of Taou Yuen had created a new world. He thought she walked to him
through the gloom; he saw her slender body grow brighter as she
approached; he heard her speak in a low native murmur; their hands
caught in an eager tangle.

He put aside, momentarily, the problem of the difficulties of going again
to the Ammidons' for an easier one--the bringing of Gerrit Ammidon here.
He was confident that, thrown together on the still rim of the water, at
evening, the emotion born between his niece and the shipmaster and
prematurely choked would revive. He had no means of knowing Ammidon's
present exact feeling for Nettie; he was counting only on a general
theory of men and nature at large. He was already convinced, from very
wide knowledge, experience, that the other could not form a permanent
attachment to the Manchu; and Nettie's great difference, together with
the romance of her unhappy position, must have a potent effect on the
fellow's evident sentimentality. A dank air rose from the water, like the
smell of death; and, with an uncontrollable shiver, he turned back toward
the house.

In his room Edward Dunsack recalled that he had promised himself to throw
away the remainder of the opium on this and succeeding nights. In view of
that his movements were inexplicable: he got out from a locked chest the
_yen tsiang_, a heavy tube of dark wood inlaid with silver ideograms and
diminutive earthen cup at one end. Then he produced a small brass lamp,
brushes, long needles, and a metal rod. Taking off his clothes, and in
the somber black folds of the silk robe, he made various minutely careful
preparations. Finally, extended on his bed, he dipped the end of the rod
into opium the color of tar, kept it for a bubbling moment near the blaze
of the lamp, and then crowded the drug into the pipe. He held the bowl to
the flame and drew in a long deep inhalation. A second followed and the