images that appear in the nightmares of opium smokers.
The man who had opened the box was standing like a statue, surveying the grotesque Oriental that he had released from bondage. The Chinaman’s blinking eyes were turned in his direction, and now the yellow face wrinkled a leering smile. This meeting was one of mutual recognition. The Chinaman inclined his head, in greeting.
A short laugh came from the man who wore the cap. He spoke in a low voice, uttering words in Chinese dialect. Among them was repeated a name to which the Chinaman responded. That one was Lei Chang. The speaker used it again, when, after his short greeting in conventional Chinese, he spoke in pidgin English.
“You have come, Lei Chang,” he said.
“I tellee you I come,” responded Lei Chang. “I bringee him likee you say. Him velly good, him you tellee me to call The Master. Him we callee Koon Woon.”
With a sidewise, crablike motion, the wiry Chinaman emerged from the box, and stood crouched upon the sand. His black, beady eyes were glistening in the light. They stared directly toward the other box. The man who had welcomed Lei Chang, stepped forward with the hammer and the crowbar. Like a flash, the Chinaman sprang forward and gripped him by the arm.
“No, no, no,” he exclaimed, with a strange, quick warning. “No, no, no. The Master - he sleep. Wait while Lei Chang see -“
He stopped beside the box, while the other watched him. There, Lei Chang crooned softly in a singsong dialect. His voice took on a tone that was oddly soft and soothing.
“Koon Woon,” he crooned, “Koon Woon - Koon Woon -“
The words died away. The wiry Chinaman arose and pointed to the box. He spoke to the man beside him.
“The Master, Koon Woon,” he said. “Still he sleep, but he is ready soon to be awake. But not here he is to wake. The place where you have made for him -“
A gruff response came from Lei Chang’s companion. The man motioned to the box. He extinguished the torch. His hands scratched upon one side of the box; Lei Chang’s on the other. A grunt came through the darkness. The box lifted upward as the two men raised the heavy burden.
Footsteps crunched along the sand as the man directed the way. The crinkling ceased as the bearers reached a strip of grass. Softly, steadily, they carried the heavy box across a level area of smooth, even ground.
The four Malays had found the box no light weight. The present task, performed by two men only, spoke well for their individual strength. The man who had been waiting on the beach was unquestionably very powerful, yet he breathed heavily as he forged forward. No sound came from Lei Chang’s side of the box. The wiry Chinese seemed to possess superhuman strength in his thin, stooped form.
NOW occurred a most unusual phenomenon. The men and the box emerged completely from the fog. They seemed to enter a spot of utter darkness, where the chill and dampness no longer remained.
The guiding man sensed the new condition immediately. He stopped his forward progress, and grunted to Lei Chang. Together, they rested the box upon the ground.
The torch showed again. It showed the box standing upon a patch of brownish ground - grassless, yet peculiarly matted. Beyond the box, the downturned light revealed the blackness of a tree trunk; past that, the light seemed to diffuse along a veritable corridor of brown matting.
A weird hush dominated the spot. Lei Chang’s beady eyes showed that he sensed the strange surroundings. His teeth gleamed in the light while his head turned from side to side.
“This is the place,” said his companion in a low voice. “We go from here. You hold light, so I see. Boxee open now.”
Lei Chang accepted the torch. He stood close beside the box, focusing the rays upon the very edge of the top. The crowbar and the hammer were upon the cubical container. The man with the cap began to pry open the lid.
The gleam of the torch was no longer reflected by a fog bank. It seemed as though the box had been brought to another world, into a hushed atmosphere where sound, as well as mist, could not penetrate.
Despite this complete detachment from the environment outside, the capped man exercised still greater care than he had shown in opening the box which had contained Lei Chang. The Chinaman expressed his satisfaction at this procedure by short, lisping words in dialect. He was thinking of Koon Woon, The Master - the one who slept within.
The lid was loose, and the man was about to raise it. A warning hiss came from Lei Chang. The man stopped. The Chinaman flicked out the light and stepped forward.
“Leavee me here,” said Lei Chang softly. “The Master, he will wakee when I speak. You go - show Lei Chang the way. I come and The Master, he come with me.”
Lei Chang’s companion grunted his assent. He took the torch from the Chinaman’s hand, and moved slowly through the darkness. The light twinkled, went out, then twinkled again. Moving away like a gigantic firefly, it made a beacon that Lei Chang could follow.
Each glimmer of that momentary light showed an identical scene - a dark, irregular corridor flanked by tree trunks. Lei Chang was watching the course of that light as his hands, now invisible, raised the cover of the box. Then the Chinaman was leaning inward, his voice, low and hollow as it spoke in singsong fashion.
“Koon Woon - Koon Woon” - the voice became a singsong dialect, then returned to that monotonous name - “Koon Woon - Koon Woon - Koon Woon -“
There was a motion in the box. Lei Chang’s hands were gripping and guiding. The crooning voice was soft and gentle - strange contrast to the Chinaman’s face of evil!
Far away, a tiny spot of light flashed on and off - a twinkling gleam that revealed nothing.
Now the box upon the blackened ground was empty. Its mysterious occupant had left it. Noiselessly, through the dark among the trees, Lei Chang and Koon Woon were following the path that their guide had made before them.
CHAPTER II
THE WANDERER RETURNS
THE morning sun, high in the cloudless sky, showed a different scene upon that section of shore beside Long Island Sound. Where thick fog had added to the gloom of night, this new day revealed as beautiful a sight as the eye could desire.
Upon a rocky height stood a large, picturesque mansion. The hill sloped gradually as it paralleled the Sound, and gave way to sandy shore. In back of the stretch of beach lay a wide expanse of smooth, verdant grass that formed a huge lawn leading to a rolling terrain. Flags marked this as an extension of a golf course.
Continuing along the shore, the beach now but a thin strip of white sand, with occasional rocks, formed frontage for a grove of trees that stood in regular formation. This mass of woods, covering several acres, made a pretty sight from the Sound.
The trees were all of one species - the copper beech - and their uniformity of height was a tribute to the perfection of nature. Burnished leaves, glistening in the early summer sun, caught the eye and held it there in admiration.
Farther along the shore - just past the attractive grove - stood a picturesque dwelling with a lawn that came to the water’s edge. Here, rocks replaced sand, and the shore turned to make a cove. Thus both the front and the side of the house were within a few hundred feet of the Sound.
There were signs of activity at this house. Men were working on a construction job, finishing a garage that stood in the rear of the building. On the porch, a middle-aged man was reclining in an easy chair; contentedly smoking a pipe as he stared out toward the blue waters of the Sound.
So engrossed was he that he did not notice the approach of another man who entered the grounds between the side of the house and the grove. When the visitor’s footsteps sounded on the steps of the porch, the man in the chair leaped up to look at the stranger.
There was something quizzical in the glances that they exchanged. The middle-aged man, brawny and of tanned complexion, surveyed the visitor with a keen, friendly gaze that seemed to carry inquiry.
The visitor, an elderly gentleman clad in white knickers, white shirt, and white cap, stared steadily through
