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Page 54
I moaned weakly.
"Smith!" I muttered, "Where are you? Smith!"
On to my knees I struggled, and the pain on the top of my skull grew
all but insupportable. It was coming back to me now; how Nayland Smith
and I had started for the hotel to warn Graham Guthrie; how, as we
passed up the steps from the Embankment and into Essex Street,
we saw the big motor standing before the door of one of the offices.
I could recall coming up level with the car--a modern limousine;
but my mind retained no impression of our having passed it--
only a vague memory of a rush of footsteps--a blow. Then, my vision
of the hall of dragons, and now this real awakening to a worse reality.
Groping in the darkness, my hands touched a body that lay close beside me.
My fingers sought and found the throat, sought and found the steel
collar about it.
"Smith," I groaned; and I shook the still form. "Smith, old man--
speak to me! Smith!"
Could he be dead? Was this the end of his gallant fight with Dr. Fu-Manchu
and the murder group? If so, what did the future hold for me--
what had I to face?
He stirred beneath my trembling hands.
"Thank God!" I muttered, and I cannot deny that my joy was tainted
with selfishness. For, waking in that impenetrable darkness, and yet obsessed
with the dream I had dreamed, I had known what fear meant, at the realization
that alone, chained, I must face the dreadful Chinese doctor in the flesh.
Smith began incoherent mutterings.
"Sand-bagged! . . . Look out, Petrie! . . . He has us at last! . . .
Oh, Heavens!" . . .He struggled on to his knees, clutching at my hand.
"All right, old man," I said. "We are both alive!
So let's be thankful."
A moment's silence, a groan, then:
"Petrie, I have dragged you into this. God forgive me--"
"Dry up, Smith," I said slowly. "I'm not a child.
There is no question of being dragged into the matter.
I'm here; and if I can be of any use, I'm glad I am here!"
He grasped my hand.
"There were two Chinese, in European clothes--lord, how my head throbs!--
in that office door. They sand-bagged us, Petrie--think of it!--
in broad daylight, within hail of the Strand! We were rushed
into the car--and it was all over, before--" His voice grew faint.
"God! they gave me an awful knock!"
"Why have we been spared, Smith? Do you think he is saving us for--"
"Don't, Petrie! If you had been in China, if you had seen
what I have seen--"
Footsteps sounded on the flagged passage. A blade of light crept
across the floor towards us. My brain was growing clearer.
The place had a damp, earthen smell. It was slimy--some noisome cellar.
A door was thrown open and a man entered, carrying a lantern.
Its light showed my surmise to be accurate, showed the
slime-coated walls of a dungeon some fifteen feet square--
shone upon the long yellow robe of the man who stood watching us,
upon the malignant, intellectual countenance.
It was Dr. Fu-Manchu.
At last they were face to face--the head of the great Yellow Movement,
and the man who fought on behalf of the entire white race.
How can I paint the individual who now stood before us--
perhaps the greatest genius of modern times?
Of him it had been fitly said that he had a brow like Shakespeare and a face
like Satan. Something serpentine, hypnotic, was in his very presence.
Smith drew one sharp breath, and was silent. Together, chained to the wall,
two mediaeval captives, living mockeries of our boasted modern security,
we crouched before Dr. Fu-Manchu.
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