“‘Dance!’ roared Adderley.  ’Dance!  That’s what I want you to do.’

“Rebellion leapt again to the wonderful eyes, and she started back with a perfectly splendid gesture of defiance.  At that my brutal and drunken host leapt in her direction.  I was on my feet now, but before I could act the girl said a thing which checked him, sobered him, which pulled him up short, as though he had encountered a stone wall.

“‘Ah, God!’ she said. (She was speaking, of course, in her native tongue.) ‘His hand!  His hand!  Look!  His hand!’

“To me her words were meaningless, naturally, but following the direction of her positively agonized glance I saw that she was watching what seemed to me to be the shadow of someone moving behind the flame-like curtain which produced an effect not unlike that of a huge, outstretched hand, the fingers crooked, claw-fashion.

“‘Knox, Knox!’ whispered Adderley, grasping me by the shoulder.

“He pointed with a quivering finger toward this indistinct shadow upon the curtain, and: 

“‘Do you see it—­do you see it?’ he said huskily.  ’It is his hand—­it is his hand!’

“Of the pair, I think, the man was the more frightened.  But the girl, uttering a frightful shriek, ran out of the room as though pursued by a demon.  As she did so whoever had been moving behind the curtain evidently went away.  The shadow disappeared, and Adderley, still staring as if hypnotized at the spot where it had been, continued to hold my shoulder as in a vise.  Then, sinking down upon a heap of cushions beside me, he loudly and shakily ordered more champagne.

“Utterly mystified by the incident, I finally left him in a state of stupor, and returned to my quarters, wondering whether I had dreamed half of the episode or the whole of it, whether he did really possess that wonderful palace, or whether he had borrowed it to impress me.”

I ceased speaking, and my story was received in absolute silence, until: 

“And that is all you know?” said Burton.

“Absolutely all.  I had to leave about that time, you remember, and afterward went to France.”

“Yes, I remember.  It was while you were away that the scandal arose respecting the mandarin.  Extraordinary story, Knox.  I should like to know what it all meant, and what the end of it was.”

Dr. Matheson broke his long silence.

“Although I am afraid I cannot enlighten you respecting the end of the story,” he said quietly, “perhaps I can carry it a step further.”

“Really, Doctor?  What do you know about the matter?”

“I accidentally became implicated as follows,” replied the American:  “I was, as you know, doing voluntary surgical work near Singapore at the time, and one evening, presumably about the same period of which Knox is speaking, I was returning from the hospital at Katong, at which I acted sometimes as anaesthetist, to my quarters in Singapore; just drifting along, leisurely by the edge of the gardens admiring the beauty of the mangroves and the deceitful peace of the Eastern night.