amatic, lightning swiftness.

Releasing Smith's arm, the old woman suddenly stepped back ... at the
instant that another figure, a repellent figure which approached,
stooping, apish, with a sort of loping gait, crossed from some spot
invisible to me, and sprang like a wild animal upon Smith's back!

It was a Chinaman, wearing a short loose garment of the smock pattern,
and having his head bare, so that I could see his pigtail coiled upon
his yellow crown. That he carried a cord, I perceived in the instant
of his spring, and that he had whipped it about Smith's throat with
unerring dexterity was evidenced by the one, short, strangled cry that
came from my friend's lips.

Then Smith was down, prone upon the crazy planking, with the ape-like
figure of the Chinaman perched between his shoulders--bending forward--
the wicked yellow fingers at work, tightening--tightening--tightening
the strangling-cord!

Uttering a loud cry of horror, I went racing along the gangway which
projected actually over the moving Thames waters, and gained the wharf.
But, swift as I had been, another had been swifter!

A tall figure (despite the brilliant moon, I doubted the evidence of
my sight), wearing a tweed overcoat and a soft felt hat with the brim
turned down, sprang up, from nowhere as it seemed, swooped upon the
horrible figure squatting, simianesque, between Smith's shoulder-blades,
and grasped him by the neck.

I pulled up shortly, one foot set upon the wharf. The new-comer was
the double of Nayland Smith!

Seemingly exerting no effort whatever, he lifted the strangler in that
remorseless grasp, so that the Chinaman's hands, after one quick
convulsive upward movement, hung limply beside him like the paws of a
rat in the grip of a terrier.

"You damned murderous swine!" I heard in a repressed, savage undertone.
"The knife failed, so now the cord has an innings! Go after your pal!"

Releasing one hand from the neck of the limp figure, the speaker
grasped the Chinaman by his loose, smock-like garment, swung him back,
once--a mighty swing--and hurled him far out into the river as one
might hurl a sack of rubbish!

CHAPTER XXIII

ARREST OF SAMARKAN

"As the high gods willed it," explained Nayland Smith, tenderly
massaging his throat, "Mr. Forsyth, having just left the docks,
chanced to pass along Three Colt Street on Wednesday night at exactly
the hour that _I_ was expected! The resemblance between us is rather
marked an