THE TOMB
OF TS’IN
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
Author of “Sanders of the River,” “Bones,” “The People
of the River,” etc., etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO
1918
[Illustration: “They both stopped whilst he examined the ornament.”]
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
I.--CAPTAIN TED TALHAM
II.--THE MAN IN THE DRAWER
III.--INTRODUCES MR. SOO
IV.--THE AMULET OF JADE
V.--MR. SOO MAKES A DISCOVERY
VI.--A CRIME OF TILLIZINNI
VII.--AN AFTERNOON CALL
VIII.--THE CELESTIAL WAY
IX.--THE ABDUCTION
X.--THE ROOMS BY THE CANAL
XI.--CAPTAIN TALHAM’S PROGRESS
XII.--THE MESSAGE OF THE DEAD
XIII.--CAPTAIN TALHAM PROPOSES
XIV.--AND RECEIVES HIS ANSWER
XV.--SOO WHO CAME BACK
XVI.--IN THE CITY OF HOO-SIN
XVII.--THE TOMB LOCATED
XVIII.--IN THE CAVERN OF THE DEAD
XIX.--THE YAMEN OF T’SI SOO
XX.--SOO “SAVES FACE”
THE TOMB OF TS’IN
The Just Crimes of Tillizinni.
INTRODUCTION.
Had Tillizinni written this story of the tomb of Ts’in Hwang Ti (the
King of Ts’in who became Emperor literally) from the notes he had upon
the case, it might have made a greater and a better book.
You would have pardoned such extravagance of style as he displayed in
his extraordinary narrative, remembering that he is of Italian birth
and that English is too full of pitfalls to the foreigner for his
liking. For of truth, though Tillizinni speaks and writes the three
Arabics, Moorish (which I think is the purest), Turkish, and Russian,
with considerable fluency, and though he knows at least seven dialects
in the Chinese tongue, and can converse in most of the modern
languages, yet English, with its bland and inviting simplicity, is a
tongue which more than any other baffles and overawes him.
They say of Nicholo Tillizinni, his predecessor in the chair of
Anthropology at Florence, and the benefactor and more than father,
whose name Tillizinni bears, that he spoke all languages save Welsh;
but I have reason for believing that he never completely mastered the
niceties of our tongue.
Particularly did Tillizinni wish to write clearly in this story which
I now tell (by his favour and at his request), for it is a story like
none other I have ever heard or read.
It concerns the tomb of the Great Emperor--the first Emperor of the
Chinese, who died two centuries before the birth of Christ; it
concerns that extraordinary genius and adventurer, Captain Ted
Talham--surely the most talkative man in the world; it concerns, too,
that remarkable woman, Yvonne Yale, and last but not least, The
Society of Joyful Intention--the most bloodthirsty organisation the
world has known. It concerns Tillizinni also, for Scotland Yard placed
him on his mettle, set him a challenging task, which threatened at one
time to bring ruin to the greatest detective in Europe.
That it likewise brought him within an ace of losing his life, I
should not think it worth while mentioning at this stage, but for the
fact that scoffers might suppose that he held life dearer than fame.
Tillizinni has never greatly interested himself in Chinese affairs,
and though he had been instrumental in bringing many men to their
doom, yet, curiously enough, none of these have been inmates of the
Celestial Kingdom; so that he welcomed with the welcome which a blasé
mind offers to anything in the shape of novelty, the invitation of
Scotland Yard to make himself acquainted with the Society of Joyful
Intention. The story proper which is set forth here, begins with the
surrounding of the China Packet.
On the 24th of November, in the year of the great storm, there went
aground off the Goodwin Sands the China-Orient liner _Wu-song_. She
was a modern steamer of six thousand tons, built by the Fanfield
Company in 1900, and she traded between London and the China Sea. On
the night in question she was homeward bound and was coming up the
Channel at half speed, a precaution taken by her skipper as a result
of a slight and patchy fog which lay on the Channel.
Off St. Margarets, for some unaccountable reason, she shifted her
course, and before anybody seemed to realise what was happening, she
was aground. No sea was running at the time, the storm, it will be
remembered, occurred a fortnight later, and with the aid of two Dover
tugs she was refloated.
