ng, I was
about to step forward into the room, loaded with its nauseating opium
fumes, when a soft breath fanned my cheek.

"Do not go in!" came Karamaneh's warning voice--hushed--trembling.

Her little hand grasped my arm. She drew Smith and myself back from
the door.

"There is danger there!" she whispered.

"Do not enter that room! The police must reach him in some way--and
drag him out! Do not enter that room!"

The girl's voice quivered hysterically; her eyes blazed into savage
flame. The fierce resentment born of dreadful wrongs was consuming her
now; but fear of Fu-Manchu held her yet. Inspector Weymouth came down
the stairs and joined us.

"I have sent the boy to Ryman's room at the station," he said. "The
divisional surgeon will look after him until you arrive, Dr. Petrie.
All is ready now. The launch is just off the wharf and every side of
the place under observation. Where's our man?"

He drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and raised his eyebrows
interrogatively. The absence of sound--of any demonstration from the
uncanny Chinaman whom he was there to arrest--puzzled him.

Nayland Smith jerked his thumb toward the curtain.

At that, and before we could utter a word, Weymouth stepped to the
draped door. He was a man who drove straight at his goal and saved
reflections for subsequent leisure. I think, moreover, that the
atmosphere of the place (stripped as it was it retained its heavy,
voluptuous perfume) had begun to get a hold upon him. He was anxious
to shake it off; to be up and doing.

He pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the room. Smith and I
perforce followed him. Just within the door the three of us stood
looking across at the limp thing which had spread terror throughout the
Eastern and Western world. Helpless as Fu-Manchu was, he inspired
terror now, though the giant intellect was inert--stupefied.

In the dimly lit apartment we had quitted I heard Karamaneh utter a
stifled scream. But it came too late.

As though cast up by a volcano, the silken cushions, the inlaid table
with its blue-shaded lamp, the garish walls, the sprawling figure with
the ghastly light playing upon its features--quivered, and shot upward!

So it seemed to me; though, in the ensuing instant I remembered, too
late, a previous experience of the floors of Fu-Manchu's private
apartments; I knew what had indeed befallen us. A trap had been
released beneath our feet.

I recall falling-