“Let the knife be sharp. Then strike swiftly, and linger not.”
—The Creed of the Tongman.
KENYON, following Faing Sen, found himself in a long passage similar to the one which led from the street, only more dim and evil-smelling. At the end of this, with much groaning and panting and showering of evil wishes upon the young man, the hag raised a trap-door and bid him go down. But he shook his head and motioned for her to go first. Her little eyes gleamed wickedly in the candle-light; but she went down into the cellar obediently, Kenyon following close behind.
The place was damp and foul; the yellow flame flickered dimly upon the slimy walls and threw grotesque dancing shadows before them.
“Beautiful!” muttered Kenyon, as he peered through the darkness. “A perfectly lovely place to meet a man with a grudge against one.”
But Faing Sen waddled stumpily along, with never a look to the right or the left. Once the light was extinguished suddenly, and the long Colt came out like a flash, while Kenyon pressed with tight-shut lips against the wall. But in a moment a match scratched crackingly, and he saw Faing Sen calmly rekindling the wick.
Then they moved forward once more. Kenyon counted four times that they passed through openings cut in the foundation walls; then they came to a low, heavy door, upon which the hag knocked.
After some whispering, this was opened and they found themselves in a small, square chamber with plastered walls, some mats upon a cemented floor, and a large oil lamp which hung from the ceiling. It was a shriveled old man who had admitted them. His face was small, bony, and wrinkled like an ape’s; he wore a pair of huge, horn-rimmed Chinese spectacles, and his toothless jaws were in constant motion. He and the hag consulted.
“Who, O daughter of Faing Lo, is this whom you have brought to the place of quietness?”
“A strange white devil whom Hong Yo much wants to see. And he is sharp like the wolf and does not trust women.”
She cackled with laughter and stole a quick look at the young American. The old man bared his purple gums in a horrid grin and nodded his shaven head many times.
“Sometimes men are that way,” mumbled he. “It is wisdom to be so. When a youth I had seven wives.”
They chuckled and grinned like a couple of gleeful ghouls; then the old woman took up the candle and made her way back by the way she had come. The old man turned to Kenyon and motioned for him to be seated upon a mat under the lamp. He bowed and smiled in what was meant for an affable manner, while he said in his native tongue:
“Dog of an unbeliever, thou who art too mean to excite the anger of even the least of the gods, sit there.” Then in English he added: “Velly nice ‘Melican’ young man! Hong Yo will come in glate hully up. Me Sing Wang; velly old and velly nice.”
He tottered out of the room through a curtained doorway, leaving Kenyon looking after him, a smile upon his face.
“You old rat,” muttered the American amusedly. “Yes, you are very nice, indeed; I’ll venture to say that that shrunken arm of yours has in its day driven many a knife home into some poor devil’s back.” He looked curiously about, his keen eyes missing nothing. “Hong Yo takes many precautions when he receives visitors. I wonder why?”
He waited for some time, but Sing Wang did not return. Then he became aware of the murmur of voices engaged in altercation, some deep toned and angry; others shrill and wickedly pitched. Then in the midst of it came a woman’s scream. His heart, for a second or two, stopped beating; he recalled the girl who had entered the “Far East,” and the impressions that she had awakened came back to him like a flash. Without an instant’s hesitation he tore aside the curtains and leaped with long, soft-footed, pantherish bounds up a narrow stairway in the direction of the sounds.
At the head of the stairs was a door which stood partly open; thrusting this wide, Kenyon found himself in a sort of square hall from which opened many other doors. They were all closed, but from over one a bright light shone through an open transom. It was from behind this door that the voices came; Kenyon softly grasped the knob and gave it a turn; but the door was fastened. Pausing a moment, wondering what he had better do, he heard a single high-pitched, but wavering, voice, demanding.
“Forrester! I want Forrester! He is the man that brought me here first. I don’t know the rest of you in this matter. He wrote to me at Butte to come to New York; I had a good thing there, but he said that he had a better one. And when he got me into that damned hole, Selden’s Square, he done me up.”
“By heaven, it’s the man from Butte!” was Kenyon’s mental exclamation.
“If you want this person, Forrester, why do you come here?” came the voice of Hong Yo. There was no mistaking the hollow tone, and the slow, precise English. “We have told you that there is no such man here, and that we know nothing of him.”
“Don’t take me for a fool,” spoke the voice of the man from the mines, “I know what he wrote me. I know the game and the players. You say you don’t know Forrester, eh? Well, let the girl speak; her eyes tell me that she knows different.”
There was a broken-backed chair in the hall; Kenyon placed it at the door; when he stood upon it his eyes were on a level with the transom.
In a large chair directly opposite sat Hong Yo. His emaciated figure was almost lost in the folds of a flowing, flowered robe; his yellow claws were clasped before him; more than ever his fleshless face and shaven crown made him look like a death’s-head; his rat-like eyes still shone from their narrowed, puckered slits. Near the Chinaman sat the man whom Kenyon at once recognized as the one Webster had described to him at the Waldorf. Before them, leaning weakly against the edge of a table, stood the one whom the ex-lieutenant of Nunez had seen in the public room of the Far East; despite his bandaged head and the evident pain he was suffering, his front was a bold one. But what riveted Kenyon’s attention was the girl who was being held in a chair at one side. Sing Wang and two hard-faced coolies guarded her; and a handkerchief was tied about her mouth.