That would seem rather a matter for the Trinity Masters than for
Scotland Yard, but for the fact that in the natural excitement
attendant upon the grounding, a very determined attempt was made to
force the Stubb safe in the captain’s cabin. Here again Scotland Yard
might have dismissed the matter as a mere commonplace attempt to
secure the safe’s contents by some person or persons unknown, but for
the fact that this was the third attempt which had been made during
the voyage.
Coming through the Suez Canal the captain had been on the bridge--as
is usual when a ship is making progress through the great waterway. He
had left his steward in charge of his cabin, with instructions not to
leave the apartment until he (the captain) returned. Half way through
the Canal, with the ship’s searchlights showing, and a clear stretch
of water before him, he had snatched a moment to go to his cabin to
get a muffler, for the night was cold.
The cabin was on the boat deck and inaccessible to passengers except
by invitation. To his surprise he had found the big room in darkness
and had put one foot over the weather board to enter the cabin, when
two men rushed past him, knocking him over in their hurry. He called
for a quarter-master, entered the cabin, and discovered his steward
lying gagged and bound on the floor.
The man had been sitting reading when he had found himself violently
seized and gagged by two men, one of whom had switched out the light
the moment the assault was made.
The steward struggled, but he was powerless in the hands of his
assailants, and for a quarter of an hour he lay upon the floor, his
back to the intruders, whilst they attacked the safe.
One cannot say, without reflecting upon an eminent firm of
safe-makers, whether the burglary would have succeeded but for the
captain’s return, but certain it is that the strangers had gone to
work in a most scientific manner, and had made amazing progress in the
short space of time.
The second attempt was made when the ship was two days out of
Gibraltar, and was a half-hearted effort to blow open the door of the
safe whilst the captain was conducting Church Service in the saloon.
No guard had been left in the cabin, the captain thinking that the
thieves would be scared at making any further attack, and, too, that
they would hardly venture in broad daylight. Again they were disturbed
and decamped unseen, leaving two pencils of nitro-glycerine to
indicate their intentions.
Nor was the third, and final, and--one may suppose--desperate attempt
any more successful; but this time the thieves were nearly caught.
Captain Talham had seized his revolver the moment the ship went
aground, for his crew was in the main Chinese, and he took no risks of
a panic. When going back to his cabin to secure a lifebelt, he met the
two indefatigable thieves, and there was a sharp exchange of shots.
This time the thieves were armed also. Again they evaded him and
escaped in the fog.
Scotland Yard sent Tillizinni to interview the captain at the London
docks, and he found him an average type of British seaman, kindly and
communicative.
“The rum thing is,” he explained, “that there was no money in the
safe--not so much as a brass farthing.”
“What did the safe contain?” asked Tillizinni.
He took up a sheet of paper from his desk and read:
“Ship’s papers in envelope--confidential report on the working of the
new condenser--and a green mailbag,” he said.
Tillizinni was interested.
“Green mailbag?”
The captain nodded.
“That’s the Ambassador’s bag and is brought from the Court of Pekin to
the ship by special messenger, and taken from me in London by a man
from the Embassy.”
“You see,” he explained, “the Chinese Government always sends its
mails like that--its Embassy mails, I mean. I bring ’em every trip.
They don’t trust the Embassy despatches over the Trans-Siberian
Railway. They think that the Russians go through ’em.”
“I see,” said Tillizinni.
It was very clear what the objective had been. The green mailbag
offered an irresistible temptation to somebody who knew its contents.
“There was nothing else?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said.
There was little to do save to continue inquiries at the Chinese
Embassy. Here, however, Tillizinni met with a check. A letter from the
Embassy informed him that nothing of the slightest importance was
contained in the bag. The letter continued:
“In this particular mail there were no official documents whatever,
the bag being made up of a number of his Excellency’s personal
effects. These were in the nature of rare Chinese documents which his
Excellency had sent for from his home in Che-foo, to assist him in the
writing of an article which he is preparing for the _North American
Review_. As Signor Tillizinni may know, his Excellency is an
enthusiastic student of Chinese history, and has the finest private
collection of historical documents relating to China in the world.”
This letter came to Tillizinni at a moment when he had ample time to
devote to the elucidation of the problem.
Our Italian friend was and is a peculiar man. He credited thieves of
persistent characters, such as these men undoubtedly possessed, with
intelligence out of the ordinary.
