CHAPTER XIII
I WILL tell you, now of a strange dream which I dreamed, and of thestranger things to which I awakened. Since, out of a blank--avoid--this vision burst in upon my mind, I cannot do better than relateit, without preamble. It was thus:
I dreamed that I lay writhing on the floor in agony indescribable. Myveins were filled with liquid fire, and but that stygian darkness wasabout me, I told myself that I must have seen the smoke arising from myburning body.
This, I thought, was death.
Then, a cooling shower descended upon me, soaked through skin andtissue to the tortured arteries and quenched the fire within. Panting,but free from pain, I lay--exhausted.
Strength gradually returning to me, I tried to rise; but the carpetfelt so singularly soft that it offered me no foothold. I waded andplunged like a swimmer treading water; and all about me roseimpenetrable walls of darkness, darkness all but palpable. I wonderedwhy I could not see the windows. The horrible idea flashed to my mindthat I was become blind!
Somehow I got upon my feet, and stood swaying dizzily. I became awareof a heavy perfume, and knew it for some kind of incense.
Then--a dim light was born, at an immeasurable distance away. It grewsteadily in brilliance. It spread like a bluish-red stain--like aliquid. It lapped up the darkness and spread throughout the room.
But this was not my room! Nor was it any room known to me.
It was an apartment of such size that its dimensions filled me with akind of awe such as I never had known: the awe of walled vastness.Its immense extent produced a sensation of sound. Its hugeness had adistinct NOTE.
Tapestries covered the four walls. There was no door visible. Thesetapestries were magnificently figured with golden dragons; and as theserpentine bodies gleamed and shimmered in the increasing radiance,each dragon, I thought, intertwined its glittering coils more closelywith those of another. The carpet was of such richness that I stoodknee-deep in its pile. And this, too, was fashioned all over withgolden dragons; and they seemed to glide about amid the shadows of thedesign--stealthily.
At the farther end of the hall--for hall it was--a huge table withdragons' legs stood solitary amid the luxuriance of the carpet. Itbore scintillating globes, and tubes that held living organisms, andbooks of a size and in such bindings as I never had imagined, withinstruments of a type unknown to Western science--a heterogeneouslitter quite indescribable, which overflowed on to the floor, formingan amazing oasis in a dragon-haunted desert of carpet. A lamp hungabove this table, suspended by golden chains from the ceiling--whichwas so lofty that, following the chains upward, my gaze lost itself inthe purple shadows above.
In a chair piled high with dragon-covered cushions a man sat behindthis table. The light from the swinging lamp fell fully upon one sideof his face, as he leaned forward amid the jumble of weird objects, andleft the other side in purplish shadow. From a plain brass bowl uponthe corner of the huge table smoke writhed aloft and at times partiallyobscured that dreadful face.
From the instant that my eyes were drawn to the table and to the manwho sat there, neither the incredible extent of the room, nor thenightmare fashion of its mural decorations, could reclaim my attention.I had eyes only for him.
For it was Dr. Fu-Manchu!
Something of the delirium which had seemed to fill my veins with fire,to people the walls with dragons, and to plunge me knee-deep in thecarpet, left me. Those dreadful, filmed green eyes acted somewhat likea cold douche. I knew, without removing my gaze from the still face,that the walls no longer lived, but were merely draped in exquisiteChinese dragon tapestry. The rich carpet beneath my feet ceased to beas a jungle and became a normal carpet--extraordinarily rich, butmerely a carpet. But the sense of vastness nevertheless remained, withthe uncomfortable knowledge that the things upon the table andoverflowing about it were all, or nearly all, of a fashion strange tome.
Then, and almost instantaneously, the comparative sanity which I hadtemporarily experienced began to slip from me again; for the smokefaintly penciled through the air--from the burning perfume on thetable--grew in volume, thickened, and wafted towards me in a cloud ofgray horror. It enveloped me, clammily. Dimly, through its oilywreaths, I saw the immobile yellow face of Fu-Manchu. And my stupefiedbrain acclaimed him a sorcerer, against whom unwittingly we had pittedour poor human wits. The green eyes showed filmy through the fog. Anintense pain shot through my lower limbs, and, catching my breath, Ilooked down. As I did so, the points of the red slippers which Idreamed that I wore increased in length, curled sinuously upward,twined about my throat and choked the breath from my body!
Came an interval, and then a dawning like consciousness; but it was afalse consciousness, since it brought with it the idea that my head laysoftly pillowed and that a woman's hand caressed my throbbing forehead.Confusedly, as though in the remote past, I recalled a kiss--and therecollection thrilled me strangely. Dreamily content I lay, and avoice stole to my ears:
"They are killing him! they are killing him! Oh! do you notunderstand?" In my dazed condition, I thought that it was I who haddied, and that this musical girl-voice was communicating to me the factof my own dissolution.
