pauline and Harry had had a quarrel and that Pauline, was flirting outrageously with Baskenelli simply for revenge—that is, every one except Harry could see it.
"Pardon me, but is that what you call a graft investigation that you are making, Miss Hamlin?" inquired Baskinelli.
"No, but the food is so funny. There are so many queer things present, but unidentified," laughed Lucille.
"Like a reception to a foreign artist," interrupted Harry with a vindictive glare.
"Or shall we say like the conversation of an unhappy guest," said Baskinelli, smilingly turning to note the entrance of a little party of newcomers at the further end of the restaurant.
A dashing, well-dressed, fiery-eyed foreigner, the tips of whose waxed mustachios turned up like black stalagmites from the comers of his cavernous mouth, was accompanied by two nondescript figures, who seemed to be embarrassed more by the fact that they had been recently cleansed and shaved than by their rough red shirts and mismatched coats and trousers.
The man of the tilted mustachios gave brief, imperative orders to the waiters, whose languid steps seemed to be quickened by his words as by an electric battery. The other two sat silent, like docile dogs in leash.
Only for an instant Baskinelli's eyes rested upon the group.
"And having tasted the food of the gods, how would you like to visit the gods themselves?" he asked.
Pauline agreed enthusiastically. "You mean a joss house—a Chinese church, don't you."
"Yes."
The joss house that most visitors see in Chinatown is the little one up under the roof at the meeting of Doyers and Pell streets—at the toe of the twisted horseshoe made by these tiny thoroughfares of black fame, where, in spite of all the modern magic of "reform," men still die silently in the hush of secluded corridors and women vanish into the darkness that is worse than death.
The little joss house is interesting in the same way that an Indian village at a State fair is interesting. Behind its gaudy staginess and commercial appeal it still holds something of reality from which the imagination can draw a picture of an ancient worship that has held a race of millions in thrall for thousands of years.
But it was not to the little joss house that Signor Baskinelli guided the party. In the little joss house the bells are pounded without respite, the visitors come and go at all hours of the day and night— save the few set hours when the joss sacrifices profit to true prayer.
Baskinelli took his guests to the joss house of the Golden Screens.
Save for its greater size and more splendid accoutrement, it was little different from the other. But it was walled, in its back alley seclusion, deep behind the outer fronts of Mott street, by a secrecy almost sincerely sacred.
The motor cars remained far behind across the square as Baskinelli led the party through the dismal streets and stopped before a dark doorway.
A dim light flared behind the door and a Chinaman in American dress admitted them.
"I am beginning to be really bored," said Pauline.
"Wait; give the wicked a chance," said Baskinelli.
They climbed three flights of dingy, narrow stairs, lighted with flaring gas jets.
"Wonderful," jeered Pauline. "Not even a secret passage or a subterranean den!"
The others followed her laughing lead up the stairs.
A Chinaman came out of the door on the second landing, stopped, started in innocent curiosity at the dazzling visitors and went down the stairs. Everything was as still and commonplace as if they had been in the hallway of a Harlem flat building.
The silence was not broken or the seeming safety disturbed in the slightest by the soft opening of the first landing door, after they had passed—that is, after all but Owen had passed. No one but Owen saw the piercing black eyes and the tilted mustachios of the face that appeared for an instant at the door.
There was a corridor, not so well lighted, at the top of the third flight of stairs. In the dim turns the women drew their skirts about them, a bit wary of the black, short walls.
The passage narrowed. They could move now only in single file, and even then their shoulders brushed the walls.
Only a far, dull glow from a red lamp over a door at the end of a passage lighted their way.
Baskinelli tapped lightly on the door.
It was opened by a venerable Chinaman in the flowing robes of a priest. He looked at them doubtfully. Baskinelli spoke three words that his companions did not hear. The priest vanished. Quickly the door was reopened and they stepped into the dim, smoky, stifling presence of the joss.
The choking scent of the punk always at the folded feet of the idol was almost suffocating. The place had other odors less noxious and less sweet. Chinamen were lounging in the room as if it had been a place of rest. Three priests were on their knees before the joss swaying forward till their foreheads almost touched the floor, their outstretched arms moving in mystic symmetry with their rocking bodies.
A great brass bell hung low beside the idol. But no priest touched the bell.
The joss itself was almost the least impressive thing in the room. It stood, or squatted, six feet high, on a block pedestal at the side of the room. The simple hideousness of the painted features served no impressive purpose, but as contrast to the exquisite decorations of the room.
Screens of carved wood, so delicately wrought that it seemed a touch would break the graven fibers, were flecked with inlay of pearl and covering of gold.