Whosoever made the attempt upon the safe of the China boat were well
aware of the “worthlessness” of the safe’s contents, and it was
apparent that, worthless or not, the burglars had decided that to have
them was worth the risk.
The passenger list was a small one, but it took a week to sort them
out and establish their innocence. For the most part they were Customs
officials and British officers returning home on leave; and the
week-end found me with only two “doubtfuls.”
The first of these was almost beyond suspicion. A Mr. de Costa, a
shipowner of sorts, was one, and Captain Talham was another.
Mr. de Costa, whom Tillizinni visited was, I should imagine, descended
from a Portuguese family. A short, stout man, rather yellow of face,
and bearing traces of his descent. He seemed the last person in the
world to be suspected of commonplace felony.
Of Captain Talham, only fragmentary information was obtainable. He had
apparently held a commission in a regiment of Irregular Horse during
the South African war, and at the conclusion of hostilities he had
gone to China in search of the adventure which at that time the great
empire offered.
Beyond the fact that he had gone to China as far inland as Lau-tcheu;
that he had been arrested later at Saigon in Cochin China, over some
dispute with a French naval officer, and that he had a few months in
Kuala Kangsan in Perak, little could be learnt about him. Later
Tillizinni was destined to meet him, and discover much at first hand,
for just as there was none so perfectly acquainted with his life, so
there was none as willing to talk so freely about Captain Talham--as
Captain Talham.
Here, then, with the conclusion of Tillizinni’s unsatisfactory
inquiries, the incident of the China Packet might have closed and have
been relegated to the obscurity which is reserved for petty felonies,
but for the events which followed the publication of the Ambassador’s
article.
From hereon I tell the story, suppressing nothing save that which may
appear too flattering to Tillizinni. Such of the events which
Tillizinni did not actually witness, I have written from information
afforded me by the principal actors in this strangest of modern
dramas.
* * * * *
Here let me say one word about the title which heads this chapter. I
have lumped together many acts of Signor Tillizinni and have described
them as “Just Crimes,” and I think that I have excellent reason for so
describing them.
Tillizinni has always been a law unto himself. He worked on the solid
basis that society was a lamb which must at all costs be protected
from the wolves of the world, and to afford that protection he invoked
the law of that land in which he was residing.
Sometimes the written law did not exactly cover a case, or presented a
loop-hole through which an evil-doer might crawl unscratched.
Tillizinni filled the hole--unlawfully. It was always better for a
criminal to take his chance with the law than to take a chance with
Tillizinni--that I know; that also many villains discovered too late
for the knowledge to be of practical service.
CHAPTER I.
CAPTAIN TED TALHAM.
A man walked carelessly through Hyde Park with the air of one who
had no destination. He was tall and straight, his shoulders were
thrown back, his chin had that upward lift which seems part of the
physiognomy of all who have followed a soldier’s career. His face,
lean and well-featured, was tanned with the tan of strong suns and
keen cold winds, and though the day was chilly and a boisterous breeze
swept across the bare spaces of the Park, he wore neither overcoat nor
muffler. The upturned moustache and the shaggy eyebrows suggested
truculence; the threadbare suit, for all its evidence of pressing and
ironing, suggested that he had found patches of life none too
productive.
A close examination might have revealed little darns at the
extremities of his trousers, for he had a trick of brushing his heels
together as he walked--a trick disastrous to garments already enduring
more than their normal share of wear.
He walked carelessly, swinging his gold-headed malacca
cane--incongruously magnificent--and whistling softly and musically as
he moved.
The Park was almost deserted, for it was dusk, and the weather
conditions were neither ideal nor inviting. Occasionally the gusty
wind bore down a flake or two of snow and the skies overhead were
sullen and grey.
He had reached the Ranger’s House before he examined a cheap metal
watch, which was affixed to his person by no more pretentious guard
than a broad ribbon, bearing a suspicious resemblance to a lady’s
shoe-lace.
The watch had stopped--he arrested his progress to wind it,
deliberately and with great earnestness. This done, he continued his
stroll, bearing down towards the Serpentine.
He stood for a few moments cheerfully contemplating the dreary stretch
of water, and three sad water-fowl, which came paddling toward him in
the hope of sustenance, paddled away again, sadder than ever, for he
offered no greater assistance to life than a cheerful chirrup.
