Smith stepped quietly across the room and tried the door. It proved to
be unlocked, and an instant later, we were both outside in the passage.
Coincident with our arrival there, arose a sudden outcry from some place
at the westward end. A high-pitched, grating voice, in which guttural
notes alternated with a serpent-like hissing, was raised in anger.
“Dr. Fu-Manchu!” whispered Smith, grasping my arm.
Indeed, it was the unmistakable voice of the Chinaman, raised
hysterically in one of those outbursts which in the past I had diagnosed
as symptomatic of dangerous mania.
The voice rose to a scream, the scream of some angry animal rather than
anything human. Then, chokingly, it ceased. Another short sharp cry
followed--but not in the voice of Fu-Manchu--a dull groan, and the sound
of a fall.
With Smith still grasping my wrist, I shrank back into the doorway, as
something that looked in the darkness like a great ball of fluff came
rapidly along the passage toward me. Just at my feet the thing stopped
and I made it out for a small animal. The tiny, gleaming eyes looked up
at me, and, chattering wickedly, the creature bounded past and was lost
from view.
It was Dr. Fu-Manchu’s marmoset.
Smith dragged me back into the room which we had just left. As he partly
reclosed the door, I heard the clapping of hands. In a condition of
most dreadful suspense, we waited; until a new, ominous sound proclaimed
itself. Some heavy body was being dragged into the passage. I heard the
opening of a trap. Exclamations in guttural voices told of a heavy task
in progress; there was a great straining and creaking--whereupon the
trap was softly reclosed.
Smith bent to my ear.
“Fu-Manchu has chastised one of his servants,” he whispered. “There will
be food for the grappling-irons to-night!”
I shuddered violently, for, without Smith’s words, I knew that a bloody
deed had been done in that house within a few yards of where we stood.
In the new silence, I could hear the drip, drip, drip of the rain
outside the window; then a steam siren hooted dismally upon the river,
and I thought how the screw of that very vessel, even as we listened,
might be tearing the body of Fu-Manchu’s servant!
“Have you some one waiting?” whispered Smith, eagerly.
“How long was I insensible?”
“About half an hour.”
“Then the cabman will be waiting.”
“Have you a whistle with you?”
I felt in my coat pocket.
“Yes,” I reported.
“Good! Then we will take a chance.”
Again we slipped out into the passage and began a stealthy progress
to the west. Ten paces amid absolute darkness, and we found ourselves
abreast of a branch corridor. At the further end, through a kind of
little window, a dim light shone.
“See if you can find the trap,” whispered Smith; “light your lamp.”
I directed the ray of the pocket-lamp upon the floor, and there at my
feet was a square wooden trap. As I stooped to examine it, I glanced
back, painfully, over my shoulder--and saw Nayland Smith tiptoeing away
from me along the passage toward the light!
Inwardly I cursed his folly, but the temptation to peep in at that
little window proved too strong for me, as it had proved too strong for
him.
Fearful that some board would creak beneath my tread, I followed; and
side by side we two crouched, looking into a small rectangular room. It
was a bare and cheerless apartment with unpapered walls and carpetless
floor. A table and a chair constituted the sole furniture.
Seated in the chair, with his back toward us, was a portly Chinaman who
wore a yellow, silken robe. His face, it was impossible to see; but he
was beating his fist upon the table, and pouring out a torrent of words
in a thin, piping voice. So much I perceived at a glance; then, into
view at the distant end of the room, paced a tall, high-shouldered
figure--a figure unforgettable, at once imposing and dreadful, stately
and sinister.
With the long, bony hands behind him, fingers twining and intertwining
serpentinely about the handle of a little fan, and with the pointed chin
resting on the breast of the yellow robe, so that the light from the
lamp swinging in the center of the ceiling gleamed upon the great,
dome-like brow, this tall man paced somberly from left to right.
He cast a sidelong, venomous glance at the voluble speaker out of
half-shut eyes; in the act they seemed to light up as with an internal
luminance; momentarily they sparkled like emeralds; then their
brilliance was filmed over as in the eyes of a bird when the membrane is
lowered.
My blood seemed to chill, and my heart to double its pulsations;
beside me Smith was breathing more rapidly than usual. I knew now
the explanation of the feeling which had claimed me when first I had
descended the stone stairs. I knew what it was that hung like a miasma
over that house. It was the aura, the glamour, which radiated from this
wonderful and evil man as light radiates from radium. It was the vril,
the force, of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
I began to move away from the window. But Smith held my wrist as in a
vise. He was listening raptly to the torrential speech of the Chinaman
who sat in the chair; and I perceived in his eyes the light of a sudden
comprehension.
As the tall figure of the Chinese doctor came pacing into view again,
Smith, his head below the level of the window, pushed me gently along
the passage.
