In spite of myself I shivered. Still my guide plodded on, turning and twisting through mean streets and byways, until at last he stopped at a dilapidated house and rapped four times upon the door.

It was opened immediately by another Chinaman who stood aside to let us pass in. The clanging to of the door behind me was the knell of my last hopes. I was indeed in the hands of the enemy.

I was now handed over to the second Chinaman. He led me down some rickety stairs and into a cellar which was filled with bales and casks and which exhaled a pungent odour, as of Eastern spices. I felt wrapped all round with the atmosphere of the East, tortuous, cunning, sinister⁠—

Suddenly my guide rolled aside two of the casks, and I saw a low tunnellike opening in the wall. He motioned me to go ahead. The tunnel was of some length, and it was too low for me to stand upright. At last, however, it broadened out into a passage, and a few minutes later we stood in another cellar.