He turned as a sharp footstep came to him from the gravelled path. A
girl was walking quickly toward him from the Kensington end of the
Park. Something in her face attracted his attention--if ever fear was
written in a human countenance it was written in hers. Then, into view
round a clump of bushes, came three men. They were small of stature,
and it needed no second glance to tell him their nationality, for
despite their European dress and their hard Derby hats, they wore
their clothes in the négligé style which the Oriental alone can
assume.
The girl saw the tall man and came towards him.
“I’m so sorry to trouble,” she said breathlessly, “but these men have
been following me for two days--but never so openly----”
She stopped and appeared to be on the verge of tears.
He bowed, a little slyly, and glanced at the three Chinamen, who now
stood a dozen paces away, as though uncertain as to what was the next
best move.
With a jerk of his head he beckoned them, and after a moment’s
consultation they obeyed the gesture.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“No savee,” lisped one of the men. “No savee them pidjin.”
He exchanged a few rapid sentences with his companions and a smile
flickered momentarily at the corner of the tall man’s mouth and
vanished.
“What for you walkee this piecee lady all same time?” he asked.
Again the sotto-voce conference and the leader of the three shook his
head.
“No makee walkee samee time,” he said. “Makee walkee John allee samee,
piecee lady no b’long.”
The tall man nodded. He took from his waistcoat pocket a light blue
porcelain disc and laid it on the palm of his hand and the three
Chinamen walked nearer and examined it. They were puzzled by the
demonstration.
“No savee,” said the spokesman.
Captain Talham replaced the button in his pocket.
“Why do you follow this lady, you dogs?” he asked quickly, and the men
shrank back, for he spoke in the hissing Cantonese dialect.
“Excellent lord,” said the speaker humbly, “we are magnificent
students walking as is our custom in the evening, and we have not the
felicity of having seen this gracious and beautiful lady before.”
“You lie,” said the tall man calmly; “for if that were so, why did you
say, ‘Let us go away until this pig is out of sight, and then we will
follow the woman?’”
The man he addressed was silent.
“Now you shall tell me what you mean,” said Captain Talham and drew
from his pocket the sky-blue button, fingering it thoughtfully.
This time the men saw and understood, and, as if at a signal, they
bowed low, recognising in the inquisitor a mandarin of the Fourth or
Military Class.
“Great mandarin,” said one of the three who had not spoken. “We are
servants of others, and it is said that ‘the wise servant is dumb when
the bamboo falls and dumb till he dies, when he is dumb for ever.’”
The tall man nodded.
“You shall give me your _hong_ that I may know you,” he said.
After a little hesitation, the man who was evidently the leader, took
a little ivory cylinder from his pocket, and unscrewed it so that it
came into two equal portions. The cylinder was no larger than a thick
pencil and less than two inches long. One half was made up of an
inking pad and at the end of the other was a tiny circular stamp.
Captain Talham held out the palm of his hand and the other impressed
upon it the tiny Chinese character which stood for his name. One by
one his fellows followed suit, though they knew that death might be
the result of their disclosure.
The tall man examined the name carefully.
“‘Noble Child,’” he read, “‘Hope of the Spring,’ and ‘Star above the
Yamen.’”
He nodded his head.
“You may go,” said he; and with two little jerky bows the men turned
and walked quickly in the direction from whence they had come.
He had time now to observe the girl, a grave and bewildered spectator
of the scene. She was a little above medium height, and slight. Her
hair was bronze-red and her face singularly beautiful. The skin was
clear and white--so white as almost to suggest fragility. Her eyes
were big and grey, and the two curved eyebrows, so sharp of line as to
recall the pencilled brows which the mid-Victorian poet popularised,
were dark, and contrasted with the glowing glory of the hair above.
The nose was inclined to be retroussé, and the lips were faultless in
shape and a warm red.
She presented the effect which the beautifiers of the world strive to
attain, yet fail, for here nature had, in some mysterious fashion,
blended all colourings in a harmony. She was well dressed, expensively
so. Her simple gown suggested the studied simplicity which has made
one Paris house famous the world over; and there was luxury in the
furs about her throat and in the huge muff which was suspended with
one hand.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she began; and indeed she was in some
embarrassment, for whilst he was obviously a gentleman, he was as
obviously a very poor gentleman.
