"Miska!" he whispered despairingly.
He crossed to the window and was about to look out, when a high-pitched electric bell began to ring in the room.
Instantly Fo-Hi closed the screen and turned, looking in the direction from whence the sound of ringing proceeded. As he did so, a second bell, in another key, began to ring—a third—a fourth.
Momentarily the veiled man exhibited evidence of indecision. Then, from beneath his robe he took a small key. Approaching an ornate cabinet set against the wall to the left of one of the lacquer doors, he inserted the key in a hidden lock, and slid the entire cabinet partly aside revealing an opening.
Fo-Hi bent, peering down into the darkness of the passage below. A muffled report came, a flash out of the blackness of the river tunnel, and a bullet passed through the end of the cabinet upon which his hand was resting, smashing an ivory statuette and shattering the glass.
Hurriedly he slid the cabinet into place again and stood with his back to it, arms outstretched.
"Miska!" he said—and a note of yet deeper despair had crept into the harsh voice.
Awhile he stood thus; then he drew himself up with dignity. The bells had ceased.
Methodically Fo-Hi began to take certain books from the shelves and to cast them into the great metal bowl which stood upon the tripod. Into the bowl he poured the contents of a large glass jar. Flames and clouds of smoke arose. He paused, listening.
Confused voices were audible, seemingly from all around him, together with a sound of vague movements.