Part 61 (1/2)

He wondered how he could adjust himself to the routine of his old profession again, if that was the opportunity awaiting him in Len Yang.

Governmental problems, he knew, would have to be given to more specialized men, such perhaps as Kahn Meng.

He looked behind him, at the long line of men stretched down the narrow ravine like the tail of a colossal serpent. Occasionally a stone, dislodged, clattered down into the crevices. Above them the rock stretched and lost itself in the cold purple of the night. The moon carved out vast shadows, black and threatening.

They emerged at length into a broader valley, jagged with spires flas.h.i.+ng with gleams of the moon on frequent mirror-like surfaces. Ten thousand men could have been concealed in this desolate cavern. Yet it rang with emptiness as, far arear, a steel prod struck powdery fire from the flinty path.

Hours seemed to pa.s.s as they advanced, descending constantly. At times the granite walls nearly met above them, and then a shaft of moonlight would cast freakish shapes across their vision.

Once they paused for rest near a torrential stream. Some lingered to drink. The blackness in the sky was yielding itself to the spectral glow of the new day when Kahn Meng gave the order to halt.

He took Peter aside and explained his procedure. His plan was to send fifty men through the tunnel to the main shaft to subdue the guards; the remainder of the armed coolies, numbering about one hundred and fifty, would follow, forming a protective chain to the black door, an underground entrance.

”There should be no trouble, no confusion--a bloodless revolution,” he added with a nervous, elated laugh. ”I will occupy the place--you will follow. Wait ten minutes.”

Peter nodded.

”A tunnel, fairly straight, leads from here directly to the black door.

Have your revolver in readiness. My men may not make a clean job. The mine guards carry clubs. Each of my coolies has a rifle.” Kahn Meng's eyes in the light of a torch were glittering excitedly. He grasped Peter's nearest hand in his enthusiasm.

”We are so near! Only a step!” He laughed wildly, lifted his voice ecstatically to a sing-song and chanted from Ouan-Oui: ”Then----

”'Let us rejoice together.

and fill our porcelain goblets with cool wine!'”

CHAPTER XIV

Now Peter was an emotional young man. And wrathful notions were kindled in him before he encountered the only guard Kahn Meng's men had overlooked--may the bones of that one rest gently!

He saw little children clawing in red muck; he saw young girls with sunken b.r.e.a.s.t.s, their former beauty a wretched caricature, carrying dying babes upon their backs. He saw tired old men, and women, crippled, blind, with red fingers and wrists, as if they had been dipped in blood. He saw plenty to enrage him.

Kahn Meng's guards bowed gravely as he pa.s.sed them at tunnel pa.s.sages.

He had walked perhaps three-quarters of an hour generally in a single direction, bearing a torch, when he collided with a smooth, flat obstruction.

Somewhere in the earth distantly behind him occurred a metallic rumble, followed by a gust of soft wind, fragrant with the outdoors.

He was staring at blackness, the varnished blackness of a great wooden door. He was at the threshold! somewhere on the other side of that enormous wooden barrier was the man of Len Yang! Chalked boldly upon the surface was the legend:

P. M.--straight on--K. M.

Pulling with his fingers and bracing his feet in the rough floor, the ma.s.s moved monumentally toward him. It swung wide, on great, concealed hinges.

Peter's adventurous heart was beating an excited battle call. His burning eyes strained beyond the ruddy luminance of the torch, and examined--white marble! He was at his journey's end--somewhere in the palace of the Gray Dragon!

Peter dragged the great door softly shut behind him, and found himself in a chamber of vast proportions, built of what had at one time been purest white marble, discolored entirely now by the red taint of the b.l.o.o.d.y ore. The floor was perspiring redly.

Going on tiptoe to the center of the s.p.a.ce, he searched the blank walls, listening breathlessly.