“The end, when it comes, comes quickly.”
—An Adage of Hong Yo.
For a moment there was silence, then, as Kenyon watched, he saw long, shuddering spasms of laughter shake the emaciated frame of Hong Yo, while one yellow claw was weakly raised, pointing in ghoulish mirth at Forrester.
Kenyon felt his skin prickle.
“What a hideous beast!” he muttered, his face showing his repugnance. “If it were possible to see his soul, I wonder what it would look like?”
“You were longing for our society, were you?” spoke Hong Yo, in his slow, careful English. “And we had all but given you up.”
He was racked by a fit of coughing; Farbush led him to a chair, and when the paroxysm had subsided, he was breathless and almost without life.
“Will you sit down?” Forrester said to Farbush.
The latter did so, silently. He sat far back in the chair, drumming with noiseless fingers upon its arms, his hard eyes full of fury, his thin, cruel mouth shut in a straight line.
“Our friend Hong is to be the speaker, however,” concluded Kenyon, from his vantage behind the portières. “That seems to be understood between them.”