by Sax Rohmer
“Very well.” His metallic voice sank to a hiss. “I employ no force. You shall yield to me your heart as a love offering. Of such motives as jealousy and revenge you know me incapable. What I do, I do with a purpose. That compassion of yours shall be a lever to cast you into my arms. Your hatred you shall conquer.”
“Oh, have you no mercy? Is there nothing human in your heart? Did I say I hate you!”
“Your eyes are eloquent, Miska. I cherish two memories of those beautiful eyes. One is of their fear and loathing — of me; the other is of their sweet softness when they watched the departure of my guest. Listen! Do you hear nothing?”
In an attitude of alert and fearful attention Miska stood listening. Fo-Hi watched her through the veil with those remorseless blazing eyes.
“I will open the door,” he said smoothly, “that we may more fully enjoy the protests of one for whom you ‘care nothing’ — of one whose lips have pressed — your hand.”
He opened the door by which Chunda Lal had gone out and turned again to Miska. Her eyes looked unnaturally dark by contrast with the pallor of her face.
Chunda Lal had betrayed her. She no longer doubted it. For he had not dared to meet her glance. His fear of Fo-Hi had overcome his love for her … and Stuart had been treacherously seized somewhere in the corridors and rendered helpless by the awful art of the thug.
“There is a brief interval,” hissed the evil voice. “Chunda Lal is securing him to the frame and baring the soles of his feet for the caresses of the rod.”
Suddenly, from somewhere outside the room, came the sound of dull, regular blows … then, a smothered moan!
Miska sprang forward and threw herself upon her knees before Fo-Hi, clutching at his robe frantically.
“Ah! merciful God! he is there! Spare him! spare him! No more — no more!”
“He is there?” repeated Fo-Hi suavely. “Assuredly he is there, Miska. I know not by what trick he hoped to ‘deal with’ Chunda Lal. But, as I informed you, Chunda Lal was forewarned.”
The sound of blows continued, followed by that of another, louder groan.
“Stop him! Stop him!” shrieked Miska.
“You ‘care nothing’ for this man. Why do you tremble?”
“Oh!” she wailed piteously. “I cannot bear it … oh, I cannot bear it! Do what you like with me, but spare him. Ah! you have no mercy.”
Fo-Hi handed her the hammer for striking the gong.
“It is you who have no mercy,” he replied. “I have asked but one gift. The sound of the gong will end Dr. Stuart’s discomfort … and will mean that you voluntarily accept my offer. What! you hesitate?” A stifled scream rang out sharply.
“Ah, yes! yes!”
Miska ran and struck the gong, then staggered back to the diwan and fell upon it, hiding her face in her hands. The sounds of torture ceased.
Fo-Hi closed the door and stood looking at her where she lay.
“I permit you some moments of reflection,” he said, “in order that you may compose yourself to receive the addresses which I shall presently have the honour, and joy, of making to you. Yes — this door is unlocked.” He threw the keys on the table. “I respect your promise … and Chunda Lal guards the outer exits.”
He opened the further door, by which he had entered, and went out.
Miska, through the fingers of her shielding hands, watched him go.
When he had disappeared she sprang up, clenching her teeth, and her face was contorted with anguish. She began to move aimlessly about the room, glancing at the many strange objects on the big table and fearfully at the canopied chair beside which hung the bronze bell. Finally:
“Oh, Chunda Lal! Chunda Lal!” she moaned, and threw herself face downward on the diwan, sobbing wildly.
So she lay, her whole body quivering with the frenzy of her emotions, and as she lay there, inch by inch, cautiously, the nearer door began to open. Chunda Lal looked in.
Finding the room to be occupied only by Miska, he crossed rapidly to the diwan, bending over her with infinite pity and tenderness.
“Miska!” he whispered softly.
As though an adder had touched her, Miska sprang to her feet — and back from the Hindu. Her eyes flashed fiercely.
“Ah! you! you!” she cried at him, with a repressed savagery that spoke of the Oriental blood in her veins. “Do not speak to me — look at me! Do not come near me! I hate you! God! how I hate you!”
