I prayed, almost audibly, for Pu-Yi.
But nobody came. There I was in the sexagonal room, with the gold dragons with their jeweled eyes leering at me.
A dull anger welled up within me. On every side, mentally as well as physically, I seemed baffled, hemmed in. I determined, at any risk to myself, to get out into the library. I took two steps towards the door through which Juanita had gone, when I heard a sharp snap just behind me.
I whipped round, clutching the only weapon I had—which was a brass knuckle-duster in the side pocket of my coat, and then I stood absolutely still.
One of the dragon panels had rolled up like a theater curtain, and standing in what appeared to be the end of a passage, was the great brute Mulligan, with a Winchester rifle at his shoulder, covering me.
As a man does in the presence of imminent danger, I swerved out of the line of the deadly barrel.
As I did so—click! A second panel disappeared, and I was confronted by Gideon Morse, his hands in the pockets of his dinner jacket, his mouth faintly smiling, his eyes inscrutable.
Imagine it! let the picture appear to you of the fool, Thomas Kirby, trapped like a rat!
Once, twice I swallowed in my throat, and I swear it wasn't from fear but only from an enormous, immeasurable disgust.
I turned to Morse.