* * * * * *

Grimly pitting my will against the drug, but still trembling weakly
from the result of the treatment, internal and subcutaneous, which I
had adopted, I staggered to the door out into the corridor and up the
narrow, winding stairs to Smith's room. I carried an electric
pocket-lamp, and by its light I found my way to the triangular,
paneled landing.

I tried the handle. As I had expected, the door was locked. I beat
upon it with my fist.

"Smith!" I cried--"Smith!"

There was no reply.

Again I clamored; awaking ancient echoes within the rooms and all
about me. But nothing moved and no answering voice rewarded my efforts;
the other rooms were seemingly unoccupied, and Smith--was drugged!

My senses in disorder, and a mist dancing before my eyes, I went
stumbling down into the lower corridor. At the door of my own room I
paused; a new fact had suddenly been revealed to me, a fact which the
mazy windings of the corridors had hitherto led me to overlook. Smith's
room was also in the east tower, and must be directly above mine!

"My God!" I whispered, thinking of the climber--"he has been murdered!"

I staggered into my room and clutched at the bed-rail to support
myself, for my legs threatened to collapse beneath me. How should I
act? That we were victims of a cunning plot, that the deathful Si-Fan
had at last wreaked its vengeance upon Nayland Smith I could not doubt.

My brain reeled, and a weakness, mental and physical, threatened to
conquer me completely. Indeed, I think I must have succumbed, sapped
as my strength had been by the drug administered to me, if the sound
of a creaking stair had not arrested my attention and by the menace
which it conveyed afforded a new stimulus.

Some one was creeping down from the landing above--coming to my room!
The creatures of the Yellow doctor, having despatched Nayland Smith,
were approaching stealthily, stair by stair, to deal with _me!_

From my grip I took out the Browning pistol. The Chinese doctor's
servants should have a warm reception. I burned to avenge my friend,
who I was persuaded, lay murdered in the room above. I partially
closed the door and took up a post immediately behind it. Nearer came
the stealthy footsteps--nearer.... Now the one who approached had
turned the angle of the passage....

Within sight of my door he seemed to stop; a shaft of white light
crept through the opening, across the floor and on