I reflected a minute on her request, and she broke forth in rapid words:
"Do you think, if I am afraid, that you can make me confident by telling me that the dark won't bite me? Perhaps I am afraid--sometimes I do feel horribly scared--but don't you think I counted all the dangers before I made you bring poor little Moon Ying? There's one thing I'm more afraid of than all the rest of things put together, and that is the unknown thing. Let me know of a danger, and I'll be scared, and face it. But when I know it's there, and don't know what it is--that's the time I want to run. Now I saw in your face that you knew, or thought you knew, and were afraid. Please tell me what it is that you think."
She looked into my eyes with such a mixture of pleading and command that my reluctance to confide my fears to her melted away.
"The man," I replied, "was beyond doubt the old pirate who had Moon Ying in charge for the Hop Sing Tong."
"And you think he was on a reconnoitering expedition for his wicked society?"
"I have no doubt of it."
She considered the matter with a grave face and downcast eyes, and I regretted that I had confided my fears to her so bluntly. Then she asked:
"Do you think the highbinders will come here?"
"No, I don't. I do not believe there is courage enough in all the tongs in Chinatown to attack this house. They have a pretty clear idea of the sort of vengeance that would be taken on them, if they tried such a thing. The burning of Los Angeles' Chinatown was a lesson that they will remember a long time."
"Do you think it possible that your wicked tongsters might hire some white men to do what they don't dare do themselves?"