I cannot conceive that any ordinary mortal ever attained to
anything like an intimacy with Dr. Fu-Manchu; I cannot believe that
any man could ever grow used to his presence, could ever cease to
fear him. I suppose I had set eyes upon Fu-Manchu some five or six
times prior to this occasion, and now he was dressed in the manner
which I always associated with him, probably because it was thus I
first saw him. He wore a plain yellow robe, and, with his pointed
chin resting upon his bosom, he looked down at me, revealing a
great expanse of the marvelous brow with its sparse,
neutral-colored hair.
Never in my experience have I known such force to dwell in the
glance of any human eye as dwelt in that of this uncanny being. His
singular affliction (if affliction it were), the film or slight
membrane which sometimes obscured the oblique eyes, was
particularly evident at the moment that I crossed the threshold,
but now, as I looked up at Dr. Fu-Manchu, it lifted—revealing the
eyes in all their emerald greenness.
The idea of physical attack upon this incredible being seemed
childish—inadequate. But, following that first instant of
stupefaction, I forced myself to advance upon him.
A dull, crushing blow descended on the top of my skull, and I
became oblivious of all things.
My return to consciousness was accompanied by tremendous pains
in my head, whereby, from previous experience, I knew that a
sandbag had been used against me by some one in the shop,
presumably by the immobile shopman. This awakening was accompanied
by none of those hazy doubts respecting previous events and present
surroundings which are the usual symptoms of revival from sudden
unconsciousness; even before I opened my eyes, before I had more
than a partial command of my senses, I knew that, with my wrists
handcuffed behind me, I lay in a room which was also occupied by
Dr. Fu-Manchu. This absolute certainty of the Chinaman's presence
was evidenced, not by my senses, but only by an inner
consciousness, and the same that always awoke into life at the
approach not only of Fu-Manchu in person but of certain of his
uncanny servants.
A faint perfume hung in the air about me; I do not mean that of
any essence or of any incense, but rather the smell which is
suffused by Oriental furniture, by Oriental draperies; the
indefinable but unmistakable perfume of the East.
Thus, London has a distinct smell of its own, and so has Paris,
whilst the difference between Marseilles and Suez, for instance, is
even more marked.
Now, the atmosphere surrounding me was Eastern, but not of the
East that I knew; rather it was Far Eastern. Perhaps I do not make
myself very clear, but to me there was a mysterious significance in
that perfumed atmosphere. I opened my eyes.
I lay upon a long low settee, in a fairly large room which was
furnished as I had anticipated in an absolutely Oriental fashion.
The two windows were so screened as to have lost, from the interior
point of view, all resemblance to European windows, and the whole
structure of the room had been altered in conformity, bearing out
my idea that the place had been prepared for Fu-Manchu's reception
some time before his actual return. I doubt if, East or West, a
duplicate of that singular apartment could be found.
The end in which I lay, was, as I have said, typical of an
Eastern house, and a large, ornate lantern hung from the ceiling
almost directly above me. The further end of the room was occupied
by tall cases, some of them containing books, but the majority
filled with scientific paraphernalia; rows of flasks and jars,
frames of test-tubes, retorts, scales, and other objects of the
laboratory. At a large and very finely carved table sat Dr.
Fu-Manchu, a yellow and faded volume open before him, and some dark
red fluid, almost like blood, bubbling in a test-tube which he held
over the flame of a Bunsen-burner.
The enormously long nail of his right index finger rested upon
the opened page of the book to which he seemed constantly to refer,
dividing his attention between the volume, the contents of the
test-tube, and the progress of a second experiment, or possibly a
part of the same, which was taking place upon another corner of the
littered table.
A huge glass retort (the bulb was fully two feet in diameter),
fitted with a Liebig's Condenser, rested in a metal frame, and
within the bulb, floating in an oily substance, was a fungus some
six inches high, shaped like a toadstool, but of a brilliant and
venomous orange color. Three flat tubes of light were so arranged
as to cast violet rays upward into the retort, and the receiver,
wherein condensed the product of this strange experiment, contained
some drops of a red fluid which may have been identical with that
boiling in the test-tube.
These things I perceived at a glance: then the filmy eyes of Dr.
Fu-Manchu were raised from the book, turned in my direction, and
all else was forgotten.
