Sax Rohmer

“ Fo-Hi approached her closely and abject terror now had robbed her of strength. Her limbs seemed to have become numbed, her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth.
"Fear me no more, Miska," said Fo-Hi. "I will you nothing but joy. The man who has learned the Fifth Secret of Rache Churan—who has learned how to control his will—holds a power absolute and beyond perfectability. You know, who have dwelt beneath my roof, that there is no escape from my will." His calm was terrible, and his glance, through the green veil, was like a ray of scorching heat. ”

“ Stuart had been left as a lure. By one of those tricks of fate which sometimes perfect the plans of men but more often destroy them, the body of "Le Balafre" had been so disfigured during the time that it had been buffeted about in the Thames that it was utterly unrecognizable and indescribable. But even the disk had not deceived Dunbar. He had seen in it another ruse of his brilliant confrere, and his orders to the keeper of the mortuary to admit no one without a written permit had been dictated by the conviction that Max wished the body to be mistaken for his own. ”

“ He watch you grow from a little lovely child, as he watch his death-spiders and his grey scorpions grow! He tend you and care for you and make you perfect, and he plan for you as he plan for this other creatures. Then, he see what I see, that you are not only his servant but also a woman and that you have a woman's heart. He learn—who think he knows all—that he, too, is not yet a spirit but only a man, and have a man's heart, a man's blood, a man's longings! It is because of the Doctor Sahib that he learn it——"
He grasped Miska again, but she struggled to elude him. ”

“ Stuart's hands convulsively clutched the covering of the diwan as the sinister figure approached. The intolerable gaze of those weird eyes had awakened a horror, a loathing horror, within him, such as he never remembered to have experienced in regard to any human being. It was the sort of horror which the proximity of a poisonous serpent occasions—or the nearness of a scorpion....
Fo-Hi seated himself at the table.
Absolute silence reigned in the big room, except for the hissing of the furnace. No sound penetrated from the outer world. ”

“ He pitched out of his chair and on to the carpet.
The first object which the ray touched was the telephone; and next, beyond it, a medical dictionary; beyond that again, the grate, in which a fire was laid.
"My God!" groaned Stuart—"what is it!"
An intense crackling sound deafened him, and the air of the room seemed to have become hot as that of an oven. There came a series of dull reports—an uncanny wailing ... and the needle-ray vanished. A monstrous shadow, moon-cast, which had lain across the carpet of the lawn—the shadow of a cowled man—vanished also. ”

“ No! do not turn from me! No woman in all the world has ever heard me plead, as I plead to you. Never before have I sued for favours. Do not turn from me, Miska."
Slightly, the metallic voice vibrated, and the ruffling of that giant calm was a thing horrible to witness. Fo-Hi extended his long yellow hands, advancing step by step until he stood over the cowering girl. Irresistibly her glance was drawn to those blazing eyes which the veil could not hide, and as she met that unblinking gaze her own eyes dilated and grew fixed as those of a sleep-walker. A moment Fo-Hi stood so. ”

“ But the Hindu, drawing her nearer, repeated with subdued fierceness:
"I ask it again—but you?"
"I do not know," muttered the woman, keeping her head lowered and moving in the direction of the steps.
But Chunda Lal intercepted her.
"Stop!" he said—"not yet are you going. There is something I have to speak to you."
"Ssh!" she whispered, half turning and pointing up toward the door.
"Those!" said the Hindu contemptuously—"the poor slaves of the black smoke! Ah! they are floating in their dream paradise; they have no ears to hear, no eyes to see!" ”

“ Then:
"Oh, my God!" cried Dunbar, staggering, half blinded, "look—look!"
A deathly silence claimed them all. Just within the doorway Stuart appeared, having his arm about the shoulders of Miska.
The Throne of the Gods was empty! A thin coating of grey dust was settling upon it and upon the dais which supported it.
They had witnessed a scientific miracle ... the complete and instantaneous disintegration of a human body. Gaston Max was the first to recover speech.
"We are defeated," he said. "'The Scorpion,' surrounded, destroys himself. It is the way of a scorpion." ”

