I came to see my uncle, the brother of Duke Ki. He is making
sacrifice before you take him."
"Well, I'm blasted," said Jonas Billings from the crowd. "Chinese dukes,
eh! What's it all about?" "Reg'lar hocus-pocus," remarked the vagabond
brother of Rigby the chemist.
At that moment little coloured lights suddenly showed in the darkness of
the root-house, and there was the tinkling of a bell. Then a voice
seemed calling, but softly, with a long, monotonous, thrilling note.
"Many may not come," said the Chinaman at the door to the Coroner, as he
turned and entered the low doorway.
A minute afterwards the two constables held back the crowd from the
doorway of the root-house, from the threshold of which a few wooden steps
descended to the ground inside.
A strange sight greeted the eyes of those permitted to enter.
The root-house had been transformed. What had been a semi-underground
place composed of scantlings, branches of trees and mother earth, with a
kind of vaulted roof, had been made into a sort of Chinese temple.
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