Bo-hai, the capricious and terrible, is not a silent waste after sundown.
With the descent of cold air from the heavens come buckling squalls of wind, plucking pillars of sand and dust from the surface and flinging them broadcast with a singing be-e-e-e of flying particles. Far out behind, carried on a wind from nowhere, reverberates at times the faint, unrhythmic banging of boutangs, the wailing of jins and nakra.
And there are voices. At times a rising squeal of Chinese chant makes itself distinct for a second but most often a low, formless murmur, as of howling monkeys heard from a distance of miles, is the constant undertone.
Roberts heard all these, but it was sight, not sound which absorbed him. Flitting scarecrows from the caves might approach soundlessly over the sand, but he did not believe they could reach him unseen.
He had not calculated upon the sand and dust. A squall came up, beating upon the watchers with a fusillade of fine, choking particles, and raising a screen before Roberts’ eyes. In the midst of this he heard dry coughs. Someone was out there, approaching with the shielding sand!
Still the watcher, alternately brushing grains of sand from his nostrils and eyes and peering along the barrel of his rifle, found no target. A sudden notion came to him that the marauders now were inside his camp, about to leap upon him.
He dropped the rifle, and seized two revolvers, shaking the sand and dust out of their muzzles.
As suddenly as it had risen, the veil lifted. Roberts, peering out eagerly, saw only a single bent, stumbling figure—a man who fell to his knees, head almost in the sand, and tried to arise.... A snap shot from the ready revolver stretched him flat, his breath leaving in a sharp exhalation like air drawn from a pneumatic tire.
In that instant Roberts stiffened. From out there ten paces had come a gasping sound. It was the wounded man, the desert rat.
“G’bye!” he wheezed. “G’bye ... never come ... back ... now....”