CHAPTER XIII. THE SACRED ORDER
Smith stepped quietly across the room and tried the door. It proved tobe unlocked, and an instant later, we were both outside in the passage.Coincident with our arrival there, arose a sudden outcry from some placeat the westward end. A high-pitched, grating voice, in which gutturalnotes alternated with a serpent-like hissing, was raised in anger.
"Dr. Fu-Manchu!" whispered Smith, grasping my arm.
Indeed, it was the unmistakable voice of the Chinaman, raisedhysterically in one of those outbursts which in the past I had diagnosedas symptomatic of dangerous mania.
The voice rose to a scream, the scream of some angry animal rather thananything human. Then, chokingly, it ceased. Another short sharp cryfollowed--but not in the voice of Fu-Manchu--a dull groan, and the soundof a fall.
With Smith still grasping my wrist, I shrank back into the doorway, assomething that looked in the darkness like a great ball of fluff camerapidly along the passage toward me. Just at my feet the thing stoppedand I made it out for a small animal. The tiny, gleaming eyes looked upat me, and, chattering wickedly, the creature bounded past and was lostfrom view.
It was Dr. Fu-Manchu's marmoset.
Smith dragged me back into the room which we had just left. As he partlyreclosed the door, I heard the clapping of hands. In a condition ofmost dreadful suspense, we waited; until a new, ominous sound proclaimeditself. Some heavy body was being dragged into the passage. I heard theopening of a trap. Exclamations in guttural voices told of a heavy taskin progress; there was a great straining and creaking--whereupon thetrap was softly reclosed.
Smith bent to my ear.
"Fu-Manchu has chastised one of his servants," he whispered. "There willbe food for the grappling-irons to-night!"
I shuddered violently, for, without Smith's words, I knew that a bloodydeed had been done in that house within a few yards of where we stood.
In the new silence, I could hear the drip, drip, drip of the rainoutside the window; then a steam siren hooted dismally upon the river,and I thought how the screw of that very vessel, even as we listened,might be tearing the body of Fu-Manchu's servant!
"Have you some one waiting?" whispered Smith, eagerly.
"How long was I insensible?"
"About half an hour."
"Then the cabman will be waiting."
"Have you a whistle with you?"
I felt in my coat pocket.
"Yes," I reported.
"Good! Then we will take a chance."
Again we slipped out into the passage and began a stealthy progressto the west. Ten paces amid absolute darkness, and we found ourselvesabreast of a branch corridor. At the further end, through a kind oflittle window, a dim light shone.
"See if you can find the trap," whispered Smith; "light your lamp."
I directed the ray of the pocket-lamp upon the floor, and there at myfeet was a square wooden trap. As I stooped to examine it, I glancedback, painfully, over my shoulder--and saw Nayland Smith tiptoeing awayfrom me along the passage toward the light!
Inwardly I cursed his folly, but the temptation to peep in at thatlittle window proved too strong for me, as it had proved too strong forhim.
Fearful that some board would creak beneath my tread, I followed; andside by side we two crouched, looking into a small rectangular room. Itwas a bare and cheerless apartment with unpapered walls and carpetlessfloor. A table and a chair constituted the sole furniture.
Seated in the chair, with his back toward us, was a portly Chinaman whowore a yellow, silken robe. His face, it was impossible to see; but hewas beating his fist upon the table, and pouring out a torrent of wordsin a thin, piping voice. So much I perceived at a glance; then, intoview at the distant end of the room, paced a tall, high-shoulderedfigure--a figure unforgettable, at once imposing and dreadful, statelyand sinister.
With the long, bony hands behind him, fingers twining and intertwiningserpentinely about the handle of a little fan, and with the pointed chinresting on the breast of the yellow robe, so that the light from thelamp 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 ofhalf-shut eyes; in the act they seemed to light up as with an internalluminance; momentarily they sparkled like emeralds; then theirbrilliance was filmed over as in the eyes of a bird when the membrane islowered.
My blood seemed to chill, and my heart to double its pulsations;beside me Smith was breathing more rapidly than usual. I knew nowthe explanation of the feeling which had claimed me when first I haddescended the stone stairs. I knew what it was that hung like a miasmaover that house. It was the aura, the glamour, which radiated from thiswonderful 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 avise. He was listening raptly to the torrential speech of the Chinamanwho sat in the chair; and I perceived in his eyes the light of a suddencomprehension.
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 alongthe 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 ancestorworshipers is capable of anything, and Dr. Fu-Manchu, the dreadful beingwho has rained terror upon Europe stands in imminent peril of disgracefor having lost a decoration."
