Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/165

 hear the shuffling of feet on the stone floor and the rustle of their passing. He knew that they were seeking and seeking in the darkness, with their knives ready. One of them opened the door to the street-passage, and a film of moonlight spread a little way into the place. The Chinaman stood looking up the passage-way, and then slipped out of the moonlight again, leaving the door open.

Mark's hand, in his pocket, encountered something which gave him a rather wild idea. It was a risky idea, and he hesitated and pondered over it for some time. Then he decided to try it. He took from his pocket a small electric flashlight—an ingenious patent contrivance which he had bought in New York, that showed a white, green, or red light accordingly as a different colored glass in a metal slide was pushed over the bulb. He held it up on a level with the eye-holes of his friendly, protecting idol, and, with sudden resolution, pressed the contact button. There was total silence in the temple, then a tremulous babble of excitement and short yelps of what certainly sounded like fear to the anxious Mark. It is not comfortable for a