The two men hurried along a "goat" path, skirted the town wall, and stole through a dark gate into a darker maze of lonely streets.

Drawing nearer to a faint clash of cymbals in some joss-house, they halted before a blind wall.
"In the first room," whispered the guide, "a circle is drawn on the floor.

Put your right foot there, and say, 'We are all in-the-circle men,' If they ask, remember: you go to pluck the White Lotus.

These men hate it, they are Triad brothers, they will let you pass.

You come from the East, where the Fusang cocks spit orient pearls; you studied in the Red Flower Pavilion; your eyes are bloodshot because"-- He lectured earnestly, repeating desperate nonsense, over and over.