, that instant, most probably, had
marked the end of my share in the fight with Fu-Manchu. As it was I had
a narrow escape. I felt something slip from my hip pocket, but the
weird creaking of the ladder, the groans of the laboring hulk, and the
lapping of the waves about the staging drowned the sound of the splash
as my revolver dropped into the river.

Rather white-faced, I think, I joined Smith on the deck. He had
witnessed my accident, but--

"We must risk it," he whispered in my ear. "We dare not turn back now."

He plunged into the semi-darkness, making for the cabin, I perforce
following.

At the bottom of the ladder we came fully into the light streaming out
from the singular apartments at the entrance to which we found
ourselves. It was fitted up as a laboratory. A glimpse I had of
shelves loaded with jars and bottles, of a table strewn with scientific
paraphernalia, with retorts, with tubes of extraordinary shapes,
holding living organisms, and with instruments--some of them of a form
unknown to my experience. I saw too that books, papers and rolls of
parchment littered the bare wooden floor. Then Smith's voice rose
above the confused sounds about me, incisive, commanding:

"I have you covered, Dr. Fu-Manchu!"

For Fu-Manchu sat at the table.

The picture that he presented at that moment is one which persistently
clings in my memory. In his long, yellow robe, his masklike,
intellectual face bent forward amongst the riot of singular objects
upon the table, his great, high brow gleaming in the light of the
shaded lamp above him, and with the abnormal eyes, filmed and green,
raised to us, he seemed a figure from the realms of delirium. But,
most amazing circumstance of all, he and his surroundings tallied,
almost identically, with the dream-picture which had come to me as I
lay chained in the cell!

Some of the large jars about the place held anatomy specimens. A faint
smell of opium hung in the air, and playing with the tassel of one of
the cushions upon which, as upon a divan, Fu-Manchu was seated, leaped
and chattered a little marmoset.

That was an electric moment. I was prepared for anything--for anything
except for what really happened.

The doctor's wonderful, evil face betrayed no hint of emotion. The
lids flickered over the filmed eyes, and their greenness grew
momentarily brighter, and filmed over again.

"Put up your hands!" rapped Smith, "and attempt no tricks." His voice
qui