“We can make no plans,” I whispered to Fletcher, as together we rose from the table; “we must be guided by circumstance.”

In order to enter the little room laden with those sickly opium fumes we had to lower our heads.  Two steps led down into the place, which was so dark that I hesitated, momentarily, peering about me.

Apparently some four of five persons squatted and lay in the darkness about me.  Some were couched upon rough wooden shelves ranged around the walls, others sprawled upon the floor, in the center whereof, upon a small tea-chest, stood a smoky brass lamp.  The room and its occupants alike were indeterminate, sketchy; its deadly atmosphere seemed to be suffocating me.  A sort of choking sound came from one of the bunks; a vague, obscene murmuring filled the whole place revoltingly.

Zarmi stood at the further end, her lithe figure silhouetted against the vague light coming through an open doorway.  I saw her raise her hand, beckoning to us.

Circling around the chest supporting the lamp we crossed the foul den and found ourselves in a narrow, dim passage-way, but in cleaner air.

“Come,” said Zarmi, extending her long, slim hand to me.

I took it, solely for guidance in the gloom, and she immediately drew my arm about her waist, leant back against my shoulder and, raising her pouted red lips, blew a cloud of tobacco smoke fully into my eyes!

Momentarily blinded, I drew back with a muttered exclamation.  Suspecting what I did of this tigerish half-caste, I could almost have found it in my heart to return her savage pleasantries with interest.

As I raised my hands to my burning eyes, Fletcher uttered a sharp cry of pain.  I turned in time to see the girl touch him lightly on the neck with the burning tip of her cigarette.

“You jealous, eh, Charlie?” she said.  “But I love you, too—­see!  Come along, you strong fellers....”

And away she went along the passage, swaying her hips lithely and glancing back over her shoulders in smiling coquetry.

Tears were still streaming from my eyes when I found myself standing in a sort of rough shed, stone-paved, and containing a variety of nondescript rubbish.  A lantern stood upon the floor; and beside it ...

The place seemed to be swimming around me, the stone floor to be heaving beneath my feet....

Beside the lantern stood a wooden chest, some six feet long, and having strong rope handles at either end.  Evidently the chest had but recently been nailed up.  As Zarmi touched it lightly with the pointed toe of her little red slipper I clutched at Fletcher for support.

Fletcher grasped my arm in a vice-like grip.  To him, too, had come the ghastly conviction—­the gruesome thought that neither of us dared to name.

It was Nayland Smith’s coffin that we were to carry!

“Through here,” came dimly to my ears, “and then I tell you what to do....”