The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1923-08-11
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ca The Passing ..%2
w Of Zara-khan e
BY Edmund Smell.

for spell. ! knO" WheIe 10 Ilnu
my ROOM"
Varney smiled.
"Do just as you like, Of course. I'm
not going to suggest that you're feel
| ing uneasy about recent events; but
| in any case, Chang would raise Cain
| long before any outsider could reach
the house." He bent down and pattcd
the creatures shaggy head.
Pennington held out his hand.
"Good night, Varney. It's done
me world of good seeing you so fit
and flourishing. never worry; it
wastes so much time! But try to
imagine l can think better when half
the worlds asleep"
| He stopped there-rolling and
smoking interminable cigarets, and
| each time he struck a fresh match
| the hound that was curled in a cane
| chair jerked up its head. Presently
Pennington extinguished the lamp
As he came back to his original posi-
ton sudden sound attracted his
attention. The moon, sailing gally
| toward cloud-bank, threw sufficient
| light to enable him to see that Var
ney's dog had not stirred. The
sound came again, this time from
the patch of blackness that indicated
the opening to the passage. Pen
nington loosened the button of>his
hip-pocket and walked deliberately
toward the patch. His keen ear &C
customed to the slightest noise, all
his senses alert, he gathered that
someone was retreating softly as he
advanced. He stepped couple
of PAGES backward and looked at the
dog. The animal blinked friendlly
up at him, squirmed into more
comfortable position-and resumed
its slumbers.
Pennington winked omniously at
the night, lit the cigaret he had just
made, and strobe whistlingN to his
room. He closed the door carelessly
after him and turned the key. Pres
emily he was moving about the
room, humming softly TO himself,
with a hurricane-lamp burning mer-
rily on table by the bed. To
chance listener, it would have ap-
peared that "he who sees in the
dark" had at last succumbed to ia
tigue and was in the act of undress,
ing: but in reality Pennington was
indulging in the amusing pastime of
picking perfectly useless things up
in one part of the room and putting
them down in another. He removed
his boots and, knocking out the
light, stretched himself at full length
in his clothes behind the mosquito
curtains.
!. Varney's spare room contained no
window, obtaining it's ventilation
from the space between where the
partition walls finished and the
raftcrs began, and Pennington, tying
the curtains at the head end of the
bed in knot behind him, focused
his eyes upon narrow batten that
served to finksh-off the rough edges
OF timbering of the wall Immediately
at his, side. This was the wall divid.
ing the room from the passage:
There were two, outer partitions that
rose higher than the rest, and the
fourth was the one that backed on
the room in which the trader him
self was sleeping.
He had been in that position for
roughly half-an-hour when he knew
rather than heard that something
was moving stealthily about the
building. Presently the movement
ceased altogether, and the man on
the bed caught the sound of mea-
sured breathing that seemed to come
from somewhere close at his side.
Something passed softly along the
woodwork, strained upon it,
scratched its surface faintly-and
the breathing sounded more rapidly
i'm the region of the roof.
Most things are a question of
habit. Happenings such as these
which might have held others help
less, paralyzed with fear-acted upon
Chinese Pennington like tonic. Ac-
cordingly, while black shadow
the slightest degree blacker than
the wall itself-slid slowly down.
ward, Pennington did not trouble to
move muscle until its lower exz
tremity came we'll within reach. And
then-one arm shot out with sur
prising suddenness, his fingers fast
ened upon a brown ankle-and the
owner of the limb collapsed in a
heap on the floor.
"Chong- Hee," said Pennington
softly, II have been waiting for YOU
for many hours!"
He had slipped from the bed and
was cropping for the electric torch he
h9bitually carried. The form over
which he knelt moved convulsively
and flattened out, nearly causing
him to- pitch forward on to his face.
Pennington found the tofch. The
bulb displayed faint glimmer which
dropped Immediately into a dull, red
glow. He swore softly under his
breath and shifting his knees until
they rested upon either arm of the
Oriental, struck match.
A second later he was upon his
feet itugging up the chimney of the
hurricane lamp. The flame flickered
and shot up and he snapped the glass
back into place.
Chong-Hee lay spreadeagled on the
wooden floor-an inch of steel point
protruding upward between his
shoulder-blades, impa1ed upon the
knife with which he had thought to
destroy the enemy Of the Yellow 1
Seven! ~
"Hullo!" came the sleepy voice of
the trader from the other side of the
partition. "That you, Penn. :"
remington unlocked the door.
Continued In Our Next Issue)
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