“You may as well let me go first,” gasped his conductor from behind him. “You don’t know the way, and you might scare the Chinaman. He said he had a gun.”
Barron stood aside for him to pass and then followed the nimble figure as it darted up the second flight. The boy was evidently nearing the top, when he sang out:
“Ah, there, Lee! It’s me coming back.”
There was an unmistakable Chinese guttural from somewhere, and then Barron himself rose above the stair-top. A black mass of garden lay before him, with the bulk of a large house a short distance back. Many windows were lit, and in one he saw a woman standing. Their light fell out over the garden, barring it with long rectangular stripes of brilliance. The wild bark of the dog rose from the house and on the unseen walk the Chinaman’s footsteps could be heard crunching the pebbles.
“Is she there yet, Lee?” said the boy in a hissing whisper.
The Chinaman’s affirmative grunt rose from the darkness of massed trees, into which his footsteps continued to retreat.
“This way,” said his conductor to Barron. “But hang it all, it’s so dark we can’t see.”
“Where is she?” said Barron. “Never mind the light. Show me where she is. Mariposa!” he said suddenly, in a voice which, though low, had a quality so thrilling it might have penetrated the ear of death.
The garden, rain-swept and rustling, grew quiet. The sound of the Chinaman’s footsteps ceased, even the panting breath of the boy was suddenly suspended.
In this moment of pause, when nature seemed to quell her riot to listen, a woman’s voice, sweet and soft, rose out of impenetrable darkness: