Shelford quickly retired to bed, and blew out the miserable oil-wick which served as a lamp. Then noticing that all was quiet in the inn, he cautiously got up, put on his clothes in the dark, arranged the blankets on the kang to look as if a man were sleeping there, and sat in a corner of the room with his revolver ready, awaiting events. He waited for quite two hours before anything occurred, and then faint footsteps could be heard approaching the door, and a glimmer of light appeared through its chinks. There was some whispering. The light rays through the chinks grew brighter, and at last a brilliant ray of light was directed through a hole in the door on the apparently sleeping figure on the kang. The light steadied on the recumbent figure, and then pistol shots rang out with a deafening noise in the small room, filling it with smoke and causing Shelford to grip his pistol and jump to his feet ready to sell his life dearly. Then a conversation occurred outside the door in which Shelford easily recognised the voice of the bully Ching, who asserted that the man was dead. Another voice urged him to go in and assure himself of the fact that the man on the kang was really dead. Ching argued that the sleeping figure had not moved after the explosion of their pistols, and that consequently he could not be asleep but must have been killed. Everyone outside the door seemed to show reluctance to enter the room, and after further whispered conversation the would-be murderers departed, but not before Shelford had heard Ching say— “Now we have slain this devil we can quietly kill the missionaries to-morrow night and loot their house. The men in the glass boat (steam launch) have been bribed, so will tell nothing.” After this they retired. Shelford left his strained position in the corner, and with his revolver ready to his hand slept on the comfortably warmed kang until daylight. When he appeared next morning the innkeeper would have fled from fear, had not his desire to “save face” at all cost made him bear an outwardly calm demeanour. Shelford didn’t fail to notice the impression that he created on everyone who saw him in the inn, but he felt that no further attempt on his life would be made during daylight; so having taken breakfast, he told the innkeeper that he should again sleep at the inn that night, and that the previous night he had been so comfortable and had slept so deeply that he thought there must be some beneficial essence in the air of Whang Chai that induced refreshing slumbers.