rise to, under any quantity of opium, higher than that!--Eh?'

He bends down his ear, to listen to her mutterings.

'Unintelligible!'

As he watches the spasmodic shoots and darts that break out of her
face and limbs, like fitful lightning out of a dark sky, some
contagion in them seizes upon him: insomuch that he has to
withdraw himself to a lean arm-chair by the hearth--placed there,
perhaps, for such emergencies--and to sit in it, holding tight,
until he has got the better of this unclean spirit of imitation.

Then he comes back, pounces on the Chinaman, and seizing him with
both hands by the throat, turns him violently on the bed. The
Chinaman clutches the aggressive hands, resists, gasps, and
protests.

'What do you say?'

A watchful pause.

'Unintelligible!'

Slowly loosening his grasp as he listens to the incoherent jargon
with an attentive frown, he turns to the Lascar and fairly drags
him forth upon the floor. As he falls, the Lascar starts into a
half-risen attitude, glares with his eyes, lashes about him
fiercely with his arms, and draws a phantom knife. It then becomes
apparent that the woman has taken possession of this knife, for