“Miska! Miska!” he said beseechingly— “you pierce my heart! you kill me! Can you not understand — —”
“Go! go!”
She drew back from him, clenching and unclenching her jewelled fingers and glaring madly into his eyes.
“Look, Miska!” He took the gold chain and amulet from his bosom. “Your token! Can you not understand! Yah Allah! how little you trust me — and I would die for one glance of your eyes!
“He — Stuart Sahib — has gone, gone long since!”
“Ah! Chunda Lal!”
Miska swayed dizzily and extended her hands towards him. Chunda Lal glanced fearfully about him.
“Did I not,” he whispered, with an intense ardour in his soft voice,— “did I not lay my life, my service, all I have, at your feet? Did I not vow to serve you in the name of Bhowani! He is long since gone to bring his friends — who are searching from house to house along the river. At any moment they may be here!”
Miska dropped weakly upon her knees before him and clasped his hand.
“Chunda Lal, my friend! Oh, forgive me!” Her voice broke. “Forgive …”
Chunda Lal raised her gently.
“Not upon your knees to me, Miska. It was a little thing to do — for you. Did I not tell you that he had cast his eyes upon you? Mine was the voice you heard to cry out. Ah! you do not know; it is to gain time that I seem to serve him! Only this, Miska” — he revealed the blade of a concealed knife— “stand between Fo-Hi and — you! Had I not read it in his eyes!”
He raised his glance upward frantically.
“Jey Bhowani! give me strength, give me courage! For if I fail …”
He glared at her passionately, clutching his bosom; then, pressing the necklet to his lips, he concealed it again, and bent, whispering urgently:
“Listen again — I reveal it to you without price or hope of reward, for I know there is no love in your heart to give, Miska; I know that it takes you out of my sight for always. But I tell you what I learn in the house of Abdul Rozan. Your life is your own, Miska! With the needle” — yet closer he bent to her ear and even softer he spoke— “he pricks your white skin — no more! The vial he sends contains a harmless cordial!”
“Chunda Lal!”
Miska swayed again dizzily, clutching at the Hindu for support.
“Quick! fly!” he said, leading her to the door. “I will see he does not pursue!”
“No, no! you shall shed no blood for me! Not even his. You come also!”
“And if he escape, and know that I was false to him, he will call me back, and I shall be dragged to those yellow eyes, though I am a thousand miles away! Inshalla! those eyes! No — I must strike swift, or he robs me of my strength.”
For a long moment Miska hesitated.
“Then, I also remain, Chunda Lal, my friend! We will wait — and watch -and listen for the bells — here — that tell they are in the grounds of the house.”
“Ah, Miska!” the glance of the Hindu grew fearful— “you are clever — but he is the Evil One! I fear for you. Fly now. There is yet time …”
A faint sound attracted Miska’s attention. Placing a quivering finger to her lips, she gently thrust Chunda Lal out into the corridor.
“He returns!” she whispered: “If I call — come to me, my friend. But we have not long to wait!”
She closed the door.
CHAPTER V
WHAT HAPPENED TO STUART
Stuart had gained the end of the corridor, unmolested. There he found a short flight of steps, which he desc
ended and came to a second corridor forming a right angle with the first. A lamp was hung at the foot of the steps, and by its light he discerned a shadowy figure standing at the further end of this second passage.
A moment he hesitated, peering eagerly along the corridor. The man who waited was Chunda Lal. Stuart approached him and silently placed in his hand the gold amulet.
Chunda Lal took it as one touching something holy, and raising it he kissed it with reverence. His dark eyes were sorrowful. Long and ardently he pressed the little trinket to his lips, then concealed it under the white robe which he wore and turned to Stuart. His eyes were sorrowful no more, but fierce as the eyes of a tiger.
“Follow!” he said.
He unlocked a door and stepped out into a neglected garden, Stuart close at his heels. The sky was cloudy, and the moon obscured. Never glancing back, Chunda Lal led the way along a path skirting a high wall upon which climbing fruit trees were growing until they came to a second door and this also the Hindu unlocked. He stood aside.
