'You have the pistol,' added Smith—'follow closely, and quietly.'
He walked across the tops of the casks and leaped down, pointing to that nearest to the closed door of the house. I helped him place it under the open window. A second we set beside it, and, not without some noise, got a third on top.
Smith mounted.
His jaw muscles were very prominent and his eyes shone like steel; but he was as cool as though he were about to enter a theater and not the den of the most stupendous genius who ever worked for evil. I would forgive any man who, knowing Dr. Fu-Manchu, feared him; I feared him myself—feared him as one fears a scorpion; but when Nayland Smith hauled himself up on the wooden ledge above the door and swung thence into the darkened room, I followed and was in close upon his heels. But I admired him, for he had every ampere of his self-possession in hand; my own case was different.
He spoke close to my ear.
'Is your hand steady? We may have to shoot.'
I thought of Karamaneh, of lovely dark-eyed Karamaneh whom this wonderful, evil product of secret China had stolen from me—for so I now adjudged it.
'Rely upon me!' I said grimly. 'I… '
The words ceased—frozen on my tongue.
There are things that one seeks to forget, but it is my lot often to remember the sound which at that moment literally struck me rigid with horror. Yet it was only a groan; but, merciful God! I pray that it may never be my lot to listen to such a groan again.
Smith drew a sibilant breath.
'It's Eltham!' he whispered hoarsely—'they're torturing—'
'No, no!' screamed a woman's voice—a voice that thrilled me anew, but with another emotion—
'Not that, not—'
I distinctly heard the sound of a blow. Followed a sort of vague scuffling. A door somewhere at the back of the house opened—and shut again. Some one was coming along the passage toward us!
'Stand back!' Smith's voice was low, but perfectly steady. 'Leave it to me!'
Nearer came the footsteps and nearer. I could hear suppressed sobs. The door opened, admitting again the faint light—and Karamaneh came in. The place was quite unfurnished, offering no possibility of hiding; but to hide was unnecessary.
Her slim figure had not crossed the threshold ere Smith had his arm about the girl's waist and one hand clapped to her mouth. A stifled gasp she uttered, and he lifted her into the room.
I stepped forward and closed the door. A faint perfume stole to my nostrils—a vague, elusive breath of the East, reminiscent of strange days that, now, seemed to belong to a remote past. Karamaneh! that faint, indefinable perfume was part of her dainty personality; it may appear absurd—impossible—but many and many a time I had dreamt of it.
'In my breast pocket,' rapped Smith; 'the light.'
I bent over the girl as he held her. She was quite still, but I could have wished that I had had more certain mastery of myself. I took the torch from Smith's pocket, and, mechanically, directed it upon the captive.
She was dressed very plainly, wearing a simple blue skirt, and white blouse. It was easy to divine that it was she whom Eltham had mistaken for a French maid. A brooch set with a ruby was pinned at the point where the blouse opened—gleaming fierily and harshly against the soft skin. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with fear.
'There is some cord in my right-hand pocket,' said Smith; 'I came provided. Tie her wrists.'
I obeyed him, silently. The girl offered no resistance, but I think I never essayed a less congenial task than that of binding her white wrists. The jeweled fingers lay quite listlessly in my own.
'Make a good job of it!' rapped Smith, significantly.
A flush rose to my cheeks, for I knew well enough what he meant.
'She is fastened,' I said, and I turned the ray of the torch upon her again.
Smith removed his hand from her mouth but did not relax his grip of her. She looked up at me with eyes in which I could have sworn there was no recognition. But a flush momentarily swept over her face, and left it pale again.
'We shall have to—gag her—'
'Smith, I can't do it!'
The girl's eyes filled with tears and she looked up at my companion pitifully.
'Please don't be cruel to me,' she whispered, with that soft accent which always played havoc with my composure. 'Every one—every one-is cruel to me. I will promise—indeed I will swear, to be quiet. Oh, believe me, if you can save him I will do nothing to hinder you.' Her beautiful head drooped. 'Have some pity for me as well.'
'Karamaneh' I said. 'We would have believed you once. We cannot, now.'
She started violently.
'You know my name!' Her voice was barely audible. 'Yet I have never seen you in my life—'
'See if the door locks,' interrupted Smith harshly.
Dazed by the apparent sincerity in the voice of our lovely captive—vacant from wonder of it all—I opened the door, felt for, and found, a key.
We left Karamaneh crouching against the wall; her great eyes were turned towards me fascinatedly. Smith locked the door with much care. We began a tip-toed progress along the dimly lighted passage.
From beneath a door on the left, and near the end, a brighter light shone. Beyond that again was another door. A voice was speaking in the lighted room; yet I could have sworn that Karamaneh had come, not from there but from the room beyond—from the far end of the passage.
But the voice!—who, having once heard it, could ever mistake that singular voice, alternately guttural and sibilant!
Dr. Fu-Manchu was speaking!
'I have asked you,' came with ever-increasing clearness (Smith had begun to turn the knob), 'to reveal to me the name of your correspondent in Nan-Yang. I have suggested that he may be the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat, but you have declined to confirm me. Yet I know' (Smith had the door open a good three inches and was peering in) 'that some official, some high official, is a traitor. Am I to resort again to the question to learn his name?'
Ice seemed to enter my veins at the unseen inquisitor's intonation of the words 'the question.' This was the Twentieth Century, yet there, in that damnable room…
Smith threw the door open.
Through a sort of haze, born mostly of horror, but not entirely, I saw Eltham, stripped to the waist and tied, with his arms upstretched, to a rafter in the ancient ceiling. A Chinaman who wore a slop-shop blue suit and who held an open knife in his hand, stood beside him. Eltham was ghastly white. The appearance of his chest puzzled me momentarily, then I realized that a sort of tourniquet of wire-netting was screwed so tightly about him that the flesh swelled out in knobs through the mesh. There was blood—
'God in heaven!' screamed Smith frenziedly—'they have the wire-jacket on him! Shoot down that damned Chinaman, Petrie! Shoot! Shoot!'
Lithely as a cat the man with the knife leaped around—but I raised the Browning, and deliberately—with a cool deliberation that came to me suddenly—shot him through the head. I saw his oblique eyes turn up to the whites; I saw the mark squarely between his brows; and with no word nor cry he sank to his knees and toppled forward with one yellow hand beneath him and one outstretched, clutching—clutching—convulsively. His pigtail came unfastened and began to uncoil, slowly, like a snake.
I handed the pistol to Smith; I was perfectly cool, now; and I leaped forward, took up the bloody knife from the floor and cut Eltham's lashings. He sank into my arms.
'Praise God,' he murmured, weakly. 'He is more merciful to me than perhaps I deserve. Unscrew… the jacket, Petrie… I think … I was very near to… . weakening. Praise the good God, Who… gave me… fortitude… '
I got the screw of the accursed thing loosened, but the act of removing the jacket was too agonizing for Eltham—man of iron though he was. I laid him swooning on the floor.
'Where is Fu-Manchu?'
Nayland Smith, from just within the door, threw out the query in a tone of stark amaze. I stood up—I could
