"It was the night of the 29th of July, Thakin, and I sent him forth upon a business. Next morning he did not return." "What inquiries have you made?" "All that may be made, Thakin." His dark eyes gleamed, and he showed his teeth like a dog. Mhtoon Pah gasped again, like a drowning man. "And yet the Thakin knows the sewer city, the Chinese quarter, the streets where men laugh horribly in the dark. Houses there, Thakin, that crawl with yellow men, who are devils, and who split a man as they would split a fowl --" he broke off, and waved his hands about wildly. Hartley felt a little sick. "Who saw Absalom last?"