“To the end of this lane,” he said, in his soft queerly modulated voice, “and along the turning to the left to the river bank. Follow the bank towards the palace and you will meet them.”
“I owe you my life,” said Stuart.
“Go! you owe me nothing,” returned the Hindu fiercely.
Stuart turned and walked rapidly along the lane. Once he glanced back. Chunda Lal was looking after him … and he detected something that gleamed in his hand, gleamed not like gold but like the blade of a knife!
Turning the corner, Stuart began to run. For he was unarmed and still weak, and there had been that in the fierce black eyes of the Hindu when he had scorned Stuart’s thanks which had bred suspicion and distrust.
From the position of the moon, Stuart judged the hour to be something after midnight. No living thing stirred about him. The lane in which now he found himself was skirted on one side by a hedge beyond which was open country and on the other by a continuation of the high wall which evidently enclosed the grounds of the house that he had just quitted. A cool breezed fanned his face, and he knew that he was approaching the Thames. Ten more paces and he came to the bank.
In his weak condition the short run had exhausted him. His bruised throat was throbbing painfully, and he experienced some difficulty in breathing. He leaned up against the moss-grown wall, looking back into the darkness of the lane.
No one was in sight. There was no sound save the gently lapping of the water upon the bank.
He would have like to bathe his throat and to quench his feverish thirst, but a mingled hope and despair spurred him and he set off along the narrow path towards where dimly above some trees he could discern in the distance a group of red-roofed buildings. Having proceeded for a considerable distance, he stood still, listening for any sound that might guide him to the search-party — or warn him that he was followed. But he could hear nothing.
Onward he pressed, not daring to think of what the future held for him, not daring to dwell upon the memory, the maddening sweetness, of that parting kiss. His eyes grew misty, he stumbled as he walked, and became oblivious of his surrounding. His awakening was a rude one.
Suddenly a man, concealed behind a bush, sprang out upon him and bore him irresistibly to the ground!
“Not a word!” rapped his assailant, “or I’ll knock you out!”
Stuart glared into the red face lowered so threateningly over his own, and:
“Sergeant Sowerby!” he gasped.
The grip upon his shoulders relaxed.
“Damn!” cried Sowerby— “if it isn’t Dr. Stuart?”
“What is that!” cried another voice from the shelter of the bush. “Pardieu! say it again! … Dr. Stuart!”
And Gaston Max sprang out!
“Max!” murmured Stuart, staggering to his feet— “Max!”
“Nom d’un nom! Two dead men meet!” exclaimed Gaston Max. “But indeed” — he grasped Stuart by both hands and his voice shook with emotion— “I thank God that I see you!”
Stuart was dazed. Words failed him, and he swayed dizzily.
“I thought you were murdered,” said Max, still grasping his hand, “and I perceive that you had made the same mistake about me! Do you know what saved me, my friend, from the consequences of that frightful blow? It was the bandage of ‘Le Balafre’!”
“You must possess a skull like a negro’s!” said Stuart feebly.
“I believe I have a skull like a baboon!” returned Max, laughing with joyous excitement. “And you, doctor, you must possess a steel wind-pipe; for flesh and blood could never have survived the pressure of that horrible pigtail. You will rejoice to learn that Miguel was arrested on the Dover boat-train this morning and Ah-Fang-Fu at Tilbury Dock some four hours ago. So we are both avenged! But we waste time!”
He unscrewed a flask and handed it to Stuart.
“A terrible experience has befallen you,” he said. “But tell me — do you know where it is — the lair of ‘The Scorpion’?”
“I do!” replied Stuart, having taken a welcome draught from the flask. “Where is Dunbar? We must carefully surround the place or he will elude us.”
“Ah! as he eluded us at ‘The Pidgin House’!” cried Max. “Do you know what happened? They had a motorboat in the very cellar of that warren. At high tide they could creep out into the cutting, drawing their craft along from pile to pile, and reach the open river at a point fifty yards above the house! In the damnable darkness they escaped. But we have two of them.”
“It was all my fault,” said Sowerby guiltily. “I missed my spring when I went for the Chinaman who came out first, and he gave one yell. The old fox in the shop heard it and the fat was in the fire.”
