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Page 72
The grip upon my ankle was released automatically; and now consigning
all my weight to the rope I slipped forward, as a diver, across the
broad ledge and found myself sweeping through the night like a winged
thing . . .
The line, as Karamaneh had assured me, was of well-judged length. Down
I swept to within six or seven feet of the street level, then up, at
ever decreasing speed, toward the vague oblong of the open window
beyond.
I hope I have been successful, in some measure, in portraying the
varied emotions which it was my lot to experience that night, and it
may well seem that nothing more exquisite could remain for me. Yet it
was written otherwise; for as I swept up to my goal, describing the
inevitable arc which I had no power to check, I saw that one awaited
me.
Crouching forward half out of the open window was a Burmese dacoit, a
cross-eyed, leering being whom I well remembered to have encountered
two years before in my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu. One bare, sinewy
arm held rigidly at right angles before his breast, he clutched a long
curved knife and waited--waited--for the critical moment when my
throat should be at his mercy!
I have said that a strange coolness had come to my aid; even now it
did not fail me, and so incalculably rapid are the workings of the
human mind that I remember complimenting myself upon an achievement
which Smith himself could not have bettered, and this in the
immeasurable interval which intervened between the commencement of my
upward swing and my arrival on a level with the window.
I threw my body back and thrust my feet forward. As my legs went
through the opening, an acute pain in one calf told me that I was not
to escape scatheless from the night's melee. But the dacoit went
rolling over in the darkness of the room, as helpless in face of that
ramrod stroke as the veriest infant . . .
Back I swept upon my trapeze, a sight to have induced any passing
citizen to question his sanity. With might and main I sought to check
the swing of the pendulum, for if I should come within reach of the
window behind I doubted not that other knives awaited me. It was no
difficult feat, and I succeeded in checking my flight. Swinging there
above Museum Street I could even appreciate, so lucid was my mind, the
ludicrous element of the situation.
I dropped. My wounded leg almost failed me; and greatly shaken, but
with no other serious damage, I picked myself up from the dust of the
roadway. It was a mockery of Fate that the problem which Nayland Smith
had set me to solve, should have been solved thus; for I could not
doubt that by means of the branch of a tall tree or some other
suitable object situated opposite to Smith's house in Rangoon,
Karamaneh had made her escape as tonight I had made mine.
Apart from the acute pain in my calf I knew that the dacoit's knife
had bitten deeply, by reason of the fact that a warm liquid was
trickling down into my boot. Like any drunkard I stood there in the
middle of the road looking up at the vacant window where the dacoit
had been, and up at the window above the shop of J. Salaman where I
knew Fu-Manchu to be. But for some reason the latter window had been
closed or almost closed, and as I stood there this reason became
apparent to me.
The sound of running footsteps came from the direction of New Oxford
Street. I turned--to see two policemen bearing down upon me!
This was a time for quick decisions and prompt action. I weighed all
the circumstances in the balance, and made the last vital choice of
the night; I turned and ran toward the British Museum as though the
worst of Fu-Manchu's creatures, and not my allies the police, were at
my heels!
No one else was in sight, but, as I whirled into the Square, the red
lamp of a slowly retreating taxi became visible some hundred yards to
the left. My leg was paining me greatly, but the nature of the wound
did not interfere with my progress; therefore I continued my headlong
career, and ere the police had reached the end of Museum Street I had
my hand upon the door handle of the cab--for, the Fates being
persistently kind to me, the vehicle was for hire.
"Dr. Cleeve's, Harley Street!" I shouted at the man. "Drive like hell!
It's an urgent case."
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