Part 25 (1/2)

With a second piercing shriek, louder than that recently uttered by Burke, wailing through the night from somewhere below, I turned desperately to the man on the bed, who now was become significantly silent. A candle with matches, stood upon a table hard by, and, my fingers far from steady, I set about obtaining a light. This accomplished, I stood the candle upon the little chest-of-drawers and returned to Burke's side.

”Merciful G.o.d!” I cried.

Of all the pictures which remain in my memory, some of them dark enough, I can find none more horrible than that which now confronted me in the dim candle-light. Burke lay crosswise on the bed, his head thrown back and sagging; one rigid hand he held in the air, and with the other grasped the hairy forearm which I had severed with the axe; for, in a death-like grip, the dead fingers were still fastened, vice-like, at his throat.

His face was nearly black, and his eyes projected from their sockets horribly. Mastering my repugnance, I seized the hideous piece of bleeding anatomy and strove to release it. It defied all my efforts; in death it was as implacable as in life. I took a knife from my pocket, and, tendon by tendon, cut away that uncanny grip from Burke's throat....

But my labour was in vain. Burke was dead!

I think I failed to realize this for some time. My clothes were sticking clammily to my body; I was bathed in perspiration, and, shaking furiously, I clutched at the edge of the window, avoiding the b.l.o.o.d.y patch upon the ledge, and looked out over the roofs to where, in the more distant plantations, I could hear excited voices. What had been the meaning of that scream which I had heard but to which in my frantic state of mind I had paid comparatively little attention?

There was a great stirring all about me.

”Smith!” I cried from the window; ”Smith, for mercy's sake where are you?”

Footsteps came racing up the stairs. Behind me the door burst open and Nayland Smith stumbled into the room.

”G.o.d!” he said, and started back in the doorway.

”Have you got it, Smith?” I demanded hoa.r.s.ely. ”In sanity's name what is it--_what is it?_”

”Come downstairs,” replied Smith quietly, ”and see for yourself.” He turned his head aside from the bed.

Very unsteadily I followed him down the stairs and through the rambling old house out into the stone-paved courtyard. There were figures moving at the end of a long alleyway between the gla.s.s houses, and one, carrying a lantern, stooped over something which lay upon the ground.

”That's Burke's cousin with the lantern,” whispered Smith, in my ear; ”don't tell him yet.”

I nodded, and we hurried up to join the group. I found myself looking down at one of those thickset Burmans whom I always a.s.sociated with Fu-Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back of his head was a shapeless blood-clotted ma.s.s, and a heavy stock-whip, the b.u.t.t end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it, lay beside him. I started back appalled as Smith caught my arm.

”_It_ turned on its keeper!” he hissed in my ear. ”I wounded it twice from below, and you severed one arm; in its insensate fury, its unreasoning malignity, it returned--and there lies its second victim....”

”Then....”

”It's gone, Petrie! It has the strength of four men even now. Look!”

He stooped, and from the clenched left hand of the dead Burman, extracted a piece of paper and opened it.

”Hold the lantern a moment,” he said.

In the yellow light he glanced at the sc.r.a.p of paper.

”As I expected--a leaf of Burke's notebook; it worked by _scent_.” He turned to me with an odd expression in his grey eyes. ”I wonder what piece of _my_ personal property Fu-Manchu has pilfered,” he said, ”in order to enable it to sleuth _me_?”

He met the gaze of the man holding the lantern.

”Perhaps you had better return to the house,” he said, looking him squarely in the eyes.

The other's face blanched.