True to his word they suddenly turned a corner, and a little way ahead saw the glare of incandescent lights, the strange, oriental-looking shops and filthy doorways of the Yellow Quarter. The slant-eyed Celestials thronged the streets, some lank and wolf-like, others fat and placid, but all members of murderous Tongs, and for the most part carrying deadly weapons concealed in their loose blouses. Here and there was a blue-coated policeman; now and then a white woman with painted cheeks and sunken eyes could be seen staring through the dirty panes of an upper window. Suddenly a great, illuminated sign flared into view which bore the name in letters formed of hideous green light: THE FAR EAST “This, I suppose, is the place you spoke of,” said Kenyon. Forrester nodded. “This way,” he directed. They did not enter by the wide, glaring door of the place, in which stood some drunken marines, a Chinaman or two, and a clump of women of the street. Instead they used a small, dark, side door, and after descending a narrow passage found themselves in a room in which a fat old Chinese woman sat crouched upon a mat before what looked like an iron pot full of red coals. Immediately upon their entrance she began a muttering in her own sing-song tongue, but never once lifted her eyes. Before going to South America to join Nunez in his expedition against Uruguay, Kenyon had served the Chinese Government in the brief war with Japan. So he was more or less familiar with the language. “Curse-laden beast of a white devil!” crooned the hag. “And have you come back, once more? May there be no dawn in your days, forever; and may the gates of sorrow close you in!” “A very gentle-dispositioned old lady,” was Kenyon’s amused thought. “Apparently Forrester is not very popular with her.” But Forrester did not understand the old woman’s words, nor did he pay the slightest attention to her. “I’ll have to ask you to remain here for a few moments,” said he to Kenyon, in an apologetic tone. “You see, it’s necessary for me to locate the people we want; and these places are regular rabbit warrens when you get into them right.” He left the room by another door. Kenyon sat upon the edge of a table and listened to the mutterings of the hag, for she had continued in her reviling, still keeping her eyes bent downward. “Fatherless worm!” she proclaimed. “Your pale eyes are like the fish, and your soul is as narrow as my thumb-nail.” From somewhere in the distance came a fit of coughing, weak, ominous, rattling. “Yo has the mind of an infant to trust to the white devils. The more he coughs the more he trusts.” She held her fat, lumpy hands over the coals and spat contemptuously upon the floor. “He should keep his eyes and his knife sharp. The ghosts of his holy ancestors watch from the past and expect much.” “One of the unassimilated,” thought Kenyon.