by Sax Rohmer
“Shan!” Rima’s voice suddenly rose to a high emotional note; she moved forward. “Tell me—”
“Be silent, child,” said Fah Lo Suee. “Sit there.”
She indicated an armchair. Rima’s despairing glance met mine; then she obeyed that quiet, imperious command. Fah Lo Suee signaled to the Nubian to go. He withdrew, not wholly closing the door.
“Shan attracts me,” Fah Lo Suee went on. “Apart from which he has qualities which will prove useful when we move in Egypt. But I don’t want to steal him from you” — she glanced at Rima— “and he would be unhappy without you.”
We were all watching her. There was absolute silence in the room when she ceased speaking. Of the many violent scenes I had known from that dark hour when Sir Lionel’s voice — or so I had supposed at the time — called out to me in the wâdi where we were camped, this quiet, deadly interlude before the amazement to come recurs most frequently in my memory.
“It is very simple, Shan” — she turned to me. “Sir Denis has checked me — would always check me. He knows too much of our plans. So do you. The others can wait. If Superintendent Weymouth had come here alone — he would have remained… After you have gone… he will become dangerous. But he must wait.
“His arrival here tonight was an unfortunate accident — due to my consideration of your happiness.”
I met the steady gaze of those enthralling eyes… “Your happiness…” As though, unwittingly, she had communicated her secret thoughts to me, I grasped the truth; I saw the part that Rima was to play. I, alone, might prove difficult. Rima, helpless in the power of Fah Lo Suee, would make me a pliant slave! Suddenly:
“More and more,” said Nayland Smith, “I regret the absence of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I would rather deal with him than with his daughter!”
Fab Lo Suee turned, suddenly.
“Why do you assume my father to be dead?” she asked.
Nayland Smith exchanged a rapid glance with me; then:
“I don’t assume anything of the kind,” he rapped, with all his old vigour. “I know he’s alive!”
“How do you know?”
“That is my business. Kindly confine yourself to a statement of your own.”
There were some moments of silence; then:”Dr. Fu-Manchu,” said Fah Lo Suee, “is alive — yes. You were always a clever man, Sir Denis. But his age prohibits travel.”
I dared not trust myself to look at Nayland Smith. It was incredible.
She didn’t know that Fu-Manchu was in England!
Smith made no reply.
“The work that he laid down,” Fah Lo Suee went on, “I have taken up. The Si-Fan, Sir Denis, is a power again. But time is precious. The unforeseen visit of Superintendent Weymouth delayed me. There are only two members in England now. They are in this house. They will leave with me… Shan, do you choose that yourself and Rima shall travel as baggage, or will you bow to — the inevitable?”
“Agree!” rapped Nayland Smith. “A hundred chances of helping the world present themselves to a live man — but not to a synthetic corpse.”
“Shan!”
Rima, wild-eyed, was staring at me. She had sprung up from her chair.
“What?” I asked dully.
“I don’t know the meaning of it all — I can only guess; but you wouldn’t bargain, Shan?”
Nayland Smith caught my wandering glance, and:
“He would Rima,” he answered. “So would I — it I had the chance! Don’t be foolish, little lady. This isn’t a game of tennis. It’s a game of which you don’t know the rules. There’s only one thing to play for… life. Because, while one of us lives, there’s always a chance that one may win! — Agree, Greville! It’s nine thousand miles to China — and with two active brains alert, anything may happen.”
I closed my eyes. This was agony. An age seemed to pass. Had Nayland Smith some scheme behind his words? And where did my duty lie?… My duty to Rima; my duty to the world…
“I will agree,” I said at last — and my voice was one I could never have recognized, “on the distinct understanding that Rima is not to be harmed or molested in any way — and that Sir Denis is released tonight.”
Opening my eyes, I glanced quickly at Fah Lo Suee. Her expression was inscrutable. I looked at Rima. She was staring at me — an uncomprehending stare… Lastly, I looked at Nayland Smith.
His steely eyes regarded me wistfully. He twisted his lips in a wry grimace and shook his head, as:
“Your second condition is impossible,” Fah Lo Suee replied.
