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Page 45
Kerry's fierce blue eyes closed for a fraction of a second. Yet,
in that fraction of a second, he had visualized some of the
things which ten thousand pounds--a sum he could never hope to
possess--would buy. He had seen his home, as he would have it--
and he had seen Dan there, safe and happy at his mother's side.
Was he entitled to disregard the happiness of his wife, the life
of his boy, the honourable name of Sir Noel Rourke, because an
outcast like Peters had come to a fitting end--because a
treacherous Malay and a renegade Chinaman had, earlier, gone the
same way, sped, as he suspected, by the same hand?
"My resources are unusual," added Chada, speaking almost in a
whisper. "I have cash to this amount in my safe------"
So far he had proceeded when he was interrupted; and the cause of
the interruption was this:
A few moments earlier another dramatic encounter had taken place
in a distant part of the house. Kerry Junior, having
scientifically tested all the possible modes of egress from the
room in which Lady Pat was confined, had long ago desisted, and
had exhausted his ingenuity in plans which discussion had proved
to be useless. In spite of the novelty and the danger of his
situation, nature was urging her laws. He was growing sleepy.
The crowning tragedy had been the discovery that he could not
regain the small, square window set high in the wall from which
he had dropped into this luxurious prison. Now, as the two sat
side by side upon a cushioned divan, the woman's arm about the
boy's shoulders, they were startled to hear, in the depths of the
house, three notes of a gong.
Young Kerry's sleepiness departed. He leapt to his feet as
though electrified.
"What was that?"
There was something horrifying in those gong notes in the
stillness of the night. Lady Pat's beautiful eyes grew glassy
with fear.
"I don't know," replied Dan. "It seemed to come from below."
He ran to the door, drew the curtain aside, and pressed his ear
against one of the panels, listening intently. As he did so, his
attitude grew tense, his expression changed, then:
"We're saved!" he cried, turning a radiant face to the woman. "I
heard my father's voice!"
"Oh, are you sure, are you sure?"
"Absolutely sure!"
He bent to press his ear to the panel again, when a stifled cry
from his companion brought him swiftly to his feet. The second
door in the room had opened silently, and a small Chinaman, who
carried himself with a stoop, had entered, and now, a menacing
expression upon his face, was quickly approaching the boy.
What he had meant to do for ever remained in doubt, for young
Kerry, knowing his father to be in the house and seeing an open
door before him, took matters into his own hands.
At the moment that the silent Chinaman was about to throw his
arms about him, the pride of the junior school registered a most
surprising left accurately on the point of Ah Fang's jaw,
following it up by a wilful transgression of Queensberry rules in
the form of a stomach punch which temporarily decided the issue.
Then:
"Quick! quick!" he cried breathlessly, grasping Lady Pat's hand.
"This is where we run!"
In such fashion was Zani Chada interrupted, the interruption
taking the form of a sudden, shrill outcry:
"Dad! dad! Where are you, dad?"
Kerry spun about as a man galvanized. His face became
transfigured.
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