And it was the girl! The girl of the hansom cab! The young man’s heart leaped. Then a fierce anger swept over him, and his hand went swiftly to the long, smooth-barreled revolver.
“You don’t dare to let her speak,” proceeded the man from Butte, defiantly. “Because you know you lie. You’ve double crossed me for some reason, and I’m going to get square. I’ll fix you all; you, you dying devil,” pointing to Hong Yo, “and you, my respectable Mr. Farbush; for all your pull and high pretensions, I’m on to your game, and I’ll open it wide for this whole town of New York to see.”
Kenyon saw Hong Yo rise. It cost him a great effort, but he stood straight up. A fit of coughing racked him; then he drew a handkerchief from his blouse and touched his lips, while he took several steps toward the Westerner.
“You must not do this,” spoke he. He returned the handkerchief to the bosom of his blouse; and the hand lingered there.
“Must not,” cried the other. “It’s easy to see that you don’t know me. I’m going to get all your hides for this, and there is nothing that you can say or do that will stop me.”
As the last words were spoken Kenyon saw the yellow, skeleton-like hand flash out, and caught the light as it played for a second upon the side of a knife-blade. Then he leaped down and threw himself like a catapult against the door. As luck would have it, it opened inward, and his weight and power told at the very first plunge. The door fell in with a splintering crash, just as a wild scream broke from the lips of the girl.
HE STOOD FOR A MOMENT IN THE DOORWAY
At moments like these Steele Kenyon was like ice. Small things might shake or annoy him, but sudden perils seemed to steady his nerves and clarify his thoughts. With one hand plunged into his pocket grasping the Colt, he stood for a moment in the doorway. Upon the floor before him lay the man with the bandaged head; Hong Yo had fallen back into his chair, his breath whistling in his throat, the knife, now dripping with blood, still held in his hand. Farbush was upon his feet, while the girl had broken away from those who held her and was gazing with horror at the stricken man.
“Oh, you cowards,” she whispered, “you have murdered him. He was helpless and in your power, and you have murdered him.”
Her eyes accusingly sought the face of Hong Yo, then that of Farbush and lastly Kenyon’s. And the burning scorn that was in them was a thing to see.
“I did not see you, at first, of course,” she said to Kenyon, and there was a bitterness in her tone that made him wince. “But I might have known that you would be present when such work was going forward.”
She gave way a step or two, her eyes filled with horror as he reached out one hand impulsively toward her. He drew in a sharp breath, like a man who is suddenly drenched with cold water; but it steadied him and brought the fact suddenly before him that he was not there to set himself right in her eyes, but to have an accounting with the others.
From the instant of his entrance the eyes of Hong Yo and Farbush had never left his face; the three other Chinaman stood stolidly to one side, apparently awaiting orders. Now Hong Yo spoke, breathlessly, but his frail body seemed to sway with fury:
“You did not wait then, Mr. Kenyon?”
“How could you expect it?” asked the latter coolly. “So much of interest was being transacted here that I could not contain myself. You cannot expect to monopolize all the thrills in this affair while I am concerned in it.”
At this there came a short, harsh laugh from Farbush; the man had reseated himself and was gazing at Kenyon with evident admiration.
“I think Mr. Kenyon is right,” said he. “As he is partly in for any consequences that might have to be borne, it is only just that he should have a voice in directing things.”
“Just so,” said Kenyon, evenly. “And let me remark that I don’t altogether approve of such work as I see. It is coarse.” He looked down at the body with distaste, and then lifted his eyes to the men, once more. “Not that Hong Yo does not do a neat and effectual job,” continued he, in his even tone. “His present performance speaks for itself and plainly shows past experience. But I dislike this smeary sort of business. It is not,” and his white, well-kept hand gestured fastidiously, “a desirable method at all.”
There was a slight movement behind him in the hall; the impulse was still forming in his mind to wheel and face what might be a grave danger, when a voice—the voice of Forrester—whispered:
“Stand as you are! Don’t move.”
Then Kenyon felt the girl brush by him through the doorway. Farbush sprang up, as he caught the movement, shouting:
“Stop her!”
Hong Yo came weakly to his feet, his fleshless hands clawing the air; Farbush and the coolies leaped forward, but Kenyon’s stalwart form blocked their way.
“I think,” said the young adventurer, quietly, “that it is best that she should go. I have something to say to you, gentlemen, that it would be as well to go over in private.”
They halted, glaring at him, as he stood leaning nonchalantly against the door-frame. His top-coat had fallen open, showing his immaculate evening dress, his level eyes were fixed steadfastly upon them; his right hand secretly caressed the grip of the long revolver. And from somewhere in the building came the sound of racing feet which constantly grew fainter and fainter.