THE LADY FROM MAURITIUS
waited half an hour. He stepped towards the entrance, pulled aside the curtain, and bumped against a smooth door of heavy teak-wood—closed and locked.
Disgust was his chief emotion: he had proved such an easy fool. "This charmer from Mauritius," he thought savagely, "first she pumped me, then had me walk into her parlour—or Borkman's. I wonder what for?—especially as the windows are open."
He crossed the room, thrust sharply outward at the heavy reed "chicks," and nearly broke a finger. What had seemed vertical bands on the curtain were iron bars, newly set in, with all the neat solidity of Chinese workmanship. Even as he rose from a vain attempt to loosen them, past the window glided the noiseless figure of a brown Malay, from whose waist-knot stuck the handle of a kriss. It was a stout trap, and well watched.
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