advanced again. With horror she saw it creep along the rug, a small
brown, fibrous hand, worn with work. The third packet was eclipsed by
the fingers and receded as the others had done, but as it reached the
edge of the rug, overflowing horror galvanised her into movement, and
catching the corners of the rug she threw it violently after the package
and over the hand, at the same moment jumping from her seat and on to
the footboard, to grope wildly for the switch. Her heart was leaping
like a fish just flung into a basket, and every inch of her body winced
from an expected grasp upon it. She flung herself over the side and into
the seat of the car, found the switch and pushed it.

A dozen Chinese at least were caught in the two long beams that flew out
across the darkness. For a second their wrinkled faces stared, eyes
blinked, and short, unhollowed lips stretched over yellow teeth, then,
with a flutter of dark garments, the Chinese started away from the fixed
beams and were gone into the shadow. Except for the sudden twitter of a
voice, the spurt of a stone flung up against the metal of the car, they
melted silently out of sight and hearing. Sick with panic, Fanny leant
down upon her knees and covered her head with her two arms, expecting a
blow from above. Seconds passed, and ice-cold, with one leg gone to
sleep, she lifted her head, switched off the lights and stared into the
night. She could see nothing, and gradually becoming accustomed to the
darkness, she found that they had completely disappeared. The rug, too,
had gone, and all three packets of sandwiches. Cautiously, with
trembling legs, she stepped upon the footboard.

Something hit her softly upon the forehead, but before she had time to
suffer from a new fear her eye caught the glitter of a flake of snow in
its parachute descent across the path of her lamps. "They hate snow...."
she whispered, not knowing whether it was true. She tried to picture