“Darned ef I ever want to cut off a Chinaman’s pig-tail again, boys,” said one of the tunnel men as he went back to dinner.

Meantime the children had reached the goal and stood before the opening of one of the tunnels.  Then these four heroes who had looked with cheerful levity on the deadly peril of their descent became suddenly frightened at the mysterious darkness of the cavern and turned pale at its threshold.

“Mebbee a wicked Joss backside holee, He catchee Pilats,” said Wan Lee, gravely.

Hickory began to whimper, Patsey drew back, Polly alone stood her ground, albeit with a trembling lip.

“Let’s say our prayers and frighten it away,” she said, stoutly.

“No!  No!” said Wan Lee, with sudden alarm.  “No frighten Spillits!  You waitee!  Chinee boy he talkee Spillit not to frighten you."[A]

[Footnote A:  The Chinese pray devoutly to the Evil Spirits not to injure them.]

Tucking his hands under his blue blouse, Wan Lee suddenly produced from some mysterious recess of his clothing a quantity of red paper slips which he scattered at the entrance of the cavern.  Then drawing from the same inexhaustible receptacle certain squibs or fireworks, he let them off and threw them into the opening.  There they went off with a slight fizz and splutter, a momentary glittering of small points in the darkness and a strong smell of gunpowder.  Polly gazed at the spectacle with undisguised awe and fascination.  Hickory and Patsey breathed hard with satisfaction; it was beyond their wildest dreams of mystery and romance.  Even Wan Lee appeared transfigured into a superior being by the potency of his own spells.  But an unaccountable disturbance of some kind in the dim interior of the tunnel quickly drew the blood from their blanched cheeks again.  It was a sound like coughing followed by something like an oath.

“He’s made the Evil Spirit orful sick,” said Hickory, in a loud whisper.

A slight laugh that to the children seemed demoniacal, followed.

“See,” said Wan Lee, “Evil Spillet be likee Chinee, try talkee him.”

[Illustration]

The Pirates looked at Wan Lee not without a certain envy of this manifest favouritism.  A fearful desire to continue their awful experiments, instead of pursuing their piratical avocations, was taking possession of them; but Polly, with one of the swift transitions of childhood, immediately began to extemporise a house for the party at the mouth of the tunnel, and, with parental foresight, gathered the fragments of the squibs to build a fire for supper.  That frugal meal consisting of half a ginger biscuit, divided into five small portions each served on a chip of wood, and having a deliciously mysterious flavour of gunpowder and smoke, was soon over.  It was necessary after this, that the Pirates should at once seek repose after a day of adventure, which they did for the space of forty seconds in singularly impossible attitudes