ng, claw-like hand upon the top of the First Gate,
was bending over the trap, but his brilliant green eyes were turned in
the same direction as my own--upon the curtained doorway.

Upright within it, her beautiful face as pale as death, but her great
eyes blazing with a sort of splendid madness, stood Karamaneh!

She looked, not at the tortured man, not at me, but fully at Dr.
Fu-Manchu. One hand clutched the trembling draperies; now she suddenly
raised the other, so that the jewels on her white arm glittered in the
light of the lamp above the door. She held my Browning pistol! Fu-Manchu
sprang upright, inhaling sibilantly, as Karamaneh pointed the pistol
point blank at his high skull and fired....

I saw a little red streak appear, up by the neutral colored hair, under
the black cap. I became as a detached intelligence, unlinked with the
corporeal, looking down upon a thing which for some reason I had never
thought to witness.

Fu-Manchu threw up both arms, so that the sleeves of the green robe
fell back to the elbows. He clutched at his head, and the black cap
fell behind him. He began to utter short, guttural cries; he swayed
backward--to the right--to the left then lurched forward right across
the cage. There he lay, writhing, for a moment, his baneful eyes turned
up, revealing the whites; and the great gray rats, released, began
leaping about the room. Two shot like gray streaks past the slim figure
in the doorway, one darted behind the chair to which I was lashed,
and the fourth ran all around against the wall... Fu-Manchu, prostrate
across the overturned cage, lay still, his massive head sagging
downward.

I experienced a mental repetition of my adventure in the earlier
evening--I was dropping, dropping, dropping into some bottomless pit ...
warm arms were about my neck; and burning kisses upon my lips.

CHAPTER XXX. THE CALL OF THE EAST

I seemed to haul myself back out of the pit of unconsciousness by the
aid of two little hands which clasped my own. I uttered a sigh that was
almost a sob, and opened my eyes.

I was sitting in the big red-leathern armchair in my own study... and a
lovely but truly bizarre figure, in a harem dress, was kneeling on the
carpet at my feet; so that my first sight of the world was the sweetest
sight that the world had to offer me, the dark eyes of Karamaneh, with
tears trembling like jewels upon her lashes!

I looked no further than that, heeded not if there were others