Several small windows which looked upon the
court were barred, and there was a door with a grated peephole, where
Angela fancied that she caught the glint of eyes as the lantern swung in a
light breeze. But there was no such _grille_ in the low-browed door which
the guide approached. It stood ajar, and he pushed it open without
knocking.
"Follow, please," he said, "it's better for me to go first." And Angela
followed, with Nick close behind her, down a narrow flight of steps, more
a ladder than a stairway, which descended abruptly from the threshold.
One, two, three flights there were, so steep that you had to go slowly or
tumble on your nose, and then down at the bottom of the third ran a long
passage, where a greenish yellow dusk from some unseen lamp prevailed. The
walls were of unpainted wood, made of slips as thin as laths, and several
doors were roughly cut in it. At the end, one of these doors gaped open,
music of a peculiar shrillness floated out. Also a smell as of musk and
sandalwood drifted through the crack, with small, fitful trails of smoke
or curling mist.
On the other side they were burning incense inside; a Chinese man and a
woman, two tiny children like gilded idols, and three or four Europeans.
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