Some dim perceptions of the truth was beginning to creep into my
mind. When I say a perception of the truth, I mean rather of some
part of the purpose of Dr. Fu-Manchu; of the whole horrible truth,
of the scheme which had been conceived by that mighty, evil man, I
had no glimmering, but I foresaw that a frightful ordeal was before
us both.
"That I hold you in high esteem," continued Fu-Manchu, "is a
fact which must be apparent to you by this time, but in regard to
your companion, I entertain very different sentiments… ."
Always underlying the deliberate calm of the speaker, sometimes
showing itself in an unusually deep guttural, sometimes in an
unusually serpentine sibilance, lurked the frenzy of hatred which
in the past had revealed itself occasionally in wild outbursts.
Momentarily I expected such an outburst now, but it did not
come.
"One quality possessed by Mr. Nayland Smith," resumed the
Chinaman, "I admire; I refer to his courage. I would wish that so
courageous a man should seek his own end, should voluntarily efface
himself from the path of that world-movement which he is powerless
to check. In short, I would have him show himself a samurai. Always
his friend, you shall remain so to the end, Dr. Petrie. I have
arranged for this."
He struck lightly a little silver gong, dependent from the
corner of the table, whereupon, from the curtained doorway, there
entered a short, thickly built Burman whom I recognized for a
dacoit. He wore a shoddy blue suit, which had been made for a much
larger man; but these things claimed little of my attention, which
automatically was directed to the load beneath which the Burman
labored.
Upon his back he carried a sort of wire box rather less than six
feet long, some two feet high, and about two feet wide. In short,
it was a stout framework covered with fine wire-netting on the top,
sides and ends, but being open at the bottom. It seemed to be made
in five sections or to contain four sliding partitions which could
be raised or lowered at will. These were of wood, and in the bottom
of each was cut a little arch. The arches in the four partitions
varied in size, so that whereas the first was not more than five
inches high, the fourth opened almost to the wire roof of the box
or cage; and a fifth, which was but little higher than the first,
was cut in the actual end of the contrivance.
So intent was I upon this device, the purpose of which I was
wholly unable to divine, that I directed the whole of my attention
upon it. Then, as the Burman paused in the doorway, resting a
corner of the cage upon the brilliant carpet, I glanced toward
Fu-Manchu. He was watching Nayland Smith, and revealing his
irregular yellow teeth—the teeth of an opium smoker—in the awful
mirthless smile which I knew.
"God!" whispered Smith—"the Six Gates!"
"The knowledge of my beautiful country serves you well," replied
Fu-Manchu gently.
Instantly I looked to my friend… and every drop of blood seemed
to recede from my heart, leaving it cold in my breast. If I did not
know the purpose of the cage, obviously Smith knew it all too well.
His pallor had grown more marked, and although his gray eyes stared
defiantly at the Chinaman, I, who knew him, could read a deathly
horror in their depths.
The dacoit, in obedience to a guttural order from Dr. Fu-Manchu,
placed the cage upon the carpet, completely covering Smith's body,
but leaving his neck and head exposed. The seared and pock-marked
face set in a sort of placid leer, the dacoit adjusted the sliding
partitions to Smith's recumbent form, and I saw the purpose of the
graduated arches. They were intended to divide a human body in just
such fashion, and, as I realized, were most cunningly shaped to
that end. The whole of Smith's body lay now in the wire cage, each
of the five compartments whereof was shut off from its
neighbor.
The Burman stepped back and stood waiting in the doorway. Dr.
Fu-Manchu, removing his gaze from the face of my friend, directed
it now upon me.
"Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith shall have the honor of acting
as hierophant, admitting himself to the Mysteries," said Fu-Manchu
softly, "and you, Dr. Petrie, shall be the Friend."
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.
I seemed to haul myself back out of the pit of unconsciousness
by the aid of two little hands which clasped my own. I uttered a
sigh that was almost a sob, and opened my eyes.
I was sitting in the big red-leathern armchair in my own study…
and a lovely but truly bizarre figure, in a harem dress, was
kneeling on the carpet at my feet; so that my first sight of the
world was the sweetest sight that the world had to offer me, the
dark eyes of Karamaneh, with tears trembling like jewels upon her
lashes!