He smiled and there was good comradeship and the ease which begets
friendship in the brief glimpse of even white teeth.
“In this world,” he said, with no apparent effort at oratory,
“existence is made tolerable by opportunity, and no aspect of
opportunity is so coveted as that which afforded a gentleman to secure
the safety, the peace of mind, or the happiness of a lady.”
It was oratorical all right: there could be no doubt as to that, but
there was no effort, no shaming after effect, no labour of delivery.
He was neither self-conscious nor ponderously pleasant, but the
periods marched forth in an ordered stream of words, punctuated in the
process, so it seemed, by some invisible grammarian.
She flashed a dazzling smile at him which was partly thanks for her
relief, partly amusement at his speech. The smile died as suddenly
because of her amusement and her fear that he would realise why she
smiled. (As to that she need not have worried, for Ted Talham had no
fear of appearing ridiculous.)
“Perhaps you would allow me to see you safely from this place,” he
said courteously. “Civilisation has its dangers--dangers as
multitudinous and as primitive as the wilds may hold for the innocent
and the beautiful.”
She flushed a little, but he was so obviously sincere, and so free
from pretension, that she could not be offended.
“They have been following me for days,” she replied. “At first I
thought it was a coincidence, but now I see that there was no reason
for their dogging my movements.”
He nodded, and they walked on in silence for a while, then:
“Are you associated with China in any way?” he asked suddenly.
She smiled and shook her head.
“I have never been to China,” she said, “and know very little about
the country.”
Again a silence.
“You have friends associated with China?” he persisted, and saw a
little frown of annoyance gather on her forehead.
“My mother--that is to say, my stepmother has,” she said shortly.
He curled his moustache thoughtfully. She noted with an odd feeling in
which pleasure and annoyance were mixed, that he was very much “the
old friend of the family.” It was not exactly what he said, or the
tone he adopted. It was an indefinable something which was neither
patronage nor familiarity. It was Talham’s way, as she was to
discover, to come with pleasant violence into lives and be no more and
no less in place than they who had won their positions in esteem and
confidence through arduous years of service.
“Perhaps your mother’s friends have given you something Chinese which
these men want?” he suggested, and again saw the frown. Somehow he
knew that it did not indicate hostility to, or annoyance with,
himself.
“I have a bangle,” she said; “but I do not wear it.”
She stopped, opened a silver bag she carried on her wrist, and took
out a small jade bracelet. It was set about at intervals by tiny bands
of gold.
“May I see it?”
She passed it to him. They were nearing Marble Arch, and she had
insensibly slackened her pace. Now they both stopped whilst he
examined the ornament. He scrutinised it carefully. Between each band
was an inscription, half obliterated by wear.
“This bangle is two thousand years old,” he said simply, and she
gasped.
“Two thousand!” she repeated incredulously.
“Two thousand,” he repeated. “This is quite valuable.”
“I know,” she said shortly.
He detected something of resentment in her tone.
“What do those characters mean?” she asked. “Is it something I
shouldn’t know?” she asked quickly.
She looked up at his face. There was a dull flush on his face and a
strange light in his eyes.
He fingered the jade bracelet absently.
“There is nothing you should not know,” he said briefly--for him.
“There is much that I have wanted to know for years.”
She was puzzled, and showed it.
“Listen,” he said, and read, turning the bracelet slowly as he read:
“I am Shun the son of the great mechanic Chu-Shun upon whom the door
fell when the Emperor passed. This my father told me before the day,
fearing the treachery of the eunuchs. Behold the pelican on the left
wall with the bronze neck… afterwards the spirit steps of jade…
afterwards river of silver, afterwards… door of bronze. Here Emperor…
behind a great room filled with most precious treasures.”
He read it twice, then handed the bracelet to the girl. She looked at
him for the space of a minute. Here, in the heart of prosaic London,
with the dull roar of the traffic coming to them gustily across the
sparse herbage of a most commonplace park, Shun the son of Chu-Shun
spoke across the gulf of twenty centuries.
“It is very wonderful,” she said, and looked at the bracelet.
