himself on to the
lower rail, for the platform was growing uncomfortably hot.

Tongues of fire licked out, venomously, from beneath my feet. I leapt
for the railing in turn, and sat astride it ... as one end of the
flooring burst into flame.

The heat from the blazing room above which we hung suspended was now
all but insupportable, and the fumes threatened to stifle us. My head
seemed to be bursting; my throat and lungs were consumed by internal
fires.

"Merciful heavens!" whispered Smith. "Will they reach us in time?"

"Not if they don't get here within the next thirty seconds!" answered
Weymouth grimly--and changed his position, in order to avoid a tongue
of flame that hungrily sought to reach him.

Nayland Smith turned and looked me squarely in the eyes. Words
trembled on his tongue; but those words were never spoken ... for a
brass helmet appeared suddenly out of the smoke banks, followed almost
immediately by a second....

"Quick, sir! this way! Jump! I'll catch you!"

Exactly what followed I never knew; but there was a mighty burst of
cheering, a sense of tension released, and it became a task less
agonizing to breathe.

Feeling very dazed, I found myself in the heart of a huge, excited
crowd, with Weymouth beside me, and Nayland Smith holding my arm.
Vaguely, I heard;--

"They have the man Ismail, but ..."

A hollow crash drowned the end of the sentence. A shower of sparks
shot up into the night's darkness high above our heads.

"That's the platform gone!"

CHAPTER XXVII

ROOM WITH THE GOLDEN DOOR

One night early in the following week I sat at work upon my notes
dealing with our almost miraculous escape from the blazing hashish
house when the clock of St. Paul's began to strike midnight.

I paused in my work, leaning back wearily and wondering what detained
Nayland Smith so late. Some friends from Burma had carried him off to
a theater, and in their good company I had thought him safe enough;
yet, with the omnipresent menace of Fu-Manchu hanging over our heads,
always I doubted, always I feared, if my friend should chance to be
delayed abroad at night.

What a world of unreality was mine, in those days! Jostling, as I did,
commonplace folk in commonplace surroundings, I yet knew myself removed
from them, knew myself all but alone in my knowledge of the great and
evil man, whose presence in England had diverted my life into these
strange channels.

But, despite of all my knowledge,