Soames shuddered, coldly.

“You can rely upon me, Mr. Gianapolis,” he protested, “to do absolutely what you wish—­absolutely.  I am a ruined man, and I know it—­I know it.  My only hope is that you will give me a chance."...

“You shall have every chance, Soames,” replied Gianapolis—­“every chance.”

XV

CAVE OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON

When the car stopped at the end of a short drive, Soames had not the slightest idea of his whereabouts.  The blinds at the window of the limousine had been lowered during the whole journey, and now he descended from the step of the car on to the step of a doorway.  He was in some kind of roofed-in courtyard, only illuminated by the headlamps of the car.  Mr. Gianapolis pushed him forward, and, as the door was closed, he heard the gear of the car reversed; then—­silence fell.

“My grip!” he began, nervously.

“It will be placed in your room, Soames.”

The voice of the Greek answered him from the darkness.

Guided by the hand of Gianapolis, he passed on and descended a flight of stone steps.  Ahead of him a light shone out beneath a door, and, as he stumbled on the steps, the door was thrown suddenly open.

He found himself looking into a long, narrow apartment....  He pulled up short with a smothered, gasping cry.

It was a cavern!—­but a cavern the like of which he had never seen, never imagined.  The walls had the appearance of being rough-hewn from virgin rock—­from black rock—­from rock black as the rocks of Shellal—­black as the gates of Erebus.

Placed at regular intervals along the frowning walls, to right and left, were spiral, slender pillars, gilded and gleaming.  They supported an archwork of fancifully carven wood, which curved gently outward to the center of the ceiling, forming, by conjunction with a similar, opposite curve, a pointed arch.

In niches of the wall were a number of grotesque Chinese idols.  The floor was jet black and polished like ebony.  Several tiger-skin rugs were strewn about it.  But, dominating the strange place, in the center of the floor stood an ivory pedestal, supporting a golden dragon of exquisite workmanship; and before it, as before a shrine, an enormous Chinese vase was placed, of the hue, at its base, of deepest violet, fading, upward, through all the shades of rose pink seen in an Egyptian sunset, to a tint more elusive than a maiden’s blush.  It contained a mass of exotic poppies of every shade conceivable, from purple so dark as to seem black, to poppies of the whiteness of snow.

Just within the door, and immediately in front of Soames, stood a slim man of about his own height, dressed with great nicety in a perfectly fitting morning-coat, his well-cut cashmere trousers falling accurately over glossy boots having gray suede uppers.  His linen was immaculate, and he wore a fine pearl in his black poplin cravat.  Between two yellow fingers smoldered a cigarette.