“I don’t doubt it for a moment,” says the surgeon quietly. Fung Wa Chun lit another cigarette, sipped his drink, and with his face as expressionless as a bronze Buddha, continued:— “At last I heard his footsteps on the stairs. My heart gave a jump. One step, two steps, three—would he never reach the landing? Then a pause and a faint chuckle. My revered relation was evidently slightly drunk. My hand trembled on the handle lest I should close the gates before he reached the landing. This staggering and halting was annoying, it made it difficult to count how many steps he had come up. He occasionally slipped back one, and I was getting into a fever of excitement, for the dim oil-wick I was using failed to illuminate the passage. Now he was standing on the stair and chuckling drunkenly to himself, curse him! Part of my revenge would be foiled by his having fuddled his wits with wine. I wanted him to feel all, every bit of it, and acutely too—now, perhaps, his sodden intellect might not appreciate all the refinement of horror I had stored up for him. After what seemed several minutes the sounds led me to suppose that he’d reached the top step, and there he stopped to cough and breathe hard. Then he staggered along the passage. My heart was thumping at my chest, I scarcely dared breathe. At last the moment had come. Turning the knob I heard the gates clang together, and seizing my pistol and the lamp I rushed to the grating. Inside I could see him, dazed and leaning against the wall, but no fear, no terror, only a silly drunken laugh as before. The dim light did not show his face. How was I to let him know in this his drunken state that it was I, the down-trodden servant, who was at last to hold him in this awful power?