"I regret," came the sibilant voice, "that unpleasant measures
were necessary, but hesitation would have been fatal. I trust, Dr.
Petrie, that you suffer no inconvenience?"
To this speech no reply was possible, and I attempted none.
"You have long been aware of my esteem for your acquirements,"
continued the Chinaman, his voice occasionally touching deep
guttural notes, "and you will appreciate the pleasure which this
visit affords me. I kneel at the feet of my silver Buddha. I look
to you, when you shall have overcome your prejudices—due to
ignorance of my true motives—to assist me in establishing that
intellectual control which is destined to be the new World Force. I
bear you no malice for your ancient enmity, and even now"—he waved
one yellow hand toward the retort—"I am conducting an experiment
designed to convert you from your misunderstanding, and to adjust
your perspective."
Quite unemotionally he spoke, then turned again to his book, his
test-tube and retort, in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. I
do not think the most frenzied outburst on his part, the most
fiendish threats, could have produced such effect upon me as those
cold and carefully calculated words, spoken in that unique voice
which rang about the room sibilantly. In its tones, in the glance
of the green eyes, in the very pose of the gaunt, high-shouldered
body, there was power—force.
I counted myself lost, and in view of the doctor's words,
studied the progress of the experiment with frightful interest. But
a few moments sufficed in which to realize that, for all my
training, I knew as little of chemistry—of chemistry as understood
by this man's genius—as a junior student in surgery knows of
trephining. The process in operation was a complete mystery to me;
the means and the end alike incomprehensible.
Thus, in the heavy silence of that room, a silence only broken
by the regular bubbling from the test tube, I found my attention
straying from the table to the other objects surrounding it; and at
one of them my gaze stopped and remained chained with horror.
It was a glass jar, some five feet in height and filled with
viscous fluid of a light amber color. Out from this peered a
hideous, dog-like face, low browed, with pointed ears and a nose
almost hoggishly flat. By the death-grin of the face the gleaming
fangs were revealed; and the body, the long yellow-gray body,
rested, or seemed to rest, upon short, malformed legs, whilst one
long limp arm, the right, hung down straightly in the preservative.
The left arm had been severed above the elbow.
Fu-Manchu, finding his experiment to be proceeding favorably,
lifted his eyes to me again.
"You are interested in my poor Cynocephalyte?" he said; and his
eyes were filmed like the eyes of one afflicted with cataract. "He
was a devoted servant, Dr. Petrie, but the lower influences in his
genealogy, sometimes conquered. Then he got out of hand; and at
last he was so ungrateful toward those who had educated him, that,
in one of those paroxysms of his, he attacked and killed a most
faithful Burman, one of my oldest followers."
Fu-Manchu returned to his experiment.
Not the slightest emotion had he exhibited thus far, but had
chatted with me as any other scientist might chat with a friend who
casually visits his laboratory. The horror of the thing was playing
havoc with my own composure, however. There I lay, fettered, in the
same room with this man whose existence was a menace to the entire
white race, whilst placidly he pursued an experiment designed, if
his own words were believable, to cut me off from my kind—to wreak
some change, psychological or physiological I knew not; to place
me, it might be, upon a level with such brute-things as that which
now hung, half floating, in the glass jar!
Something I knew of the history of that ghastly specimen, that
thing neither man nor ape; for within my own knowledge had it not
attempted the life of Nayland Smith, and was it not I who, with an
ax, had maimed it in the instant of one of its last slayings?
Of these things Dr. Fu-Manchu was well aware, so that his placid
speech was doubly, trebly horrible to my ears. I sought, furtively,
to move my arms, only to realize that, as I had anticipated, the
handcuffs were chained to a ring in the wall behind me. The
establishments of Dr. Fu-Manchu were always well provided with such
contrivances as these.
I uttered a short, harsh laugh. Fu-Manchu stood up slowly from
the table, and, placing the test-tube in a rack, stood the latter
carefully upon a shelf at his side.
"I am happy to find you in such good humor," he said softly.
