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Page 71
She suppressed a little cry as I spoke her name, and drew back into
the shadows.
"I believe you are my friend," I said, "but I cannot understand. Won't
you help me to understand?"
I took her unresisting hand, and drew her toward me. My very soul
seemed to thrill at the contact of her lithe body . . .
She was trembling wildly and seemed to be trying to speak, but
although her lips framed the words no sound followed. Suddenly
comprehension came to me. I looked down into the street, hitherto
deserted . . . and into the upturned face of Fu-Manchu.
Wearing a heavy fur-collared coat, and with his yellow, malignant
countenance grotesquely horrible beneath the shade of a large tweed
motor cap, he stood motionless, looking up at me. That he had seen me,
I could not doubt; but had he seen my companion?
In a choking whisper Karamaneh answered my unspoken question.
"He has not seen me! I have done much for you; do in return a small
thing for me. Save my life!"
She dragged me back from the window and fled across the room to the
weird laboratory where I had lain captive. Throwing herself upon the
divan, she held out her white wrists and glanced significantly at the
manacles.
"Lock them upon me!" she said, rapidly. "Quick! quick!"
Great as was my mental disturbance, I managed to grasp the purpose of
this device. The very extremity of my danger found me cool. I fastened
the manacles, which so recently had confined my own wrists, upon the
slim wrists of Karamaneh. A faint and muffled disturbance, doubly
ominous because there was nothing to proclaim its nature, reached me
from some place below, on the ground floor.
"Tie something around my mouth!" directed Karamaneh with nervous
rapidity. As I began to look about me:--"Tear a strip from my dress,"
she said; "do not hesitate--be quick! be quick!"
I seized the flimsy muslin and tore off half a yard or so from the hem
of the skirt. The voice of Dr Fu-Manchu became audible. He was
speaking rapidly, sibilantly, and evidently was approaching--would be
upon me in a matter of moments. I fastened the strip of fabric over
the girl's mouth and tied it behind, experiencing a pang half
pleasurable and half fearful as I found my hands in contact with the
foamy luxuriance of her hair.
Dr. Fu-Manchu was entering the room immediately beyond.
Snatching up the bunch of keys, I turned and ran, for in another
instant my retreat would be cut off. As I burst once more into the
darkened room I became aware that a door on the further side of it was
open; and framed in the opening was the tall, high-shouldered figure
of the Chinaman, still enveloped in his fur coat and wearing the
grotesque cap. As I saw him, so he perceived me; and as I sprang to
the window, he advanced.
I turned desperately and hurled the bunch of keys with all my force
into the dimly-seen face . . .
Either because they possessed a chatoyant quality of their own (as I
had often suspected), or by reason of the light reflected through the
open window, the green eyes gleamed upon me vividly like those of a
giant cat. One short guttural exclamation paid tribute to the accuracy
of my aim; then I had the crossbar in my hand. I threw one leg across
the sill, and dire as was my extremity, hesitated for an instant ere
trusting myself to the flight . . .
A vise-like grip fastened upon my left ankle.
Hazily I became aware that the dark room was flooded with figures. The
whole yellow gang were upon me--the entire murder-group composed of
units recruited from the darkest place of the East!
I have never counted myself a man of resource, and have always envied
Nayland Smith his possession of that quality, in him extraordinarily
developed; but on this occasion the gods were kind to me, and I
resorted to the only device, perhaps, which could have saved me.
Without releasing my hold upon the crossbar, I clutched at the ledge
with the fingers of both hands and swung back into the room my right
leg, which was already across the sill. With all my strength I kicked
out. My heel came in contact, in sickening contact, with a human head;
beyond doubt that I had split the skull of the man who held me.
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