m the lower reaches of the Thames.
Far behind us twinkled the dim lights of Low's Cottages, the last
regular habitations abutting upon the marshes. Between us and the
cottages stretched half-a-mile of lush land through which at this
season there were, however, numerous dry paths. Before us the flats
again, a dull, monotonous expanse beneath the moon, with the promise of
the cool breeze that the river flowed round the bend ahead. It was
very quiet. Only the sound of our footsteps, as Nayland Smith and I
tramped steadily towards our goal, broke the stillness of that lonely
place.

Not once but many times, within the last twenty minutes, I had thought
that we were ill-advised to adventure alone upon the capture of the
formidable Chinese doctor; but we were following out our compact with
Karamaneh; and one of her stipulations had been that the police must
not be acquainted with her share in the matter.

A light came into view far ahead of us.

"That's the light, Petrie," said Smith. "If we keep that straight
before us, according to our information we shall strike the hulk."

I grasped the revolver in my pocket, and the presence of the little
weapon was curiously reassuring. I have endeavored, perhaps in
extenuation of my own fears, to explain how about Dr. Fu-Manchu there
rested an atmosphere of horror, peculiar, unique. He was not as other
men. The dread that he inspired in all with whom he came in contact,
the terrors which he controlled and hurled at whomsoever cumbered his
path, rendered him an object supremely sinister. I despair of
conveying to those who may read this account any but the coldest
conception of the man's evil power.

Smith stopped suddenly and grasped my arm. We stood listening.
"What?" I asked.

"You heard nothing?"

I shook my head.

Smith was peering back over the marshes in his oddly alert way. He
turned to me, and his tanned face wore a peculiar expression.

"You don't think it's a trap?" he jerked. "We are trusting her
blindly."

Strange it may seem, but something within me rose in arms against the
innuendo.

"I don't," I said shortly.

He nodded. We pressed on.

Ten minutes' steady tramping brought us within sight of the Thames.
Smith and I both had noticed how Fu-Manchu's activities centered always
about the London river. Undoubtedly it was his highway, his line of
communication, along which he moved his mysterious forces. The opium
den off Shadwell Highway, the