The keeper looked up at the stolid countenance of Kwon Guet, saw a shred of the white meat of a chicken and a grain of rice on his lower lip, and then dropped face downward on the floor as if he had been shot.
He grovelled in abject terror while the assistant gazed at him with wondering eyes, until he, too, looked up, saw the same sight, and then he went down beside his master. There they both lay until combining their courage, they crept fearfully backward beyond the range of the vision of those green jade eyes.
“It is a curse,” whispered the keeper, and the other nodded his head, too frightened to speak.
That was only the beginning, for as fast as the offerings were brought they disappeared, and nothing was left but empty dishes. For eight days this continued, and then, on the night of that day, the keeper, grown bold, found the desire to see a god eat growing in his heart. So when the lights in the shops had gone out and the noises in the street had died down to whispers, he went out into the darkened temple and sat in a corner with his back against the wall. The flickering lamps burned dimly and cast long shadows across the bare floor and with solitude came fear. He looked at the heaped-up dishes hungrily and then at the joss, but the religion of his ancestors held him fast, and what might have been nothing more nor less than a block of wood to another man of another race was something to him that was endowed with the power to pardon and punish or even cause instant death.
Suddenly there came to him a noise like a sigh, long-drawn out and deep, and as he shrunk back still further in his corner he felt the blood in his veins run cold. A dish moved and his lower jaw dropped as though he had been stricken with death. Something seemed to wind itself about that bit of crockery and drag it slowly in until it disappeared, but there was no sound. His breath came in gasps and he felt as if he would choke. Then he saw the dish replaced with the food gone. Those same unseen hands took another one and still another, but he didn’t see, for he had sagged down in a lifeless heap and terror had numbed his senses. As he went over he groaned aloud, and there was a sudden movement back of the altar which almost caused Kwon Guet to topple over.
At three o’clock in the morning Chuck Connors, with his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, was walking along Mott street, homeward bound, when a Chinese girl came running out of the joss house door. So great was her speed that she almost collided with him.
“Ha, there, git onto yerself,” said Chuck, putting up his hands to fend off an imaginary blow: “wot are yer tryin’ ter do—shoot de shoots?”
“Velly much aflaid,” said the girl, looking behind her.
“Well, wot de yer t’ink uv dat,” said Chuck, “Who’s chasin’ yer, anyhow?” and he took a step toward the doorway.
But she wouldn’t have it that way, and taking hold of his arm she almost dragged him away from the place. Chuck knows a little Chinese and a lot of pidgin-English, and he managed to get some kind of a story out of the girl, and then he took her home and put her in the care of Mrs. Chuck until the morning. The next day she was taken to a mission house in Brooklyn, where she stayed until one night when a sporty laundryman smuggled her away to Savannah, Ga.