Thomas Haydon stood for a moment with the wild, distraught look of one who sees a sight altogether beyond belief or reason, then he made to spring forward. But he was chained to the Kachins who stood upon either side of him, and two more leapt forward from their posts by the wall to check his movements. And again the mocking laughter of his enemies filled the room. But Thomas Haydon had neither eyes nor ears for them. He could only stare and stare upon his son as if he found it impossible to believe the evidence of his own sight. At last he spoke. "Jack!" he said in a tone of wonder beyond all wonder, "Jack, is it you?" Jack could not reply, for the gag effectually checked his utterance, but he nodded, and his eyes spoke for him. "My son here," murmured Thomas Haydon again, and a bitter groan broke from him. He could not restrain it; this last stroke was utterly beyond all human endurance. When his son had been mentioned by his unscrupulous enemy, his thoughts had flown thousands and thousands of miles, far away from the hot, glaring East, with its mysteries and dangers, to the cool, quiet English meadows amid which lay Rushmere School, where his only son, as he believed, worked and played in safety. And all the time Jack was within a few yards of him, hidden, a prisoner, behind the muslin curtain. How he had got there, how he had fallen into the terrible hands of U Saw, were the most insoluble of mysteries to the elder man, and he could only stare at his son with a white and ghastly face, for he knew only too well the character of the men in whose power they both lay. The jeering voice of the half-caste broke out on a high note of derision. "And is there no one among this den of thieves for whom you care, Mr. Haydon?" he cried. "If there is not, what an unnatural parent you must be!" A deep guttural chuckle from U Saw echoed this speech. The Ruby King said never a word from first to last. He sat on his cushions as one enjoying the play. His gross face was filled with an evil joy, his small dark cunning eyes twinkled for ever with laughter at the scene which was enacted before him, but he maintained, except for his laughter, a perfect silence, and there was something terribly uncanny and threatening about this. "Where has he come from?" asked Thomas Haydon, in a low and troubled voice. Yes, it was Jack, bound there; he was compelled to believe his own eyes at last. It was not an hallucination; it was a piece of dreadful fact, and in it the elder man saw his difficulties trebled upon the spot. "Oh, as to that, he will have plenty of opportunity to tell you himself in a short time," smiled the half-caste. "We shall shut you up together to talk things over. In the meantime, another piece of work demands U Saw's attention."