The new-comer wore a cowled garment of some dark blue material which enveloped him from head to feet. It possessed oval eye-holes, and through these apertures gleamed two eyes which looked scarcely like the eyes of a human being. They were of that brilliant yellow color sometimes seen in the eyes of tigers, and their most marked and awful peculiarity was their unblinking regard. They seemed always to be open to their fullest extent, and Stuart realized with anger that it was impossible to sustain for long the piercing gaze of Fo-Hi … for he knew that he was in the presence of 'The Scorpion'!
Walking with a slow and curious dignity, the cowled figure came across to the table, first closing the lacquer door. Stuart's hands convulsively clutched the covering of the
Fo-Hi seated himself at the table.
Absolute silence reigned in the big room, except for the hissing of the furnace. No sound penetrated from the outer world. Having no means of judging how long he had been insensible, Stuart found himself wondering if the raid on the den of Ah-Fang-Fu had taken place hours before, days earlier, or weeks ago.
Taking up a test-tube from a rack on the table, Fo-Hi held it near a lamp and examined the contents—a few drops of colourless fluid. These he poured into a curious long-necked yellow bottle. He began to speak, but without looking at Stuart.
His diction was characteristic, resembling his carriage in that it was slow and distinctive. He seemed deliberately to choose each word and to give to it all its value, syllable by syllable. His English was perfect to the verge of the pedantic; and his voice was metallic and harsh, touching at time, when his words were vested with some subtle or hidden significance, guttural depths which betrayed the Chinaman. He possessed uncanny dignity as of tremendous intellect and conscious power.
'I regret that you were so rash as to take part in last night's abortive raid, Dr. Stuart,' he said.
Stuart started. So he had been unconscious for many hour!
'Because of your professional acquirements at one time I had contemplated removing you,' continued the unemotional voice. 'But I rejoice to think that I failed. It would have been an error of judgement. I have useful work for such men. You shall assist in the extensive laboratories of my distinguished predecessor.'
'Never!' snapped Stuart.
The man's callousness was so purposeful and deliberate that it awed. He seemed like one who stands above all ordinary human frailties and emotions.
'Your prejudice is natural,' rejoined Fo-Hi calmly. 'You are ignorant of our sublime motives, but you shall nevertheless assist us to establish that intellectual control which is destined to be the new World Force. No doubt you are conscious of a mental hiatus extending from the moment when you found the pigtail of the worthy Ah- Fang-Fu about your throat until that when you recovered consciousness in this room. It has covered a period roughly of twenty-four hours, Dr. Stuart.'
'I don't believe it,' muttered Stuart—and found his own voice to seem as unreal as everything else in the nightmare apartment. 'If I had not revived earlier, I should never have revived at all.'
He raised his hand to his swollen throat, touching it gingerly.
'Your unconsciousness was prolonged,' explained Fo-Hi, consulting an open book written in Chinese characters, 'by an injection which I found it necessary to make. Otherwise, as you remark, it would have been prolonged indefinitely. Your clever but rash companion was less happy.'
'What!' cried Stuart—'he is dead? You fiend! You damned yellow fiend!' Emotion shook him and he sat clutching the leopard-skins and glaring madly at the cowled figure.
'Fortunately,' resumed Fo-Hi, 'my people—with one exception— succeeded in making their escape. I may add that the needless scuffling attendant upon arresting this unfortunate follower of mine, immediately outside the door of the house, led to the discovery of your own presence. Nevertheless, the others departed safely. My own departure is imminent; it has been because of certain domestic details and by the necessity of awaiting nightfall. You see, I am frank with you.'
'Because the grave is silent!'
'The grave, and … China. There is no other alternative in your case.'
'Are you sure that there is no other in your own?' asked Stuart huskily.
'An alternative to my returning to China? Can you suggest one?'
'The scaffold!' cried Stuart furiously, 'for you and the scum who follow you!'
Fo-Hi lighted a Bunsen burner.
'I trust not,' he rejoined placidly. 'With two exceptions, all my people are out of England.'
Stuart's heart began to throb painfully. With two exceptions! Did Miska still remain? He conquered his anger and tried to speak calmly, recognising how he lay utterly in the power of this uncanny being and how closely his happiness was involved even if he escaped with life.
'And you?' he said.
'In these matters, Dr. Stuart,' replied Fo-Hi, 'I have always modelled my behavior upon that of the brilliant scientist who preceded me as European representative of our movement. Your beautiful Thames is my highway as it was his highway. No one of my immediate neighbours has ever seen me or my once extensive following enter this house.' He selected an empty test-tube. 'No one shall see me leave.'
The unreality of it all threatened to swamp Stuart's mind again, but he forced himself to speak calmly.
'Your own escape is just possible, if some vessel awaits you; but do you imagine for a moment that you can carry me to China and elude pursuit?'
Fo-Hi, again consulting the huge book with its yellow faded characters, answered him absently.
'Do you recall the death of the Grand Duke Ivan?' he said. 'Does your memory retain the name of Van Rembold and has your Scotland Yard yet satisfied itself that Sir Frank Narcombe died from 'natural causes'? Then, there was Ericksen, the most brilliant European electrical expert of the century, who died quite suddenly last year. I honor you, Dr. Stuart, by inviting you to join a company so distinguished.'
'You are raving! What have these men in common with me?'
Stuart found himself holding his breath as he awaited a reply—for he knew that he was on the verge of learning that which poor Gaston Max had given his life to learn. A moment Fo-Hi hesitated—and in that moment his captive recognised, and shuddered to recognise, that he won this secret too late. Then:
'The Grand Duke is a tactician who, had he remained in Europe, might well have readjusted the frontiers of his country. Van Rembold, as a mining engineer, stands alone, as does Henrik Ericksen in the electrical world. As for Sir Frank Narcombe, he is beyond doubt the most brilliant surgeon of today, and I, a judge of men, count you his peer in the realm of pure therapeutics. Whilst your studies in snake-poisons (which were narrowly watched for us in India) give you an unique place in toxicology. These great men will be some of your companions in China.'
'In China!'
'In China, Dr. Stuart, where I hope you will join them. You misapprehend the purpose of my mission. It is not destructive, although neither I nor my enlightened predecessor have ever scrupled to remove any obstacle from the path of that world-change which no human power can check or hinder; it is primarily constructive. No state or group of states can hope to resist the progress of a movement guided and upheld by a monopoly of the world's genius. The Sublime Order, of which I am an unworthy member, stands for such a movement.'
'Rest assured it will be crushed.'
'Van Rembold is preparing radium in quantities hitherto unknown from the vast pitchblend deposits of Ho- Nan—which industry we control. He visited China arrayed in his shroud, and he travelled in a handsome Egyptian sarcophagus purchased at Sotherby's on behalf of a Chinese collector.'
Fo-Hi stood up and crossed to the hissing furnace. He busied himself with some obscure experiment which proceeded there, and:
'Your own state-room will be less romantic, Dr. Stuart,' he said, speaking without turning his head; 'possibly a packing-case. In brief, that intellectual giant who achieved to much for the Sublime Order—my immediate predecessor in office—devised a means of inducing artificial catalepsy——'
'My God!' muttered Stuart, as the incredible, the appalling truth burst upon his mind.
'My own rather hazardous delay,' continued Fo-Hi, 'is occasioned in some measure by my anxiety to complete the present experiment. Its product will be your passport to China.'
