"It has this peculiar faculty," continued the smooth, unruffled voice, "that when it falls into the hands of one who is not entitled to it, the unlawful possessor will enjoy good fortune as long as he retains it; but if he should relinquish it from his person, it becomes his fate to meet a violent death, very shortly afterward." Prince Chu allowed himself the shadow of a smile, then his inscrutable eyes searched the faces of the ruffians to note when the significance of his clever invention should have penetrated their heat and drug crazed brains. He knew that superstition was not peculiar to his own race. It was the common penalty of all killers of men. Murder had stamped itself on the faces of these two, for such eyes as his to read, and fear now swept into the features of the one called Shorty. "Gimme that back!" he shouted, his voice rising to a strained pitch and breaking. "Wot'd'ya have t' take it for, anyhow? Com' on, Squint, lemme have ut back," he begged. The pasty-nosed Squint laughed sneeringly, and his lips twisted in a simulation of pity. There came a low whine over the distant dunes. The disputing pair had not noticed that the sun's light was fading out. The air was stifling. "Don't be uh boob," gibed Squint. And there was a crackling edge to his laugh. "The Chink's tryin' uhnother shindy on us." But his tone carried no confidence in his words. There seemed to be an insidious, occult, inexorable something about this Oriental who had communed so long with the desert. The badgered Shorty twitched his gun hand instinctively, then discreetly checked himself. "Yeh--yeh, damn yuh!" he wailed in terrified anger. "Now yer scared to let go of it, yerself!" Neither of them had noticed why their words had to be shouted. They were too wrapt in their argument to perceive that the dull whine had risen to a distinct roar. Swiftly the Chinaman had gathered up his outfit, and he was cinching it into place on the burro. The cut-throats had taken about twenty paces from him when he had halted them with his recital of the black opal's mythical qualities. Still in verbal conflict, they moved on. A wind puff swished over the low dunes, driving loose sand through the crackling branches of the brittle salt bush. An incessant rush of suffocating air followed. Little rivulets of sand began to lift and worm along the ground and spill over the rolling dunes. Dust cloud blanketed the desert. Prince Chu picked up the lead rope of his abbreviated burro and commenced to plod southward, with his back to the swirling, wind-driven dust. A hundred yards ahead of him the fleeing pair were trying to take note of their position and were traveling undecided as to direction.