And as she spoke the miracle happened; the thing of which to this very hour I sometimes doubt the reality, seeming, as it does now, rather part of a fevered dream than an actual occurrence.
I don’t know what prompted me, as that bell-like voice ceased, to look again at Rima. But I did so.
She was staring past me — at the lacquer cabinet where Kâli sat — the hidden doorway Fah Lo Suee had closed again.
I twisted around.
Very slowly — inch by inch — inch by inch — the door was opening! Then, suddenly, it was opened wide. Out of the darkness beyond two figures came; first, the Dyak, who, instant on entering the room, turned again to the lacquered, door and dropped on his knees; second, the Nubian — who also prostrated himself!
Thirdly, and last, came a figure whose image must remain imprinted on my mind for ever…
It was that of a very tall old man; emaciated to a degree which I had hitherto associated only with mummies. His great height was not appreciable at first glance, by reason of the fact that he stooped very much, resting his weight on a stout stick. He wore a plain black garment, resembling a cassock, and a little black cap was set on his head…
His skull — his fleshless yellow skull — was enormous. I thought that such a brain must be that either of a madman or of a genius. And his face, a map of wrinkles, resembled nothing so much as the shriveled majesty of the Pharaoh Seti I who lives in the Cairo Museum!
Deeply sunken eyes emitted a dull green spark.
But this frail old man radiated such power that I was chilled — it seemed to be physical; I could not have experienced a more dreadful sense of impotent horror if the long-dead Pharaoh himself had appeared before me…
Those sunken, commanding eyes ignored my existence. Their filmy but potent regard passed the grovelling men, passed me, and was set upon Fah Lo Suee. Then came a sibilant command, utterly beyond my powers to describe:
“Kneel, little thief! I am standing…”
I twisted around.
Fah Lo Suee, a chalky quality tingeing the peach bloom of her skin, had lowered that insolent head! As I turned, staring, she dropped to her knees!
And now I saw that Nayland Smith, bound as he was, arms and ankles, had got to his feet. Through the tropical yellow of his complexion, through the artificial stain which still lingered, he had paled.
The hissing voice spoke again.
“Greeting, Sir Denis. Be seated.”
Smith’s teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw muscles stood out lumpishly. But, relaxing and speaking in a low, even tone:
“Greeting,” he replied, “Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
Three times, heavily, Dr. Fu-Manchu beat his stick upon the floor.
Two Burmans came in and saluted him.
I knew them. They were the Dacoits who had been present at the Council of Seven in el-Khârga.
Dr. Fu-Manchu advanced into the room. Extending a bony, clawlike hand, he indicated the kneeling Fah Lo Suee.
And, without word or glance, eyes lowered, Fah Lo Suee went out with her dreadful escort! It was in my heart to pity her, so utterly was she fallen, so slavishly did that proud woman bow her head to this terrible, imperious old man.
As he passed the prostrate figures of the Nubian and the Dyak, walking heavily and slowly, he touched them each with his stick. He spoke in a low voice, gutturally.
They sprang up and approached Rima!
Throughout this extraordinary sc
ene, which had passed much more quickly than its telling conveys, Rima had remained seated — stupefied. Now, realizing the meaning of Fu-Manchu’s last order, she stood up — horror in her eyes.
“Shan! Shan!” she cried. “What is he going to do to me?”
Dr. Fu-Manchu beat upon the floor again and spoke one harsh word. The Nubian and the Dyak stood still. No sergeant of the Guards ever had more complete control of men.
“Miss Barton,” he said, his voice alternating uncannily between the sibilant and the guttural and seeming to be produced with difficulty, “your safety is assured. I wish to be alone with Sir Denis and Mr. Greville. For your greater ease, Sir Denis will tell you that my word is my bond.”
He turned those sunken, filmed eyes in the direction of the big armchair and:
“You needn’t worry, Rima,” said Nayland Smith. “Dr. Fu- Manchu guarantees your safety.”
I was amazed beyond reason. Even so fortified, Rima’s eyes were dark with terror. A swift flow of words brought the Dyak sharply about to take his instructions. Then he and the Nubian escorted Rima from the room.
I tugged, groaning, at the cords which held me. I stared at Nayland Smith. Was he holding a candle to the devil? How could a sane man accept the assurances of such a proven criminal?
