“Good mowrning!” he said; “I twrust your bwreakfast was satisfactowry?”

“Quite, sir,” replied Soames, mechanically, and as he might have replied to Mr. Leroux.

“Said will show you to a wroom,” continued Ho-Pin, “where you will find a gentleman awaiting you.  You will valet him and perfowrm any other services which he may wrequire of you.  When he departs, you will clean the wroom and adjoining bath-wroom, and put it into thowrough order for an incoming tenant.  In short, your duties in this wrespect will be identical to those which formerly you perfowrmed at sea.  There is one important diffewrence:  your name is Lucas, and you will answer no questions.”

The metallic voice seemed to reach Soames’ comprehension from some place other than the room of the golden dragon—­from a great distance, or as though he were fastened up in a box and were being addressed by someone outside it.

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

Said opened the yellow door upon the right of the room, and Soames followed him into another of the matting-lined corridors, this one running right and left and parallel with the wall of the apartment which he had just quitted.  Six doors opened out of this corridor; four of them upon the side opposite to that by which he had entered, and one at either end.

These doors were not readily to be detected; and the wall, at first glance, presented an unbroken appearance.  But from experience, he had learned that where the strips of bamboo which overlay the straw matting formed a rectangular panel, there was a door, and by the light of the electric lamp hung in the center of the corridor, he counted six of these.

Said, selecting a key from a bunch which he carried, opened one of the doors, held it ajar for Soames to enter, and permitted it to reclose behind him.

Soames entered nervously.  He found himself in a room identical in size with his own private apartment; a bathroom, etc., opened out of it in one corner after the same fashion.  But there similarity ended.

The bed in this apartment was constructed more on the lines of a modern steamer bunk; that is, it was surrounded by a rail, and was raised no more than a foot from the floor.  The latter was covered with a rich carpet, worked in many colors, and the wall was hung with such paper as Soames had never seen hitherto in his life.  The scheme of this mural decoration was distinctly Chinese, and consisted in an intricate design of human and animal figures, bewilderingly mingled; its coloring was brilliant, and the scheme extended, unbroken, over the entire ceiling.  Cushions, most fancifully embroidered, were strewn about the floor, and the bed coverlet was a piece of heavy Chinese tapestry.  A lamp, shaded with silk of a dull purple, swung in the center of the apartment, and an ebony table, inlaid with ivory, stood on one side of the bed; on the other was a cushioned armchair figured with the eternal, chaotic Chinese design, and being littered, at the moment, with the garments of the man in the bed.  The air of the room was disgusting, unbreathable; it caught Soames by the throat and sickened him.  It was laden with some kind of fumes, entirely unfamiliar to his nostrils.  A dainty Chinese tea-service stood upon the ebony table.