h; "the light was out." She turned her eyes toward
me, as the wonderful blush overspread her face once more. "I was sitting
thinking. It all happened within a few seconds, and quite silently. As
the mummy crouched over the berth, I unlocked the door and leaped out
into the passage. I think I screamed; I did not mean to. Oh, Dr.
Stacey, there is not a moment to spare! Mr. Nayland Smith must be warned
immediately. Some horrible servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu is on the ship!"

CHAPTER XXXII. THE TRAGEDY

Nayland Smith leaned against the edge of the dressing-table, attired in
pyjamas. The little stateroom was hazy with smoke, and my friend gripped
the charred briar between his teeth and watched the blue-gray clouds
arising from the bowl, in an abstracted way. I knew that he was thinking
hard, and from the fact that he had exhibited no surprise when I had
related to him the particular's of the attack upon Karamaneh I judged
that he had half anticipated something of the kind. Suddenly he stood
up, staring at me fixedly.

"Your tact has saved the situation, Petrie," he snapped. "It failed you
momentarily, though, when you proposed to me just now that we should
muster the lascars for inspection. Our game is to pretend that we know
nothing--that we believe Karamaneh to have had a bad dream."

"But, Smith," I began--

"It would be useless, Petrie," he interrupted me. "You cannot suppose
that I overlooked the possibility of some creature of the doctor's being
among the lascars. I can assure you that not one of them answers to the
description of the midnight assailant. From the girl's account we have
to look (discarding the idea of a revivified mummy) for a man of unusual
height--and there's no lascar of unusual height on board; and from the
visible evidence, that he entered the stateroom through the porthole, we
have to look for a man more than normally thin. In a word, the servant
of Dr. Fu-Manchu who attempted the life of Karamaneh is either in hiding
on the ship, or, if visible, is disguised."

With his usual clarity of vision, Nayland Smith had visualized the facts
of the case; I passed in mental survey each one of the passengers, and
those of the crew whose appearances were familiar to me, with the result
that I had to admit the justice of my friend's conclusions. Smith began
to pace the narrow strip of carpet between the dressing-table and the
door. Suddenly he began again. "From our knowledge of Fu-Manchu and of
the gro