“Missy in tent,” said Li Ho stolidly.  “Missy plenty tired.  Sleep velly good.”

Spence tried to take this in . . . tent . . . sleep . . .

“Li Ho tell missy house no so-so,” went on the China-man, pressing his evil-smelling salts closer to his victim’s face.  “Missy say ’all light’—­sleep plenty well in tent; velly fine night.”

Benis tried feebly to push the abomination away from his nose.

“Desire . . . alive?” he whispered.

“Oh elite so.  Velly much.  Moon-devil velly smart but Li Ho much more clever.  Missy she no savey—­all light.”

Spence began to laugh.  It was dangerous laughter—­or so at least Li Ho thought, for he promptly smothered it with his “velly big smell.”  The measure proved effective.  The professor decided not to laugh.  He held himself quiet until control came back and then stood up.

“I thought she was dead, Li Ho,” he said.

In the half light the inscrutable face changed ever so little.

“Li Ho no let,” said the Chinaman simply.  “You better now, p’laps?” he went on.  “We go catch honor-able Boss before missy wake.”  Spence nodded.  He felt extraordinarily tired.  But it seemed that tiredness did not matter, would never matter.  The empty world had become warm and small again.  Desire was safe.

Together he and Li Ho slid and scrambled down the mountain’s face, by ways known only to Li Ho.  And there, on a strip of beach left clean and wet by the receding tide, they found the dead man.  Beside him, and twisted beneath, lay the green umbrella.

“How did it really happen, Li Ho?” asked Spence.  Not that he expected any information.

“Moon-devil velly mad,” said Li Ho.  “Honorable Boss no watch step.  Moon-devil push—­too bad!”

“And the fight in the kitchen?  And on the trail?”

Li Ho shook his head.

“No fight anywhere,” he said blandly.

“And this long rip in your coat?”

“Too much old coat—­catch ’um in bush,” said Li Ho.

So when they lifted the body and it was found that the arm beneath the torn coat was useless, Spence said nothing.  And somehow they managed to carry the dead man home.

It was dawn when they laid him down.  Birds were already beginning to twitter in the trees.  Desire would be waking soon.  The world was going to begin all over presently.  Spence laid his hand gently on the Chinaman’s injured arm.

“You saved her, Li Ho,” he said.  “It is a big debt for one man to owe another.”

The Chinaman said nothing.  He was looking at the dead face—­a curious lost look.

“He velly good man one time,” said Li Ho.  “All same before moon-devil catch ’um.”

“You stayed with him a long time, Li Ho.  You were a good friend.”

Li Ho blinked rapidly, but made no reply.

“Will you come with us, Li Ho?” The inscrutable, oriental eyes looked for a moment into the frank eyes of the white man and then passed by them to the open door—­to the dawn just turning gold above the sea.  The uninjured hand rose and fell in an indescribable gesture.