I came to the end of the manuscript and laid it down with a great wave of pity for the dead man. As I did so, once more there caught my eye the box of uncut diamonds, their brilliancy darting irrepressibly through the crust of impurities that overlaid them. At least the writer had vouchsafed some solid support for his statements, though he had appealed to me not to regard the gems as such, or even to require proof beyond his own written words. Of the circumstances under which this amazing record is now laid before the world I have written later. Of the truth and sanity, or otherwise, of Mirlees' assertions, it shall be left to the reader to judge. Here, then, follows the narrative of Ronald Mirlees, exactly transcribed from his own manuscript which I received from the dead man's lawyers more than thirteen years ago. CHAPTER I THE AFFAIR OF THE OPIUM HELL My name is Ronald Mirlees, or Ran Mirlees as I have usually signed myself under those contributions to the learned press of the East by which I have chiefly picked up a living, and through which I am known to a good deal wider circle of readers than ever I possessed friends. I was born thirty-six years ago, son of a schoolmaster, on the fringes of Paisley, in Scotland. After completing my schooling in that town and my course at the University of Edinburgh, where I took the degree of Master of Arts, I came to the East, a region of the globe which had deeply fascinated me from boyhood up.