Opening and closing his yellow fingers to restore circulation,
he stood looking down at her. He spat upon the floor at her feet.
Then, turning, he held out his arms and confronted Sam Tuk.
"Was it well done, bald father of wisdom?" he demanded hoarsely.
But old Sam Tuk seated lumpish in his chair like some grotesque idol
before whom a human sacrifice has been offered up, stirred not. The
length of loaded tubing with which he had struck Kerry lay beside him
where it had fallen from his nerveless hand. And the two oblique,
beady eyes of Sin Sin Wa, watching, grew dim. Step by step he
approached the old Chinaman, stooped, touched him, then knelt and laid
his head upon the thin knees.
"Old father," he murmured, "Old bald father who knew so much. Tonight
you know all."
For Sam Tuk was no more. At what moment he had died, whether in the
excitement of striking Kerry or later, no man could have presumed to
say, since, save by an occasional nod of his head, he had often
simulated death in life--he who was so old that he was known as "The
Father of Chinatown."
Standing upright, Sin Sin Wa looked from the dead man to the dead
raven. Then, tenderly raising poor Tling-a-Ling, he laid the great
dishevelled bird--a weird offering--upon the knees of Sam Tuk.
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