acilli, reared his poisonous fungi, from whence he dispatched his
murder ministers. Above all, perhaps, I wondered if this would prove
to be the hiding-place of the beautiful slave girl who was such a
potent factor in the Doctor's plans, but a two-edged sword which yet we
hoped to turn upon Fu-Manchu. Even in the hands of a master, a woman's
beauty is a dangerous weapon.

A cry rang out behind me. I turned quickly. And a singular sight met
my gaze.

Nayland Smith was engaged in a furious struggle with the old gypsy
woman! His long arms clasped about her, he was roughly dragging her
out into the roadway, she fighting like a wild thing--silently,
fiercely.

Smith often surprised me, but at that sight, frankly, I thought that he
was become bereft of reason. I ran back; and I had almost reached the
scene of this incredible contest, and Smith now was evidently hard put
to it to hold his own when a man, swarthy, with big rings in his ears,
leaped from the caravan.

One quick glance he threw in our direction, and made off towards the
river.

Smith twisted round upon me, never releasing his hold of the woman.

"After him, Petrie!" he cried. "After him. Don't let him escape.
It's a dacoit!"

My brain in a confused whirl; my mind yet disposed to a belief that my
friend had lost his senses, the word "dacoit" was sufficient.

I started down the road after the fleetly running man. Never once did
he glance behind him, so that he evidently had occasion to fear
pursuit. The dusty road rang beneath my flying footsteps. That sense
of fantasy, which claimed me often enough in those days of our struggle
with the titanic genius whose victory meant the victory of the yellow
races over the white, now had me fast in its grip again. I was an
actor in one of those dream-scenes of the grim Fu-Manchu drama.

Out over the grass and down to the river's brink ran the gypsy who was
no gypsy, but one of that far more sinister brotherhood, the dacoits.
I was close upon his heels. But I was not prepared for him to leap in
among the rushes at the margin of the stream; and seeing him do this I
pulled up quickly. Straight into the water he plunged; and I saw that
he held some object in his hand. He waded out; he dived; and as I
gained the bank and looked to right and left he had vanished
completely. Only ever-widening rings showed where he had been. I had
him.

For directly he rose to the surface he would be visible from either