Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1919 - Feb 1920)

30 The Pagan God were cries of "Kill them! Kill the red-haired devils!" when Bruce Winthrop and Wong happened to pass. Even then the crowd did not cease its attacks until Wong stepped straight into their midst, spoke a few quick words, and made a strange gesture with the thumb and third finger of his left hand. "Back, cattle; back!" he commanded. Three times he repeated the gesture, and the c r o w d , with awed murmurs of "The Sign of the Tong, the Tong of Freedo m ! ' ' dispersed, while Bruce, seeing that an elderly American woman among the tourists was on. the point of fainting with fright and excitement, offered them the hospitality of the palace. He spoke to Beryl. "Hello " He was silent. For he was embarrassed, ill at ease ; he did not know what to say to her nor how to say it. "I — oh — Beryl " he stammered, and was silent again. But Beryl had softened toward him in the unexpected joy of meeting him under such circumstances, and, though she saw him here, a lonely white amid the Mongol mob, dressed like a native, evidently friends with them, yet her heart convinced her against her reason that perhaps she had been mistaken, that he was not guilty of dishonor. And, passing with him into a great room, its walls of ebony inlaid with nacre and jade, while Wong, winking an understanding eye at his master, was showing the visitors about the gardens, she had just given him her hand, had answered the silent, aching question in his eyes with a "Yes, dear, I am still fond of you !" when Tai happened to see them through a slit in the dragonembroidered curtains, and it was then that her passion and desire forced her hand. Quickly she dropped her outer garments, and a moment later she strolled leisurely into the presence of Bruce and Beryl, looked at the latter, pretended surprise and confusion, and fled from the room. Her woman's ruse was thoroughly effective, for Beryl placed the natural construction upon it. She He would die — yes — but he would die fighting! "The Pagan God" Written from the picture produced by the Jesse B. Hampton Company, which was based on a story by F. McGrew Willis, and played by the following cast: Bruce Winthrop H. B. Warner Tai Carmen Phillips WahKung ...Ed Piel Wong ...Jack Abbe Henry Addison Carl Stockdale Beryl Addison Marguerite De La Motte believed — how could she disbelieve? — that Tai was Bruce Winthrop's mistress, and so she left him with a few low contemptuous words. He shut his lips hard. He could not explain to her. There was his duty — his mission. He would have to suffer in silence— while she went out of his life forever. That night, as if to atone, Tai promised to reveal to him "wonderful secrets, but you must prove your sincerity, my lord. You must join — us first." "And who is 'us?' " And then her low reply : "The Tongs o f Freedom ! Do you promise?"' "Yes," he replied steadily, and that night, amid weird surroundings, a crowd of mysterious, white-robed, black-masked figures filling the huge underground chamber where the ceremony was being held, coiling, honey-sweet incense rising to the painted ceiling in great bulbous whirls, the tom-toms beating and the reed pipes shrieking, he was initiated and formally declared an "Honorable Companion of the Tong of Freedom." A great, broad-shouldered, masked Manchu put him through the initiation ; finally, the initiation over, dropping his black face mask. It was Kung, the son of the Manchu duke, the leader of the conspiracy. He hated and suspected the American, and only Tai's authority prevented him from open hostility, perhaps murder. At the end of the ceremony a tall, hatchet-faced Kansuh brave opened a wall cabinet provided with an intricate lock, and, amid a heavy, awed pall of silence, produced therefrom a gold case incrusted with emeralds and pearls. "The Jade Buddha!" Tai whispered to Bruce. "The innermost secret of our lodge !" Bruce looked at it where, free of its precious case, it lay on the Kansuh brave's flat palm — a perfect piece of clear-green Yunan jade, three inches high, carved exquisitely in the shape of the Lord Gautama Buddha on the Lotus Flower, and, so he was informed by Tai, containing in its hollow interior the "List of Death" — the signatures of high officials pledged Continued on page 88