“ But such betrayals never escaped him when, in one of his inimitable disguises, he penetrated to the purlieu of Whitechapel, to the dens of Limehouse. Then he was the perfect Hooligan, as, mingling with the dangerous thieves of Paris, he was the perfect Apache. It was an innate gift of mimicry which had made him the greatest investigator of his day. He could have studied Chinese social life for six months and thereupon have become a mandarin whom his own servants would never have suspected to be a "foreign barbarian." It was pure genius, as opposed to the brilliant efficiency of Dunbar. ”

“ Miska smiled—and her smile was the taunting smile of the East, which is at once a caress and an invitation.
"You think, no doubt, that there are no slaves in Cairo!" she said. "So do most people, and so did I—once. I learned better. There are palaces in Cairo, I assure you, in which there are many slaves. I myself lived in such a palace for four years, and I was not the only slave there. What do British residents and French residents know of the inner domestic life of their Oriental neighbours? Are they ever admitted to the harem? ”

“ Beneath it was a white and gold robe, cut with classic simplicity of line and confined at the waist by an ornate Eastern girdle. White stockings and dull gold shoes exhibited to advantage her charming little feet and slim ankles, and she carried a handbag of Indian beadwork. Mlle. Dorian was a figure calculated to fire the imagination of any man and to linger long and sweetly in the memory.
Mrs. M'Gregor, palpably ill at ease, conducted her to an armchair.
"You are very good," said the visitor, speaking with a certain hesitancy and with a slight accent most musical and fascinating. ”

“ I am a poor man. The entire contents of my house would fetch only a few hundred pounds if sold to-morrow. Yet you risk your liberty to rifle my bureau. For the last time—what have you taken from that drawer?"
She leaned back against the table, toying with the broken piece of gold and glancing down at it as she did so. Her long lashes cast shadows below her eyes, and a hint of colour was returning to her cheeks. Stuart studied her attentively—even delightedly, for all her shortcomings, and knew in his heart that he could never give her in charge of the police. ”

“ In the East a woman is a chattel and has no will of her own."
"A chattel!" cried Stuart scornfully. "Your resemblance to the 'chattels' of the East is a remote one. There is Eastern blood in your veins, no doubt, but you are educated, you are a linguist, you know the world. Right and wrong are recognizable to the lowest savage." ”

“ No one has ever seen his face! I know that his eyes are a brilliant and unnatural yellow colour, but otherwise I should not know him if I saw him unveiled, to-morrow. Except," she added, "by a sense of loathing which his presence inspires in me. But I must hurry. If you interrupt me, I shall not have time.
"From that day in Cairo—oh! how can I tell you! I began the life of an adventuress! I do not deny it. I came here to confess it to you. I went to New York, to London, to Paris, to Petrograd; I went all over the world. I had beautiful dresses, jewels, admiration—all that women live for! ”

“ Stuart looked up, frowning in a puzzled way.
"It is a most curious fragment of jewellery—possibly of Indian origin," he said.
Inspector Dunbar lighted his pipe and tossed the match-end into the fire. "But what does it represent?" he asked.
"Oh, as to that—I said a curious fragment advisedly, because I cannot imagine any woman wearing such a beastly thing. It is the tail of a scorpion."
"Ah!" cried Dunbar, the tawny eyes glittering with excitement. "The tail of a scorpion! I thought so! And Sowerby would have it that it represented the stem of a Cactus or Prickly Pear!" ”

“ I have danced in a Paris theatre and I have sold flowers in Rome; I have had my box at the Opera and I have filled opium pipes in a den at San Francisco! But never, never have I lured a man to his death. And through it all, from first to last, no man has so much as kissed my finger-tips!
"At a word, at a sign, I have been compelled to go from Monte Carlo to Buenos Ayres; at another sign from there to Tokio! Chunda Lal has guarded me as only the women of the East are guarded. Yet, in his fierce way, he has always tried to befriend me, he has always been faithful. ”

“ They showed no signs of having been touched. The casement curtains were drawn across the recess formed by the French windows, and sunlight streamed in where, silhouetted against the pallid illumination of the moon, he had seen the man in the cowl. Drawing back the curtains, he examined the window fastenings. They were secure. If the window had really been open in the night, he must have left it so himself.
"Well," muttered Stuart—"of all the amazing nightmares!" ”

