wn denser and now shut us in like a box.
The throb of the motor--the hissing breath of the two who fought--with
so much at issue--these sounds and the wash of the water alone broke
the eerie stillness.

By slow degrees, and with a reptilian agility horrible to watch,
Fu-Manchu was neutralizing the advantage gained by Weymouth. His
clawish fingers were fast in the big man's throat; the right hand with
its deadly needle was forcing down the left of his opponent. He had
been underneath, but now he was gaining the upper place. His powers of
physical endurance must have been truly marvelous. His breath was
whistling through his nostrils significantly, but Weymouth was palpably
tiring.

The latter suddenly changed his tactics. By a supreme effort, to which
he was spurred, I think, by the growing proximity of the needle, he
raised Fu-Manchu--by the throat and arm--and pitched him sideways.

The Chinaman's grip did not relax, and the two wrestlers dropped, a
writhing mass, upon the port cushions. The launch heeled over, and my
cry of horror was crushed back into my throat by the bandage. For, as
Fu-Manchu sought to extricate himself, he overbalanced--fell back--and,
bearing Weymouth with him--slid into the river!

The mist swallowed them up.

There are moments of which no man can recall his mental impressions,
moments so acutely horrible that, mercifully, our memory retains
nothing of the emotions they occasioned. This was one of them. A
chaos ruled in my mind. I had a vague belief that the Burman, forward,
glanced back. Then the course of the launch was changed. How long
intervened between the tragic end of that Gargantuan struggle and the
time when a black wall leaped suddenly up before us I cannot pretend to
state.

With a sickening jerk we ran aground. A loud explosion ensued, and I
clearly remember seeing the brown man leap out into the fog--which was
the last I saw of him.

Water began to wash aboard.

Fully alive to our imminent peril, I fought with the cords that bound
me; but I lacked poor Weymouth's strength of wrist, and I began to
accept as a horrible and imminent possibility, a death from drowning,
within six feet of the bank.

Beside me, Nayland Smith was straining and twisting. I think his
object was to touch Karamaneh, in the hope of arousing her. Where he
failed in his project, the inflowing water succeeded. A silent prayer
of thankfulness came from my very soul when I saw her stir--