fitting traveling dress. Her hair
was unbound, disheveled, her lovely face pale to the lips--and her
eyes, her glorious, terror-bright eyes, looked fully into mine....

Not a word did she utter, and I was stricken dumb as one who has
plucked the Flower of Silence. Only those wondrous eyes seemed to
look into my soul, searing, consuming me.

Fu-Manchu had been speaking for some time ere my brain began again
to record his words.

"----and this magnanimity," came dully to my ears, "extends to you,
Dr. Petrie, because of my esteem. I have little cause to love
Karamaneh"--his voice quivered furiously--"but she can yet be of
use to me, and I would not harm a hair of her beautiful head--except
in the event of your obstinacy. Shall we then determine your
immediate future upon the turn of a card, as the gamester within me,
within every one of my race, suggests?

"Yes, yes!" came hoarsely.

I fought mentally to restore myself to a full knowledge of what was
happening, and I realized that the last words had come from the lips
of Sir Baldwin Frazer.

"Dr. Petrie," Frazer said, still in the same hoarse and unnatural
voice, "what else can we do? At least take the chance of recovering
your freedom, for how otherwise can you hope to serve--your friend...."

"God knows!" I said dully; "do as you wish"--and cared not to what I
had agreed.

Plunging his hand beneath his white overall, the Chinaman who had been
referred to as Li-King-Su calmly produced a pack of cards,
unemotionally shuffled them and extended the pack to me.

I shook my head grimly, for my hands were tied. Picking up a lancet
from the table, the Chinaman cut the cords which bound me, and again
extended the pack. I took a card and laid it on my knee without even
glancing at it. Fu-Manchu, with his left hand, in turn selected a
card, looked at it and then turned its face towards me.

"It would seem, Dr. Petrie," he said calmly, "that you are fated to
remain here as my guest. You will have the felicity of residing
beneath the same roof with Karamaneh."

The card was the Knave of Diamonds.

Conscious of a sudden excitement, I snatched up the card from my
knee. It was the Queen of Hearts! For a moment I tasted exultation,
then I tossed it upon the floor. I was not fool enough to suppose
that the Chinese Doctor would pay his debt of honor and release me.

"Your star above mine," said Fu-Manchu, his calm unruffled. "I place
myself in your hands, Sir Baldwin."