tion would have been fatal. I trust, Dr. Petrie,
that you suffer no inconvenience?"

To this speech no reply was possible, and I attempted none.

"You have long been aware of my esteem for your acquirements,"
continued the Chinaman, his voice occasionally touching deep guttural
notes, "and you will appreciate the pleasure which this visit affords
me. I kneel at the feet of my silver Buddha. I look to you, when you
shall have overcome your prejudices--due to ignorance of my true
motives--to assist me in establishing that intellectual control which
is destined to be the new World Force. I bear you no malice for your
ancient enmity, and even now"--he waved one yellow hand toward the
retort--"I am conducting an experiment designed to convert you from
your misunderstanding, and to adjust your perspective."

Quite unemotionally he spoke, then turned again to his book, his
test-tube and retort, in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. I do
not think the most frenzied outburst on his part, the most fiendish
threats, could have produced such effect upon me as those cold and
carefully calculated words, spoken in that unique voice. In its tones,
in the glance of the green eyes, in the very pose of the gaunt,
high-shouldered body, there was power--force.

I counted myself lost, and in view of the Doctor's words, studied the
progress of the experiment with frightful interest. But a few moments
sufficed in which to realize that, for all my training, I knew as
little of Chemistry--of Chemistry as understood by this man's
genius--as a junior student in surgery knows of trephining. The
process in operation was a complete mystery to me; the means and the
end were alike incomprehensible.

Thus, in the heavy silence of that room, a silence only broken by the
regular bubbling from the test-tube, I found my attention straying
from the table to the other objects surrounding it; and at one of them
my gaze stopped and remained chained with horror.

It was a glass jar, some five feet in height and filled with viscous
fluid of a light amber colour. Out from this peered a hideous,
dog-like face, low-browed, with pointed ears and a nose almost
hoggishly flat. By the death-grin of the face the gleaming fangs were
revealed; and the body, the long yellow-grey body, rested, or seemed
to rest, upon short, malformed legs, whilst one long limp arm, the
right, hung down straightly in the preservative. The left arm had been
severed above the elbow.