Regaining the site of the trap, he whispered to me: “We owe our lives,
Petrie, to the national childishness of the Chinese! A race of ancestor
worshipers is capable of anything, and Dr. Fu-Manchu, the dreadful being
who has rained terror upon Europe stands in imminent peril of disgrace
for having lost a decoration.”
“What do you mean, Smith?”
“I mean that this is no time for delay, Petrie! Here, unless I am
greatly mistaken, lies the rope by means of which you made your
entrance. It shall be the means of your exit. Open the trap!”
Handling the lamp to Smith, I stooped and carefully raised the
trap-door. At which moment, a singular and dramatic thing happened.
A softly musical voice--the voice of my dreams!--spoke.
“Not that way! O God, not that way!”
In my surprise and confusion I all but let the trap fall, but I retained
sufficient presence of mind to replace it gently. Standing upright, I
turned... and there, with her little jeweled hand resting upon Smith’s
arm, stood Karamaneh!
In all my experience of him, I had never seen Nayland Smith so utterly
perplexed. Between anger, distrust and dismay, he wavered; and each
passing emotion was written legibly upon the lean bronzed features.
Rigid with surprise, he stared at the beautiful face of the girl. She,
although her hand still rested upon Smith’s arm, had her dark eyes
turned upon me with that same enigmatical expression. Her lips were
slightly parted, and her breast heaved tumultuously.
This ten seconds of silence in which we three stood looking at one
another encompassed the whole gamut of human emotion. The silence was
broken by Karamaneh.
“They will be coming back that way!” she whispered, bending eagerly
toward me. (How, in the most desperate moments, I loved to listen to
that odd, musical accent!) “Please, if you would save your life, and
spare mine, trust me!”--She suddenly clasped her hands together and
looked up into my face, passionately--“Trust me--just for once--and I
will show you the way!”
Nayland Smith never removed his gaze from her for a moment, nor did he
stir.
“Oh!” she whispered, tremulously, and stamped one little red slipper
upon the floor. “Won’t you heed me? Come, or it will be too late!”
I glanced anxiously at my friend; the voice of Dr. Fu-Manchu, now raised
in anger, was audible above the piping tones of the other Chinaman.
And as I caught Smith’s eye, in silent query--the trap at my feet began
slowly to lift!
Karamaneh stifled a little sobbing cry; but the warning came too late.
A hideous yellow face with oblique squinting eyes, appeared in the
aperture.
I found myself inert, useless; I could neither think nor act. Nayland
Smith, however, as if instinctively, delivered a pitiless kick at the
head protruding above the trap.
A sickening crushing sound, with a sort of muffled snap, spoke of a
broken jaw-bone; and with no word or cry, the Chinaman fell. As the trap
descended with a bang, I heard the thud of his body on the stone stairs
beneath.
But we were lost. Karamaneh fled along one of the passages lightly as a
bird, and disappeared as Dr. Fu-Manchu, his top lip drawn up above his
teeth in the manner of an angry jackal, appeared from the other.
“This way!” cried Smith, in a voice that rose almost to a shriek--“this
way!”--and he led toward the room overhanging the steps.
Off we dashed with panic swiftness, only to find that this retreat also
was cut off. Dimly visible in the darkness was a group of yellow men,
and despite the gloom, the curved blades of the knives which they
carried glittered menacingly. The passage was full of dacoits!
Smith and I turned, together. The trap was raised again, and the Burman,
who had helped to tie me, was just scrambling up beside Dr. Fu-Manchu,
who stood there watching us, a shadowy, sinister figure.
“The game’s up, Petrie!” muttered Smith. “It has been a long fight, but
Fu-Manchu wins!”
“Not entirely!” I cried. I whipped the police whistle from my pocket,
and raised it to my lips; but brief as the interval had been, the
dacoits were upon me.
A sinewy brown arm shot over my shoulder and the whistle was dashed from
my grasp. Then came a whirl of maelstrom fighting with Smith and myself
ever sinking lower amid a whirlpool, as it seemed, of blood-lustful
eyes, yellow fangs, and gleaming blades.
I had some vague idea that the rasping voice of Fu-Manchu broke once
through the turmoil, and when, with my wrists tied behind me, I emerged
from the strife to find myself lying beside Smith in the passage, I
could only assume that the Chinaman had ordered his bloody servants to
take us alive; for saving numerous bruises and a few superficial cuts, I
was unwounded.
The place was utterly deserted again, and we two panting captives found
ourselves alone with Dr. Fu-Manchu. The scene was unforgettable; that
dimly lighted passage, its extremities masked in shadow, and the tall,
yellow-robed figure of the Satanic Chinaman towering over us where we
lay.
