Peter leaped toward it. Half opening this, he saw a tiny garden surrounded by low, gray walls. He paused. The maid from Macassar was behind him. She followed him out and closed the door.
"_Birahi_," she said in her tinkling voice, and with gravity far in advance of her summers, "we must part now--forever?"
He nodded, as he searched the wall for a likely place to jump. "It is the penalty of friendship, _birahi_. You do not mind if I call you _birahi_ in our last moment together?"
"I am curious, so curious, my brave one, about the red-faced man, and the one with the black coat. But we women are meant for silence. _Birahi_, I have played no part--I have been like a dead lily--a burden. Perhaps, if you are in great danger----"
"I am in great danger, small one. The red toad wants my life, and you must detain him."
"I will talk to him! But the others, the black-coated one--what of them? They would like the feel of your blood on their hands, too!"
Peter nodded anxiously. He was thinking of Romola Borria.
"I will do anything," declared the maid from Macassar patiently.
"Has your grandmother a sampan, a trustworthy coolie?"
"Then have that coolie be at the Hong Kong landing stage with his sampan at midnight. Have him wait until morning. If I do not come by dawn he will return immediately to Canton. By dawn, if I am not there, it will mean----"
"If the _fokie_ returns with that message, you will write a short note----"
"To one I love. In America. The name is Eileen Lorimer; the address, Pasadena, California. You will say simply, 'Peter Moore is dead.'"
"Ah! I must not say that. It will break her heart! But you must go now, my brave one. I will talk to the red toad!"
The green door closed softly; and Peter was left to work out the problem of his escape, which he did in an exceedingly short space of time. Even as he took the fence in a single bound he fancied he could hear the panting of the red-faced man at his heels.
He found himself in a crooked alleyway, which forked out of sight at a near-by bend. Speeding to this point, he came out upon a somewhat broader thoroughfare. He looked hastily for a rickshaw but none was in sight.
So he ran blindly on, resorting at intervals to his old trick of doubling back, to confuse his pursuers. He did this so well that before long he had lost his sense of direction, and the sun having gone from the sight of man behind a mass of dark and portentous clouds.