sternly, "and
then prepare to accompany me."

She took a step forward, her eyes wide with fear, her lips parted.

"I have taken nothing," she said. Her breast was heaving tumultuously.
"Oh, let me go! Please, let me go!" And impulsively she threw herself
forward, pressing clasped hands against my shoulder and looking up into
my face with passionate, pleading eyes.

It is with some shame that I confess how her charm enveloped me like a
magic cloud. Unfamiliar with the complex Oriental temperament, I had
laughed at Nayland Smith when he had spoken of this girl's infatuation.
"Love in the East," he had said, "is like the conjurer's mango-tree; it
is born, grows and flowers at the touch of a hand." Now, in those
pleading eyes I read confirmation of his words. Her clothes or her
hair exhaled a faint perfume. Like all Fu-Manchu's servants, she was
perfectly chosen for her peculiar duties. Her beauty was wholly
intoxicating.

But I thrust her away.

"You have no claim to mercy," I said. "Do not count upon any. What
have you taken from here?"

She grasped the lapels of my coat.

"I will tell you all I can--all I dare," she panted eagerly, fearfully.
"I should know how to deal with your friend, but with you I am lost!
If you could only understand you would not be so cruel." Her slight
accent added charm to the musical voice. "I am not free, as your
English women are. What I do I must do, for it is the will of my
master, and I am only a slave. Ah, you are not a man if you can give
me to the police. You have no heart if you can forget that I tried to
save you once."

I had feared that plea, for, in her own Oriental fashion, she certainly
had tried to save me from a deadly peril once--at the expense of my
friend. But I had feared the plea, for I did not know how to meet it.
How could I give her up, perhaps to stand her trial for murder? And
now I fell silent, and she saw why I was silent.

"I may deserve no mercy; I may be even as bad as you think; but what
have YOU to do with the police? It is not your work to hound a woman
to death. Could you ever look another woman in the eyes--one that you
loved, and know that she trusted you--if you had done such a thing?
Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here. Do not
be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am; be my friend, and
save me--from HIM." The tremulous lips were close to mine, her breath
fanned my cheek. "Have mercy on