apart from the rest in a
scent bazaar. For me it had one meaning, and one meaning
only--Karamaneh.

She was near to me, or had been near to me!

And in the first moments of my awakening I groped about in the
darkness blindly seeking her. Then my swollen throat and throbbing
head, together with my utter inability to move my neck even slightly,
reminded me of the facts as they were. I knew in that bitter moment
that Karamaneh was no longer my friend; but, for all her beauty and
charm, was the most heartless, the most fiendish creature in the
service of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I groaned aloud in my despair and misery.

Something stirred near to me in the room, and set my nerves creeping
with a new apprehension. I became fully alive to the possibilities of
the darkness.

To my certain knowledge, Dr. Fu-Manchu at this time had been in
England for fully three months, which meant that by now he must be
equipped with all the instruments of destruction, animate and
inanimate, which dread experience had taught me to associate with him.

Now, as I crouched there in that dark apartment, listening for a
repetition of the sound, I scarcely dared to conjecture what might
have occasioned it, but my imagination peopled the place with reptiles
which writhed upon the floor, with tarantulas and other deadly insects
which crept upon the walls, which might drop upon me from the ceiling
at any moment.

Then, since nothing stirred about me, I ventured to move, turning my
shoulders, for I was unable to move my aching head; and I looked in
the direction from which a faint, very faint, light proceeded.

A regular tapping sound now began to attract my attention, and, having
turned about, I perceived that behind me was a broken window, in
places patched with brown paper; the corner of one sheet of paper was
detached, and the rain trickled down upon it with a rhythmical sound.

In a flash I realized that I lay in the room immediately above the
archway; and listening intently, I perceived above the other faint
sounds of the night, or thought that I perceived, the hissing of the
gas from the extinguished lamp-burner.

Unsteadily I rose to my feet, but found myself swaying like a drunken
man. I reached out for support, stumbling in the direction of the
wall. My foot came in contact with something that lay there, and I
pitched forward and fell....

I anticipated a crash which would put an end to my hopes of escape,
but my fall was comparatively nois