But I was conscious of no interest in the matter.
For hours and hours, I thought, that soothing hand caressed me. Inever once raised my heavy lids, until there came a resounding crashthat seemed to set my very bones vibrating--a metallic, jangling crash,as the fall of heavy chains. I thought that, then, I half opened myeyes, and that in the dimness I had a fleeting glimpse of a figure cladin gossamer silk, with arms covered with barbaric bangles and slimankles surrounded by gold bands. The girl was gone, even as I toldmyself that she was an houri, and that I, though a Christian, had beenconsigned by some error to the paradise of Mohammed.
Then--a complete blank.
My head throbbed madly; my brain seemed to be clogged--inert; andthough my first, feeble movement was followed by the rattle of a chain,some moments more elapsed ere I realized that the chain was fastened toa steel collar--that the steel collar was clasped about my neck.
I moaned weakly.
"Smith!" I muttered, "Where are you? Smith!"
On to my knees I struggled, and the pain on the top of my skull grewall but insupportable. It was coming back to me now; how Nayland Smithand I had started for the hotel to warn Graham Guthrie; how, as wepassed up the steps from the Embankment and into Essex Street, we sawthe big motor standing before the door of one of the offices. I couldrecall coming up level with the car--a modern limousine; but my mindretained no impression of our having passed it--only a vague memory ofa rush of footsteps--a blow. Then, my vision of the hall of dragons,and now this real awakening to a worse reality.
Groping in the darkness, my hands touched a body that lay close besideme. My fingers sought and found the throat, sought and found the steelcollar about it.
"Smith," I groaned; and I shook the still form. "Smith, old man--speakto me! Smith!"
Could he be dead? Was this the end of his gallant fight with Dr.Fu-Manchu and the murder group? If so, what did the future hold forme--what had I to face?
He stirred beneath my trembling hands.
"Thank God!" I muttered, and I cannot deny that my joy was taintedwith selfishness. For, waking in that impenetrable darkness, and yetobsessed with the dream I had dreamed, I had known what fear meant, atthe realization that alone, chained, I must face the dreadful Chinesedoctor in the flesh. Smith began incoherent mutterings.
"Sand-bagged! . . . Look out, Petrie! . . . He has us at last! . . .Oh, Heavens!" . . . He struggled on to his knees, clutching at my hand.
"All right, old man," I said. "We are both alive! So let's bethankful."
A moment's silence, a groan, then:
"Petrie, I have dragged you into this. God forgive me--"
"Dry up, Smith," I said slowly. "I'm not a child. There is noquestion of being dragged into the matter. I'm here; and if I can beof any use
, I'm glad I am here!"
He grasped my hand.
"There were two Chinese, in European clothes--lord, how my headthrobs!--in that office door. They sand-bagged us, Petrie--think ofit!--in broad daylight, within hail of the Strand! We were rushed intothe car--and it was all over, before--" His voice grew faint. "God!they gave me an awful knock!"
"Why have we been spared, Smith? Do you think he is saving us for--"
"Don't, Petrie! If you had been in China, if you had seen what I haveseen--"
Footsteps sounded on the flagged passage. A blade of light creptacross the floor towards us. My brain was growing clearer. The placehad a damp, earthen smell. It was slimy--some noisome cellar. A doorwas thrown open and a man entered, carrying a lantern. Its lightshowed my surmise to be accurate, showed the slime-coated walls of adungeon some fifteen feet square--shone upon the long yellow robe ofthe man who stood watching us, upon the malignant, intellectualcountenance.
It was Dr. Fu-Manchu.
At last they were face to face--the head of the great Yellow Movement,and the man who fought on behalf of the entire white race. How can Ipaint the individual who now stood before us--perhaps the greatestgenius of modern times?
Of him it had been fitly said that he had a brow like Shakespeare and aface like Satan. Something serpentine, hypnotic, was in his verypresence. Smith drew one sharp breath, and was silent. Together,chained to the wall, two mediaeval captives, living mockeries of ourboasted modern security, we crouched before Dr. Fu-Manchu.
He came forward with an indescribable gait, cat-like yet awkward,carrying his high shoulders almost hunched. He placed the lantern in aniche in the wall, never turning away the reptilian gaze of those eyeswhich must haunt my dreams forever. They possessed a viridescencewhich hitherto I had supposed possible only in the eye of the cat--andthe film intermittently clouded their brightness--but I can speak ofthem no more.
