In the moonlight he stared at his companion, cackled, clapped his thighs, and bent double in unholy convulsions.

“My gracious me!” He laughed immoderately.  “Oh, I wait zo fearful, you kom zo fonny!” For a while he clung, shaking, to the young man’s arm.  “My friendt, zo fonny you look!  My gootness me!” At last he regained himself, stood quiet, and added very pointedly, “What did yow lern?”

“Nothing,” replied Heywood, angrily.  “Nothing.  Fragrant Ones!  Not a bad name.  Phew!—­Oh, I say, what did they mean?  What Black Dog is to bark?”

“Black Dog?  Black Dog iss cannon.”  The man became, once more, as keen as a gossip.  “What cannon?  When dey shoot him off?”

“Can’t tell,” said his friend.  “That’s to be their signal.”

“I do not know,” The conical hat wagged sagely.  “I go find out.”  He pointed across the moonlit spaces.  “Ofer dere iss your house.  You can no more. Schlafen Sie wohl.”

The two men wrung each other’s hands.

“Shan’t forget this, Wutz.”

“Oh, for me—­all you haf done—­” The outcast turned away, shaking his head sadly.

Never did Heywood’s fat water-jar glisten more welcome than when he gained the vaulted bath-room.  He ripped off his blood-stained clothes, scrubbed the sacrificial clots from his hair, and splashed the cool water luxuriously over his exhausted body.  When at last he had thrown a kimono about him, and wearily climbed the stairs, he was surprised to see Rudolph, in the white-washed room ahead, pacing the floor and ardently twisting his little moustache.  As Heywood entered, he wheeled, stared long and solemnly.

“I must wait to tell you.”  He stalked forward, and with his sound left hand grasped Heywood’s right.  “This afternoon, you—­”

“My dear boy, it’s too hot.  No speeches.”

But Rudolph’s emotion would not be hindered.

“This afternoon,” he persisted, with tragic voice and eyes, “this afternoon I nearly was killed.”

“So was I.—­Which seems to meet that.”  And Heywood pulled free.

“Oh,” cried Rudolph, fervently.  “I know!  I feel—­If you knew what I—­My life—­”

The weary stoic in the blue kimono eyed him very coldly, then plucked him by the sleeve.—­“Come here, for a bit.”

Both men leaned from the window into the hot, airless night.  A Chinese rebeck wailed, monotonous and nasal.  Heywood pointed at the moon, which now hung clearly above the copper haze.

“What do you see there?” he asked dryly.

“The moon,” replied his friend, wondering.

“Good.—­You know, I was afraid you might just see Rudie Hackh.”

The rebeck wailed a long complaint before he added:—­

“If I didn’t like you fairly well—­The point is—­Good old Cynthia!  That bally orb may not see one of us to-morrow night, next week, next quarter.  ‘Through this same Garden, and for us in vain.’  Every man Jack.  Let me explain.  It will make you better company.”