CHAPTER XIV
"Romola, I said no to Nara long ago."
She threw up her head.
"A woman should need to be informed but once that her love is notwanted. This is not what I meant."
"Ah! Another scheme! Your little brain is nothing short of an ideamachine. Remarkable! Go on."
"No," she said, rather sullenly, at this flow of bitterness, "avariation of my plan. If you will not accompany me to Nara, then Imust go alone. I must have money. Do you understand? I am penniless.The _King of Asia_ leaves for Japan to-morrow, at dawn. I will neverreturn to China. Will you--help me?"
"What do you mean by that? Will I break into the house and help yourob?"
"There is no other way. The money is in a desk, locked. I am notstrong enough to break the lock. You can. Then, too, there are somepapers of mine----"
"Romola, will this give you the contentment you desire?" he saidsternly.
"I--I think so. I hope so."
"Then I will help you."
"Oh, Peter, how can I----"
He lifted his hand. "You see, my dear, you can't frighten me--easily.You can't bribe me, Romola. But you can appeal to my weakness----"
"A woman in distress--your weakness!" But there was no mockery ineither her voice or her eyes. It was more like a whisper of regret.
"Romola, will you answer a question?"
"I'll try!"
"Why are beautiful women--girls--from all parts of the world stolen--towork in that mine?"
Romola looked at him queerly. "I do not know, Peter."
They attacked the dinner, and by deft stages Peter led the conversationto a lighter vein. It was nearly ten when they left, the dining-roomwas all but deserted and they departed in high spirits, her arm withinhis, her smile happy and apparently genuine.
"We must wait until midnight," she informed him. "He will be asleep;the servants will have retired."
Peter suggested a rickshaw ride through the Chinese city to while awaythe hours in between, but the girl demurred, and amended the suggestionto a street-car ride to Causeway Bay. He consented, and they caught acar in front of the hotel, and climbed to seats on the roof.
He felt gay, excited by the thrill of their impending danger. She wasmoody. In the bright moonlight on the crystal beach at Causeway Bay hetried to make her dance with him. But she pushed his arms away, andPeter, suddenly feeling the weight of some dark influence, he knew notwhat, fell silent, and they rode back to the base of the peak roadhaving very little to say.
At a few minutes past midnight they alighted from sedan chairs in thehairpin trail beside the incline railway station at the peak, and asthey faced each other, the moon, white and gaunt, slipped from sightbehind a billowing black cloud, and the heavens were black and thenight was dark around them.
She took his arm, leading him past the murky walls of the old fort, andon up and up the sloping, rocky road, dimly revealed at intervals bypoints of mysterious light.
They came at length to a high, black hedge, and, groping cautiouslyalong this for a number of yards, found a ragged cleft. He held thebranches aside while she climbed through with a faint rustle of silkenunderskirts. He followed after.
By the dim, ghostly glow of the clouds behind which the moon wasfloating he made out ominous shapes, scrawny trees and low, stuntedbushes.
Hand in hand, with his heart beating very loudly and his breath burningdry in his throat, they approached the desolate, gloomy house--her home!
A low veranda, perhaps a sun-parlor, extended along the wing, andtoward this slight elevation the girl stealthily led him, without somuch as the cracking of a dry twig underfoot, peering from left toright for indications that their visit was betrayed.
But the house was still, and large and gloomy, and as silent as thehalls of death.
They climbed upon the low veranda. The girl ran her fingers along theFrench window which gave upon the hedged enclosure, and drew back upongreased hinges the window, slowly, inch by inch, until it yawned, wideopen.
He followed her into a room, dark as black velvet, weighted with theindescribable, musty odors of an Oriental abode, and possessed of analmost sensuous gloom, a mystic dreariness, a largeness which knew nodimensions.
As Peter cautiously advanced he was impressed, almost startled, by thesense of vastness, and he was aware of great, looming proportions.
Close at hand a clock ticked, slowly, drearily, as if the release ofeach metallic click of the ancient cogs were to be the last, beatinglike the rattling heart of a man in the arms of death. This noise,like a great clatter, seemed to fill all space.
And he was alone.
Suddenly a yellow light glowed in the dark recesses of the highceiling, and Peter sprang back with his hand on the instant inside hiscoat, where depended in its leather shoulder-sling the automatic.
Across the great room the girl raised a steady hand, indicating a deskof gigantic size, of ironwood or lignum-vitae.
He found himself occupying the center of an enormous mandarin rug, withletterings and grotesque designs in rich blood-reds, and blues andyellows and browns. He gave the room a moment's survey before fallingto the task.
The walls of this cavern were of satin, priceless rugs, which hungwithout a quiver in the breathless gloom. Massive furniture, chairs,tables, settees, of teak, of ebony and dark mahogany, with deepcarvings, glaring gargoyles and hideous masks, were arranged with anapparent lack of plan.
And against the far wall, with a face like the gibbous moon, stood amassive clock of carved rosewood, clacking ponderously, almostpainfully, as if each tick were to be its last.
Peter crouched before the desk, examining the heavy lock on the drawer,and accepted from the girl's hand a tool, a thick, short, blunt chisel.He inserted the blunt edge of this instrument in the narrow crack,and----
A muffled sob, a moan, a stifled cry!
He sprang to his feet, with his hand diving into his coat, and thefingers he wrapped about the butt of the automatic were as cold as ice.
Romola Borria was cringing, shrinking as if to efface herself from aterrible scene, against the French window, and staring at him with alook of wild imploration, of horror, of--death!
From three unwavering spots along the wall to his left glittered theblue muzzles of revolvers!
Peter dropped to his knees, leaped backward, pointed by instinct, andfired at the lone yellow light in the ceiling.
Darkness. An unseen body moved. Metal rattled distantly upon wood.And metal clanked upon metal. Darkness, black as the grave, and asominous.
A white, round spot remained fixed upon his retina, slowly fading. Theface of the clock. The hands, like black daggers, had pointed to tenminutes of one. Ten minutes of life! Ten minutes to live! Or--less?
Silence, broken only by the reluctant _click-clack, click-clack_ of therosewood clock.
If he could reach the window! Then a low, convulsed sobbing occurredclose to his ear. The girl groped for his arm. She was shaking,shaking so that his arm trembled under it.
"Your final card!" he whispered. "The final trick! God! Now, damnyou, get me out of this!"
"I can't. I--I---- Oh, God! Kill me! I gave you every chance. Theyforced me--forced me to bring you here. They would have strangled me,just as they strangled the other!" She seemed to steady herself whilehe listened in growing horror.
"Safe!" he groaned. "Safety for you. Death--for me! You--you led meinto their hands, and I--I trusted you. I trusted you!"
She laid a cold, moist hand over his lips, this devil-woman.
"Hush! If they, if he, so much as guessed that I cared for you, that Iloved you, it would mean my death. I was forced--forced to bring youhere. Don't you understand? And if he even guessed. But you had yourchance. You had your chance!"
Almost hysterically she was endeavoring to extenuate her crime, hertreason.
"Stand up and face them. Meet your death! Escape is--impossible!Impossible! They are wa
tching you like a rat. In a moment they knowyou can stand this strain no longer! Face them, I say! Show themthat----"
Peter pushed her away from him in loathing, and she lay still, onlywhimpering.
Yet the devils of darkness--where were they? And slowly, yet moreslowly, the rosewood clock ticked off its seconds. It should be nearlyone. At one----
A fighting chance?
Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China Page 32