"Other affairs call me; and, in my absence, that profound knowledge
of chemistry, of which I have had evidence in the past, will enable
you to follow with intelligent interest the action of these violet
rays upon this exceptionally fine specimen of Siberian amanita
muscaria. At some future time, possibly when you are my guest in
China—which country I am now making arrangements for you to visit—I
shall discuss with you some lesser-known properties of this
species; and I may say that one of your first tasks when you
commence your duties as assistant in my laboratory in Kiang-su,
will be to conduct a series of twelve experiments, which I have
outlined, into other potentialities of this unique fungus."
He walked quietly to a curtained doorway, with his cat-like yet
awkward gait, lifted the drapery, and, with a slight nod in my
direction, went out of the room.
How long I lay there alone I had no means of computing. My mind
was busy with many matters, but principally concerned with my fate
in the immediate future. That Dr. Fu-Manchu entertained for me a
singular kind of regard, I had had evidence before. He had formed
the erroneous opinion that I was an advanced scientist who could be
of use to him in his experiments and I was aware that he cherished
a project of transporting me to some place in China where his
principal laboratory was situated. Respecting the means which he
proposed to employ, I was unlikely to forget that this man, who had
penetrated further along certain byways of science than seemed
humanly possible, undoubtedly was master of a process for producing
artificial catalepsy. It was my lot, then, to be packed in a chest
(to all intents and purposes a dead man for the time being) and
despatched to the interior of China!
What a fool I had been. To think that I had learned nothing from
my long and dreadful experience of the methods of Dr. Fu-Manchu; to
think that I had come alone in quest of him; that, leaving no trace
behind me, I had deliberately penetrated to his secret abode!
I have said that my wrists were manacled behind me, the manacles
being attached to a chain fastened in the wall. I now contrived,
with extreme difficulty, to reverse the position of my hands; that
is to say, I climbed backward through the loop formed by my
fettered arms, so that instead of their being locked behind me,
they now were locked in front.
Then I began to examine the fetters, learning, as I had
anticipated, that they fastened with a lock. I sat gazing at the
steel bracelets in the light of the lamp which swung over my head,
and it became apparent to me that I had gained little by my
contortion.
A slight noise disturbed these unpleasant reveries. It was
nothing less than the rattling of keys!
For a moment I wondered if I had heard aright, or if the sound
portended the coming of some servant of the doctor, who was locking
up the establishment for the night. The jangling sound was
repeated, and in such a way that I could not suppose it to be
accidental. Some one was deliberately rattling a small bunch of
keys in an adjoining room.
And now my heart leaped wildly—then seemed to stand still.
With a low whistling cry a little gray shape shot through the
doorway by which Fu-Manchu had retired, and rolled, like a ball of
fluff blown by the wind, completely under the table which bore the
weird scientific appliances of the Chinaman; the advent of the gray
object was accompanied by a further rattling of keys.
My fear left me, and a mighty anxiety took its place. This
creature which now crouched chattering at me from beneath the big
table was Fu-Manchu's marmoset, and in the intervals of its
chattering and grimacing, it nibbled, speculatively, at the keys
upon the ring which it clutched in its tiny hands. Key after key it
sampled in this manner, evincing a growing dissatisfaction with the
uncrackable nature of its find.
One of those keys might be that of the handcuffs!
I could not believe that the tortures of Tantulus were greater
than were mine at this moment. In all my hopes of rescue or
release, I had included nothing so strange, so improbable as this.
A sort of awe possessed me; for if by this means the key which
should release me should come into my possession, how, ever again,
could I doubt a beneficent Providence?
But they were not yet in my possession; moreover, the key of the
handcuffs might not be amongst the bunch.
Were there no means whereby I could induce the marmoset to
approach me?
Whilst I racked my brains for some scheme, the little animal
took the matter out of my hands. Tossing the ring with its jangling
contents a yard or so across the carpet in my direction, it leaped
in pursuit, picked up the ring, whirled it over its head, and then
threw a complete somersault around it. Now it snatched up the keys
again, and holding them close to its ear, rattled them furiously.
Finally, with an incredible spring, it leaped onto the chain
supporting the lamp above my head, and with the garish shade
swinging and spinning wildly, clung there looking down at me like
an acrobat on a trapeze. The tiny, bluish face, completely framed
in grotesque whiskers, enhanced the illusion of an acrobatic
comedian. Never for a moment did it release its hold upon the
key-ring.
