“How can they? What can they pin on you?” Connor's eye wavered back toward the grove and the buildings. He was again breathing hard. “After all this..” he muttered. “That old viceroy'll be up here, you know. With his mob, too. And there's plenty of people here to tell....” He was trying now to hold an arm across his middle in a position that would conceal the treasure there. Her glance followed the motion, and for a moment a faintly mocking smile hovered about her thin mouth. She said: “Saving those pearls for me, Tex?” He stared at her, fixed her with that one small eye, but offered not a word. A moment later, however, nervously signaling her to be still he brushed by and peeped out around the quinces. “What is it?” she asked quickly; then moved to his side. Immediately beyond the farthest of the marble bridges stood a group of ten or twelve soldiers in drunkenly earnest argument. Above them towered the powerful shoulders and small round head of Tom Sung. In the one quick glance she caught an impression of rifles slung across sturdy backs, of bayonets that seemed, at that distance, oddly dark in color; an impression, too, of confused minds and a growing primitive instinct for violence. Tom and another swayed toward the bridge; others drew them back and pointed toward the buildings they had left. The argument waxed. Voices were shrilly emphatic. “Looks bad,” said the girl at Connor's shoulder. “You've let 'em get out of hand, Tex.” Then, as she saw him nervously measuring with his eye the width of the open space between the quinces and the gate screen, she added, “Thinking of making a run for it, Tex?” He slowly swung that eye on her now; and for no reason pushed her roughly away. “It's none of your business what I'm going to do,” he replied roughly. But the voice was husky, and curiously light in quality. And the eye wavered away from her intent look. This creature fell far short of the Tex Connor of old. She spoke sharply. “Come up into this summer-house, Tex!” she indicated it with an upward jerk of her head. “They won't see us there, at first. You didn't see me. You've got your pistols. You can give me one. We ought to be able to stand off a few Chinese drunks.” She could see that he was fumbling about for courage, for a plan, in a mind that had broken down utterly. His growl of--“I'm not giving you any pistol!”--was the flimsiest of cover. And so she left him, choosing a moment when that loud argument beyond the bridges was at its height to run lightly up the steps and into the pavilion.