The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu

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I became fully master of my senses, and I became fully alive to a
stupendous fact. At last it was ended; we were utterly in the power of
Dr. Fu-Manchu; our race was run.

I sat in a low vaulted room. The roof was of ancient brickwork, but
the walls were draped with exquisite Chinese fabric having a green
ground whereon was a design representing a grotesque procession of
white peacocks. A green carpet covered the floor, and the whole of the
furniture was of the same material as the chair to which I was
strapped, viz:--ebony inlaid with ivory. This furniture was scanty.
There was a heavy table in one corner of the dungeonesque place, on
which were a number of books and papers. Before this table was a
high-backed, heavily carven chair. A smaller table stood upon the
right of the only visible opening, a low door partially draped with
bead work curtains, above which hung a silver lamp. On this smaller
table, a stick of incense, in a silver holder, sent up a pencil of
vapor into the air, and the chamber was loaded with the sickly sweet
fumes. A faint haze from the incense-stick hovered up under the roof.

In the high-backed chair sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a green robe upon
which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first glance
was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a huge white
peacock. He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of his amazing
skull, and with one clawish hand resting upon the ebony of the table,
he sat slightly turned toward me, his emotionless face a mask of
incredible evil. In spite of, or because of, the high intellect
written upon it, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu was more utterly repellent
than any I have ever known, and the green eyes, eyes green as those of
a cat in the darkness, which sometimes burned like witch lamps, and
sometimes were horribly filmed like nothing human or imaginable, might
have mirrored not a soul, but an emanation of hell, incarnate in this
gaunt, high-shouldered body.

Stretched flat upon the floor lay Nayland Smith, partially stripped,
his arms thrown back over his head and his wrists chained to a stout
iron staple attached to the wall; he was fully conscious and staring
intently at the Chinese doctor. His bare ankles also were manacled,
and fixed to a second chain, which quivered tautly across the green
carpet and passed out through the doorway, being attached to something
beyond the curtain, and invisible to me from where I sat.

Fu-Manchu was now silent. I could hear Smith's heavy breathing and
hear my watch ticking in my pocket. I suddenly realized that although
my body was lashed to the ebony chair, my hands and arms were free.
Next, looking dazedly about me, my attention was drawn to a heavy
sword which stood hilt upward against the wall within reach of my
hand. It was a magnificent piece, of Japanese workmanship; a long,
curved Damascened blade having a double-handed hilt of steel, inlaid
with gold, and resembling fine Kuft work. A host of possibilities
swept through my mind. Then I perceived that the sword was attached to
the wall by a thin steel chain some five feet in length.

"Even if you had the dexterity of a Mexican knife-thrower," came the
guttural voice of Fu-Manchu, "you would be unable to reach me, dear
Dr. Petrie."

The Chinaman had read my thoughts.

Smith turned his eyes upon me momentarily, only to look away again in
the direction of Fu-Manchu. My friend's face was slightly pale beneath
the tan, and his jaw muscles stood out with unusual prominence. By
this fact alone did he reveal his knowledge that he lay at the mercy
of this enemy of the white race, of this inhuman being who himself
knew no mercy, of this man whose very genius was inspired by the cool,
calculated cruelty of his race, of that race which to this day
disposes of hundreds, nay! thousands, of its unwanted girl-children by
the simple measure of throwing them down a well specially dedicated to
the purpose.

"The weapon near your hand," continued the Chinaman, imperturbably,
"is a product of the civilization of our near neighbors, the Japanese,
a race to whose courage I prostrate myself in meekness. It is the
sword of a samurai, Dr. Petrie. It is of very great age, and was,
until an unfortunate misunderstanding with myself led to the
extinction of the family, a treasured possession of a noble Japanese
house . . ."

The soft voice, into which an occasional sibilance crept, but which
never rose above a cool monotone, gradually was lashing me into fury,
and I could see the muscles moving in Smith's jaws as he convulsively
clenched his teeth; whereby I knew that, impotent, he burned with a
rage at least as great as mine. But I did not speak, and did not move.

