Suddenly through the swirling fog there appeared a light, which seemed to be suspended ten feet or so above the ground. It was moving slowly along in front of them—a murky light, like a blood-red mist.
Then Louie saw that it was the light suspended from the mast of a boat, and that the boat itself was moving slowly along before them, almost hidden by the banks of the canal. The tide must be out, he thought.
Ah Wing swung on through the night, and presently the man following him made out the silhouette of a building, perched above the canal. Louie slunk cautiously forward and saw that the boat, whose lantern he had previously observed, was making fast at that wharf.
Ah Wing leaped lightly to the sunken deck and disappeared down the companionway. Before Louie could decide what he was to do, the Chinaman reappeared and climbed back to the wharf. Louie had just time to slip into the shelter of a group of piling when the Chinaman passed the corner of the building.
And in his hand was another of the wire contrivances, filled with squirming, squeaking rats!
The white man felt his stomach doing queer antics. He had heard of Chinamen eating rats. Was that what this fellow was up to? What else could he want with them?
Ah Wing walked swiftly, and the man behind kept as close as he dared. Again they entered the grounds surrounding the big house, and the Oriental crossed to the basement stairs and went down. Louie paused in the bushes.
“I’m going to gamble,” he whispered suddenly to himself. “I’ll just sneak down those steps, and if he tries to come out before I can duck, I’ll bean him! I want to know what he’s up to!”
Stealthily, he approached the steps. All that he could see was a murky hole, into which the cement stairs disappeared. A step at a time he made his way down—
And then he paused, holding himself bent forward, rigid as a man of stone. From beyond the door which opened out of this pit came a strange sound, the like of which he had never before heard. It was like a jet of steam, or like sand sifting into a tin pail from a considerable height.