For he is like the bats who sleep all day and
wake at night.
"At last the sailor pig sleeps and I call softly to my dear
little one that the time has come. I have gone out into the
street, locking the door behind me, to see if her man is waiting,
and I hear her shrieks--her shrieks! I hurry back. My hands
tremble so much that I can scarcely unlock the door. At last I
enter, and I see and I know--that yellow devil has learned all
and has been playing with us like cat and mouse! He is lashing
her, with a great whip! Lashing her--that tiny, sweet flower.
Ah!"
She choked in her utterance, and turning to the gilded joss which
contained the dead Chinaman she shook her clenched hands at it,
and the expression on her face I can never forget. Then:
"As I shriek curses at him, crash goes the window--and I see her
husband spring into the room! The tender one had fallen, there
at the foot of the joss, and Kwen Lung, his teeth gleaming--like
a rat--like a devil--turns to meet him. So he is when her man
strike him, once. Just once, here." She rested her hand upon her
heart. "And he falls--and he coughs. He lie still. For him it
is finished. That devil heart has ceased to beat. Ah!"
She threw up her hands, and:
"That is all.
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