One of the peculiar features of the room was a suit of ancient Chinese armor—a relic that had been rusted and pit-marked by time, but now stood brightly polished beside the statue of the god. A huge two-edged sword was held upright in the steel glove.
By the dim light behind the idol the shadow of the sword was cast across the blank face of Baskinelli as he moved forward. He stepped back quickly. The shadow fell between him and Pauline.
Again the ancient priest answered a summons at the door. Again he parleyed for a moment—then opened it to the three swarthy foreigners who had been in the restaurant.
Baskinelli turned for just in instant to glance at the tall man with the tilted mustache, then resumed immediately his conversation with Pauline.
"Why do all the Chinamen run away like that?" she asked.
"It is the end of the service; you see the priests are going, too."
There was a furtive haste about the departure of the Orientals. And there was a quavering in the manner of the oldest priest—the only one who remained—that seemed born of a hidden fear.
The old priest lifted one of the lamps from a wall bracket and set it on the floor beside the idol. He knelt near it and began to pray.
The three Italians waited only a moment, then followed the Chinese out of the room.
"It is late—we ought to be going," pleaded Lucille.
Complete silence had fallen on the room and her words, a little tremulous, had instant effect on the other women.
"What about it, Baskinelli? Had we better be going?" asked one of the men.
"Yes—yes, I beg only a moment. I wish to show Miss Pauline the—"
"You mean Miss Marvin, do you not?" blazed Harry, striding toBaskinelli's side and glaring down at him.
"I was interrupted. I had not finished my words. They are, at best, awkward, I beg—"
"You beg nothing," said Harry through clenched teeth. Then slowly, grimly:
"I want to tell you, you little leper, that if anything happens here tonight—it is going to happen to you."
He was so near to the musician that the others did not hear.
Baskinelli backed away. Pauline, with the swift, inexplicable, yet unerring instinct of woman, moved as if to seek the shelter of Harry's towering frame.
He did not see her. He had whirled at the sound of the opening of a door—a peculiar door set diagonally across a corner of the room behind the joss.
Through the yellow silk curtains that hid the entrance came two Chinamen as fantastically hideous as the embroidered dragons on the tapestry.
"Put those men out; they cannot come in here; they are full of opium," commanded Baskinelli.
"Stop; let them come in; we are going," said the mild voice of Owen.
The understanding look of Baskinelli met his. Baskinelli frowned andOwen smiled. They were playing perfectly their roles.
The two Chinamen shuffled into the room. The priest arose in jabbering protest. They argued with him acridly. A few feet away one could see that their cheap linen robes covered the ordinary street garb of the Chinamen; that the ugly lines on their faces were painted, as on the face of the Joss.
Baskinelli was laughing. The others watched the argument in silence. Every one but the host, and Owen, and Pauline, seemed a little nervous.
Suddenly the lamp on the floor went out. There was another at the farther side of the room, but its dim light made the scene more weird than darkness could have made it.
"Well, I thought we were going," snapped Harry's strident voice.
"We are," replied Baskinelli. "Miss—er—I am afraid to speak—Miss Marvin, shall we go?"
Pauline took his arm.
"Ali, but I have forgotten the most precious sight of the evening," suddenly exclaimed the musician. "Only a moment—look here."
Interested, Pauline did not notice that Owen softly shut the door upon the receding footsteps of the others. Baskinelli guided her back to the little door behind the screen—the door from which the Chinamen had entered.
Baskinelli drew aside the curtain.
"There—that is one form of adventure."
Pauline looked through the curtain. A suffocating, narcotic odor came to her. What she saw was stifling not only to the senses—but to the soul. She turned away.
"Polly!"
Harry's voice rang through the little choked room like a thunder blast.
"We are coming—we are quite safe," called Baskinelli, with the sneer tinge in his tone.
"Very well, then; hurry."
Harry's manner aroused Pauline's temper again. She purposely lingered.
The two Chinamen were arguing violently now with the priest.
Harry had closed the door and followed the others down the outer passage.
"Miss Marvin—Pauline!" called Baskinelli with sudden passion. "Have you a heart of stone? Can you not see me helpless in your presence? Do you know what love is?"
He stepped towards her and tried to take her in his arms. But she was stronger and far braver than he. She thrust him aside and fled through the door.
Baskinelli followed, protesting, pleading.
Strangely, as she fled through the narrow corridor, the low, flaring gas jets were extinguished one by one.
She groped in darkness.
Baskinelli's pleading voice became almost a consolation, a protection.
