Locke looked about in desperation.  There was a window.  He flung it open.  Below, the air-shaft or court was blind.  But there was a balcony by which he could reach an adjoining low roof.  He had no idea where it might lead, but any unknown danger was preferable to the known dangers that threatened behind him.

Through the window he passed with Eva, and so across balconies and roofs until they came to a fire-escape, which they descended.

In another moment they were free of Chinatown.

Many a curious glance was cast at them, a young girl, well gowned, and a disheveled white man in Chinese garb.

Locke hailed a night-hawk cabman and they were soon speeding on their way back to safety and Brent Rock.

CHAPTER XXI

At the cove fishing-village, set on the extreme outskirts of the town, there stood an old fisherman’s shack that was shunned by all the good folk of the city.

While there was nothing definite that could be said of the evil deeds of the inhabitants, there was much shaking of heads and wagging of tongues to the effect that all was not as it should be at the cove.

The owner of the old shack, Old Tom, was an ill-favored, taciturn man who would have naught to do with any of his neighbors, and asked only that they keep out of his path and leave him alone.  He even evinced an aversion to dogs and to little children, driving them away from his shack whenever he found them near it.

The threat that “Old Tom will catch you” would make a cove fishing-village tractable at any time.

Old Tom rarely put to sea, and when he did it was more often than not after nightfall, a time when the good folk of the village were preparing for a night’s rest.

It was stated by one old crony that often at night other men came to Old Tom’s shack, that they entered slyly, and that well into the morning revelry, and often oaths and brawls, could be heard from within.

Some hinted that Old Tom was a smuggler; others, even, that he was a wrecker.  True it was that often strange lights were seen to flicker outside the bar to the cove.

Also there had been wrecks, and often, in the morning, when the fishermen put out to a wreck, after a storm, it would be discovered that some one had been there before them, since valuable and readily portable parts of the wreck were frequently missing.

But while suspicion pointed to Old Tom and the strange men that frequented his place, proofs positive of a crime were invariably lacking, and so the village tolerated Old Tom’s presence and predicted his bad end.

It was to this shack that there came very early one morning, before the break of day, a wounded man assisted by a woman.  The woman gave a peculiar rap at the door.  There was a quick scurry inside, as of fast-moving feet, then silence.

The woman rapped again, and this time with more force.  After a moment a sash was raised and a querulous voice demanded what was wanted.