J. Allan Dunn

“ The small eyes showed merely life, no more emotion than if they had been insets of jet.
"Tao Chan?" asked McNeill.
This had been the name of the writer of the letter to Remsden, the name of the head priest of Hoang Lung.
Tao Chan acknowledged the dignity.
"You have brought back the claw?" he demanded.
"Is the hostage safe?" parried McNeill.
"To talk in questions is to waste time," replied the priest. "First answer me." ”

“ McNeill seemed very confident, and Tao Chan felt that the white man might use more of this magic wisdom to carry out his threat. True, the girl was in the Temple, but——
He looked at his panic-stricken guards, at the uneasiness of his priests, trained as they were to avoid emotion, and he looked at McNeill, jaunty, nonchalant, all save his eyes, which were bits of steel. The white devil might sacrifice the girl. They did such things when they were desperate, to save them from torture. The claw must come back. ”

“ THE temple of the Hoang Lung, the Shrine of the Dragon's Claw, lies in a natural amphitheater, the buildings of stone and sun-dried brick standing in a horseshoe of steep hills that are honeycombed with caves and fissures, some of which are used as dwellings for the priests. ”

“ They were built, many hundreds of years ago, perhaps thousands, and their carvings are smudged with the rasp of wind and rain and desert sands, and there are deep interstices where once the stone blocks met with exact precision. ”

“ A modern field gun would knock one to pieces in two shots; yet, inasmuch as field guns have never neared the shrine, they are still considered, in the light of legend and dim history, impregnable when the wooden gates, reinforced heavily with metal, are closed.
At nightfall of the fifth day after their start from Peking, the seventh since the ultimatum of the priests had been delivered to Remsden, a party-of white men were camped in the hills some three miles from the town and temple of Hoang Lung. ”

“ His daughter was to join him there and tomorrow they would start by rail for Shanghai.
"That is bully," said McNeill. "If I remember right, you'll just catch the Cathay. We'll see you to the legation."
"Aren't you going to stay there?" asked the girl. "It's just as dangerous for you."
"I haven't got the drag of Mr. Remsden," smiled back McNeill. "I shall be safe enough. The bunch of us will celebrate our little expedition together. I shall see you on the train tomorrow."
"Then you are coming to Shanghai?"
Wilson in his wisdom had drawn Canfield aside. ”

“ You can use the ridges for cover tomorrow if things go wrong with me."
Wilson, the glasses to his eyes, only grunted. The arches, particularly the first one, were plain to see, their stones silvered by the moon, now clear of the ridge.
"'S up to you," said Wilson at last, "till eight o'clock tomorrow. Then it's up to me. Goin' to take horses?"
"No. Less noise, less risk. We can pack all we need easily enough. A good deal depends on getting our work done absolutely unobserved." ”

“ McNeill," she went on seriously. "My life—more than that. I do not know how I can repay you."
"I do," said McNeill. "I'll tell you how on the trip, perhaps."
But the girl, however grateful, was not to have her maidenly defenses overrun in the first assault.
"It will be nice to have some one to talk to," she said. "But I thought that your profession kept you in China, though I can imagine that father's folly may have jeopardized your usefulness."
"I am not a professional guide and interpreter, if that is what you mean," said McNeill. "Only upon occasion. I have made certain discoveries. ”