As we stopped the engines and shot up to the pier, I was steering in the bow, and Moy Kip was at the engine. Just then I saw two men rise up from behind a pile on the dock. I screamed to my husband to reverse the engine and back off at full speed, and he had just done it when the highbinders jumped into the boat. The shock nearly rolled her over, and I fell down on my face. Before I could get up, I saw the hatchet-men strike at Moy Kip two or three times. I drew my pistol and fired, but the launch was rolling, so I reckon I missed them. They jumped into the water and swam off. Then I called out to Moy Kip and ran aft to help him. My husband didn’t answer. I stooped down to him and turned him over—oh, it was horrible!—and then I must have swooned away, for it’s the last thing I remember. I know the ways of these hired hatchet-men. They’ve been sold out time after time by their own members, and so now when they go out for a murder they write down a confession with both names signed on the same paper. Then they tear it up and divide the pieces, each one having the other’s name to hold him by, if his partner tries to sell him out. Wong Yet’s confession is on this paper you found. He’ll die to-night—murderers can be bought cheap in Chinatown. Now, if I only had the other half of the paper I’d know who the second man was, and settle him, too. By this time the dilapidated laundry wagon had threaded the Mission, crossed Market Street, and was rolling along the asphalt of Golden Gate Avenue on its way to the Chinese Quarter. The quadroon woman’s eyes were afire with hate, and Vango watched her in apprehension, mingled with a shrewd desire to work further upon her excitement. “You see I was able to be of assistance, even when conditions was unfavorable,” he ventured. “The spirits is unfallible to instruct when a party approaches ’em right. If I could give you a regular sittin’ and get into perfect harmony with the vibrations of my control’s magnetism, I ain’t no doubt I could lead you to find the balance of that there paper.” The wheel of the wagon caught in the street-car rail and the medium was jerked almost off his seat. Or, so an observer might have explained the sudden lurch and the way Vango’s face went white. But his imagination or mania, kindled again by the craft of his trickery, had conjured up the vision of his previous dupe, and Mrs. Higgins’s spirit arose before him in threatening attitude. He cowered and stared, exorcising the phantom, rubbing his hands in terror. But the quadroon woman did not notice. Her mind, too, was full of horrors, and the desire for vengeance was an obsession. She only replied, “One thousand dollars if you find that piece of paper before night!” CHAPTER VIII THE HERO’S ADVENTURE: THE MYSTERY OF THE HAMMAM