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 color, 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 shot 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 onto 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 leaped a figure attired solely in shirt and trousers. The newcomer
leaped away in the wake of the mummy-man--who had vanished around the
corner by the smoke-room. Over his shoulder he cried back at me:

"The bishop's stateroom! See that no one enters!"

I clutched at my head--which seemed to be fiery hot; I realized in my
own person the s