So I said, so I thought. I had no idea into what peril I was sending him, though I have sometimes wondered if he knew. He took my hand, kissed it, and beckoning me, we hurried through the silent under City towards the lift. "You go up, Sir Thomas," he said, "and exercise the utmost care. Have your pistol ready. The mist is as thick as ever, which is in your favor. You can find your way now to the Palace, I am sure." "And you?" "I go off here," he said, pointing with his left arm down a long vista to where, under a square arch, there was nothing to be seen at all but swaying yellow-white. "One opens the gate in the railing and drops on to the circular stairs," he said, "which cling to the outside of the steel-work all the way down like a little train of ivy." "_Au revoir_, be as quick as you can." "Good-by," and I jumped into the elevator. Some two minutes afterwards, when I was creeping through the wool with my pistol in my hand, alert for the slightest sound around me, I heard the sharp crack of a rifle. It came from behind me. There was a perceptible interval and then another crack, followed, I could have sworn to it, by a thin wailing cry. Then utter silence fell once more upon the white and muffled City. As I ran I tried to steel myself, if that were as I suspected, the last dying cry of Pu-Yi, not to think about it. The immediate moment, the immediate future, these were everything. All the extraordinary precautions had failed. The assassins were here! In what force? How had they come?--though that was useless to speculate on. Two things only remained. I must warn Morse if it was not already too late, must avenge him if it was. I resolutely put aside the thought of Juanita--of any personal feeling which might mar my judgment and unstring my nerves at this supreme and dreadful moment. I found myself, somehow or other, at the entrance to the tunneled passage. Save for my own quick breathing there had not been a sound, and the horrible curtain of the fog was as thick as ever. Should I at once creep up to the Palace, or should I go back to the villa and find Rolston? It was a nice question and the decision had to be instantaneous. I decided that it would give me a tremendous advantage to have him with me, and besides that, he himself must be warned of the terror that lurked in the darkness of the cloud. I arrived without any mishap, pushed open the door and was crossing the dark hall when my foot caught in some obstruction and I fell headlong. There was no time to cry out, had I been startled enough to do so, before something leapt upon my back with a soft yet heavy thud. A hand slipped over my mouth and the round barrel of a pistol was pressed into my neck. I lay helpless, thinking that it was all over, when the weight lifted, the pistol was snatched away and I was hauled to my feet to discover--Rolston. "Not a word," he whispered. "I set a trap in the hall, Sir Thomas. Thank God you are alive!"