struck me a straight blow over the heart!
Collapsed on the rubber-covered floor I lay quivering— temporarily stunned. I experienced, now, not so much fear as awe. I was a prisoner of the invisible.
But, looking about at the nameless things which surrounded me, I knew that the invisible must be controlled by an intelligence. If this were not death—I had fallen into a trap.
I rose up again, shaken, but master of myself. Then I sat down on the couch. I felt in the pocket of my overalls—and found my cigarette case! A box of Monaco matches (which rarely light) was there also. I lighted a cigarette. My hands were fairly steady.
Some ghostly image of the truth—a mocking reply to those doubts which I had held hitherto—jazzed spectrally before me. I stared around, looking up at the dull, glassy roof, and at unimaginable instruments and paraphernalia which lent this place the appearance of a Martian factory, devoted to experiments of another age— another planet.
Then I sprang up.
A panel in one of the glass walls slid open. A man came in. The panel closed behind him. He stood, looking in my direction.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DR. FU-MANCHU
H e wore a plain yellow robe and walked in silent, thick-soled slippers. Upon his head was set a little black cap surmounted by a coral bead. His hands concealed in the loose sleeves of his robe, he stood there, watching me.
And I knew that this man had the most wonderful face that I had ever looked upon.
It was aged, yet ageless. I thought that if Benvenuto Cellini had conceived the idea of executing a death-mask of Satan in gold, it must have resembled very closely this living-dead face upon which my gaze was riveted.
He was fully six feet in height and appeared even taller by reason of the thickly padded slippers which he wore. For the little cap (which I recognized from descriptions I had read to be that of a mandarin of high rank) I substituted mentally the astrakhan cap of the traveller glimpsed in the big car on the Corniche road; for the yellow robe, the fur-collared coat.
I knew at the instant that he entered that I had seen him twice before; the second time, at Quinto’s.
One memory provoked another.
Although in the restaurant he had sat with his back towards me, I remembered now, and must have noted it subconsciously at the time, that tortoiseshell loops had surrounded his yellow, pointed ears. He had been wearing spectacles.
Then, as he moved slowly and noiselessly in my direction, I captured the most elusive memory of all—
I had seen this man in a dream—riding a purple cloud which swept down upon a doomed city!
The veil was torn—no possibility of misunderstanding remained. Those brilliant green eyes, fixed upon me in an unflinching regard, conveyed as though upon astral rays a sense of force unlike anything I had known.
This was Dr. Fu-Manchu!
My gothic surroundings, the man’s awesome personality, my attempt to cross the black line surrounding an invisible prison, these things had temporarily put me out of action. But now, as this definite conviction seized upon my mind, my hand plunged to my pocket.
Flesh and blood might fail to pass that mysterious zone; perhaps a bullet would succeed.
The man in the yellow robe now stood no more than ten feet away from me. And as I jerked my hand down, a sort of film passed instantaneously over those green eyes, conveying a momentary— but no more than momentary—impression of blindness. This phenomenon disappeared in the very instant that I came to my senses—in the very instant that I remembered I was wearing strange garments...
How mad of me to look for a charged automatic in the pocket of these white overalls!
I set my foot upon the smouldering cigarette which I had dropped, and with clenched fists faced my jailer; for I could no longer blink the facts of the situation.
“Ah! Mr. Sterling,” he said, and approached me so closely that he stood but a pace beyond the black line. “Your attempt to explore the
Collapsed on the rubber-covered floor I lay quivering— temporarily stunned. I experienced, now, not so much fear as awe. I was a prisoner of the invisible.
But, looking about at the nameless things which surrounded me, I knew that the invisible must be controlled by an intelligence. If this were not death—I had fallen into a trap.
I rose up again, shaken, but master of myself. Then I sat down on the couch. I felt in the pocket of my overalls—and found my cigarette case! A box of Monaco matches (which rarely light) was there also. I lighted a cigarette. My hands were fairly steady.
Some ghostly image of the truth—a mocking reply to those doubts which I had held hitherto—jazzed spectrally before me. I stared around, looking up at the dull, glassy roof, and at unimaginable instruments and paraphernalia which lent this place the appearance of a Martian factory, devoted to experiments of another age— another planet.
Then I sprang up.
A panel in one of the glass walls slid open. A man came in. The panel closed behind him. He stood, looking in my direction.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DR. FU-MANCHU
H e wore a plain yellow robe and walked in silent, thick-soled slippers. Upon his head was set a little black cap surmounted by a coral bead. His hands concealed in the loose sleeves of his robe, he stood there, watching me.
And I knew that this man had the most wonderful face that I had ever looked upon.
It was aged, yet ageless. I thought that if Benvenuto Cellini had conceived the idea of executing a death-mask of Satan in gold, it must have resembled very closely this living-dead face upon which my gaze was riveted.
He was fully six feet in height and appeared even taller by reason of the thickly padded slippers which he wore. For the little cap (which I recognized from descriptions I had read to be that of a mandarin of high rank) I substituted mentally the astrakhan cap of the traveller glimpsed in the big car on the Corniche road; for the yellow robe, the fur-collared coat.
I knew at the instant that he entered that I had seen him twice before; the second time, at Quinto’s.
One memory provoked another.
Although in the restaurant he had sat with his back towards me, I remembered now, and must have noted it subconsciously at the time, that tortoiseshell loops had surrounded his yellow, pointed ears. He had been wearing spectacles.
Then, as he moved slowly and noiselessly in my direction, I captured the most elusive memory of all—
I had seen this man in a dream—riding a purple cloud which swept down upon a doomed city!
The veil was torn—no possibility of misunderstanding remained. Those brilliant green eyes, fixed upon me in an unflinching regard, conveyed as though upon astral rays a sense of force unlike anything I had known.
This was Dr. Fu-Manchu!
My gothic surroundings, the man’s awesome personality, my attempt to cross the black line surrounding an invisible prison, these things had temporarily put me out of action. But now, as this definite conviction seized upon my mind, my hand plunged to my pocket.
Flesh and blood might fail to pass that mysterious zone; perhaps a bullet would succeed.
The man in the yellow robe now stood no more than ten feet away from me. And as I jerked my hand down, a sort of film passed instantaneously over those green eyes, conveying a momentary— but no more than momentary—impression of blindness. This phenomenon disappeared in the very instant that I came to my senses—in the very instant that I remembered I was wearing strange garments...
How mad of me to look for a charged automatic in the pocket of these white overalls!
I set my foot upon the smouldering cigarette which I had dropped, and with clenched fists faced my jailer; for I could no longer blink the facts of the situation.
“Ah! Mr. Sterling,” he said, and approached me so closely that he stood but a pace beyond the black line. “Your attempt to explore the
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