I hurry on to the end, for I know that little time is left to me to complete this record. At Chungking the boatman, En Chin, handed over the launch on production of Philipson's seal, and believed readily enough that I was the sole survivor of our party--a tale to which my extremely weather-beaten appearance must have lent support. From En Chin I learned that only two days after we left for Kiai a Tibetan had come to him inquiring our whereabouts. En Chin had had his instructions from Philipson, however, and observed them; said we had gone on up the main stream, destination unknown; and he thought the man had then left in that direction, for he saw or heard no more of him. I spent a day overhauling the launch, engaged a native to help me run her, and went to bed in En Chin's house by the waterside. That night I dreamed of Hellas, long and confusedly. The city was in vast turmoil, out of which emerged at last the face of Saunders Philipson, sombre and foreboding--I almost felt in my dream that he was striving to warn me against something. I woke with a start, full of a strange but very urgent impulse to get gone. I rose, roused En Chin and my native boatman, threw some provisions into the launch and ran her down from the yard into the river. I had made most of my other preparations overnight, and within five minutes we were dropping down stream, drifting, for there was little petrol to be got so far inland and I wanted all I had for the rapids below. It lacked still an hour or two till dawn, but suddenly, a little while after we had left, we both noticed a queer light in the sky behind us. I didn't know the cause of it then. Some weeks later I learned that En Chin's house had caught fire and been destroyed, with many other native houses, barely an hour after our departure. It may have been accidental, but I don't think so. Arrived at last in Shanghai, I settled down in my old hotel, living very quietly--but not for want of funds; setting aside Philipson's bank balance, which was substantial, that little bundle I had kept by me all the way back from Hellas would, I knew, see me through to the end of my days in a good deal greater affluence than I wanted. I heard no mention anywhere of the affair that had immediately preceded our flight from Shanghai, and it seemed that so far as the police were concerned, that episode had been let drop. I soon got to know, however, that in other quarters it was neither forgotten nor forgiven.