Sin. At
first he had believed, in his confirmed masculine vanity, that it
would be a simple matter to extricate himself from the fastenings made
by a woman; but when, rolling him sideways, she had drawn back his
heels and run the loose end of the line through the loop formed by the
lashing of his wrists behind him, he had recognized a Chinese
training, and had resigned himself to the inevitable. The wooden gag
was a sore trial, and if it had not broken his spirit it had nearly
caused him to break an artery in his impotent fury.
Into the darkened inner chamber Sin Sin Wa had dragged him, and there
Kerry had lain ever since, listening to the various sounds of the
place, to the coarse voice, often raised in anger, of the Cuban-
Jewess, to the crooning tones of the imperturbable Chinaman. The
incessant moaning of the woman on the bed sometimes became mingled
with another sound more remote, which Kerry for long failed to
identify; but ultimately he concluded it to be occasioned by the tide
flowing under the wharf. The raven was silent, because, imprisoned in
his wicker cage, he had been placed in some dark spot below the
counter. Very dimly from time to time a steam siren might be heard
upon the river, and once the thudding of a screw-propeller told of the
passage of a large vessel along Limehouse Reach.
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