"The ancient tradition of seppuku," continued the Chinaman, "or
hara-kiri, still rules, as you know, in the great families of Japan.
There is a sacred ritual, and the samurai who dedicates himself to
this honorable end, must follow strictly the ritual. As a physician,
the exact nature of the ceremony might possibly interest you, Dr.
Petrie, but a technical account of the two incisions which the
sacrificant employs in his self-dismissal, might, on the other hand,
bore Mr. Nayland Smith. Therefore I will merely enlighten you upon one
little point, a minor one, but interesting to the student of human
nature. In short, even a samurai--and no braver race has ever honored
the world--sometimes hesitates to complete the operation. The weapon
near to your hand, my dear Dr. Petrie, is known as the Friend's Sword.
On such occasions as we are discussing, a trusty friend is given the
post--an honored one of standing behind the brave man who offers
himself to his gods, and should the latter's courage momentarily fail
him, the friend with the trusty blade (to which now I especially
direct your attention) diverts the hierophant's mind from his
digression, and rectifies his temporary breach of etiquette by
severing the cervical vertebrae of the spinal column with the friendly
blade--which you can reach quite easily, Dr. Petrie, if you care to
extend your hand."

Some dim perceptions of the truth was beginning to creep into my mind.
When I say a perception of the truth, I mean rather of some part of
the purpose of Dr. Fu-Manchu; of the whole horrible truth, of the
scheme which had been conceived by that mighty, evil man, I had no
glimmering, but I foresaw that a frightful ordeal was before us both.

"That I hold you in high esteem," continued Fu-Manchu, "is a fact
which must be apparent to you by this time, but in regard to your
companion, I entertain very different sentiments. . . ."

Always underlying the deliberate calm of the speaker, sometimes
showing itself in an unusually deep guttural, sometimes in an
unusually serpentine sibilance, lurked the frenzy of hatred which in
the past had revealed itself occasionally in wild outbursts.
Momentarily I expected such an outburst now, but it did not come.

"One quality possessed by Mr. Nayland Smith," resumed the Chinaman, "I
admire; I refer to his courage. I would wish that so courageous a man
should seek his own end, should voluntarily efface himself from the
path of that world-movement which he is powerless to check. In short,
I would have him show himself a samurai. Always his friend, you shall
remain so to the end, Dr. Petrie. I have arranged for this."

He struck lightly a little silver gong, dependent from the corner of
the table, whereupon, from the curtained doorway, there entered a
short, thickly built Burman whom I recognized for a dacoit. He wore a
shoddy blue suit, which had been made for a much larger man; but these
things claimed little of my attention, which automatically was
directed to the load beneath which the Burman labored.

Upon his back he carried a sort of wire box rather less than six feet
long, some two feet high, and about two feet wide. In short, it was a
stout framework covered with fine wire-netting on the top, sides and
ends, but being open at the bottom. It seemed to be made in five
sections or to contain four sliding partitions which could be raised
or lowered at will. These were of wood, and in the bottom of each was
cut a little arch. The arches in the four partitions varied in size,
so that whereas the first was not more than five inches high, the
fourth opened almost to the wire roof of the box or cage; and a fifth,
which was but little higher than the first, was cut in the actual end
of the contrivance.

So intent was I upon this device, the purpose of which I was wholly
unable to divine, that I directed the whole of my attention upon it.
Then, as the Burman paused in the doorway, resting a corner of the
cage upon the brilliant carpet, I glanced toward Fu-Manchu. He was
watching Nayland Smith, and revealing his irregular yellow teeth--the
teeth of an opium smoker--in the awful mirthless smile which I knew.

"God!" whispered Smith--"the Six Gates!"

"The knowledge of my beautiful country serves you well," replied
Fu-Manchu gently.

Instantly I looked to my friend . . . and every drop of blood seemed
to recede from my heart, leaving it cold in my breast. If I did not
know the purpose of the cage, obviously Smith knew it all too well.
His pallor had grown more marked, and although his gray eyes stared
defiantly at the Chinaman, I, who knew him, could read a deathly
horror in their depths.

The dacoit, in obedience to a guttural order from Dr. Fu-Manchu,
placed the cage upon the carpet, completely covering Smith's body, but
leaving his neck and head exposed. The seared and pock-marked face set
in a sort of placid leer, the dacoit adjusted the sliding partitions
to Smith's recumbent form, and I saw the purpose of the graduated
arches. They were intended to divide a human body in just such
fashion, and, as I realized, were most cunningly shaped to that end.
The whole of Smith's body lay now in the wire cage, each of the five
compartments whereof was shut off from its neighbor.

The Burman stepped back and stood waiting in the doorway. Dr.
Fu-Manchu, removing his gaze from the face of my friend, directed it
now upon me.

"Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith shall have the honor of acting as
hierophant, admitting himself to the Mysteries," said Fu-Manchu
softly, "and you, Dr. Petrie, shall be the Friend."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SIX GATES

He glanced toward the Burman, who retired immediately, to re-enter a
moment later carrying a curious leather sack, in shape not unlike that
of a sakka or Arab water-carrier. Opening a little trap in the top of
the first compartment of the cage (that is, the compartment which
covered Smith's bare feet and ankles) he inserted the neck of the
sack, then suddenly seized it by the bottom and shook it vigorously.
Before my horrified gaze four huge rats came tumbling out from the bag
into the cage! The dacoit snatched away the sack and snapped the
shutter fast. A moving mist obscured my sight, a mist through which I
saw the green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu fixed upon me, and through which,
as from a great distance, his voice, sunk to a snake-like hiss, came
to my ears.

"Cantonese rats, Dr. Petrie, the most ravenous in the world . . . they
have eaten nothing for nearly a week!"

Then all became blurred as though a painter with a brush steeped in
red had smudged out the details of the picture. For an indefinite
period, which seemed like many minutes yet probably was only a few
seconds, I saw nothing and heard nothing; my sensory nerves were
dulled entirely. From this state I was awakened and brought back to
the realities by a sound which ever afterward I was doomed to
associate with that ghastly scene.

This was the squealing of the rats.

The red mist seemed to disperse at that, and with frightfully intense
interest, I began to study the awful torture to which Nayland Smith
was being subjected. The dacoit had disappeared, and Fu-Manchu
placidly was watching the four lean and hideous animals in the cage.
As I also turned my eyes in that direction, the rats overcame their
temporary fear, and began . . .

"You have been good enough to notice," said the Chinaman, his voice
still sunk in that sibilant whisper, "my partiality for dumb allies.
You have met my scorpions, my death-adders, my baboon-man. The uses of
such a playful little animal as a marmoset have never been fully
appreciated before, I think, but to an indiscretion of this last-named
pet of mine, I seem to remember that you owed something in the past,
Dr. Petrie . . ."

Nayland Smith stifled a deep groan. One rapid glance I ventured at his
face. It was a grayish hue, now, and dank with perspiration. His gaze
met mine.

The rats had almost ceased squealing.

"Much depends upon yourself, Doctor," continued Fu-Manchu, slightly
raising his voice. "I credit Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith with
courage high enough to sustain the raising of all the gates; but I
estimate the strength of your friendship highly, also, and predict
that you will use the sword of the samurai certainly not later than
the time when I shall raise the third gate. . . ."

A low shuddering sound, which I cannot hope to describe, but alas I
can never forget, broke from the lips of the tortured man.

"In China," resumed Fu-Manchu, "we call this quaint fancy the Six
Gates of joyful Wisdom. The first gate, by which the rats are
admitted, is called the Gate of joyous Hope; the second, the Gate of
Mirthful Doubt. The third gate is poetically named, the Gate of True
Rapture, and the fourth, the Gate of Gentle Sorrow. I once was honored
in the friendship of an exalted mandarin who sustained the course of
joyful Wisdom to the raising of the Fifth Gate (called the Gate of
Sweet Desires) and the admission of the twentieth rat. I esteem him
almost equally with my ancestors. The Sixth, or Gate Celestial--
whereby a man enters into the joy of Complete Understanding--I have
dispensed with, here, substituting a Japanese fancy of an antiquity
nearly as great and honorable. The introduction of this element of
speculation, I count a happy thought, and accordingly take pride to
myself."

"The sword, Petrie!" whispered Smith. I should not have recognized his
voice, but he spoke quite evenly and steadily. "I rely upon you, old
man, to spare me the humiliation of asking mercy from that yellow
fiend!"

My mind throughout this time had been gaining a sort of dreadful
clarity. I had avoided looking at the sword of hara-kiri, but my
thoughts had been leading me mercilessly up to the point at which we
were now arrived. No vestige of anger, of condemnation of the inhuman
being seated in the ebony chair, remained; that was past. Of all that
had gone before, and of what was to come in the future, I thought
nothing, knew nothing. Our long fight against the yellow group, our
encounters with the numberless creatures of Fu-Manchu, the dacoits--
even Karamaneh--were forgotten, blotted out. I saw nothing of the
strange appointments of that subterranean chamber; but face to face
with the supreme moment of a lifetime, I was alone with my poor friend
--and God.

The rats began squealing again. They were fighting . . .

"Quick, Petrie! Quick, man! I am weakening . . . ."

