He turned laboriously to Zarmi. She clapped her
hands and held the curtain aside. A perfectly
immobile Chinaman, whose age I was unable to guess,
and who wore a white overall, entered, bowed composedly
to Frazer and myself and began in a matter-of-fact
way to prepare the dressings.
QUEEN OF HEARTS
“Sir Baldwin Frazer,” said Fu-Manchu,
interrupting a wild outburst from the former, “your
refusal is dictated by insufficient knowledge of your
surroundings. You find yourself in a place strange
to you, a place to which no clue can lead your friends;
in the absolute power of a man—myself—who
knows no law other than his own and that of those
associated with him. Virtually, Sir Baldwin, you
stand in China; and in China we know how to exact
obedience. You will not refuse, for Dr. Petrie
will tell you something of my wire-jackets
and my files....”
I saw Sir Baldwin Frazer blanch. He could not
know what I knew of the significance of those words—“my
wire-jackets, my files”—but perhaps
something of my own horror communicated itself to him.
“You will not refuse” continued
Fu-Manchu softly; “my only fear for you is that
the operation my prove unsuccessful! In that event
not even my own great clemency could save you, for
by virtue of your failure I should be powerless to
intervene.” He paused for some moments,
staring directly at the surgeon. “There
are those within sound of my voice,” he added
sibilantly, “who would flay you alive in the
lamentable event of your failure, who would cast your
flayed body”—he paused, waving one
quivering fist above his head, “to the rats—to
the rats!”
Sir Baldwin’s forehead was bathed in perspiration
now. It was an incredible and a gruesome situation,
a nightmare become reality. But, whatever my
own case, I could see that Sir Baldwin Frazer was
convinced, I could see that his consent would no longer
be withheld.
“You, my dear friend,” said Fu-Manchu,
turning to me and resuming his studied and painful
composure of manner, “will also consent....”
Within my heart of hearts I could not doubt him; I
knew that my courage was not of a quality high enough
to sustain the frightful ordeals summoned up before
my imagination by those words—“my
files, my wire-jackets!”
“In the event, however, of any little obstinancy,”
he added, “another will plead with you.”
A chill like that of death descended upon me—as,
for the second time, Zarmi clapped her hands, pulled
the curtain aside ... and Karamaneh was thrust into
the room!
* * *
* * * *
There comes a blank in my recollections. Long
after Karamaneh had been plucked out again by the
two muscular brown hands which clutched her shoulders
from the darkness beyond the doorway, I seemed to see
her standing there, in her close-fitting traveling
dress. Her hair was unbound, disheveled, her
lovely face pale to the lips—and her eyes,
her glorious, terror-bright eyes, looked fully into
mine....
