ngulation.

Beside her, with a Malay _kris_ in his heart--a little, jeweled weapon
that I had often seen in Zarmi's hand--sprawled the obese Greek,
Samarkan, a member of the Si-Fan group and sometime manager of a great
London hotel!

It was ghastly, it was infinitely horrible, that tragedy of which the
story can never be known, never be written; that fiendish fight to the
death in the black chapel of Asmodeus.

"We are too late!" said Nayland Smith. "The stair behind the altar!"

He snatched up the lantern. Directly behind the stone altar was a
narrow, pointed doorway. From the depths with which it communicated
proceeded vague, awesome sounds, as of waves breaking in some vast
cavern....

We were more than half-way down the stair when, above the muffled
roaring of the thunder, I distinctly heard the voice of _Dr. Fu-Manchu!_

"My God!" shouted Smith, "perhaps they are trapped! The cave is only
navigable at low tide and in calm weather!"

We literally fell down the remaining steps ... and were almost
precipitated into the water!

The light of the lantern showed a lofty cavern tapering away to a
point at its remote end, pear-fashion. The throbbing of an engine
and churning of a screw became audible. There was a faint smell of
petrol.

"Shoot! shoot!"--the frenzied voice was that of Sir Lionel--"Look!
they can just get through! ..."

_Crack! Crack! Crack!_

Nayland Smith's Browning spat death across the cave. Then followed the
report of Barton's pistol; then those of mine and Kennedy's.

A small motor-boat was creeping cautiously out under a low, natural
archway which evidently gave access to the sea! Since the tide was
incoming, a few minutes more of delay had rendered the passage of the
cavern impossible....

The boat disappeared.

"We are not beaten!" snapped Nayland Smith. "The _Chanak-Kampo_ will
be seized in the Channel!"

* * * * * * *

"There were formerly steps, in the side of the well from which this
place takes its name," declared Nayland Smith dully. "This was the
means of access to the secret chapel employed by the devil-worshipers."

"The top of the well (alleged to be the deepest in England)," said
Sir Lionel, "is among a tangle of weeds close by the ruined tower."

Smith, ascending three stone steps, swung the lantern out over the
yawning pit below; then he stared long and fixedly upwards.

Both thunder and rain had ceased; but even