She began to whistle softly, and then a bit louder as she realized that she had whistled the call of the whip-poor-will. The police-dog got to his feet. She could hear the sinister rumbling of his throaty snarling. She saw the bull-dog waddling clumsily after him. They stood there, their coats bristling, their ears erect, their muzzles poked into the wire netting. And then a quick bark from quite the other side of the kennels.
She felt that numberless small eyes were peering out at her with betraying cunning. It seemed to her that innumerable dogs were rising from the ground; were rushing to the walls; were tearing out of their separate kennels.
She called then; called very low, in the hope that they might know her voice.
"China-Ching;—oh, China-Ching."
She was face to face with it now. All through the day she managed somehow to bear with it. Hideous as it was, deafening so that she could not hear, hated so that it made her physically ill. And now in the dead of night it was let loose; with the unlimited stillness of the night vibrating in grotesque, yapping echo, with the cold light of the moon spotting uncanny over the kennels, she had it. The yelping, the shrill, prolonged whines, the quick incessant barking; and running in growling under-current, the throaty, infuriated snarling.
She knew then that it was quite beyond hope that James should not hear them. She had to hurry. She began to run; and all the while she called in the same low voice:
"China-Ching;—I'm coming to you. Oh China-Ching—"
She pulled back the stiff, iron bolts. It took all her strength to do that. She opened the gate a bit, and slipped in, pushing it to, behind her.
And then she was among them. Their noise increased in volume,—pitched in a shriller note. The sudden rush of them threw her off her feet. Some of them leaped on her. She felt a sharp, stinging nip in her wrist. In a second she was up again.
"Down!" She commanded. "Down!"