"What do you mean, Smith?"
"I mean that this is no time for delay, Petrie! Here, unless I amgreatly mistaken, lies the rope by means of which you made yourentrance. It shall be the means of your exit. Open the trap!"
Handling the lamp to Smith, I stooped and carefully raised thetrap-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 retainedsufficient presence of mind to replace it gently. Standing upright, Iturned... and there, with her little jeweled hand resting upon Smith'sarm, stood Karamaneh!
In all my experience of him, I had never seen Nayland Smith so utterlyperplexed. Between anger, distrust and dismay, he wavered; and eachpassing emotion was written legibly upon the lean bronzed features.Rigid with surprise, he stared at the beautiful face of the girl. She,although her hand still rested upon Smith's arm, had her dark eyesturned upon me with that same enigmatical expression. Her lips wereslightly parted, and her breast heaved tumultuously.
This ten seconds of silence in which we three stood looking at oneanother encompassed the whole gamut of human emotion. The silence wasbroken by Karamaneh.
"They will be coming back that way!" she whispered, bending eagerlytoward me. (How, in the most desperate moments, I loved to listen tothat odd, musical accent!) "Please, if you would save your life, andspare mine, trust me!"--She suddenly clasped her hands together andlooked up into my face, passionately--"Trust me--just for once--and Iwill show you the way!"
Nayland Smith never removed his gaze from her for a moment, nor did hestir.
"Oh!" she whispered, tremulously, and stamped one little red slipperupon the floor. "Won't you heed me? Come, or it will be too late!"
I glanced anxiously at my friend; the voice of Dr. Fu-Manchu, now raisedin anger, was audible above the piping tones of the other Chinaman.And as I caught Smith's eye, in silent query--the trap at my feet beganslowly to lift!
Karamaneh stifled a little sobbing cry; but the warning came too late.A hideous yellow face with oblique squinting eyes, appeared in theaperture.
I found myself inert, useless; I could neither think nor act. NaylandSmith, however, as if instinctively, delivered a pitiless kick at thehead protruding above the trap.
A sickening crushing sound, with a sort of muffled snap, spoke of abroken jaw-bone; and with no word or cry,
the Chinaman fell. As the trapdescended with a bang, I heard the thud of his body on the stone stairsbeneath.
But we were lost. Karamaneh fled along one of the passages lightly as abird, and disappeared as Dr. Fu-Manchu, his top lip drawn up above histeeth in the manner of an angry jackal, appeared from the other.
"This way!" cried Smith, in a voice that rose almost to a shriek--"thisway!"--and he led toward the room overhanging the steps.
Off we dashed with panic swiftness, only to find that this retreat alsowas cut off. Dimly visible in the darkness was a group of yellow men,and despite the gloom, the curved blades of the knives which theycarried glittered menacingly. The passage was full of dacoits!
Smith and I turned, together. The trap was raised again, and the Burman,who had helped to tie me, was just scrambling up beside Dr. Fu-Manchu,who stood there watching us, a shadowy, sinister figure.
"The game's up, Petrie!" muttered Smith. "It has been a long fight, butFu-Manchu wins!"
"Not entirely!" I cried. I whipped the police whistle from my pocket,and raised it to my lips; but brief as the interval had been, thedacoits were upon me.
A sinewy brown arm shot over my shoulder and the whistle was dashed frommy grasp. Then came a whirl of maelstrom fighting with Smith and myselfever sinking lower amid a whirlpool, as it seemed, of blood-lustfuleyes, yellow fangs, and gleaming blades.
I had some vague idea that the rasping voice of Fu-Manchu broke oncethrough the turmoil, and when, with my wrists tied behind me, I emergedfrom the strife to find myself lying beside Smith in the passage, Icould only assume that the Chinaman had ordered his bloody servants totake us alive; for saving numerous bruises and a few superficial cuts, Iwas unwounded.
The place was utterly deserted again, and we two panting captives foundourselves alone with Dr. Fu-Manchu. The scene was unforgettable; thatdimly lighted passage, its extremities masked in shadow, and the tall,yellow-robed figure of the Satanic Chinaman towering over us where welay.
He had recovered his habitual calm, and as I peered at him through thegloom I was impressed anew with the tremendous intellectual force of theman. He had the brow of a genius, the features of a born ruler; and evenin that moment I could find time to search my memory, and to discoverthat the face, saving the indescribable evil of its expression, wasidentical with that of Seti, the mighty Pharaoh who lies in the CairoMuseum.