I looked no further than that, heeded not if there were others
in the room beside we two, but, gripping the jewel-laden fingers in
what must have been a cruel clasp, I searched the depths of the
glorious eyes in ever growing wonder. What change had taken place
in those limpid, mysterious pools? Why was a wild madness growing
up within me like a flame? Why was the old longing returned,
ten-thousandfold, to snatch that pliant, exquisite shape to my
breast?
No word was spoken, but the spoken words of a thousand ages
could not have expressed one tithe of what was held in that silent
communion. A hand was laid hesitatingly on my shoulder. I tore my
gaze away from the lovely face so near to mine, and glanced up.
Aziz stood at the back of my chair.
"God is all merciful," he said. "My sister is restored to us" (I
loved him for the plural); "and she remembers."
Those few words were enough; I understood now that this lovely
girl, who half knelt, half lay, at my feet, was not the evil,
perverted creature of Fu-Manchu whom we had gone out to arrest with
the other vile servants of the Chinese doctor, but was the old,
beloved companion of two years ago, the Karamaneh for whom I had
sought long and wearily in Egypt, who had been swallowed up and
lost to me in that land of mystery.
The loss of memory which Fu-Manchu had artificially induced was
subject to the same inexplicable laws which ordinarily rule in
cases of amnesia. The shock of her brave action that night had
begun to effect a cure; the sight of Aziz had completed it.
Inspector Weymouth was standing by the writing-table. My mind
cleared rapidly now, and standing up, but without releasing the
girl's hands, so that I drew her up beside me, I said:
"Weymouth—where is—?"
"He's waiting to see you, Doctor," replied the inspector.
A pang, almost physical, struck at my heart.
"Poor, dear old Smith!" I cried, with a break in my voice.
Dr. Gray, a neighboring practitioner, appeared in the doorway at
the moment that I spoke the words.
"It's all right, Petrie," he said, reassuringly; "I think we
took it in time. I have thoroughly cauterized the wounds, and
granted that no complication sets in, he'll be on his feet again in
a week or two."
I suppose I was in a condition closely bordering upon the
hysterical. At any rate, my behavior was extraordinary. I raised
both my hands above my head.
"Thank God!" I cried at the top of my voice, "thank God!—thank
God!"
"Thank Him, indeed," responded the musical voice of Aziz. He
spoke with all the passionate devoutness of the true Moslem.
Everything, even Karamaneh was forgotten, and I started for the
door as though my life depended upon my speed. With one foot upon
the landing, I turned, looked back, and met the glance of Inspector
Weymouth.
"What have you done with—the body?" I asked.
"We haven't been able to get to it. That end of the vault
collapsed two minutes after we hauled you out!"
As I write, now, of those strange days, already they seem remote
and unreal. But, where other and more dreadful memories already are
grown misty, the memory of that evening in my rooms remains
clear-cut and intimate. It marked a crisis in my life.
During the days that immediately followed, whilst Smith was
slowly recovering from his hurts, I made my plans deliberately; I
prepared to cut myself off from old associations—prepared to exile
myself, gladly; how gladly I cannot hope to express in mere cold
words.
That my friend approved of my projects, I cannot truthfully
state, but his disapproval at least was not openly expressed. To
Karamaneh I said nothing of my plans, but her complete reliance in
my powers to protect her, now, from all harm, was at once pathetic
and exquisite.
Since, always, I have sought in these chronicles to confine
myself to the facts directly relating to the malignant activity of
Dr. Fu-Manchu, I shall abstain from burdening you with details of
my private affairs. As an instrument of the Chinese doctor, it has
sometimes been my duty to write of the beautiful Eastern girl; I
cannot suppose that my readers have any further curiosity
respecting her from the moment that Fate freed her from that awful
servitude. Therefore, when I shall have dealt with the episodes
which marked our voyage to Egypt—I had opened negotiations in
regard to a practice in Cairo—I may honorably lay down my pen.
These episodes opened, dramatically, upon the second night of
the voyage from Marseilles.