ashly precipitated yourselves was charged
with them. By a process of my own I have greatly enhanced the value of
the puff-ball in this respect. Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, proved the
most obstinate subject; but he succumbed in fifteen seconds."

"Logan! Help! HELP! This way, man!"

Something very like fear sounded in Weymouth's voice now. Indeed, the
situation was so uncanny that it almost seemed unreal. A group of men
had entered the farthermost cellars, led by one who bore an electric
pocket-lamp. The hard, white ray danced from bloated gray fungi to
others of nightmare shape, of dazzling, venomous brilliance. The
mocking, lecture-room voice continued:

"Note the snowy growth upon the roof, Doctor. Do not be deceived by
its size. It is a giant variety of my own culture and is of the order
empusa. You, in England, are familiar with the death of the common
house-fly--which is found attached to the window-pane by a coating of
white mold. I have developed the spores of this mold and have produced
a giant species. Observe the interesting effect of the strong light
upon my orange and blue amanita fungus!"

Hard beside me I heard Nayland Smith groan, Weymouth had become
suddenly silent. For my own part, I could have shrieked in pure
horror. FOR I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. I realized in one agonized instant
the significance of the dim lantern, of the careful progress through
the subterranean fungi grove, of the care with which Fu-Manchu and his
servant had avoided touching any of the growths. I knew, now, that Dr.
Fu-Manchu was the greatest fungologist the world had ever known; was a
poisoner to whom the Borgias were as children--and I knew that the
detectives blindly were walking into a valley of death.

Then it began--the unnatural scene--the saturnalia of murder.

Like so many bombs the brilliantly colored caps of the huge
toadstool-like things alluded to by the Chinaman exploded, as the white
ray sought them out in the darkness which alone preserved their
existence. A brownish cloud--I could not determine whether liquid or
powdery--arose in the cellar.

I tried to close my eyes--or to turn them away from the reeling forms
of the men who were trapped in that poison-hole. It was useless:

I must look.

The bearer of the lamp had dropped it, but the dim, eerily illuminated
gloom endured scarce a second. A bright light sprang up--doubtless at
the touch of the fiendish being who now resumed speech:

"Ob