But, as though my ideas had been spoken aloud:
“Do not misjudge Sir Denis,” came the harsh voice. “He knows that in warfare I am remorseless. But he knows also that no mandarin of my order has ever willingly broken his promise.”
The Nubian had closed the door leading to the lobby. Dr. Fu-Manchu had closed that of the false cabinet as he came into the room. No sound entered the arena where this menace to white supremacy and the man whose defenses had defied him confronted one another.
“It is a strange fact,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “that only the circumstance of your being a prisoner allows of our present conversation.”
He paused, watching, watching Nayland Smith with those physically weak but spiritually powerful eyes. The Chinaman’s force was incredible. It was as though a great lamp burned in that frail, angular body.
“Yet, now, by a paradox, we stand together.”
Resting on his ebony stick, he drew himself up so that his thin frame assumed something of its former height.
“My methods are not your methods. Perhaps I have laughed at your British scruples. Perhaps a day may come, Sir Denis, when you will join in my laughter. But, as much as I have hated you, I have always admired your clarity of mind and your tenacity. You were instrumental in defeating me, when I had planned to readjust the center of world power. No doubt you thought me mad — a megalomaniac. You were wrong.”
He spoke the last three words in a low voice — almost a whisper.
“I worked for my country. I saw China misruled, falling into decay; with all her vast resources, becoming prey for carrion. I hoped to give China that place in the world to which her intellect, her industry, and her ideals entitle her. I hoped to awaken China. My methods, Sir Denis, were bad. My motive was good.”
His voice rose. He raised one gaunt hand in a gesture of defiance. Nayland Smith spoke no word. And I watched this wraith of terror as one watches a creature uncreated, who figures hideously in some disordered dream. His sincerity was unmistakable; his power of intellect enormous. But when I realized what he defended, what he stood for — and that I, Shan Greville, was listening to him in a house somewhere in Regent’s Park, I felt like laughing hysterically…
“Your long reign, Sir Denis, is ending. A blacker tragedy than any I had dreamt of will end your Empire. It is Fate that both of us must now look on. I thank my gods that the consummation will not be seen by me.
“The woman you know as Fah Lo Suee — it was her pet name in nursery days — is my child by a Russian mother. In her, Sir Denis, I share the sorrow of Shakespeare’s King Lear… She has reawakened a power which I had buried. I cannot condemn her. She is my flesh. But in China we expect, and exact, obedience. The Si-Fan is a society older than Buddhism and more flexible. Its ruler wields a sword none can withstand. For many years Si-Fan has slumbered. Fah Lo Suee has dared to awaken it!”
He turned his dreadful eyes on me for the first time since he had begun to speak.
“Mr. Greville, you cannot know what control of that organization means! Misdirected, at such a crisis of history as this, it could only mean another world war! I dragged myself from retirement” — he looked again at Nayland Smith— “to check the madness of Fah Lo Suee. Some harm she has done. But I have succeeded. Tonight, again, I am lord of the Si-Fan!”
Quivering, he rested on his stick.
“I had never dreamt,” said Nayland Smith, “that I should live to applaud your success.”
Dr. Fu-Manchu turned and walked to the lacquer door. Reaching it:
“If you were free,” he replied, “it would be your duty to detain me. My plans are made. Fah Lo Suee will trouble you no more. Overtake me if you wish — and if you can. I am indifferent to the issue, Sir Denis, but I leave England tonight. Si-Fan will sleep again. The balance of world power will be readjusted — but not as she had planned.
“In half an hour I will cause Superintendent Weymouth — whom I esteem — to be informed that you are here. Miss Barton, during that period, must remain locked in a room above. Greeting and goodbye, Sir Denis. Greeting and good-bye, Mr. Greville.”
He went out and closed the door…
Nearly a year has passed since that night when for the first, and I pray for the last, time I found myself face to face with Dr. Fu-Manchu — the world’s greatest criminal, perhaps the world’s supreme genius — and a man of his word.
Unable to credit the facts, a few minutes after his disappearance, I shouted Rima’s name.
