Ming-ya, a youthful Cantonese with the dull eye of an opium sot, nodded. “That is true,” he croaked hoarsely; “for these two men I heard speaking to-night when I was taking my pipe, and they thought I could not hear them--they go to China to-night.” Soo waited for a time; his head sank on his chest, buried in thought. Then his eye singled out a thoughtful face which had been turned to him from the moment he entered. It was the face of a young man who stood where the shadow of the lamp fell--for one side of the lamp had been shaded so that no gleam of direct light could be detected from the street above. With a jerk of his head Soo signed for him to follow, and without another word the two men left the cellar, the door closing behind them with a click. In the shop above T’si Soo turned to his companion. “Lo-Rang,” he said, “these two men have killed my brother--and yours, for we of the Society of Good Intention are all brothers, having sworn by our ancestors to keep faith. Also they have taken away a certain paper which I sent them to get.” The younger man inclined his head obediently. “I sent my brother with them because I feared treachery. He it was--so the foreigners say--who found the paper, and because they needed it for their treachery and could get it no other way, they have killed him.” “Excellency,” said Lo-Rang meekly, “all this I know. Tell me what I shall do?” “Find those men,” said Soo, “and _shah!_” The young man bowed reverently and turned, disappearing into the back of the shop. He returned with a tiny bundle of clothes, and a long, narrow-bladed knife. “This is the knife with which I killed a man in Hoo Sin,” he said proudly, and Soo nodded his acknowledgment. CHAPTER IV. THE AMULET OF JADE. Mr. Raymond de Costa put down his paper, and looked thoughtfully at his son who sat opposite to him at the breakfast-table. Gregory de Costa favoured his father in that he was below the medium height and somewhat stout for a man of twenty-four. His complexion had a tinge of bronze-red, which is to be found in those families which trace back to “colour,” and, indeed, there was a history of a mésalliance which brought wealth but an undesirable Eurasian strain into the De Costa family. They referred to themselves as a Portuguese house, and Portuguese they may have been originally; but generations of De Costas had lived and died in the Madras presidency, illustrious amongst the chee-chee folk, but unquestionably of them.