“ Ah! you are laughing! But I swear before heaven I speak the truth! Indoors he wears a Chinese dress and a green veil. In passing from place to place, which he always does at night, he is attired in a kind of cowl which only exposes his eyes——"
"But how can such a fantastic being travel?"
"By road, on land, and in a steam yacht, at sea. Why should you doubt my honesty?" She suddenly raises her glance to Stuart's face and he saw that she had grown pale. "I have risked what I cannot tell you, and more than once—for you! ”

“ At the garden-door a group of men awaited them. Sergeant Sowerby and two assistants remaining to watch the entrance and the lane, Miska led Stuart and the burly Inspector Kelly along that path beside the wall which Stuart so well remembered.
"Hurry!" she whispered urgently. "We must try to reach him before ..."
"You fear for Chunda Lal?" said Stuart.
"Oh, yes! He has a terrible power—Fo-Hi—which he never employs with me, until to-night. Ah! it is only Chunda Lal, who saved me! But Chunda Lal he can command with his Will. From it, once he has made anyone a slave to it, there is no escape. ”

“ Fo-Hi closed the door.
"On the contrary, he has my orders to take every possible care of him. Those blind, tempestuous passions which merely make a woman more desirable find no place in the trained mind of the scientist. That Dr. Stuart covets my choicest possession in no way detracts from his value to my Council."
Miska had never moved from the doorway by which Stuart had gone out; and now, having listened covertly and heard no outcry, her faith in Chunda Lal was restored. Her wonderful eyes narrowed momentarily, and she spoke with the guile, which seems so naive, of the Oriental woman. ”

“ There was also a perfect human skeleton. Near the centre of the room was a canopied chair, of grotesque Chinese design, upon a dais, a big bronze bell hanging from it; and near to the diwan upon which Stuart was lying stood a large, very finely carved table upon which were some open faded volumes and a litter of scientific implements. Near the table stood a very large bowl of what looked like platinum, upon a tripod, and several volumes lay scattered near it upon the carpet. From a silver incense-burner arose a pencilling of blue smoke. ”

“ This sound was occasioned by the slow and cautious opening of that sunken, heavy door near to which they lay—the door which communicated with the labyrinth of cellars. Inch by inch from the opening protruded the head of Ah-Fang-Fu!
"If the Chinaman offers any resistance," Max went on, speaking very rapidly—"morbleu! you have the means to deal with him! In a word, admit the police. Sh! what is that!"
A moaning voice from one of the bunks came.
"Cheal kegur-men, mas ka dheer!"
"A native adage," whispered Stuart. "He is dreaming. 'There is always meat in a kite's nest.'"
"Eh bien! ”

“ I have useful work for such men. You shall assist in the extensive laboratories of my distinguished predecessor."
"Never!" snapped Stuart.
The man's callousness was so purposeful and deliberate that it awed. He seemed like one who stands above all ordinary human frailties and emotions.
"Your prejudice is natural," rejoined Fo-Hi calmly. "You are ignorant of our sublime motives, but you shall nevertheless assist us to establish that intellectual control which is destined to be the new World Force. ”

“ Ah, but I knew that I had to deal with clever people—with artists in crime—and it behooved me to be an artist also. I had good reason to know that their system of espionage was efficient; and the slipshod way is ever the wrong way.
The unpleasantly sticky letter I returned to my pocket, looking around me for some means of making up any kind of packet which could do duty as a substitute. Beyond a certain draped over a recess at one end of the waiting-room I saw a row of boxes, a box of lint and other medical paraphernalia. It was the doctor's dispensary. Perhaps I might find there an envelope. ”

“ He was aware, then that Charles Malet, cabman, was watching him. But was he aware that Charles Malet was Gaston Max? And did he know where I lived? Also—did he perchance think that my meeting with Dr. Stuart in Limehouse had been prearranged? Clearly he had seen Dr. Stuart enter my cab, for he had pursued us to Battersea.
This course of reflection presently led me to a plan. It was a dangerous plan, but I doubted if I should ever find myself in greater danger than I was already. Nom d'un nom! I had not forgotten the poor Jean Sach! ”