"Good-by," and I jumped into the elevator.
Some two minutes afterwards, when I was creeping through the wool with my pistol in my hand, alert for the slightest sound around me, I heard the sharp crack of a rifle. It came from behind me. There was a perceptible interval and then another crack, followed, I could have sworn to it, by a thin wailing cry.
Then utter silence fell once more upon the white and muffled City.
As I ran I tried to steel myself, if that were as I suspected, the last dying cry of Pu-Yi, not to think about it. The immediate moment, the immediate future, these were everything.
All the extraordinary precautions had failed. The assassins were here! In what force? How had they come?—though that was useless to speculate on. Two things only remained. I must warn Morse if it was not already too late, must avenge him if it was. I resolutely put aside the thought of Juanita—of any personal feeling which might mar my judgment and unstring my nerves at this supreme and dreadful moment.
I found myself, somehow or other, at the entrance to the tunneled passage. Save for my own quick breathing there had not been a sound, and the horrible curtain of the fog was as thick as ever. Should I at once creep up to the Palace, or should I go back to the villa and find Rolston? It was a nice question and the decision had to be instantaneous. I decided that it would give me a tremendous advantage to have him with me, and besides that, he himself must be warned of the terror that lurked in the darkness of the cloud.
I arrived without any mishap, pushed open the door and was crossing the dark hall when my foot caught in some obstruction and I fell headlong. There was no time to cry out, had I been startled enough to do so, before something leapt upon my back with a soft yet heavy thud. A hand slipped over my mouth and the round barrel of a pistol was pressed into my neck.
I lay helpless, thinking that it was all over, when the weight lifted, the pistol was snatched away and I was hauled to my feet to discover—Rolston.
"Not a word," he whispered. "I set a trap in the hall, Sir Thomas. Thank God you are alive!"
"Thank God you are too. Bill, they've strangled Mulligan, killed another Chinese by torture and I am very much afraid have shot Pu-Yi as he was trying to get down to earth to summon help.