I saw her that afternoon, before you went up at
night. Ah, yes, I could see, I could understand the spark that had
begun to grow in her, hope, a wild, impossible hope, and I prepared for
it by leaving you my message. I went away. I knew that in a few days
all that hope would be centered in you, that it would live and die in
you, that in the end it would be your word that would bring her to me.
And that word you must speak tonight. You must go to her, hope-broken.
You must tell her that no power on earth can save her, and that Kao
waits to make her a princess, that tomorrow will be too late, that
TONIGHT must the bargain be closed. She will come. She will save her
brother from the hangman, and you, in bringing her, will save John
Keith and keep Derwent Conniston's sister. Is it not a great reward for
the little I am asking?"
It was Keith who now smiled into the eyes of the Chinaman, but it was a
smile that did not soften that gray and rock-like hardness that had
settled in his face. "Kao, you are a devil. I suppose that is a
compliment to your dirty ears. You're rotten to the core of the thing
that beats in you like a heart; you're a yellow snake from the skin in.
I came to see you because I thought there might be a way out of this
mess.
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