Down the passage came leaping and gamboling the doctor's marmoset.Uttering its shrill, whistling cry, it leaped onto his shoulder,clutched with its tiny fingers at the scanty, neutral-colored hairupon his crown, and bent forward, peering grotesquely into that still,dreadful face.
Dr. Fu-Manchu stroked the little creature; and crooned to it, as amother to her infant. Only this crooning, and the labored breathing ofSmith and myself, broke that impressive stillness.
Suddenly the guttural voice began:
"You come at an opportune time, Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith, andDr. Petrie; at a time when the greatest man in China flatters me witha visit. In my absence from home, a tremendous honor has been conferredupon me, and, in the hour of this supreme honor, dishonor and calamityhave befallen! For my services to China--the New China, the China of thefuture--I have been admitted by the Sublime Prince to the Sacred Orderof the White Peacock."
Warming to his discourse, he threw wide his arms, hurling the chatteringmarmoset fully five yards along the corridor.
"O god of Cathay!" he cried, sibilantly, "in what have I sinned thatthis catastrophe has been visited upon my head! Learn, my two dearfriends, that the sacred white peacock brought to these misty shores formy undying glory, has been lost to me! Death is the penalty of such asacrilege; death shall be my lot, since death I deserve."
Covertly Smith nudged me with his elbow. I knew what the nudge wasdesigned to convey; he would remind me of his words--anent the childishtrifles which sway the life of intellectual China.
Personally, I was amazed. That Fu-Manchu's anger, grief, sorrow andresignation were real, no one watching him, and hearing his voice, coulddoubt.
He continued:
"By one deed, and one deed alone, may I win a lighter punishment. Byone deed, and the resignation of all my titles, all my lands, and all myhonors, may I merit to be spared to my work--which has only begun."
I knew now that we were lost, indeed; these were confidences which ourgraves should hold inviolate! He suddenly opened fully those blazinggreen eyes and directed their baneful glare upon Nayland Smith.
"The Director of the Universe," he continued, softly, "has relentedtoward me. To-night, you die! To-night, the arch-enemy of our casteshall be no more. This is my offering--the price of redemption..."
My mind was working again, and actively. I managed to grasp thestupendous truth--and the stupendous possibility.
Dr. Fu-Manchu was in the act of clapping his hands, when I spoke.
"Stop!" I cried.
He paused, and the weird film, which sometimes became visible in hiseyes, now obscured their greenness, and lent him the appearance of ablind man.
"Dr. Petrie," he said, softly, "I shall always listen to you withrespect."
"I have an offer to make," I continued, seeking to steady my voice."Give us our freedom, and I will restore your shattered honor--I willrestore the sacred peacock!"
Dr. Fu-Manchu bent forward until his face was so close to mine that Icould see the innumerable lines which, an intricate network, covered hisyellow skin.
"Speak!" he hissed. "You lift up my heart from a dark pit!"
"I can restore your white peacock," I said; "I and I alone, know whereit is!"--and I strove not to shrink from the face so close to mine.
Upright shot the tall figure; high above his head Fu-Manchu threwhis arms--and a light of exaltation gleamed in the now widely opened,catlike eyes.
"O god!" he screamed, frenziedly--"O god of the Golden Age! like aphoenix I arise from the ashes of myself!" He turned to me. "Quick!Quick! make your bargain! End my suspense!"
Smith stared at me like a man dazed; but, ignoring him, I went on:
"You will release me, now, immediately. In another ten minutes it willbe too late; my friend will remain. One of your--servants--can accompanyme, and give the signal when I return with the peacock. Mr. NaylandSmith and yourself, or another, will join me at the corner of the streetwhere the raid took place last night. We shall then give you ten minutesgrace, after which we shall take whatever steps we choose."
"Agreed!" cried Fu-Manchu. "I ask but one thing from an Englishman; yourword of honor?"
"I give it."
"I, also," said Smith, hoarsely.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, Nayland Smith and I, standing beside the cab, whoselights gleamed yellowly through the mist, exchanged a struggling,frightened bird for our lives--capitulated with the enemy of the whiterace.
With characteristic audacity--and characteristic trust in the Britishsense of honor--Dr. Fu-Manchu came in person with Nayland Smith, inresponse to the wailing signal of the dacoit who had accompanied me. Noword was spoken, save that the cabman suppressed a curse of amazement;and the Chinaman, his sinister servant at his elbow, bowed low--and leftus, surely to the mocking laughter of the gods!