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Page 105
Then it began--the unnatural scene--the saturnalia of murder.
Like so many bombs the brilliantly colored caps of the huge toadstool-like
things alluded to by the Chinaman exploded, as the white ray sought
them out in the darkness which alone preserved their existence.
A brownish cloud--I could not determine whether liquid or powdery--
arose in the cellar.
I tried to close my eyes--or to turn them away from the reeling forms
of the men who were trapped in that poison-hole. It was useless:
I must look.
The bearer of the lamp had dropped it, but the dim,
eerily illuminated gloom endured scarce a second.
A bright light sprang up--doubtless at the touch of the fiendish
being who now resumed speech:
"Observe the symptoms of delirium, Doctor!" Out there,
beyond the glass door, the unhappy victims were laughing--
tearing their garments from their bodies--leaping--waving their arms--
were become MANIACS!
"We will now release the ripe spores of giant entpusa,"
continued the wicked voice. "The air of the second cellar
being super-charged with oxygen, they immediately germinate.
Ah! it is a triumph! That process is the scientific triumph
of my life!"
Like powdered snow the white spores fell from the roof,
frosting the writhing shapes of the already poisoned men.
Before my horrified gaze, THE FUNGUS GREW; it spread
from the head to the, feet of those it touched; it enveloped
them as in glittering shrouds. . . .
"They die like flies!" screamed Fu-Manchu, with a sudden febrile excitement;
and I felt assured of something I had long suspected: that that magnificent,
perverted brain was the brain of a homicidal maniac--though Smith would
never accept the theory.
"It is my fly-trap!" shrieked the Chinaman. "And I am
the god of destruction!"
CHAPTER XXVI
THE clammy touch of the mist revived me. The culmination of the scene
in the poison cellars, together with the effects of the fumes
which I had inhaled again, had deprived me of consciousness.
Now I knew that I was afloat on the river. I still was bound:
furthermore, a cloth was wrapped tightly about my mouth,
and I was secured to a ring in the deck.
By moving my aching head to the left I could look down into the oily water;
by moving it to the right I could catch a glimpse of the empurpled
face of Inspector Weymouth, who, similarly bound and gagged,
lay beside me, but only of the feet and legs of Nayland Smith.
For I could not turn my head sufficiently far to see more.
We were aboard an electric launch. I heard the hated guttural
voice of Fu-Manchu, subdued now to its habitual calm,
and my heart leaped to hear the voice that answered him.
It was that of Karamaneh. His triumph was complete.
Clearly his plans for departure were complete; his slaughter
of the police in the underground passages had been a final
reckless demonstration of which the Chinaman's subtle cunning
would have been incapable had he not known his escape from
the country to be assured.
What fate was in store for us? How would he avenge himself upon the girl
who had betrayed him to his enemies? What portion awaited those enemies?
He seemed to have formed the singular determination to smuggle me into China--
but what did he purpose in the case of Weymouth, and in the case
of Nayland Smith?
All but silently we were feeling our way through the mist.
Astern died the clangor of dock and wharf into a remote discord.
Ahead hung the foggy curtain veiling the traffic of the great waterway;
but through it broke the calling of sirens, the tinkling of bells.
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