too near, Petrie!" he warned over his shoulder.

One on either side of the open window, we stood and looked down at the
moving Embankment lights, at the glitter of the Thames, at the
silhouetted buildings on the farther bank, with the Shot Tower starting
above them all.

Three taps sounded on the panes above us.

In all my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu I had had to face nothing so
uncanny as this. What Burmese ghoul had he loosed? Was it outside, in
the air? Was it actually in the room?

"Don't let me go, Petrie!" whispered Smith suddenly. "Get a tight hold
on me!"

That was the last straw; for I thought that some dreadful fascination
was impelling my friend to hurl himself out! Wildly I threw my arms
about him, and Guthrie leaped forward to help.

Smith leaned from the window and looked up.

One choking cry he gave--smothered, inarticulate--and I found him
slipping from my grip--being drawn out of the window--drawn to his
death!

"Hold him, Guthrie!" I gasped hoarsely. "My God, he's going! Hold
him!"

My friend writhed in our grasp, and I saw him stretch his arm upward.
The crack of his revolver came, and he collapsed on to the floor,
carrying me with him.

But as I fell I heard a scream above. Smith's revolver went hurtling
through the air, and, hard upon it, went a black shape--flashing past
the open window into the gulf of the night.

"The light! The light!" I cried.

Guthrie ran and turned on the light. Nayland Smith, his eyes starting
from his head, his face swollen, lay plucking at a silken cord which
showed tight about his throat.

"It was a Thug!" screamed Guthrie. "Get the rope off! He's choking!"

My hands a-twitch, I seized the strangling-cord.

"A knife! Quick!" I cried. "I have lost mine!"

Guthrie ran to the dressing-table and passed me an open penknife. I
somehow forced the blade between the rope and Smith's swollen neck, and
severed the deadly silken thing.

Smith made a choking noise, and fell back, swooning in my arms.

When, later, we stood looking down upon the mutilated thing which had
been brought in from where it fell, Smith showed me a mark on the
brow--close beside the wound where his bullet had entered.

"The mark of Kali," he said. "The man was a phansigar--a religious
strangler. Since Fu-Manchu has dacoits in his service I might have
expected that he would have Thugs. A group of these fiends would seem
to have fled into Burma; so that the mysteri