Kao held
the winning hand, the hand that put him back to the wall in the face of
impossible alternatives. These alternatives flashed upon him swiftly.
There were two and only two--flight, and alone, without Mary Josephine;
and betrayal of Miriam Kirkstone. Just how Kao schemed that he should
accomplish that betrayal, he could not guess.
His voice, like his face, was cold and strange when it answered the
Chinaman; it lacked passion; there was no emphasis, no inflection that
gave to one word more than to another. And Keith, listening to his own
voice, knew what it meant. He was cold inside, cold as ice, and his
eyes were on the dais, the sacrificial altar that Kao had prepared,
waiting in the candleglow. On the floor of that dais was a great splash
of dull-gold altar cloth, and it made him think of Miriam Kirkstone's
unbound and disheveled hair strewn in its outraged glory over the thing
Kao had prepared for her.
"I see. It is a trade, Kao. You are offering me my life in return for
Miriam Kirkstone."
"More than that, John Keith. Mine is the small price. And yet it is
great to me, for it gives me the golden goddess. But is she more to me
than Derwent Conniston's sister may be to you? Yes, I am giving you
her, and I am giving you your life, and I am giving Peter Kirkstone his
life--all for ONE.
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