Her elbow struck something in the passageway. The something shrank at the touch. She heard a quick drawn breath that was not Baskinelli's. She tried to run. The tiny passageway chocked her flight. She plunged helplessly between invisible, but gripping walls. She reeled and screamed.
There was the sound of a struggle behind her. She heard Baskinelli crying for help—but, oh, so quietly! She reached the stairs. The stairs were blocked by a closed door. The door was barred. But there was a light left burning by the door.
Her weak hands beat upon the panels, helplessly, hopelessly. How should she know that there were two doors, locked and sealed beyond?
Her wild screams rang through the long passage, through the dark, above the shuffle and beat and cursing of the staged fight.
In the dim light she could see the three Italians grappling with the other men. Baskinelli's voice called to her reassuringly. It might well. Baskinelli was in no danger.
She placed her softly clothed shoulder to the door and strove to break it. She screamed again.
"Harry! Harry!"
Dull crashes answered. There was the crack and cleaving of splintered wood.
"Hold on! I'm here!" she heard.
She fell beside the door. Strong arms seized her. For an instant she felt that she was saved. But she looked up into the lowering face of a man with tilted mustachios. From the wide thick lips came threats and curses.
From the outer passageway sounded the crashing of the doors.
She let herself be lifted, then, with sudden exertion of her trained strength, she broke the grasp of the man.
The door fell open.
Harry, bloody and tattered, stood there—alone.
"Polly?"
"Oh—yes—where are the others? They'll kill you—run!" she cried.
He ran forward into the black corridor. A knife thrust, sheathed in silence, ripped his shoulder gave him his cue. He had one man down and trampled. But another was upon him and yet a third.
A sharp pain dulled the pulsing of his throat. He felt a tickle down his bared and swinging arm.
He fought blindly in the dark.
"Polly!" he panted.
There was no answer.
* * * * *
In the Joss House of the Golden Screens the two Chinamen, dazed with opium, set of purpose, were still arguing with the trembling priest.
The door fell open and a white woman—with bleeding hands—fell at their feet.
"Ha, she has come back!" cried one of the Chinese in his own tongue.
There was the sound of steps in the outer passage.
"Quick—inside!" breathed the Chinaman, pointing to the den.
They lifted Pauline. The old priest stopped them.
"Not there—not there!" he cried. "Any one would look in there."
They dragged her back. The priest hurried to the outer door and locked it.
There was the blunt, battering thrust of a body against the door.
"Open, or I'll break it in!" yelled the voice of Harry.
The priest opened the door.
In deferential silence he saluted the battle grimed newcomer.Battered, panting, bleeding, Harry lunged at the man, gripped him.
"Quick—where is she? You'll die like a spiked rat. Where?" he roared.
The two other Chinamen were kneeling before the Joss.
There was a moment's silence, then a strange sound—like a cry heard afar off.
Harry strode to the little pedestal where the suit of armor stood.
"Where is she?—or I'll rip this place to cockles!" he thundered.
"We do not know what you mean," said the priest.
The two Chinamen began to jabber.
Other figures reeled from the room behind the curtains. But over all their clamor sounded again the faint cry—distant, but near.
In a flash Harry caught from the mailed glove the haft of the sword. As he rushed across the room the Chinese withered away from him. There was a crash as the great sword fell upon one of the windows. Through the broken pane Harry shouted for help. His voice was like a clarion in the silent streets.
He turned in time. Three Chinamen, with drawn knives, were upon him. He swung the unwieldy sword above his head. Its sweep saved him. He dashed at the Joss. Again he lifted the sword. A grasp and then a wail of fear sounded through the room.
He struck. The head of the statue thudded to the floor.
The Chinese rushed upon him. They were desperate now in the face of the violation of their god. But he was behind their god prying open the secret door to the hollow within the statue.
"It's all right, Polly," he said as he drew her gently forth.
He stood above her with his back to the wall swinging the sacred sword against the onslaught of fanatic men. They fell before him, but more came on.
His hands could hardly hold the mighty weapon. For more than half an hour he had been fighting. He was weakening but he braced himself and swung for the last time.
There came a hammering at the door. It crashed in. Police clubs whistled right and left. The Chinese fled into their secret lairs.
* * * * *
"And I guess that will be all," panted Harry in the taxi that took them home. "I don't think you'll ask for any more adventures after this one."
"Why didn't you pick up the Joss's head?" replied Pauline. "It would have looked so nice and dreadful in the library?"
But the glory of her golden hair nestled upon his torn shoulder and he knew that he would go through all the perils in the world for happiness like this.