traitress; you betray those who are mad enough to trust you--"

"I am no traitress!" she blazed at me. Her eyes were magnificent.

"This is mere nonsense. You think that it will pay you better to serve
Fu-Manchu than to remain true to your friends. Your 'slavery'--for I
take it you are posing as a slave again--is evidently not very harsh.
You serve Fu-Manchu, lure men to their destruction, and in return he
loads you with jewels, lavishes gifts--"

"Ah! so!"

She sprang forward, raising flaming eyes to mine; her lips were
slightly parted. With that wild abandon which betrayed the desert
blood in her veins, she wrenched open the neck of her bodice and
slipped a soft shoulder free of the garment. She twisted around, so
that the white skin was but inches removed from me.

"These are some of the gifts that he lavishes upon me!"

I clenched my teeth. Insane thoughts flooded my mind. For that creamy
skin was wealed with the marks of the lash!

She turned, quickly rearranging her dress, and watching me the while.
I could not trust myself to speak for a moment, then--

"If I am a stranger to you, as you claim, why do you give me your
confidence?" I asked.

"I have known you long enough to trust you!" she said simply, and
turned her head aside.

"Then why do you serve this inhuman monster?"

She snapped her fingers oddly, and looked up at me from under her
lashes. "Why do you question me if you think that everything I say is
a lie?"

It was a lesson in logic--from a woman! I changed the subject.

"Tell me what you came here to do," I demanded.

She pointed to the net in my hands.

"To catch birds; you have said so yourself."

"What bird?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

And now a memory was born within my brain: it was that of the cry of
the nighthawk which had harbingered the death of Forsyth! The net was
a large and strong one; could it be that some horrible fowl of the
air--some creature unknown to Western naturalists--had been released
upon the common last night? I thought of the marks upon Forsyth's face
and throat; I thought of the profound knowledge of obscure and
dreadful things possessed by the Chinaman.

The wrapping in which the net had been lay at my feet. I stooped and
took out from it a wicker basket. Karamaneh stood watching me and
biting her lip, but she made no move to check me. I opened the basket.
It contained a large phial, the contents of which possessed a pungent
and peculiar smell.