"No. He refused to take a penny. He seemed anxious to get rid of the fan, and kept looking round everywhere as though he thought someone might be listening. I asked him how the fan could tell about the death, but all he said, was, that it could."
"But in what way?" asked Ainsleigh, puzzled.
"I really don't know," said the Major, with an air of fatigue. "I am telling you all I know. I took the fan and cleared, and got home safely enough. Then I hid away the fan--where it doesn't matter; but I have travelled so much that I always keep a secret place for money and valuables. I placed the fan there, though I really didn't know what to make of the matter. After a few days I came to my rooms to find that everything had been ripped open and smashed and searched--"
"And the fan was gone," said Rodgers.
"Not it. They--whosoever they were who searched, could not find my hiding place. Well, a day or two later, as I was walking along the street at night, I was seized up and gagged, and carried to some low Chinese house. There a Chinaman examined me, and asked me what I had done with the fan--"
"What sort of a man was he?" asked Rupert, "would you know him again?"
The Major looked doubtful. "Chinamen are all so alike," he said, "but this chap had only one eye, and was a villainous looking beast. He declared that he knew the first Celestial had given me the fan, and that he wanted it. I refused to give it up. He took out a knife, and said he would slice me up. Oh," broke off the Major looking grey and old, "however shall I forget that terrible moment, Ainsleigh. Do you wonder that I shudder to relate this adventure, and that I refuse to speak of it. I was in that miserable place, in the midst of a horde of Chinamen, bound and helpless, with a knife at my throat. I never did care for death," said Tidman boldly, "but to be cut slowly into slices, was more than I could stand."
"Why didn't you give up the fan then?" asked Rodgers.
"Because I made up my mind that slicing or no slicing, I wasn't going to be bullied by a lot of heathen devils. The position was awful, but I'm an Englishman, and I resolved to hold off to the last moment, I dare say I would have given up the fan after all, as the one-eyed brute began to cut me up, I lost a big toe--"
"Oh," said Rupert, while Rodgers shook his head, "did this man cut a toe off?"