He glanced toward the Burman, who retired immediately, to re-enter a
moment later carrying a curious leather sack, in shape not unlike that
of a sakka or Arab water-carrier. Opening a little trap in the top
of the first compartment of the cage (that is, the compartment which
covered Smith’s bare feet and ankles) he inserted the neck of the sack,
then suddenly seized it by the bottom and shook it vigorously. Before
my horrified gaze four huge rats came tumbling out from the bag into the
cage! The dacoit snatched away the sack and snapped the shutter fast. A
moving mist obscured my sight, a mist through which I saw the green
eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu fixed upon me, and through which, as from a great
distance, his voice, sunk to a snake-like hiss, came to my ears.
“Cantonese rats, Dr. Petrie, the most ravenous in the world... they have
eaten nothing for nearly a week!”
Then all became blurred as though a painter with a brush steeped in red
had smudged out the details of the picture. For an indefinite period,
which seemed like many minutes yet probably was only a few seconds, I
saw nothing and heard nothing; my sensory nerves were dulled entirely.
From this state I was awakened and brought back to the realities by a
sound which ever afterward I was doomed to associate with that ghastly
scene.
This was the squealing of the rats.
The red mist seemed to disperse at that, and with frightfully intense
interest, I began to study the awful torture to which Nayland Smith was
being subjected. The dacoit had disappeared, and Fu-Manchu placidly was
watching the four lean and hideous animals in the cage. As I also turned
my eyes in that direction, the rats overcame their temporary fear, and
began...
“You have been good enough to notice,” said the Chinaman, his voice
still sunk in that sibilant whisper, “my partiality for dumb allies. You
have met my scorpions, my death-adders, my baboon-man. The uses of such
a playful little animal as a marmoset have never been fully appreciated
before, I think, but to an indiscretion of this last-named pet of mine,
I seem to remember that you owed something in the past, Dr. Petrie...”
Nayland Smith stifled a deep groan. One rapid glance I ventured at his
face. It was a grayish hue, now, and dank with perspiration. His gaze
met mine.
The rats had almost ceased squealing.
“Much depends upon yourself, Doctor,” continued Fu-Manchu, slightly
raising his voice. “I credit Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith with courage
high enough to sustain the raising of all the gates; but I estimate the
strength of your friendship highly, also, and predict that you will use
the sword of the samurai certainly not later than the time when I shall
raise the third gate....”
A low shuddering sound, which I cannot hope to describe, but alas I can
never forget, broke from the lips of the tortured man.
“In China,” resumed Fu-Manchu, “we call this quaint fancy the Six Gates
of joyful Wisdom. The first gate, by which the rats are admitted, is
called the Gate of joyous Hope; the second, the Gate of Mirthful Doubt.
The third gate is poetically named, the Gate of True Rapture, and the
fourth, the Gate of Gentle Sorrow. I once was honored in the friendship
of an exalted mandarin who sustained the course of joyful Wisdom to the
raising of the Fifth Gate (called the Gate of Sweet Desires) and the
admission of the twentieth rat. I esteem him almost equally with my
ancestors. The Sixth, or Gate Celestial--whereby a man enters into the
joy of Complete Understanding--I have dispensed with, here, substituting
a Japanese fancy of an antiquity nearly as great and honorable. The
introduction of this element of speculation, I count a happy thought,
and accordingly take pride to myself.”
“The sword, Petrie!” whispered Smith. I should not have recognized his
voice, but he spoke quite evenly and steadily. “I rely upon you, old
man, to spare me the humiliation of asking mercy from that yellow
fiend!”
My mind throughout this time had been gaining a sort of dreadful
clarity. I had avoided looking at the sword of hara-kiri, but my
thoughts had been leading me mercilessly up to the point at which we
were now arrived. No vestige of anger, of condemnation of the inhuman
being seated in the ebony chair, remained; that was past. Of all that
had gone before, and of what was to come in the future, I thought
nothing, knew nothing. Our long fight against the yellow group, our
encounters with the numberless creatures of Fu-Manchu, the dacoits--even
Karamaneh--were forgotten, blotted out. I saw nothing of the strange
appointments of that subterranean chamber; but face to face with the
supreme moment of a lifetime, I was alone with my poor friend--and God.
The rats began squealing again. They were fighting...
“Quick, Petrie! Quick, man! I am weakening....”
I turned and took up the samurai sword. My hands were very hot and dry,
but perfectly steady, and I tested the edge of the heavy weapon upon my
left thumb-nail as quietly as one might test a razor blade. It was
as keen, this blade of ghastly history, as any razor ever wrought in
Sheffield. I seized the graven hilt, bent forward in my chair, and
raised the Friend’s Sword high above my head. With the heavy weapon
poised there, I looked into my friend’s eyes. They were feverishly
bright, but never in all my days, nor upon the many beds of suffering
which it had been my lot to visit, had I seen an expression like that
within them.
“The raising of the First Gate is always a crucial moment,” came the
guttural voice of the Chinaman. Although I did not see him, and barely
heard his words, I was aware that he had stood up and was bending
forward over the lower end of the cage.
“Now, Petrie! now! God bless you... and good-by...”
From somewhere--somewhere remote--I heard a hoarse and animal-like cry,
followed by the sound of a heavy fall. I can scarcely bear to write of
that moment, for I had actually begun the downward sweep of the great
sword when that sound came--a faint Hope, speaking of aid where I had
thought no aid possible.
How I contrived to divert the blade, I do not know to this day; but I
do know that its mighty sweep sheared a lock from Smith’s head and laid
bare the scalp. With the hilt in my quivering hands I saw the blade bite
deeply through the carpet and floor above Nayland Smith’s skull. There,
buried fully two inches in the woodwork, it stuck, and still clutching
the hilt, I looked to the right and across the room--I looked to the
curtained doorway.
Fu-Manchu, with one long, claw-like hand upon the top of the First Gate,
was bending over the trap, but his brilliant green eyes were turned in
the same direction as my own--upon the curtained doorway.
Upright within it, her beautiful face as pale as death, but her great
eyes blazing with a sort of splendid madness, stood Karamaneh!
She looked, not at the tortured man, not at me, but fully at Dr.
Fu-Manchu. One hand clutched the trembling draperies; now she suddenly
raised the other, so that the jewels on her white arm glittered in the
light of the lamp above the door. She held my Browning pistol! Fu-Manchu
sprang upright, inhaling sibilantly, as Karamaneh pointed the pistol
point blank at his high skull and fired....
I saw a little red streak appear, up by the neutral colored hair, under
the black cap. I became as a detached intelligence, unlinked with the
corporeal, looking down upon a thing which for some reason I had never
thought to witness.
Fu-Manchu threw up both arms, so that the sleeves of the green robe
fell back to the elbows. He clutched at his head, and the black cap
fell behind him. He began to utter short, guttural cries; he swayed
backward--to the right--to the left then lurched forward right across
the cage. There he lay, writhing, for a moment, his baneful eyes turned
up, revealing the whites; and the great gray rats, released, began
leaping about the room. Two shot like gray streaks past the slim figure
in the doorway, one darted behind the chair to which I was lashed,
and the fourth ran all around against the wall... Fu-Manchu, prostrate
across the overturned cage, lay still, his massive head sagging
downward.
I experienced a mental repetition of my adventure in the earlier
evening--I was dropping, dropping, dropping into some bottomless pit ...
warm arms were about my neck; and burning kisses upon my lips.