LITMIR.BIZ

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to the darkness, I,

      too, lay prone and still, but watched the evil face bending lower and

      lower, until it came within a few inches of my own. I completely

      closed my eyes.

      Delicate fingers touched my right eyelid. Divining what was coming, I

      rolled my eyes up, as the lid was adroitly lifted and lowered again.

      The man moved away.

      I had saved the situation! And noting anew the hush about me--a hush

      in which I fancied many pairs of ears listened--I was glad. For just a

      moment I realized fully how, with the place watched back and front, we

      yet were cut off, were in the hands of Far Easterns, to some extent in

      the power of members of that most inscrutably mysterious race, the

      Chinese.

      "Good," whispered Smith at my side. "I don't think I could have done

      it. He took me on trust after that. My God! what an awful face.

      Petrie, it's the hunchback of Cadby's notes. Ah, I thought so. Do you

      see that?"

      I turned my eyes round as far as was possible. A man had scrambled

      down from one of the bunks and was following the bent figure across the

      room.

      They passed around us quietly, the little yellow man leading, with his

      curious, lithe gait, and the other, an impassive Chinaman, following.

      The curtain was raised, and I heard footsteps receding on the stairs.

      "Don't stir," whispered Smith.

      An intense excitement was clearly upon him, and he communicated it to

      me. Who was the occupant of the room above?

      Footsteps on the stair, and the Chinaman reappeared, recrossed the

      floor, and went out. The little, bent man went over to another bunk,

      this time leading up the stair one who looked like a lascar.

      "Did you see his right hand?" whispered Smith. "A dacoit! They come

      here to report and to take orders. Petrie, Dr. Fu-Manchu is up there."

      "What shall we do?"--softly.

      "Wait. Then we must try to rush the stairs. It would be futile to

      bring in the police first. He is sure to have some other exit. I will

      give the word while the little yellow devil is down here. You are

      nearer and will have to go first, but if the hunchback follows, I can

      then deal with him."

      Our whispered colloquy was interrupted by the return of the dacoit, who

      recrossed the room as the Chinaman had done, and immediately took his

      departure. A third man, whom Smith identified as a Malay, ascended the

      mysterious stairs, descended, and went out; and a fourth, whose

      nationality it was impossible to determine, followed. Then, as the

      softly moving usher crossed to a bunk on the right of the outer door--

      "Up you go, Petrie," cried Smith, for further delay was dangerous and

      further dissimulation useless.

      I leaped to my feet. Snatching my revolver from the pocket of the

      rough jacket I wore, I bounded to the stair and went blundering up in

      complete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries clamored from behind,

      with a muffled scream rising above them all. But Nayland Smith was

      close behind as I raced along a covered gangway, in a purer air, and at

      my heels when I crashed open a door at the end and almost fell into the

      room beyond.

      What I saw were merely a dirty table, with some odds and ends upon it

      of which I was too excited to take note, an oil-lamp swung by a brass

      chain above, and a man sitting behind the table. But from the moment

      that my gaze rested upon the one who sat there, I think if the place

      had been an Aladdin's palace I should have had no eyes for any of its

      wonders.

      He wore a plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that of his

      smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and bony, and

      he held them knuckles upward, and rested his pointed chin upon their

      thinness. He had a great, high brow, crowned with sparse,

      neutral-colored hair.

      Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table, I despair of

      writing convincingly. It was that of an archangel of evil, and it was

      wholly dominated by the most uncanny eyes that ever reflected a human

      soul, for they were narrow and long, very slightly oblique, and of a

      brilliant green. But their unique horror lay in a certain filminess

      (it made me think of the membrana nictitans in a bird) which, obscuring

      them as I threw wide the door, seemed to lift as I actually passed the

      threshold, revealing the eyes in all their brilliant iridescence.

      I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the malignant

      force of the man was something surpassing my experience. He was

      surprised by this sudden intrusion--yes, but no trace of fear showed

      upon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitying contempt. And, as I

      paused, he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his gaze from mine.

      "IT'S FU-MANCHU!" cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice that was

      almost a scream. "IT'S FU-MANCHU! Cover him! Shoot him dead if--"

      The conclusion of that sentence I never heard.

      Dr. Fu-Manchu reached down beside the table, and the floor slipped from

      under me.

      One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a scream I was

      unable to repress I dropped, dropped, dropped, and plunged into icy

      water, which closed over my head.

      Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, had heard another cry following my

      own, a booming sound (the trap), the flat note of a police whistle.

      But when I rose to the surface impenetrable darkness enveloped me; I

      was spitting filthy, oily liquid from my mouth, and fighting down the

      black terror that had me by the throat--terror of the darkness about

      me, of the unknown depths beneath me, of the pit into which I was cast

      amid stifling stenches and the lapping of tidal water.

      "Smith!" I cried. . . . "Help! Help!"

      My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was

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