A few moments earlier another dramatic encounter had taken place in a distant part of the house.  Kerry Junior, having scientifically tested all the possible modes of egress from the room in which Lady Pat was confined, had long ago desisted, and had exhausted his ingenuity in plans which discussion had proved to be useless.  In spite of the novelty and the danger of his situation, nature was urging her laws.  He was growing sleepy.  The crowning tragedy had been the discovery that he could not regain the small, square window set high in the wall from which he had dropped into this luxurious prison.  Now, as the two sat side by side upon a cushioned divan, the woman’s arm about the boy’s shoulders, they were startled to hear, in the depths of the house, three notes of a gong.

Young Kerry’s sleepiness departed.  He leapt to his feet as though electrified.

“What was that?”

There was something horrifying in those gong notes in the stillness of the night.  Lady Pat’s beautiful eyes grew glassy with fear.

“I don’t know,” replied Dan.  “It seemed to come from below.”

He ran to the door, drew the curtain aside, and pressed his ear against one of the panels, listening intently.  As he did so, his attitude grew tense, his expression changed, then: 

“We’re saved!” he cried, turning a radiant face to the woman.  “I heard my father’s voice!”

“Oh, are you sure, are you sure?”

“Absolutely sure!”

He bent to press his ear to the panel again, when a stifled cry from his companion brought him swiftly to his feet.  The second door in the room had opened silently, and a small Chinaman, who carried himself with a stoop, had entered, and now, a menacing expression upon his face, was quickly approaching the boy.

What he had meant to do for ever remained in doubt, for young Kerry, knowing his father to be in the house and seeing an open door before him, took matters into his own hands.  At the moment that the silent Chinaman was about to throw his arms about him, the pride of the junior school registered a most surprising left accurately on the point of Ah Fang’s jaw, following it up by a wilful transgression of Queensberry rules in the form of a stomach punch which temporarily decided the issue.  Then: 

“Quick! quick!” he cried breathlessly, grasping Lady Pat’s hand.  “This is where we run!”

In such fashion was Zani Chada interrupted, the interruption taking the form of a sudden, shrill outcry: 

“Dad! dad!  Where are you, dad?”

Kerry spun about as a man galvanized.  His face became transfigured.

“This way, Dan!” he cried.  “This way, boy!”

Came a clatter of hurrying feet, and into the low, perfumed room burst Dan Kerry, junior, tightly clasping the hand of a pale-faced, dishevelled woman in evening dress.  It was Lady Rourke; and although she seemed to be in a nearly fainting condition, Dan dragged her, half running, into the room.