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"Take him away," the mandarin said in his own tongue.
Basil Gregory understood the tone, though not the words. Dumb with terror, he scarcely resisted as the two servants dragged him through the door.
Wu Li Chang stood motionless. He heard the bolts shut. He heard the footsteps die away. But still he did not move.
He was thinking of Nang Ping—not as he had seen her last, not as he had known her for years now, but of Nang Ping, a laughing, imperious baby. And then he thought of that other, dearer baby—the baby he had married in Pekin—and a great, silent sob shook him roughly as he stood.
