n to the floor, forming
an amazing oasis in a dragon-haunted desert of carpet. A lamp hung
above this table, suspended by golden chains from the ceiling--which
was so lofty that, following the chains upward, my gaze lost itself in
the purple shadows above.

In a chair piled high with dragon-covered cushions a man sat behind
this table. The light from the swinging lamp fell fully upon one side
of his face, as he leaned forward amid the jumble of weird objects, and
left the other side in purplish shadow. From a plain brass bowl upon
the corner of the huge table smoke writhed aloft and at times partially
obscured that dreadful face.

From the instant that my eyes were drawn to the table and to the man
who sat there, neither the incredible extent of the room, nor the
nightmare 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 the
carpet, left me. Those dreadful, filmed green eyes acted somewhat like
a cold douche. I knew, without removing my gaze from the still face,
that the walls no longer lived, but were merely draped in exquisite
Chinese dragon tapestry. The rich carpet beneath my feet ceased to be
as a jungle and became a normal carpet--extraordinarily rich, but
merely a carpet. But the sense of vastness nevertheless remained, with
the uncomfortable knowledge that the things upon the table and
overflowing about it were all, or nearly all, of a fashion strange to
me.

Then, and almost instantaneously, the comparative sanity which I had
temporarily experienced began to slip from me again; for the smoke
faintly penciled through the air--from the burning perfume on the
table--grew in volume, thickened, and wafted towards me in a cloud of
gray horror. It enveloped me, clammily. Dimly, through its oily
wreaths, I saw the immobile yellow face of Fu-Manchu. And my stupefied
brain acclaimed him a sorcerer, against whom unwittingly we had pitted
our poor human wits. The green eyes showed filmy through the fog. An
intense pain shot through my lower limbs, and, catching my breath, I
looked down. As I did so, the points of the red slippers which I
dreamed 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 con