Page:On to Pekin.djvu/248

222 one end of the table upon which the meal to the dead was spread.

"Stop, or I'll fire!" cried Gilbert, in a determined voice. Instantly the sounds ceased directly in front of him. But from a distance came a low voice, asking some question in Chinese. What this was, Gilbert did not know; nor did he hear any answer to it.

The young lieutenant felt that he was now face to face with a deadly enemy, and it must be confessed that the cold perspiration stood out on his forehead. It is one thing to face an enemy in the open: it is quite another to face the same enemy in the dark. Gilbert had heard of bad Western men sometimes fighting a duel to the death with knives in a pitch-dark room, and he felt now that he wanted nothing to do with anything so terrible.

Suddenly he heard a slight noise close to his left side. He was about to turn in the direction, when several grains of rice fell upon his extended hand.

He did not know what to make of this. Had the rice been thrown by some one? and, if so, for what purpose? He knew that to touch the food of the