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 CHAPTER XXXI

It was four when Wu Li Chang reached Kowloon and his own home. Barely two hours in which to arrange the details, the scenic background, of the last act of the tragedy—the exquisitely horrible details of his revenge. But it was time enough, for he had planned it all down to the smallest point as he sat with Nang Ping dead at his feet. A few moments would suffice for the orders he had still to give Ah Sing, and upon the implicit obedience of his servants he could depend absolutely.

He bathed, dressed in the garments of his country, took rice, spoke briefly to Ah Sing, then sent for Sing Kung Yah and coached that surprised and flustered lady in the part she was to play in the events of the afternoon. She was not a particularly skillful or astute coadjutor—indeed, for a Chinese woman, she was dull, inept and dense; but for seventeen years it had been her invariable habit to give him minute obedience, and the habit would stand her in good stead to-day. And, too, she had, of course, a Chinese memory—the most wonderful memory bestowed on any race. He had little fear of Sing Kung Yah, and, for that matter, the rôle he had assigned to her was but that of a well-dressed supernumerary with a few unimportant lines to speak. She was not essential to the movement of the piece, and her rôle might well enough have been "cut" from the cast, but with the evil seething at his heart all the native artist