“You didn’t miss your spring at me!” retort Stuart ruefully.
“No,” agreed Sowerby. “I didn’t mean to miss a second time!”
“What’s all this row,” came a gruff voice.
“Ah! Inspector Dunbar!” said Max.
Dunbar walked up the path, followed by a number of men. At first he did not observe Stuart, and:
“You’ll be waking all the neighborhood,” he said. “It’s the next big house, Sowerby, the one we thought, surrounded by the brick wall. There’s no doubt, I think … Why!”
He had seen Stuart, and he sprang forward with outstretched hand.
“Thank God!” he cried, disregarding his own counsel about creating a disturbance. “This is fine! Eh, man! but I’m glad to see you!”
“And I am glad to be here!” Stuart assured him.
They shook hands warmly.
“You have read my statement, of course?” asked Stuart.
“I have,” replied the Inspector, and gave him a swift glance of the tawny eyes. “And considering that you’ve nearly been strangled, I’ll forgive you! But I wish we’d known about this house — —”
“Ah! Inspector,” interrupted Gaston Max, “but you have never seen Zara el-Khala! I have seen her — and I forgive him, also!”
Stuart continued rapidly:
“We have little time to waste. There are only three people in the house, so far as I am aware: Miska — known to you, M. Max, as Zara el-Khala — the Hindu, Chunda Lal, and — Fo-Hi — —”
“Ah!” cried Max—”’The Scorpion.’ Chunda Lal, for some obscure personal reason, not entirely unconnected with Miska, enabled me to make my escape in order that I might lead you to the house. Therefore we may look upon Chunda Lal, as well as Miska, in the light of an accomplice — —”
“Eh, bien! a spy in the camp! This is where we see how fatal to the success of any enterprise, criminal or otherwise, is the presence of a pretty woman! Proceed, my friend!”
“There are three entrances to the apartment in which Fo-Hi apparently spends the greater part of his time. Two of these I know, although I am unaware where one of them leads to. But the third, of which he alone holds the key, communicates with a tunnel leading to the river bank, where a motorboat is concealed
.”
“Ah, that motor-boat!” cried Max. “He travels at night, you understand — —”
“Always, I am told.”
“Yes, always. Therefore, once he is out on the river, he is moderately secure between the first lock and the Nore! When a police patrol is near he can shut off his engine and lie under the bank. Last night he crept away from us in that fashion. Tonight is not so dark, and the River Police are watching all the way down.”
“Furthermore,” replied Stuart, “Chunda Lal, who acts as engineer, has it in his power to prevent Fo-Hi’s escape by that route! But we must count upon the possibility of his attempting to leave by water. Therefore, in disposing your forces, place a certain number of men along the bank and below the house. Is there a River Police boat near?”
“Not nearer than Putney Bridge,” answered Dunbar. “We shall have to try and block that exit.”
“There’s no time to waste,” continued Stuart excitedly— “and I have a very particular request to make: that you will take Fo-Hi alive.”
“But of course,” said Gaston Max, “if it is humanly possible.”
Stuart repressed a groan; for even so he had little hope of inducing the awful veiled man to give back life to the woman who would have been instrumental in bringing him to the scaffold … and no compromise was possible!
“If you will muster your men, Inspector,” he said, “I will lead you to the spot. Once we have affected an entrance we must proceed with dispatch. He has alarm-bells connected with every possible point of entry.”
“Lead on, my friend,” cried Gaston Max. “I perceive that time is precious.”
CHAPTER VI
“JEY BHOWANI!”
As the door closed upon Chunda Lal, Miska stepped back from it and stood, unconsciously, in a curiously rigid and statuesque attitude, her arms pressed to her sides and her hands directed outward. It was the physical expression of an intense mental effort to gain control of herself. Her heart was leaping wildly in her breast — for the future that had held only horror and a living tomb, now opened out sweetly before her. She had only to ply her native wiles for a few precious moments … and someone would have her in his arms, to hold her safe from harm! If the will of the awful Chinaman threatened to swamp her individuality, then — there was Chunda Lal!
