Page:On to Pekin.djvu/249

Rh dead is considered by many Chinamen a bad thing to do.

Soon, however, he concluded that the rice had been thrown merely to detract his attention from the person in front of him. The sounds from those bare feet reached him again, but now they were going away instead of approaching.

The enemy was perhaps calculating to attack him in another way, and he could not help but wonder what the next movement would be. Bitterly he regretted having come to the spot without a companion or two. "If I am killed in here, nobody will ever know what became of me," he reasoned, soberly.

His nerves were at the topmost tension, and his ears strained as never before. Consequently, when there came a faint noise from under the table before him, he noted it at once, although it was so slight that an ordinary ear would never have detected it.

Gilbert now remained silent. He had given the enemy fair warning; and he was resolved from now on to "shoot first and talk afterward." He was in the enemy's territory, and he must consider every stranger an enemy until he proved himself a friend.

The table was moving, and so was a portion of the