k a step, flashing a glance
from my own contorted face to that, now pale even beneath its artificial
tan, of Fletcher.

I snatched the pistol from my pocket, and for one fateful moment the
lust of slaying claimed my mind.... Then I turned towards the river,
and, raising the Browning, fired shot after shot in the air.

"Weymouth!" I cried. "Weymouth!"

A sharp hissing sound came from behind me; a short, muffled cry ...
and something descended, crushing, upon my skull. Like a wild cat
Zarmi hurled herself past me and leapt into the boat. One glimpse I
had of her pallidly dusky face, of her blazing black eyes, and the
boat was thrust off into the waterway ... was swallowed up in the mist.

I turned, dizzily, to see Fletcher sinking to his knees, one hand
clutching his breast.

"She got me ... with the knife," he whispered. "But ... don't worry ...
look to yourself, and ..._him_...."

He pointed, weakly--then collapsed at my feet. I threw myself upon
the wooden chest with a fierce, sobbing cry.

"Smith, Smith!" I babbled, and knew myself no better, in my sorrow,
than an hysterical woman. "Smith, dear old man! speak to me! speak
to me!..."

Outraged emotion overcame me utterly, and with my arms thrown across
the box, I slipped into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER IX

FU-MANCHU

Many poignant recollections are mine, more of them bitter than sweet;
but no one of them all can compare with the memory of that moment of
my awakening.

Weymouth was supporting me, and my throat still tingled from the
effects of the brandy which he had forced between my teeth from his
flask. My heart was beating irregularly; my mind yet partly inert.
With something compound of horror and hope I lay staring at one who
was anxiously bending over the Inspector's shoulder, watching me.

_It was Nayland Smith._

A whole hour of silence seemed to pass, ere speech became possible;
then--

"Smith!" I whispered, "are you ..."

Smith grasped my outstretched, questing hand, grasped it firmly,
warmly; and I saw his gray eyes to be dim in the light of the several
lanterns around us.

"Am I alive?" he said. "Dear old Petrie! Thanks to you, I am not only
alive, but free!"

My head was buzzing like a hive of bees, but I managed, aided by
Weymouth, to struggle to my feet. Muffled sounds of shouting and
scuffling reached me. Two men in the uniform of the Thames Police were
carrying a limp body in at the low doorway communicating with the
inf