The dimensions of the lacquered casket had increased so vastly as to conceal the kneeling figure of Mrs. Sin, and staring at it wonderingly, Rita suddenly perceived that it was not an ordinary casket.  She knew at last why its shape had struck her as being unusual.

It was a Chinese coffin.

The smell of the burning opium was stifling her.  Those remorseless threads of smoke were closing in, twining themselves about her throat.  It was becoming cold, too, and the moonlight was growing dim.  The position of the moon had changed, of course, as the night had stolen on towards morning, and now it hung dimly before her.  The smoke obscured it.

But was this smoke obscuring the moon?  Rita moved her hands for the first time since she had found herself under the palm tree, weakly fending off those vaporous tentacles which were seeking to entwine themselves about her throat.  Of course, it was not smoke obscuring the moon, she decided; it was a lamp, upheld by an ivory figure—­a lamp with a Chinese shade.

A subdued roaring sound became audible; and this was occasioned by the gas fire, burning behind the Japanese screen on which gaily plumaged birds sported in the branches of golden palms.  Rita raised her hands to her eyes.  Mist obscured her sight.  Swiftly, now, reality was asserting itself and banishing the phantasmagoria conjured up by chandu.

In her dim, cushioned corner Mollie Gretna lay back against the wall, her face pale and her weak mouth foolishly agape.  Cyrus Kilfane was indistinguishable from the pile of rugs amid which he sprawled by the table, and of Sir Lucien Pyne nothing was to be seen but the outstretched legs and feet which projected grotesquely from a recess.  Seated, oriental fashion, upon an improvised divan near the grand piano and propped up by a number of garish cushions, Rita beheld Mrs. Sin.  The long bamboo pipe had fallen from her listless fingers.  Her face wore an expression of mystic rapture like that characterizing the features of some Chinese Buddhas.

Fear, unaccountable but uncontrollable, suddenly seized upon Rita.  She felt weak and dizzy, but she struggled partly upright.

“Lucy!” she whispered.

Her voice was not under control, and once more she strove to call to Pyne.

“Lucy!” came the hoarse whisper again.

The fire continued its muted roaring, but no other sound answered to the appeal.  A horror of the companionship in which she found herself thereupon took possession of the girl.  She must escape from these sleepers, whose spirits had been expelled by the potent necromancer, opium, from these empty tenements whose occupants had fled.  The idea of the cool night air in the open streets was delicious.

She staggered to her feet, swaying drunkenly, but determined to reach the door.  She shuddered, because of a feeling of internal chill which assailed her, but step by step crept across the room, opened the door, and tottered out into the hallway.  There was no sound in the flat.  Presumably Kilfane’s man had retired, or perhaps he, too, was a devotee.