On another wall beside the one door hung a rug of pale-blues and yellows, bearing the five-clawed dragon of the imperial family of China; it could have come from no place save the imperial palace, so much Hammer knew.
These were but two of the many which struck his eye in that first moment, and utterly bewildered, he sat up, feeling slightly dizzy but perfectly sound, save for a slight pain in his head. As he sat, a voice came to him; at first he took it for Harcourt's, then recognized his error.
"I have notified the authorities, Mr. Solomon, as you wished, and have no doubt that all will be right as far as you are concerned. No, I am sorry that there is no hope whatever; this bally fever has complicated the thing, don't you know, and I am frank to say that I can do nothing. He'll be conscious for an hour or so before——"
The voice died away, and Hammer sat staring dumbly at the Ming dragon, for now he recalled that wild dream he had had. What was going on here, anyway? Where was he?
Suddenly conscious of hunger and a feverish thirst, he seized a glass of water from the ebony stand and drained it. As he set it down the door opened, and into the room came John Solomon, holding open the door for Sara Helmuth, pale-faced but steady-eyed as ever.
He could do nothing but stare at them blankly, Solomon, his pudgy face very pale, heaped up a large rug for the girl at the head of the bed; and as she sat down she looked up at Hammer with a smile, but it was a smile that struck a cold fear to his heart.
"What's the matter?" he asked hoarsely. "For Heaven's sake talk!"
"You tell him, Mr. Solomon," and there was a catch in the girl's voice. Solomon nodded and sank down on a rug with his legs crossed: Hammer noted absent-mindedly that he wore dingy carpet-slippers and held his empty clay-pipe in one hand.
"Mr. 'Ammer, sir," the supercargo cleared his throat, "let me say first as 'ow you're all right, or will be after a bit, though you've been off your 'ead for a matter o' three days. You're in my own 'ouse, sir, and werry safe you are, if I do say it as shouldn't. It's a werry crooked story, sir—dang it, Mr. 'Ammer, don't interrupt!"
For a wonder the last words were so irritably shot out that Hammer sank back, listening, his questions stilled. So he heard what had chanced, with a slowly-gathering horror in his heart, and a great grief filling his soul, for the words of John Solomon bit into him ineffaceably.