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Page 43
My adventure had done nothing to relieve the feeling of unreality
which held me enthralled. Grasping the struggling bird firmly by the
body, and having the long white tail fluttering a yard or so behind
me, I returned to where the taxi waited.
"Open the door!" I said to the man--who greeted me with such a stare
of amazement that I laughed outright, though my mirth was but hollow.
He jumped into the road and did as I directed. Making sure that both
windows were closed, I thrust the peacock into the cab and shut the
door upon it.
"For God's sake, sir!" began the driver--
"It has probably escaped from some collector's place on the
riverside," I explained, "but one never knows. See that it does not
escape again, and if at the end of an hour, as arranged, you do not
hear from me, take it back with you to the River Police Station."
"Right you are, sir," said the man, remounting his seat. "It's the
first time I ever saw a peacock in Limehouse!"
It was the first time I had seen one, and the incident struck me as
being more than odd; it gave me an idea, and a new, faint hope. I
returned to the head of the steps, at the foot of which I had met with
this singular experience, and gazed up at the dark building beneath
which they led. Three windows were visible, but they were broken and
neglected. One, immediately above the arch, had been pasted up with
brown paper, and this was now peeling off in the rain, a little stream
of which trickled down from the detached corner to drop, drearily,
upon the stone stairs beneath.
Where were the detectives? I could only assume that they had directed
their attention elsewhere, for had the place not been utterly
deserted, surely I had been challenged.
In pursuit of my new idea, I again descended the steps. The persuasion
(shortly to be verified) that I was close upon the secret hold of the
Chinaman, grew stronger, unaccountably. I had descended some eight
steps, and was at the darkest part of the archway or tunnel, when
confirmation of my theories came to me.
A noose settled accurately upon my shoulders, was snatched tightly
about my throat, and with a feeling of insupportable agony at the base
of my skull, and a sudden supreme knowledge that I was being
strangled--hanged--I lost consciousness!
How long I remained unconscious, I was unable to determine at the
time, but I learned later, that it was for no more than half an hour;
at any rate, recovery was slow.
The first sensation to return to me was a sort of repetition of the
asphyxia. The blood seemed to be forcing itself into my eyes--I choked
--I felt that my end was come. And, raising my hands to my throat, I
found it to be swollen and inflamed. Then the floor upon which I lay
seemed to be rocking like the deck of a ship, and I glided back again
into a place of darkness and forgetfulness.
My second awakening was heralded by a returning sense of smell; for I
became conscious of a faint, exquisite perfume.
It brought me to my senses as nothing else could have done, and I sat
upright with a hoarse cry. I could have distinguished that perfume
amid a thousand others, could have marked it apart from the rest in a
scent bazaar. For me it had one meaning, and one meaning only--
Karamaneh.
She was near to me, or had been near to me!
And in the first moments of my awakening, I groped about in the
darkness blindly seeking her.
Then my swollen throat and throbbing head, together with my utter
inability to move my neck even slightly, reminded me of the facts as
they were. I knew in that bitter moment that Karamaneh was no longer
my friend; but, for all her beauty and charm, was the most heartless,
the most fiendish creature in the service of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I groaned
aloud in my despair and misery.
Something stirred, near to me in the room, and set my nerves creeping
with a new apprehension. I became fully alive to the possibilities of
the darkness.
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