He had recovered his habitual calm, and as I peered at him through the
gloom I was impressed anew with the tremendous intellectual force of the
man. He had the brow of a genius, the features of a born ruler; and even
in that moment I could find time to search my memory, and to discover
that the face, saving the indescribable evil of its expression, was
identical with that of Seti, the mighty Pharaoh who lies in the Cairo
Museum.
Down the passage came leaping and gamboling the doctor’s marmoset.
Uttering its shrill, whistling cry, it leaped onto his shoulder,
clutched with its tiny fingers at the scanty, neutral-colored hair
upon his crown, and bent forward, peering grotesquely into that still,
dreadful face.
Dr. Fu-Manchu stroked the little creature; and crooned to it, as a
mother to her infant. Only this crooning, and the labored breathing of
Smith and myself, broke that impressive stillness.
Suddenly the guttural voice began:
“You come at an opportune time, Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith, and
Dr. Petrie; at a time when the greatest man in China flatters me with
a visit. In my absence from home, a tremendous honor has been conferred
upon me, and, in the hour of this supreme honor, dishonor and calamity
have befallen! For my services to China--the New China, the China of the
future--I have been admitted by the Sublime Prince to the Sacred Order
of the White Peacock.”
Warming to his discourse, he threw wide his arms, hurling the chattering
marmoset fully five yards along the corridor.
“O god of Cathay!” he cried, sibilantly, “in what have I sinned that
this catastrophe has been visited upon my head! Learn, my two dear
friends, that the sacred white peacock brought to these misty shores for
my undying glory, has been lost to me! Death is the penalty of such a
sacrilege; death shall be my lot, since death I deserve.”
Covertly Smith nudged me with his elbow. I knew what the nudge was
designed to convey; he would remind me of his words--anent the childish
trifles which sway the life of intellectual China.
Personally, I was amazed. That Fu-Manchu’s anger, grief, sorrow and
resignation were real, no one watching him, and hearing his voice, could
doubt.
He continued:
“By one deed, and one deed alone, may I win a lighter punishment. By
one deed, and the resignation of all my titles, all my lands, and all my
honors, may I merit to be spared to my work--which has only begun.”
I knew now that we were lost, indeed; these were confidences which our
graves should hold inviolate! He suddenly opened fully those blazing
green eyes and directed their baneful glare upon Nayland Smith.
“The Director of the Universe,” he continued, softly, “has relented
toward me. To-night, you die! To-night, the arch-enemy of our caste
shall be no more. This is my offering--the price of redemption...”
My mind was working again, and actively. I managed to grasp the
stupendous truth--and the stupendous possibility.
Dr. Fu-Manchu was in the act of clapping his hands, when I spoke.
“Stop!” I cried.
He paused, and the weird film, which sometimes became visible in his
eyes, now obscured their greenness, and lent him the appearance of a
blind man.
“Dr. Petrie,” he said, softly, “I shall always listen to you with
respect.”
“I have an offer to make,” I continued, seeking to steady my voice.
“Give us our freedom, and I will restore your shattered honor--I will
restore the sacred peacock!”
Dr. Fu-Manchu bent forward until his face was so close to mine that I
could see the innumerable lines which, an intricate network, covered his
yellow skin.
“Speak!” he hissed. “You lift up my heart from a dark pit!”
“I can restore your white peacock,” I said; “I and I alone, know where
it is!”--and I strove not to shrink from the face so close to mine.
Upright shot the tall figure; high above his head Fu-Manchu threw
his arms--and a light of exaltation gleamed in the now widely opened,
catlike eyes.
“O god!” he screamed, frenziedly--“O god of the Golden Age! like a
phoenix I arise from the ashes of myself!” He turned to me. “Quick!
Quick! make your bargain! End my suspense!”
Smith stared at me like a man dazed; but, ignoring him, I went on:
“You will release me, now, immediately. In another ten minutes it will
be too late; my friend will remain. One of your--servants--can accompany
me, and give the signal when I return with the peacock. Mr. Nayland
Smith and yourself, or another, will join me at the corner of the street
where the raid took place last night. We shall then give you ten minutes
grace, after which we shall take whatever steps we choose.”
“Agreed!” cried Fu-Manchu. “I ask but one thing from an Englishman; your
word of honor?”
“I give it.”
“I, also,” said Smith, hoarsely.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, Nayland Smith and I, standing beside the cab, whose
lights gleamed yellowly through the mist, exchanged a struggling,
frightened bird for our lives--capitulated with the enemy of the white
race.
With characteristic audacity--and characteristic trust in the British
sense of honor--Dr. Fu-Manchu came in person with Nayland Smith, in
response to the wailing signal of the dacoit who had accompanied me. No
word was spoken, save that the cabman suppressed a curse of amazement;
and the Chinaman, his sinister servant at his elbow, bowed low--and left
us, surely to the mocking laughter of the gods!