The switch clicked, and the room was flooded with electric light.
Ho-Pin stood watching him.
Soames--in his eyes that indescribable expression seen in the eyes of a
bird placed in a cobra's den--met the Chinaman's gaze. This gaze was no
different from that which habitually he directed upon the people of the
catacombs. His yellow face was set in the same mirthless smile, and his
eyebrows were raised interrogatively. For the space of ten seconds, he
stood watching the man on the bed. Then:--
"You wreturn vewry soon, Mr. Soames?" he said, softly.
Soames groaned like a dying man, whispering:
"I was... taken ill--very ill."...
"So you wreturn befowre the time awranged for you?"
His metallic voice was sunk in a soothing hiss. He smiled steadily: he
betrayed no emotion.
"Yes... sir," whispered Soames, his hair clammily adhering to his brow
and beads of perspiration trickling slowly down his nose.
"And when you wreturn, you see and you hear--stwrange things, Mr.
Soames?"
Soames, who was in imminent danger of becoming physically ill, gulped
noisily.
"No, sir," he whispered,--tremulously, "I've been--in here all the
time."
Ho-Pin nodded, slowly and sympathetically, but never removed the
glittering eyes from the face of the man on the bed.
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