up, saw himself shooting a way out in the best Western tradition. But, even had this wild plan succeeded, they were still many miles behind the second Bamboo Curtain. It was certain they would never get through alive.
Head down, he thought miserable thoughts as he walked past a bend in the tree-lined road. Then he looked up unhappily and began counting again—One-two-three- four-five.,.
He stood still, as if checked by a blow in the face.
A small figure was hurrying along ahead, making for the town!
As if the sound of his racing footsteps had been a dreaded warning, the figure suddenly turned aside, and disappeared among the banks of golden grain.
Wondering if he was going mad, if grief had led to illusion, he ran on until he came to the spot, as well as he could judge, where the disappearance had taken place. He stood, panting, and staring into a golden sea, billowing softly in a slight breeze.
He could find no track, see no broken stalks. Nothing stirred, except those gentle waves which passed over the sunny yellow sea.
“Yueh Hua!” he shouted hoarsely “Yueh Hua! This is Chi Foh!”
And then the second illusion took place. Like a dark little Venus arising from golden foam, Yueh Hua stood up—not two yards from the road!
She stretched out her arms.
“Chi Foh! Chi Foh! I didn’t know it was you . . . thought they . . . I was going to look for you . . .”
Trampling ripe grain under his feet. Tony ran to her. Tears were streaming down her face. Her eyes shone like blue jewels.
“Moon Flower! my Moon Flower!”
He swept her close. His cry of welcome was almost a sob. Her heart beat against him like a hammer as he began to kiss her. He kissed her until she lay breathless in his arms . . .
Chapter VIII
Dr. Fu Manchu moved a switch, and a spot of blue light disappeared from a small switchboard on the lacquered desk. He looked at General Huan, seated on a couch facing him across the room.
“Skobolov has reached Niu-fo-Tu,” he said softly; “so Mahmud reports. It is also suspected that the man Wu Chi Foh was seen there today. But this rumor is unconfirmed. It is possible—for we have no evidence to the contrary—that Wu Chi Foh has a rendezvous there with Skobolov, that, after all, Wu Chi Foh is a Communist agent.”
Huan Tsung-Chao shook his head slightly. “This I doubt, Master, but I admit it may be so. As Skobolov is closely covered, should they meet, Mahmud, who knows this man, will take suitable steps.”
The conversation was interrupted.
Uttering a shrill whistling sound, a tiny marmoset which had been hiding on a high ledge sprang like a miniature acrobat from there to Fu Manchu’s shoulder and began chattering angrily in his ear. The saturnine mask of that wonderful but evil face softened, melted into something almost human.
“Ah, Peko, my little friend! You are angry with me? Yet I have small sweet bananas flown all the way from Madeira for you. Is it a banana you want?”
Peko went on spitting and cursing in monkey language.
“Some nuts?”
Peko’s language was dreadful.
“You are teasing him,” General Huan smiled. “He is asking for his ration of my I850 vintage rose wine which, ever since he tasted it, he has never forgotten.”
Peko sprang from Fu Manchu’s shoulder on to the rug-covered floor, from there on to the shoulder of Huan. The old soldier raised his gnarled hand to caress Peko, a strange creature which he knew to be of incalculable age.
Dr. Fu Manchu stood up, crossed to a cabinet, and took out a stoppered jar of old porcelain. With the steady hand of a pharmacist, he poured a few drops into a saucer; restopped the jar. Peko rejoined him with a whistle not of anger, but of joy, grasped the saucer and drank deep.
Then, the uncanny little animal sprang on to the desk and began to toss manuscripts about in a joyous mood. Dr. Fu Manchu picked him up, gently, and put him on his shoulder.
“You are a toper, Peko. And I’m not sure that it is good for you. I am going to put you in your cage.”
Peko escaped and leapt at one bound on to the high ledge.
“Such is the discipline,” murmured Dr. Fu Manchu, “of one of my oldest servants. It was Peko to whom I first administered my elixir, the elixir to which he and I owe our presence amongst men today. Did you know this, my friend?”
“I did.”
Fu Manchu studied Huan Tsung-Chao under lowered eyelids.
“Yet you have never asked me for this boon.”
“I have never desired it. Master. Should you at any time observe some failure in my capacity to serve you, please tell me so. I belong to a long-lived family. My father married his sixth wife at the age of eighty.”
Dr. Fu Manchu took a pinch of snuff from a box on the desk. He began to speak, slowly, incisively.
“I have learned since my return to China that Dr. von Wehmer is the chief research scientist employed here by the Soviet. I know his work. Within his limitations, it is brilliant. But the fools who employ him will destroy the world—and all my plans—unless I can unmask and foil their schemes. Von Wehmer is the acknowledged authority on pneumonic plague. This is dangerously easy to disseminate. Its use could nearly depopulate the globe. For instance, I have a perfected preparation in my laboratory now, a mere milligram of which could end human life in Szechuan in a week.”
“This is not war,” General Huan said angrily. “It is mass assassination.”
Fu Manchu made a slight gesture with one long, sensitive hand. “It must never be. For several years I have had an impalpable powder which can be spread in many ways—by the winds, by individual deposits. A single shell charged with it and exploded over an area hundreds of miles in extent, would bring to the whole of its human inhabitants nearly instant death.”
“But you will never use it
“It would reduce the area to an uninhabitable desert. No living creature could exist there. What purpose would this serve? How could you. General, with all your military genius, occupy this territory?”
Huan Tsung-Chao spread his palms in a helpless gesture. “I have lived too long. Master. This is not a soldier’s world. Let them close all their military academies. The future belongs to chemists.”
Dr. Fu Manchu smiled his terrible smile.
“The experiments of those gropers who seek, not to improve man’s welfare, but to blot out the human race, are primitive, barbaric, childish. I have obtained complete control of one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Sound. With sound I can throw an impenetrable net over a whole city, or, if I wish, over only a part of it. No known form of aerial attack could penetrate this net. With sound I could blot out every human being in Peiping, Moscow, London, Paris or Washington, or in selected areas of those cities. For there are sounds inaudible to human ears which can destroy. I have learned to produce these lethal sounds.”
Old General Huan bowed his head. “I salute the world’s master mind. I know of this discovery. Its merit lies in the simple fact that such an attack would be confined to the target area and would not create a plague to spread general disaster.”
“Also,” Dr. Fu Manchu added, “it would enable your troops to occupy the area immediately. So that Othello’s occupation would not be gone . . .”
* * *
The sampan seemed like sanctuary when Tony and Yueh Hua reached it. But they knew that it wasn’t.
“We dare not stay here until sunset, Chi Foh. They are almost sure to search the canal.”
She lay beside him, her head nestled against his shoulder. He stroked her hair. Tony knew he had betrayed himself when he had called out in his mad happiness, “Moon Flower”—in
“I know,” he said. “I expect they are looking for us now. But what can we do?”