My suspense now was intolerable. I feared to move, lest,
alarming the marmoset, it should run off again, taking the keys
with it. So as I lay there, looking up at the little creature
swinging above me, the second wonder of the night came to pass.
A voice that I could never forget, strive how I would, a voice
that haunted my dreams by night, and for which by day I was ever
listening, cried out from some adjoining room.
"Ta'ala hina!" it called. "Ta'ala hina, Peko!"
It was Karamaneh!
The effect upon the marmoset was instantaneous. Down came the
bunch of keys upon one side of the shade, almost falling on my
head, and down leaped the ape upon the other. In two leaps it had
traversed the room and had vanished through the curtained
doorway.
If ever I had need of coolness it was now; the slightest mistake
would be fatal. The keys had slipped from the mattress of the
divan, and now lay just beyond reach of my fingers. Rapidly I
changed my position, and sought, without undue noise, to move the
keys with my foot.
I had actually succeeded in sliding them back on to the
mattress, when, unheralded by any audible footstep, Karamaneh came
through the doorway, holding the marmoset in her arms. She wore a
dress of fragile muslin material, and out from its folds protruded
one silk-stockinged foot, resting in a high-heeled red shoe… .
For a moment she stood watching me, with a sort of enforced
composure; then her glance strayed to the keys lying upon the
floor. Slowly, and with her eyes fixed again upon my face, she
crossed the room, stooped, and took up the key-ring.
It was one of the poignant moments of my life; for by that
simple act all my hopes had been shattered!
Any poor lingering doubt that I may have had, left me now. Had
the slightest spark of friendship animated the bosom of Karamaneh
most certainly she would have overlooked the presence of the
keys—of the keys which represented my one hope of escape from the
clutches of the fiendish Chinaman.
There is a silence more eloquent than words. For half a minute
or more, Karamaneh stood watching me—forcing herself to watch
me—and I looked up at her with a concentrated gaze in which rage
and reproach must have been strangely mingled. What eyes she
had!—of that blackly lustrous sort nearly always associated with
unusually dark complexions; but Karamaneh's complexion was
peachlike, or rather of an exquisite and delicate fairness which
reminded me of the petal of a rose. By some I had been accused of
raving about this girl's beauty, but only by those who had not met
her; for indeed she was astonishingly lovely.
At last her eyes fell, the long lashes drooped upon her cheeks.
She turned and walked slowly to the chair in which Fu-Manchu had
sat. Placing the keys upon the table amid the scientific litter,
she rested one dimpled elbow upon the yellow page of the book, and
with her chin in her palm, again directed upon me that enigmatical
gaze.
I dared not think of the past, of the past in which this
beautiful, treacherous girl had played a part; yet, watching her, I
could not believe, even now, that she was false! My state was truly
a pitiable one; I could have cried out in sheer anguish. With her
long lashes partly lowered, she watched me awhile, then spoke; and
her voice was music which seemed to mock me; every inflection of
that elusive accent reopened, lancet-like, the ancient wound.
"Why do you look at me so?" she said, almost in a whisper. "By
what right do you reproach me?—Have you ever offered me friendship,
that I should repay you with friendship? When first you came to the
house where I was, by the river—came to save some one from" (there
was the familiar hesitation which always preceded the name of
Fu-Manchu) "from—him, you treated me as your enemy, although—I
would have been your friend… "
There was appeal in the soft voice, but I laughed mockingly, and
threw myself back upon the divan.
Karamaneh stretched out her hands toward me, and I shall never
forget the expression which flashed into those glorious eyes; but,
seeing me intolerant of her appeal, she drew back and quickly
turned her head aside. Even in this hour of extremity, of impotent
wrath, I could find no contempt in my heart for her feeble
hypocrisy; with all the old wonder I watched that exquisite
profile, and Karamaneh's very deceitfulness was a salve—for had she
not cared she would not have attempted it!
Suddenly she stood up, taking the keys in her hands, and
approached me.
"Not by word, nor by look," she said, quietly, "have you asked
for my friendship, but because I cannot bear you to think of me as
you do, I will prove that I am not the hypocrite and the liar you
think me. You will not trust me, but I will trust you."
