Sax Rohmer - The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

or yellow, there a sketchy, corpse-like face; whilst from all about

rose obscene sighings and murmurings in far-away voices--an uncanny,

animal chorus. It was like a glimpse of the Inferno seen by some

Chinese Dante. But so close to us stood the newcomer that I was able

to make out a ghastly parchment face, with small, oblique eyes, and a

misshapen head crowned with a coiled pigtail, surmounting a slight,

hunched body. There was something unnatural, inhuman, about that

masklike face, and something repulsive in the bent shape and the long,

yellow hands clasped one upon the other.

Fu-Manchu, from Smith's account, in no way resembled this crouching

apparition with the death's-head countenance and lithe movements; but

an instinct of some kind told me that we were on the right scent--that

this was one of the doctor's servants. How I came to that conclusion,

I cannot explain; but with no doubt in my mind that this was a member

of the formidable murder group, I saw the yellow man creep nearer,

nearer, silently, bent and peering.

He was watching us.

Of another circumstance I became aware, and a disquieting circumstance.

There were fewer murmurings and sighings from the surrounding bunks.

The presence of the crouching figure had created a sudden semi-silence

in the den, which could only mean that some of the supposed

opium-smokers had merely feigned coma and the approach of coma.

Nayland Smith lay like a dead man, and trusting to the darkness, I,

too, lay prone and still, but watched the evil face bending lower and

lower, until it came within a few inches of my own. I completely

closed my eyes.

Delicate fingers touched my right eyelid. Divining what was coming, I

rolled my eyes up, as the lid was adroitly lifted and lowered again.

The man moved away.

I had saved the situation! And noting anew the hush about me--a hush

in which I fancied many pairs of ears listened--I was glad. For just a

moment I realized fully how, with the place watched back and front, we

yet were cut off, were in the hands of Far Easterns, to some extent in

the power of members of that most inscrutably mysterious race, the

Chinese.

"Good," whispered Smith at my side. "I don't think I could have done

it. He took me on trust after that. My God! what an awful face.

Petrie, it's the hunchback of Cadby's notes. Ah, I thought so. Do you

see that?"

I turned my eyes round as far as was possible. A man had scrambled

down from one of the bunks and was following the bent figure across the

room.

They passed around us quietly, the little yellow man leading, with his

curious, lithe gait, and the other, an impassive Chinaman, following.

The curtain was raised, and I heard footsteps receding on the stairs.

"Don't stir," whispered Smith.

An intense excitement was clearly upon him, and he communicated it to

me. Who was the occupant of the room above?

Footsteps on the stair, and the Chinaman reappeared, recrossed the

floor, and went out. The little, bent man went over to another bunk,

this time leading up the stair one who looked like a lascar.

"Did you see his right hand?" whispered Smith. "A dacoit! They come

here to report and to take orders. Petrie, Dr. Fu-Manchu is up there."

"What shall we do?"--softly.

"Wait. Then we must try to rush the stairs. It would be futile to

bring in the police first. He is sure to have some other exit. I will

give the word while the little yellow devil is down here. You are

nearer and will have to go first, but if the hunchback follows, I can

then deal with him."

Our whispered colloquy was interrupted by the return of the dacoit, who

recrossed the room as the Chinaman had done, and immediately took his

departure. A third man, whom Smith identified as a Malay, ascended the

mysterious stairs, descended, and went out; and a fourth, whose

nationality it was impossible to determine, followed. Then, as the

softly moving usher crossed to a bunk on the right of the outer door--

"Up you go, Petrie," cried Smith, for further delay was dangerous and

further dissimulation useless.

I leaped to my feet. Snatching my revolver from the pocket of the

rough jacket I wore, I bounded to the stair and went blundering up in

complete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries clamored from behind,

with a muffled scream rising above them all. But Nayland Smith was

close behind as I raced along a covered gangway, in a purer air, and at

my heels when I crashed open a door at the end and almost fell into the

room beyond.

What I saw were merely a dirty table, with some odds and ends upon it

of which I was too excited to take note, an oil-lamp swung by a brass

chain above, and a man sitting behind the table. But from the moment

that my gaze rested upon the one who sat there, I think if the place

had been an Aladdin's palace I should have had no eyes for any of its

wonders.

He wore a plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that of his

smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and bony, and

he held them knuckles upward, and rested his pointed chin upon their

thinness. He had a great, high brow, crowned with sparse,

neutral-colored hair.

Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table, I despair of

writing convincingly. It was that of an archangel of evil, and it was

wholly dominated by the most uncanny eyes that ever reflected a human

soul, for they were narrow and long, very slightly oblique, and of a

brilliant green. But their unique horror lay in a certain filminess

(it made me think of the membrana nictitans in a bird) which, obscuring

them as I threw wide the door, seemed to lift as I actually passed the

threshold, revealing the eyes in all their brilliant iridescence.

I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the malignant

force of the man was something surpassing my experience. He was

surprised by this sudden intrusion--yes, but no trace of fear showed

upon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitying contempt. And, as I

paused, he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his gaze from mine.

"IT'S FU-MANCHU!" cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice that was

almost a scream. "IT'S FU-MANCHU! Cover him! Shoot him dead if--"

The conclusion of that sentence I never heard.

Dr. Fu-Manchu reached down beside the table, and the floor slipped from

under me.

One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a scream I was

unable to repress I dropped, dropped, dropped, and plunged into icy

water, which closed over my head.

Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, had heard another cry following my

own, a booming sound (the trap), the flat note of a police whistle.

But when I rose to the surface impenetrable darkness enveloped me; I

was spitting filthy, oily liquid from my mouth, and fighting down the

black terror that had me by the throat--terror of the darkness about

me, of the unknown depths beneath me, of the pit into which I was cast

amid stifling stenches and the lapping of tidal water.

"Smith!" I cried. . . . "Help! Help!"

My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was about to cry out again,

when, mustering all my presence of mind and all my failing courage, I

recognized that I had better employment of my energies, and began to

swim straight ahead, desperately determined to face all the horrors of

this place--to die hard if die I must.

A drop of liquid fire fell through the darkness and hissed into the