I had never supposed, prior to meeting Dr. Fu-Manchu, that so intense aforce of malignancy could radiate--from any human being. He spoke.His English was perfect, though at times his words were oddly chosen;his delivery alternately was guttural and sibilant.
"Mr. Smith and Dr. Petrie, your interference with my plans has gone toofar. I have seriously turned my attention to you."
He displayed his teeth, small and evenly separated, but discolored in away that was familiar to me. I studied his eyes with a newprofessional interest, which even the extremity of our danger could notwholly banish. Their greenness seemed to be of the iris; the pupil wasoddly contracted--a pin-point.
Smith leaned his back against the wall with assumed indifference.
"You have presumed," continued Fu-Manchu, "to meddle with aworld-change. Poor spiders--caught in the wheels of the inevitable!You have linked my name with the futility of the Young ChinaMovement--the name of Fu-Manchu! Mr. Smith, you are an incompetentmeddler--I despise you! Dr. Petrie, you are a fool--I am sorry foryou!"
He rested one bony hand on his hip, narrowing the long eyes as helooked down on us. The purposeful cruelty of the man was inherent; itwas entirely untheatrical. Still Smith remained silent.
"So I am determined to remove you from the scene of your blunders!"added Fu-Manchu.
"Opium will very shortly do the same for you!" I rapped at him savagely.
Without emotion he turned the narrowed eyes upon me.
"That is a matter of opinion, Doctor," he said. "You may have lackedthe opportunities which have been mine for studying that subject--andin any event I shall not be privileged to enjoy your advice in thefuture."
"You will not long outlive me," I replied. "And our deaths will notprofit you, incidentally; because--" Smith's foot touched mine.
"Because?" inquired Fu-Manchu softly.
"Ah! Mr. Smith is so prudent! He is thinking that I have FILES!" Hepronounced the word in a way that made me shudder. "Mr. Smith has seena WIRE JACKET! Have you ever seen a wire jacket? As a surgeon itsfunctions would interest you!"
I stifled a cry that rose to my lips; for, with a shrill whistlingsound, a small shape came bounding into the dimly lit vault, then shotupward. A marmoset landed on the shoulder of Dr. Fu-Manchu and peeredgrotesquely into the dreadful yellow face. The Doctor raised his bonyhand and fondled the little creature, crooning to it.
"One of my pets, Mr. Smith," he said, suddenly opening his eyes fullyso that they blazed like green lamps. "I have others, equally useful.My scorpions--have you met my scorpions? No? My pythons andhamadryads? Then there are my fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli.I have a collection in my laboratory quite unique. Have you evervisited Molokai, the leper island, Doctor? No? But Mr. Nayland Smithwill be familiar with the asylum at Rangoon! And we must not forget myblack spiders, with their diamond eyes--my spiders, that sit in thedark and watch--then leap!"
He raised his lean hands, so that the sleeve of the robe fell back tothe elbow, and the ape dropped, chattering, to the floor and ran fromthe cellar.
"O God of Cathay!" he cried, "by what death shall these die--thesemiserable ones who would bind thine Empire, which is boundless!"
Like some priest of Tezcat he stood, his eyes upraised to the roof, hislean body quivering--a sight to shock the most unimpressionable mind.
"He is mad!" I whispered to Smith. "God help us, the man is adangerous homicidal maniac!"
Nayland Smith's tanned face was very drawn, but he shook his headgrimly.
"Dangerous, yes, I agree," he muttered; "his existence is a danger tothe entire white race which, now, we are powerless to avert."
Dr. Fu-Manchu recovered himself, took up the lantern and, turningabruptly, walked to the door, with his awkward, yet feline gait. Atthe threshold be looked back.
"You would have warned Mr. Graham Guthrie?" he said, in a soft voice."To-night, at half-past twelve, Mr. Graham Guthrie dies!"
Smith sat silent and motionless, his eyes fixed upon the speaker.
"You were in Rangoon in 1908?" continued Dr. Fu-Manchu--"you rememberthe Call?"
From somewhere above us--I could not determine the exactdirection--came a low, wailing cry, an uncanny thing of fallingcadences, which, in that dismal vault, with the sinister yellow-robedfigure at the door, seemed to pour ice into my veins. Its effect uponSmith was truly extraordinary. His face showed grayly in the faintlight, and I heard him draw a hissing breath through clenched teeth.
"It calls for you!" said Fu-Manchu. "At half-past twelve it calls forGraham Guthrie!"
The door closed and darkness mantled us again.
"Smith," I said, "what was that?" The horrors about us were playinghavoc with my nerves.
"It was the Call of Siva!" replied Smith hoarsely.
"What is it? Who uttered it? What does it mean?"
"I don't know what it is, Petrie, nor who utters it. But it meansdeath!"