“I think you had better let me keep this bracelet,” he said; “at any
rate for a while. I beg you to believe”--he raised his hand
solemnly--“that I consider only your own safety, and I am moved to the
suggestion by the knowledge that you attach no sentimental value to
the ornament, that it was given to you by somebody whom your mother
likes, but who is repugnant to you, and that you only wear it in order
to save yourself the discomfort and exasperation of a daily argument
with your parent.”
She stared at him in open-eyed amazement.
“How--how did you know that?” she asked.
“You carry it in your bag. You frowned when you took it out to show
me,” he said cheerfully. “You carry it in your bag only because you
must keep it by you in order to slip it on and off when you are out of
somebody’s sight. If it were your fiancé, you would either wear it or
leave it at home--engaged people clear up their differences as they go
along. Evidently you are a lady of strong character, strong enough to
respect the foibles or the demands of your elders. Therefore it must
be your father or your mother; and since fathers are naturally
indignant and notoriously unsentimental, I cannot imagine that he
would insist----”
“Thank you,” she said hurriedly. “Will you keep the bracelet for me,
and return it at your leisure to this address?”
She extracted a card from her bag, and he looked at it and read:
Miss Yvonne Yale.
406, Upper Curzon Street, S.W.
“Yvonne,” he read gravely. “I’ve never known anybody named Yvonne.”
He put the bracelet in his inside pocket, and buttoned the worn coat
again.
“I have no card,” he said. “I am Captain Ted Talham of the Victorian
Mounted Infantry, of the Bechuanaland Mounted Police, of the Imperial
Bushmen, and I am, in addition, a general in the army of the Dowager
Empress of China, a mandarin of the Fourth Class, and a wearer of the
Sun of Heaven and the Imperial Dragon Orders.”
He recited this with all gravity. There was no glint of humour in his
eyes. The girl checked her smile when she realised how serious this
good-looking man was. There was pride in the recital of his dignities:
it was a very important matter that he should be Captain of Irregular
Horse, and as tremendous a happening that he should wear the
decorations of the Manchu dynasty.
She held out her hand.
“I am sure my mother will be glad to meet you,” she said, “and as for
myself I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you should have been
so providentially at hand this afternoon.”
He bowed, a ceremonious and correct little bow.
“That is the luck of the game,” he said.
There was an awkward pause. He was so evidently trying to say
something more.
“I think it is right, and it is my duty,” he said at last, “to point
out to you the very significant fact that so far I have not offered
you my address. This,” he went on oracularly, “is all the more
significant and alarming when I tell you that the intrinsic value of
the bangle”--he tapped his pocket--“is anything from fifteen hundred
to twenty-five hundred pounds.”
“Impossible!” said the startled girl.
It was altogether an amazing afternoon.
He nodded.
“Possibly the latter figure,” he said. “Let the fact sink into your
mind, and add to it the alarming intelligence that I have no address,
and I have no address because I have exactly three yen in unchangeable
Chinese silver between myself and the ravening world.”
A wave of pity surged over the girl, and there were tears in her
eyes--tears that sprang most unexpectedly from unsuspected wells of
sympathy.
She fumbled in her bag, but he stopped her.
“I beg of you,” he said reproachfully. “If you can’t trust me with two
thousand pounds’ worth of jade, believe me, I can trust you with my
secret, and a secret is only existent just so long as either of the
two parties affected do nothing overtly or covertly to destroy the
basic foundation upon which it rests. My secret is momentary
penury--remove that and the secret ceases to be.”
He would have said more, but checked himself.
“In fact,” he concluded, “if you offer me money, I shall offer you
your jade bangle, and there will be the end of the matter.”
She was laughing now--her eyes danced with merriment.
There was something amusing in the situation. This seedy gentleman
with his unchangeable yen, his problematical dinner and bed, with two
thousand pounds in his inside pocket, appealed to her sense of the
grotesque. If young De Costa knew! Young change-counting,
bill-checking, tipless De Costa, who had given her two thousand pounds
in the innocence of his heart.
“Promise me that you will call?” she asked laughingly, “with or
without the bangle.”
“With the bangle,” he said. “To-night I shall make it very clear to
the ‘Noble Child,’ ‘Hope of the Spring,’ and ‘Star of the Yamen’ that
the bracelet has passed to my possession and that henceforward if they
wish to follow its wearer they must follow me.”
He shook hands again, lifted his hat, and turning abruptly, left her.