Page:Harold Lamb--Marching Sands.djvu/86

 Delabar crossed to the door and closed it on the watching Buddhist.

"You know very little of China, my friend," he said gloomily. "One of the favorite methods of revenge is to hire a priest to sit at a man's door, like this. Then, if any one leaves the house, the priest commits suicide. That fixes—or the Chinese believe it fixes—a crime on the man in the house. It's a habit of the Chinese to kill themselves in order to obtain vengeance on an enemy."

Gray whistled. "I've heard something of the kind. But, look here, I could grab that fellow before he can hurt himself."

"It would be useless. As soon as he was free, he'd commit suicide, and the blame would fall on us. By now, all the Chinese in the town know that this priest is here. If he should die, it would be a signal for a general attack on us."

Meditatively, Gray seated himself on the bucket and considered the situation.

"You know the working of the yellow mind, Professor," he observed. "Do you suppose this fellow has marked us out as the guilty parties who manhandled him in the temple and left him in the sacred door?"

"It's more likely that Wu Fang Chien guessed we were the intruders. We were probably watched more closely than you knew. Then, according to the temple law, this priest is guilty of sacrilege in