I turned and took up the samurai sword. My hands were very hot and
dry, but perfectly steady, and I tested the edge of the heavy weapon
upon my left thumb-nail as quietly as one might test a razor blade. It
was as keen, this blade of ghastly history, as any razor ever wrought
in Sheffield. I seized the graven hilt, bent forward in my chair, and
raised the Friend's Sword high above my head. With the heavy weapon
poised there, I looked into my friend's eyes. They were feverishly
bright, but never in all my days, nor upon the many beds of suffering
which it had been my lot to visit, had I seen an expression like that
within them.

"The raising of the First Gate is always a crucial moment," came the
guttural voice of the Chinaman. Although I did not see him, and barely
heard his words, I was aware that he had stood up and was bending
forward over the lower end of the cage.

"Now, Petrie! now! God bless you . . . and good-by . . ."

From somewhere--somewhere remote--I heard a hoarse and animal-like
cry, followed by the sound of a heavy fall. I can scarcely bear to
write of that moment, for I had actually begun the downward sweep of
the great sword when that sound came--a faint Hope, speaking of aid
where I had thought no aid possible.

How I contrived to divert the blade, I do not know to this day; but I
do know that its mighty sweep sheared a lock from Smith's head and
laid bare the scalp. With the hilt in my quivering hands I saw the
blade bite deeply through the carpet and floor above Nayland Smith's
skull. There, buried fully two inches in the woodwork, it stuck, and
still clutching the hilt, I looked to the right and across the room--I
looked to the curtained doorway.

Fu-Manchu, with one long, claw-like hand upon the top of the First
Gate, was bending over the trap, but his brilliant green eyes were
turned in the same direction as my own--upon the curtained doorway.

Upright within it, her beautiful face as pale as death, but her great
eyes blazing with a sort of splendid madness, stood Karamaneh!

She looked, not at the tortured man, not at me, but fully at Dr.
Fu-Manchu. One hand clutched the trembling draperies; now she suddenly
raised the other, so that the jewels on her white arm glittered in the
light of the lamp above the door. She held my Browning pistol!
Fu-Manchu sprang upright, inhaling sibilantly, as Karamaneh pointed
the pistol point blank at his high skull and fired. . . .

I saw a little red streak appear, up by the neutral colored hair,
under the black cap. I became as a detached intelligence, unlinked
with the corporeal, looking down upon a thing which for some reason I
had never thought to witness.

Fu-Manchu threw up both arms, so that the sleeves of the green robe
fell back to the elbows. He clutched at his head, and the black cap
fell behind him. He began to utter short, guttural cries; he swayed
backward--to the right--to the left then lurched forward right across
the cage. There he lay, writhing, for a moment, his baneful eyes
turned up, revealing the whites; and the great gray rats, released,
began leaping about the room. Two shot like gray streaks past the slim
figure in the doorway, one darted behind the chair to which I was
lashed, and the fourth ran all around against the wall . . .
Fu-Manchu, prostrate across the overturned cage, lay still, his
massive head sagging downward.

I experienced a mental repetition of my adventure in the earlier
evening--I was dropping, dropping, dropping into some bottomless pit
. . . warm arms were about my neck; and burning kisses upon my lips.

CHAPTER XXX

THE CALL OF THE EAST

I seemed to haul myself back out of the pit of unconsciousness by the
aid of two little hands which clasped my own. I uttered a sigh that
was almost a sob, and opened my eyes.

I was sitting in the big red-leathern armchair in my own study . . .
and a lovely but truly bizarre figure, in a harem dress, was kneeling
on the carpet at my feet; so that my first sight of the world was the
sweetest sight that the world had to offer me, the dark eyes of
Karamaneh, with tears trembling like jewels upon her lashes!

I looked no further than that, heeded not if there were others in the
room beside we two, but, gripping the jewel-laden fingers in what must
have been a cruel clasp, I searched the depths of the glorious eyes in
ever growing wonder. What change had taken place in those limpid,
mysterious pools? Why was a wild madness growing up within me like a
flame? Why was the old longing returned, ten-thousandfold, to snatch
that pliant, exquisite shape to my breast?

No word was spoken, but the spoken words of a thousand ages could not
have expressed one tithe of what was held in that silent communion. A
hand was laid hesitatingly on my shoulder. I tore my gaze away from
the lovely face so near to mine, and glanced up.

Aziz stood at the back of my chair.

"God is all merciful," he said. "My sister is restored to us" (I loved
him for the plural); "and she remembers."

