“It’s a curse that I’ve carried through life like an incubus. A thousand times has it held me back when I’ve had victories in my very hands. Look at the case with old Stephen. Hong did not trust me. He made me plead my disability in order that the old man should not tell me too much, and so give me an advantage over himself and Farbush! Oh, if I could only shake it off! If I could only rid myself of it for good!” The girl was still comforting him when there came the steady tramp of footsteps upon the hard ground without and the sound of voices. “They have come!” Kenyon heard the girl exclaim, and there was terror in her tones. “Be brave!” Forrester whispered, as the great hall door opened, and a gust of cold air swept through the passage and into the rooms in a way that made the lights dance. Then footsteps were heard in the hall--slow, painful footsteps--and the door closed with a bang. Kenyon peered through the portières to get a view of the newcomers. He saw Forrester and Anna standing beside a table in the centre of the room. In a doorway stood Farbush, his face white and ominous with rage; and leaning upon him was Hong Yo, looking like the spectre of death itself, but gazing at the young man and girl with laughing mockery in his slit-like eyes. XXIII WHAT KENYON HEARD AND SAW “The end, when it comes, comes quickly.” --_An Adage of Hong Yo._ FOR a moment there was silence, then, as Kenyon watched, he saw long, shuddering spasms of laughter shake the emaciated frame of Hong Yo, while one yellow claw was weakly raised, pointing in ghoulish mirth at Forrester. Kenyon felt his skin prickle. “What a hideous beast!” he muttered, his face showing his repugnance. “If it were possible to see his soul, I wonder what it would look like?” “You were longing for our society, were you?” spoke Hong Yo, in his slow, careful English. “And we had all but given you up.” He was racked by a fit of coughing; Farbush led him to a chair, and when the paroxysm had subsided, he was breathless and almost without life. “Will you sit down?” Forrester said to Farbush. The latter did so, silently. He sat far back in the chair, drumming with noiseless fingers upon its arms, his hard eyes full of fury, his thin, cruel mouth shut in a straight line. “Our friend Hong is to be the speaker, however,” concluded Kenyon, from his vantage behind the portières. “That seems to be understood between them.” After a few moments the Chinaman had recovered somewhat, but when he spoke it was in a faint, gasping wheeze. “That was a pretty ruse--that of the yacht.” Forrester stared at the speaker in surprise. “The yacht?” said he inquiringly. A ghastly grin crossed Hong Yo’s face; he waved a hand in a feeble gesture of impatience. “We met her before she had passed North Brother Island. We expected to find you on board--and these,” pointing to the securities upon the table. Forrester laughed.