raised his hands in the dimness and partly slipped the bandage
from his mouth.

"I've been working at the cords since we left those filthy cellars," he
whispered. "My wrists are all cut, but when I've got out a knife and
freed my ankles--"

Smith had kicked him with his bound feet. The detective slipped the
bandage back to position and placed his hands behind him again. Dr.
Fu-Manchu, wearing a heavy overcoat but no hat, came aft. He was
dragging Karamaneh by the wrists. He seated himself on the cushions
near to us, pulling the girl down beside him. Now, I could see her
face--and the expression in her beautiful eyes made me writhe.

Fu-Manchu was watching us, his discolored teeth faintly visible in the
dim light, to which my eyes were becoming accustomed.

"Dr. Petrie," he said, "you shall be my honored guest at my home in
China. You shall assist me to revolutionize chemistry. Mr. Smith, I
fear you know more of my plans than I had deemed it possible for you to
have learned, and I am anxious to know if you have a confidant. Where
your memory fails you, and my files and wire jackets prove ineffectual,
Inspector Weymouth's recollections may prove more accurate."

He turned to the cowering girl--who shrank away from him in pitiful,
abject terror.

"In my hands, Doctor," he continued, "I hold a needle charged with a
rare culture. It is the link between the bacilli and the fungi. You
have seemed to display an undue interest in the peach and pearl which
render my Karamaneh so delightful, In the supple grace of her movements
and the sparkle of her eyes. You can never devote your whole mind to
those studies which I have planned for you whilst such distractions
exist. A touch of this keen point, and the laughing Karamaneh becomes
the shrieking hag--the maniacal, mowing--"

Then, with an ox-like rush, Weymouth was upon him!

Karamaneh, wrought upon past endurance, with a sobbing cry, sank to the
deck--and lay still. I managed to writhe into a half-sitting posture,
and Smith rolled aside as the detective and the Chinaman crashed down
together.

Weymouth had one big hand at the Doctor's yellow throat; with his left
he grasped the Chinaman's right. It held the needle.

Now, I could look along the length of the little craft, and, so far as
it was possible to make out in the fog, only one other was aboard--the
half-clad brown man who navigated her--and who had carried us through
the cellars. The murk had gro