“Yes,” answered Rita languidly.
Mrs. Sin threw up the lid, and from the interior of the casket which, because of the glare of the moon light, seemed every moment to assume a new form, drew out a bronze lamp.
“The sacred lamp,” she whispered, and placed it on the sand. “Do you command that it be lighted?”
Rita inclined her head.
The lamp became lighted; in what manner she did not observe, nor was she curious to learn. Next from the large casket Mrs. Sin took another smaller casket and a very long, tapering silver bodkin. The first casket had perceptibly increased in size. It was certainly much larger than Rita had supposed; for now out from its shadowy interior Mrs. Sin began to take pipes—long pipes and short pipes, pipes of gold and pipes of silver, pipes of ivory and pipes of jade. Some were carved to represent the heads of demons, some had the bodies of serpents wreathed about them; others were encrusted with precious gems, and filled the night with the venomous sheen of emeralds, the blood-rays of rubies and golden glow of topaz, while the spear-points of diamonds flashed a challenge to the stars.
“Do you command that the pipes be lighted?” asked the harsh voice.
Rita desired to answer, “No,” but heard herself saying, “Yes.”
Thereupon, from a thousand bowls, linking that lonely palm to the remote horizon, a thousand elfin fires arose—blue-tongued and spirituous. Grey pencilings of smoke stole straightly upward to the sky, so that look where she would Rita could discern nothing but these countless thin, faintly wavering, vertical lines of vapor.
The dimensions of the lacquered casket had increased so vastly as to conceal the kneeling figure of Mrs. Sin, and staring at it wonderingly, Rita suddenly perceived that it was not an ordinary casket. She knew at last why its shape had struck her as being unusual.
It was a Chinese coffin.