Soames rolled from the bed, head throbbing, and an acrid taste in his
mouth, and spoke into the tube:
"Hullo!"
"You will pwrepare for youwr duties," came the metallic gutturals of
Ho-Pin. "Bwreakfast will be bwrought to you in a quawrter-of-an-hour."
He made no reply, but stood looking about him dully. It had not been a
dream, then, nor was he mad. It was a horrible reality; here, in London,
in modern, civilized London, he was actually buried in some incredible
catacomb; somewhere near to him, very near to him, was the cave of the
golden dragon, and, also adjacent--terrifying thought--was the doorless
library, the rose-scented haunt where the beautiful Eurasian spoke,
oracularly, the responses of Mr. King!
Soames could not understand it all; he felt that such things could
not be; that there must exist an explanation of those seeming
impossibilities other than that they actually existed. But the
instructions were veritable enough, and would not be denied.
Rapidly he began to unpack his grip. His watch had stopped, since he
had neglected to wind it, and he hurried with his toilet, fearful of
incurring the anger of Ho-Pin--of Ho-Pin, the beetlesque.
He observed, with passive interest, that the operation of shaving did
not appreciably lighten the stain upon his skin, and, by the time that
he was shaved, he had begun to know the dark-haired, yellow-faced
man grimacing in the mirror for himself; but he was far from being
reconciled to his new appearance.
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