Not twenty
yards from the house a coupe was drawn up, and by the light of
one of its lamps a man was consulting a piece of paper on which,
presumably, an address was written; for, as the boy approached,
the man turned, his collar pulled up about his face, his hat
pulled down.
"Hallo!" he called. "Can you please tell me something?"
He spoke with a curious accent, unfamiliar to the boy. "A
foreigner of some kind," young Kerry determined.
"What is it?" he asked, pausing.
"Will you please read and tell me if I am near this place?" the
man continued, holding up the paper which he had been
scrutinizing.
Dan stepped forward and bent over it. He could not make out the
writing, and bent yet more, holding it nearer to the lamp. At
which moment some second person neatly pinioned him from behind,
a scarf was whipped about his head, and, kicking furiously but
otherwise helpless, he felt himself lifted and placed inside the
car.
The muffler had been thrown in such fashion about his face as to
leave one eye partly free, and as he was lifted he had a
momentary glimpse of his captors. With a thrill of real, sickly
terror he realized that he was in the hands of Chinamen!
Perhaps telepathically this spasm of fear was conveyed to his
father, for it was at about this time that the latter was
interviewing Zani Chada, and at about this time that Kerry
recognized, underlying the other's words, at once an ill-
concealed suspense and a threat.
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