Those few words were enough; I understood now that this lovely girl,
who half knelt, half lay, at my feet, was not the evil, perverted
creature of Fu-Manchu whom we had gone out to arrest with the other
vile servants of the Chinese doctor, but was the old, beloved
companion of two years ago, the Karamaneh for whom I had sought long
and wearily in Egypt, who had been swallowed up and lost to me in that
land of mystery.

The loss of memory which Fu-Manchu had artificially induced was
subject to the same inexplicable laws which ordinarily rule in cases
of amnesia. The shock of her brave action that night had begun to
effect a cure; the sight of Aziz had completed it.

Inspector Weymouth was standing by the writing-table. My mind cleared
rapidly now, and standing up, but without releasing the girl's hands,
so that I drew her up beside me, I said:

"Weymouth--where is--?"

"He's waiting to see you, Doctor," replied the inspector.

A pang, almost physical, struck at my heart.

"Poor, dear old Smith!" I cried, with a break in my voice.

Dr. Gray, a neighboring practitioner, appeared in the doorway at the
moment that I spoke the words.

"It's all right, Petrie," he said, reassuringly; "I think we took it
in time. I have thoroughly cauterized the wounds, and granted that no
complication sets in, he'll be on his feet again in a week or two."

I suppose I was in a condition closely bordering upon the hysterical.
At any rate, my behavior was extraordinary. I raised both my hands
above my head.

"Thank God!" I cried at the top of my voice, "thank God!--thank God!"

"Thank Him, indeed," responded the musical voice of Aziz. He spoke
with all the passionate devoutness of the true Moslem.

Everything, even Karamaneh was forgotten, and I started for the door
as though my life depended upon my speed. With one foot upon the
landing, I turned, looked back, and met the glance of Inspector
Weymouth.

"What have you done with--the body?" I asked.

"We haven't been able to get to it. That end of the vault collapsed
two minutes after we hauled you out!"

As I write, now, of those strange days, already they seem remote and
unreal. But, where other and more dreadful memories already are grown
misty, the memory of that evening in my rooms remains clear-cut and
intimate. It marked a crisis in my life.

During the days that immediately followed, whilst Smith was slowly
recovering from his hurts, I made my plans deliberately; I prepared to
cut myself off from old associations--prepared to exile myself,
gladly; how gladly I cannot hope to express in mere cold words.

That my friend approved of my projects, I cannot truthfully state, but
his disapproval at least was not openly expressed. To Karamaneh I said
nothing of my plans, but her complete reliance in my powers to protect
her, now, from all harm, was at once pathetic and exquisite.

Since, always, I have sought in these chronicles to confine myself to
the facts directly relating to the malignant activity of Dr.
Fu-Manchu, I shall abstain from burdening you with details of my
private affairs. As an instrument of the Chinese doctor, it has
sometimes been my duty to write of the beautiful Eastern girl; I
cannot suppose that my readers have any further curiosity respecting
her from the moment that Fate freed her from that awful servitude.
Therefore, when I shall have dealt with the episodes which marked our
voyage to Egypt--I had opened negotiations in regard to a practice in
Cairo--I may honorably lay down my pen.

These episodes opened, dramatically, upon the second night of the
voyage from Marseilles.

CHAPTER XXXI

"MY SHADOW LIES UPON YOU"

I suppose I did not awake very readily. Following the nervous
vigilance of the past six months, my tired nerves, in the enjoyment of
this relaxation, were rapidly recuperating. I no longer feared to
awake to find a knife at my throat, no longer dreaded the darkness as
a foe.

So that the voice may have been calling (indeed, had been calling) for
some time, and of this I had been hazily conscious before finally I
awoke. Then, ere the new sense of security came to reassure me, the
old sense of impending harm set my heart leaping nervously. There is
always a certain physical panic attendant upon such awakening in the
still of night, especially in novel surroundings. Now, I sat up
abruptly, clutching at the rail of my berth and listening.

There was a soft thudding on my cabin door, and a voice, low and
urgent, was crying my name.

Through the open porthole the moonlight streamed into my room, and
save for a remote and soothing throb, inseparable from the progress of
a great steamship, nothing else disturbed the stillness; I might have
floated lonely upon the bosom of the Mediterranean. But there was the
drumming on the door again, and the urgent appeal:

"Dr. Petrie! Dr. Petrie!"

I threw off the bedclothes and stepped on to the floor of the cabin,
fumbling hastily for my slippers. A fear that something was amiss,
that some aftermath, some wraith of the dread Chinaman, was yet to
come to disturb our premature peace, began to haunt me. I threw open
the door.

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