oss the
deck, and I could judge of his height by the fact that his small
swathed head remained visible almost to the time that he passed to the
end of the white boat which swung opposite my stateroom.

In a moment I slipped quietly to the floor, crossed and peered out of
the port-hole; so that at last I had a clear view of the sinister
mummy-man. He was crouching under the bow of the boat, and attaching
to the white rails, below, a contrivance of a kind with which I was
not entirely unfamiliar. This was a thin ladder of silken rope, having
bamboo rungs, with two metal hooks for attaching it to any suitable
object.

The one thus engaged was, as Karamaneh had declared, almost
superhumanly thin. His loins were swathed in a sort of linen garment,
and his head so bound about, turban fashion, that only his gleaming
eyes remained visible. The bare limbs and body were of a dusky yellow
colour, and, at sight of him, I experienced a sudden nausea.

My pistol was in my cabin-trunk, and to have found it in the dark,
without making a good deal of noise, would have been impossible.
Doubting how I should act, I stood watching the man with the swathed
head whilst he threw the end of the ladder over the side, crept past
the bow of the boat, and swung his gaunt body over the rail,
exhibiting the agility of an ape. One quick glance fore and aft he
gave, then began to swarm down the ladder; in which instant I knew his
mission.

With a choking cry, which forced itself unwilled from my lips, I tore
at the door, threw it open, and sprang across the deck. Plans, I had
none, and since I carried no instrument wherewith to sever the ladder,
the murderer might indeed have carried out his design for all that I
could have done to prevent him, were it not that another took a hand
in the game....

At the moment that the mummy-man--his head now on a level with the
deck--perceived me, he stopped dead. Coincident with his stopping, the
crack of a pistol sounded--from immediately beyond the boat.

Uttering a sort of sobbing sound, the creature fell--then clutched,
with straining yellow fingers, at the rails, and, seemingly by dint of
a great effort, swarmed along aft some twenty feet, with incredible
swiftness and agility, and clambered on to the deck.

A second shot cracked sharply; and a voice (God, was I mad?) cried:
"Hold him, Petrie!"

Rigid with fearful astonishment I stood, as out from the boat above me
leapt a figure attired solely in s