She replied — her voice reaching me dimly from some higher room. She was safe, but locked in…
And an hour later, Weymouth arrived — to find Nayland Smith at last disentangled from the cunning knots of the Sea-Dyak!
“It was possible, after all, Greville! But a damned long business!”
I write these concluding notes before my tent in Sir Lionel Barton’s camp on the site of ancient Nineveh. Sunset draws near, and I can see Rima, a camera slung over her shoulder, coming down the slope.
We are to be married on our return to London.
Of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Fah Lo Suee, and their terrible escort, no trace was ever discovered!
Even the body of Li King Su was spirited away. Six months of intense and world-wide activity, directed by Nayland Smith, resulted in… nothing! “My plans are made,” that great and evil man had said.
Sometimes I doubt if it ever happened. Sometimes I wonder if it is really finished. Before me, on the box which is my extemporized writing desk, lies a big emerald set in an antique silver ring. It reached me only a month ago in a package posted from Hong Kong. There was no note inside…
THE MASK OF FU MANCHU
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE. ONE NIGHT IN ISPAHAN
CHAPTER TWO. WAILING IN THE AIR
CHAPTER THREE. THE GREEN BOX
CHAPTER FOUR. THE VEILED PROPHET
CHAPTER FIVE. NAYLAND SMITH TAKES CHARGE
CHAPTER SIX. PERFUME OF MIMOSA
CHAPTER SEVEN. RIMA AND I
CHAPTER EIGHT. “EL MOKANNA!”
CHAPTER NINE. THE FLYING DEATH
CHAPTER TEN. I SEE THE SLAYER
CHAPTER ELEVEN. THE MAN ON THE MINARET
CHAPTER TWELVE. IN THE GHOST MOSQUE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE BLACK SHADOW
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. ROAD TO CAIRO
CHAPTER FIFTEEN. ROAD TO CAIRO (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN. A MASKED WOMAN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. THE MOSQUE OF MUAYYAD
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. DR. FU-MANCHU
CHAPTER NINETEEN. FORMULA ELIXIR VITAE
CHAPTER TWENTY. THE MASTER MIND
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. “HE WILL BE CROWNED IN DAMASCUS”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
THE HAND OF FU-MANCHU
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. AMNESIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. THE MESSENGER
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. MR. ADEN’S PROPOSAL
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. A STRANGE RENDEZVOUS
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN. THE GREAT PYRAMID
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. INSIDE THE GREAT PYRAMID
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. WE ENTER THE KING’S CHAMBER
CHAPTER THIRTY. DR. FU-MANCHU KEEPS HIS WORD
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. THE TRAP IS LAID
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO. I SEE EL MOKANNA
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE. FACTS AND RUMOURS
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR. RIMA’S STORY
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE. ORDERED HOME
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX. NAYLAND SMITH COMES ABOARD
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN. THE RELICS OF THE PROPHET
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT. “THE SWORD OF GOD”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. FLIGHT FROM EGYPT
CHAPTER FORTY. THE SEAPLANE
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE. A RUBBER BALL
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO. THE PURSER’S SAFE
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE. THE VOICE IN BRUTON STREET
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR. “THIS WAS THE ONLY WAY…”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE. MEMORY RETURNS
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX. FAH LO SUEE
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN. IVORY HANDS
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT. I REALLY AWAKEN
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE. A COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS
CHAPTER FIFTY. DR. FU-MANCHU TRIUMPHS
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE. WEDDING MORNING
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO. DR. FU-MANCHU BOWS
The first edition
CHAPTER ONE. ONE NIGHT IN ISPAHAN
“Shan! Shan!”
Someone calling my name persistently. The voice was faint. I had been asleep, but dreaming hard, an evil from which ordinarily I don’t suffer. The voice fitted into my dream uncannily…
I had dreamed I was asleep in my tent in that desolate spot on the Khorassan border, not a hundred yards from the valley called the Place of the Great Magician. No expedition of Sir Lionel’s in which I had been employed had so completely got on my nerves as this one.
Persia was new territory for me. And the chief’s sense of the dramatic, his innate showmanship (a trait which had done him endless damage in the eyes of the learned societies) had resulted in my being more or less in the dark as to the real object of our journey.