“Yea, seventy times seven shall thy days be after my cycle is broken. Then, at this hour, shall I return that the thing may be accomplished after Lord Buddha’s law.”
Then the voice ceased, the halo faded. I felt the bed rebound as she jumped to the floor, and there I heard the soft padding of her feet down the passageway.
I awoke with a shriek. My forehead was damp with sweat. My teeth were chattering. I looked and saw that my door was wide open. I leaped out of bed and turned on the light. Was it a hideous dream, a fearful nightmare?
I do not know. But, lying there on the coverlet, was the wet muddy body of Toi Wah’s kitten.
A live and famished man-eating tiger in the room could not have inspired me with greater terror. I dared not touch the cold dead thing. I dared not remain in the room with it.
I fled down the stairs, stumbling over furniture in the lower hall, until I reached the houseman’s room. Here I knocked and begged, with chattering teeth, to be allowed to remain on a couch in his room until morning, telling him I had been frightened by a dreadful dream.
Early the next morning I secretly took the dead kitten out in the garden and buried it deep, putting a pile of stones over the grave; watching carefully for any glimpse of Toi Wah.
As I returned to the house, I met the old housekeeper, who stood with an anxious face at the kitchen door.
“Master Robert, no wonder that you could not sleep the morn! Your poor grandmother passed away in the night. It must have been after midnight, for I did not leave her until the stroke of eleven.”
My heart leaped. Not for surprise or grief at my grandmother’s death. That was a thing to be expected, and the cold aristocratic old lady had not loved me over much.