im, fingers twining and intertwining
serpentinely about the handle of a little fan, and with the pointed chin
resting on the breast of the yellow robe, so that the light from the
lamp swinging in the center of the ceiling gleamed upon the great,
dome-like brow, this tall man paced somberly from left to right.

He cast a sidelong, venomous glance at the voluble speaker out of
half-shut eyes; in the act they seemed to light up as with an internal
luminance; momentarily they sparkled like emeralds; then their
brilliance was filmed over as in the eyes of a bird when the membrane is
lowered.

My blood seemed to chill, and my heart to double its pulsations;
beside me Smith was breathing more rapidly than usual. I knew now
the explanation of the feeling which had claimed me when first I had
descended the stone stairs. I knew what it was that hung like a miasma
over that house. It was the aura, the glamour, which radiated from this
wonderful and evil man as light radiates from radium. It was the vril,
the force, of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

I began to move away from the window. But Smith held my wrist as in a
vise. He was listening raptly to the torrential speech of the Chinaman
who sat in the chair; and I perceived in his eyes the light of a sudden
comprehension.

As the tall figure of the Chinese doctor came pacing into view again,
Smith, his head below the level of the window, pushed me gently along
the passage.

Regaining the site of the trap, he whispered to me: "We owe our lives,
Petrie, to the national childishness of the Chinese! A race of ancestor
worshipers is capable of anything, and Dr. Fu-Manchu, the dreadful being
who has rained terror upon Europe stands in imminent peril of disgrace
for having lost a decoration."

"What do you mean, Smith?"

"I mean that this is no time for delay, Petrie! Here, unless I am
greatly mistaken, lies the rope by means of which you made your
entrance. It shall be the means of your exit. Open the trap!"

Handling the lamp to Smith, I stooped and carefully raised the
trap-door. At which moment, a singular and dramatic thing happened.

A softly musical voice--the voice of my dreams!--spoke.

"Not that way! O God, not that way!"

In my surprise and confusion I all but let the trap fall, but I retained
sufficient presence of mind to replace it gently. Standing upright, I
turned... and there, with her little jeweled hand resting upon Smith's
arm, stood Karamaneh!

In all my experience