At this he pitched forward, clawing with his hands at the body of one of the Yengi. Roberts saw that the dead Chinese had leather pads in place of hands at the end of his wrists....
With the melting away of the horde of Yengi, Roberts—bearing Bowen, who was unconscious part of the time—and Porterfield found a way out. At the surface they saw full two hundred of the lepers, yet none of the latter moved to attack. The instant the white men left the opening, the Yengi fought in swarms to return.
“I told them ... cure.... Maybe it is ... maybe not ...” gasped Bowen. He shuddered and lay still. Roberts held a dead man in his arms.
Nevertheless he stalked on to the place where the two Chinese had been left. Then he relinquished his burden. Porterfield gave over to him the eight-paneled jar which represented the whole of their achievement.
“On the way back each of us will eat a dozen of these eggs,” stated Roberts. “Bowen may be wrong, but I believe what he said. Those old emperors knew....”
At the camp Porterfield collapsed, sobbing. The full horror of what he had experienced had begun to seep down to his consciousness. Roberts cared for him.
“Then I take it you won’t be with me—when I go back?”
Porterfield roused himself. “Go back?” he cried. “I would not go back for all the wealth of the Indies! You don’t mean to say...?”