I looked up into her eyes, and knew a pagan joy when they
faltered before my searching gaze. She threw herself upon her knees
beside me, and the faint exquisite perfume inseparable from my
memories of her, became perceptible, and seemed as of old to
intoxicate me. The lock clicked… and I was free.
Karamaneh rose swiftly to her feet as I stood upright and
outstretched my cramped arms. For one delirious moment her
bewitching face was close to mine, and the dictates of madness
almost ruled; but I clenched my teeth and turned sharply aside. I
could not trust myself to speak.
With Fu-Manchu's marmoset again gamboling before us, she walked
through the curtained doorway into the room beyond. It was in
darkness, but I could see the slave-girl in front of me, a slim
silhouette, as she walked to a screened window, and, opening the
screen in the manner of a folding door, also threw up the
window.
"Look!" she whispered.
I crept forward and stood beside her. I found myself looking
down into Museum Street from a first-floor window! Belated traffic
still passed along New Oxford Street on the left, but not a
solitary figure was visible to the right, as far as I could see,
and that was nearly to the railings of the Museum. Immediately
opposite, in one of the flats which I had noticed earlier in the
evening, another window was opened. I turned, and in the reflected
light saw that Karamaneh held a cord in her hand. Our eyes met in
the semi-darkness.
She began to haul the cord into the window, and, looking upward,
I perceived that it was looped in some way over the telegraph
cables which crossed the street at that point. It was a slender
cord, and it appeared to be passed across a joint in the cables
almost immediately above the center of the roadway. As it was
hauled in, a second and stronger line attached to it was pulled, in
turn, over the cables, and thence in by the window. Karamaneh
twisted a length of it around a metal bracket fastened in the wall,
and placed a light wooden crossbar in my hand.
"Make sure that there is no one in the street," she said,
craning out and looking to right and left, "then swing across. The
length of the rope is just sufficient to enable you to swing
through the open window opposite, and there is a mattress inside to
drop upon. But release the bar immediately, or you may be dragged
back. The door of the room in which you will find yourself is
unlocked, and you have only to walk down the stairs and out into
the street."
I peered at the crossbar in my hand, then looked hard at the
girl beside me. I missed something of the old fire of her nature;
she was very subdued, tonight.
"Thank you, Karamaneh," I said, softly.
She suppressed a little cry as I spoke her name, and drew back
into the shadows.
"I believe you are my friend," I said, "but I cannot understand.
Won't you help me to understand?"
I took her unresisting hand, and drew her toward me. My very
soul seemed to thrill at the contact of her lithe body…
She was trembling wildly and seemed to be trying to speak, but
although her lips framed the words no sound followed. Suddenly
comprehension came to me. I looked down into the street, hitherto
deserted… and into the upturned face of Fu-Manchu.
Wearing a heavy fur-collared coat, and with his yellow,
malignant countenance grotesquely horrible beneath the shade of a
large tweed motor cap, he stood motionless, looking up at me. That
he had seen me, I could not doubt; but had he seen my
companion?
In a choking whisper Karamaneh answered my unspoken
question.
"He has not seen me! I have done much for you; do in return a
small thing for me. Save my life!"
She dragged me back from the window and fled across the room to
the weird laboratory where I had lain captive. Throwing herself
upon the divan, she held out her white wrists and glanced
significantly at the manacles.
"Lock them upon me!" she said, rapidly. "Quick! quick!"
Great as was my mental disturbance, I managed to grasp the
purpose of this device. The very extremity of my danger found me
cool. I fastened the manacles, which so recently had confined my
own wrists, upon the slim wrists of Karamaneh. A faint and muffled
disturbance, doubly ominous because there was nothing to proclaim
its nature, reached me from some place below, on the ground
floor.
"Tie something around my mouth!" directed Karamaneh with nervous
rapidity. As I began to look about me:—"Tear a strip from my
dress," she said; "do not hesitate—be quick! be quick!"
I seized the flimsy muslin and tore off half a yard or so from
the hem of the skirt. The voice of Dr Fu-Manchu became audible. He
was speaking rapidly, sibilantly, and evidently was
approaching—would be upon me in a matter of moments. I fastened the
strip of fabric over the girl's mouth and tied it behind,
experiencing a pang half pleasurable and half fearful as I found my
hands in contact with the foamy luxuriance of her hair.