He gave a powerful thrust. The bow of the sampan was driven in some three feet, then progress was checked.
“Another push from this side—hard.”
He swung the oar over, found a firm spot, and thrust with all his weight. The boat glided along an unseen channel, and they were out again in the main part of the pool.
“Let me go ashore first and see if the river is clear,” Yueh Hua said.
Tony rowed in to the spot against which he had first tied up, and she leaped ashore lightly and ran off through the cactus lining the bank. He waited, listening. And as he listened, he heard voices singing some monotonous song, and faintly, the sound of a reed pipe.
Yueh Hua came running back.
“A big raft coming down! They may have been told to look out for us. We must wait until they pass.”
He nodded. But every minute’s delay might mean capture.
The sounds drew nearer. The song was a bawdy ditty once popular on the Hong Kong Flower Boats. Tony glanced at Yueh Hua, but read only anxiety in her face. They stayed quite silent until the raft had gone by.
Then he swung the sampan through the opening. The stream was deserted. Piloted by Yueh Hua, they crossed; Tony found the narrow creek, rowed the boat into it until Yueh Hua called, “Stop here!”
There was a mat shed—a rough hut—under the trees. He turned to her in sudden doubt.
“Are there people here?”
“I hope not. It is used sometimes by fishers, but nobody lives in it.”
In fact, the tumble-down place proved to be deserted. It was so far gone in decay that not even an eel fisher would have consented to live there. The palm roof was full of holes and the bamboo framework largely collapsed. When he had tied up the boat he secretly charged his .38 and slipped its comforting weight into a pouch inside his ragged pants.
“I must find my way along the bank to the end of the creek, Yueh Hua, and watch for the motor boat.”
She touched his arm. “Please, let me come, too.”
* * *
They set out together in blazing sunshine. There was a sort of path through thick undergrowth, but evidently it hadn’t been used for a long time. Then came the bare banks lower down. There proved to be a wandering gully, though, which gave good cover and which led them to the river only some yards above the creek.
They had trudged along in silence. Now both looked upstream. The raft was no longer in sight. The river showed deserted. They sat down side by side among the rushes and wild grass, watching a slow tide go whispering by. Tony felt that Yueh Hua was furtively studying him. He glanced at her.
She smiled. “What is your honorable name, if you please?” “My family name is Wu. I am called Chi Foh.” “Mine is Kwee. You don’t belong in this part of China?” He looked at her searchingly. She was still smiling. “No. My father—” (He hesitated. He had nearly said “was a merchant”)—”is a storekeeper in Hong Kong. I was brought up there.”
His father had been senior partner in the firm of McKay, Anderson and Furth, Incorporated, tea exporters. “I suppose, Chi Foh, he was ruined by the war?” But he didn’t answer. He had heard the asthmatic coughing of Colonel Soong’s motor craft. They were coming back, close to the right bank.
Yueh Hua grasped his hand. He saw that her lips trembled. “We must lie behind these rushes, Chi Foh. We can see from there, but they won’t see us.”
They crept back from the bank and lay down side by side. The old cruiser was very close now.
Almost unconsciously, he put his left arm around Yueh Hua’s shoulders.
From where he lay, he couldn’t see Soong in the stern. But he could see a man who stood up in the bows. It was the giant Nubian!
Then, came a voice, a clear, imperious voice. It sent a trickle of ice down Tony’s spine.
“I fear. Colonel Soong, that you are wasting valuable time.”
The motor boat had swung around slightly on the current. He saw Soong in the stem, field-glasses in hand— and he saw someone else, seated in the cabin behind the man at the wheel. A figure wrapped in a dark cloak.
Yueh Hua trembled so violently that he glanced at her anxiously. Every trace of color had left her face.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, and held her closely. “They can’t see us.”
But she didn’t answer. Colonel Soong’s harsh tones were raised unsteadily. “I assure you. Most High, it is not so. The escaped prisoner must certainly have come this way.”
Most High! Nayland Smith hadn’t over-estimated the power of The Master. The mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu seemed to be all set to take over the reins of government. British Secret Service wasn’t far wrong in regarding him as a danger to the Western World.
“I regret that I cannot share your confidence.” The words were spoken in sibilant, cultured Chinese. Then with a change of language to what Tony thought might be Arabic, a short sentence followed.
The Nubian spun around and stood at attention. He shook his head and answered briefly in the same guttural tongue.
“I was inclined—” Fu Manchu was addressing Soong—”to send Mahmud ashore again to search the mat shed on the creek. But he assures me no one has been there. I believe him, for he has the instincts of a hunting leopard.”
The motor cruiser had drifted now to within a few yards of the bank. It was plain enough that “Mahmud” on his former visit must have followed the gully in which they lay, that if he did come ashore again he could hardly fail to stumble over them.
Tony fingered the useful weapon in his pocket. The big negro, if he came, might carry a gun; Soong was armed. There might be other arms on board. But there were only four men to deal with. Given luck, and surprise to help him, he thought he could deal with them.
Silence for a few seconds, and then, “Shall I go, myself, Highness?” Soong volunteered.
Tony was planning his tactics. If Soong came ashore, he would shoot the big negro first, then, before the colonel could grasp what had happened, he would shoot Soong.
“Proceed upstream,” the imperious voice commanded. “We passed no other possible hiding-place on our way down. Therefore, we cannot have left the sampan behind . . .”
* * *
Late that evening, Dr. Fu Manchu sat at the lacquered desk, reading. Old General Huan, from his favorite seat on cushions, watched him.
“I observe that Andre Skobolov is expected here tomorrow. You have instructions from Peiping to entertain him. Why was the presence of this dangerous Soviet agent in China not reported to me?” Fu Manchu glanced up from the notes which lay before him on the desk. “It would seem that our intelligence service is sleeping.”
General Huan Tsung-Chao slightly shook his head. “This man Skobolov travels almost as secretly as you do, Master.”
Dr. Fu Manchu’s eyes glittered wickedly from under half-lowered lids. “I have perhaps been misled in my belief that the elusive escaped prisoner was a British agent acting under Nayland Smith. His remarkable disappearance is more easily explained if he is a secret agent of the Soviet. They have facilities here which are denied to Nayland Smith.”
“If that were so, why should he have been imprisoned?”
“Wake up, Tsung-Chao! The identity of such an agent would not be known to the blundering Colonel Soong, nor to the prison governor. It pains me to think that I may have saved the life of a Soviet spy!”
Old General Huan smiled a wry, wrinkled smile. “There is unfortunate news, Master, which may confirm your suspicions. But I am assured that Wu Chi Foh could not have had anything to do with the documents.”
Fu Manchu’s eyes became fully opened. They blazed. His expression remained immobile as a mask. But when he spoke it was in tones very subdued, oddly sibilant.
“Unfortunate news? Documents? What have you to tell me?”
And, outwardly calm as always, Huan Tsung-Chao replied, “My house in Chengtu was entered last night and important papers stolen from my office. Amongst these documents—for no other valuables are missing—was the Si-Fan Register . . .”
Slowly, Dr. Fu Manchu stood up. His hands were clenched. Yet, when he spoke again, his tones remained unemotional.
