Weymouth started to his feet with some muttered exclamation.

“What is this?” he cried.  “When did it happen, and how?”

In his own terse fashion, Nayland Smith related the happenings of the night.  At the conclusion of the story: 

“By heaven!” whispered Weymouth, “the thing on the roof—­the coughing thing that goes on all fours, seen by Burke . . .”

“My own idea exactly!” cried Smith . . .

“Fu-Manchu,” I said excitedly, “has brought some new, some dreadful creature, from Burma . . .”

“No, Petrie,” snapped Smith, turning upon me suddenly.  “Not from Burma—­from Abyssinia.”

That day was destined to be an eventful one; a day never to be forgotten by any of us concerned in those happenings which I have to record.  Early in the morning Nayland Smith set off for the British Museum to pursue his mysterious investigations, and having performed my brief professional round (for, as Nayland Smith had remarked on one occasion, this was a beastly healthy district), I found, having made the necessary arrangements, that, with over three hours to spare, I had nothing to occupy my time until the appointment in Covent Garden Market.  My lonely lunch completed, a restless fit seized me, and I felt unable to remain longer in the house.  Inspired by this restlessness, I attired myself for the adventure of the evening, not neglecting to place a pistol in my pocket, and, walking to the neighboring Tube station, I booked to Charing Cross, and presently found myself rambling aimlessly along the crowded streets.  Led on by what link of memory I know not, I presently drifted into New Oxford Street, and looked up with a start—­to learn that I stood before the shop of a second-hand book-seller where once two years before I had met Karamaneh.

The thoughts conjured up at that moment were almost too bitter to be borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for sale, I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and, rather in order to distract my mind than because I contemplated any purchase, began to examine the Oriental Pottery, Egyptian statuettes, Indian armor, and other curios, displayed in the window of an antique dealer.

But, strive as I would to concentrate my mind upon the objects in the window, my memories persistently haunted me, and haunted me to the exclusion even of the actualities.  The crowds thronging the Pavement, the traffic in New Oxford Street, swept past unheeded; my eyes saw nothing of pot nor statuette, but only met, in a misty imaginative world, the glance of two other eyes—­the dark and beautiful eyes of Karamaneh.  In the exquisite tinting of a Chinese vase dimly perceptible in the background of the shop, I perceived only the blushing cheeks of Karamaneh; her face rose up, a taunting phantom, from out of the darkness between a hideous, gilded idol and an Indian sandalwood screen.

I strove to dispel this obsessing thought, resolutely fixing my attention upon a tall Etruscan vase in the corner of the window, near to the shop door.  Was I losing my senses indeed?  A doubt of my own sanity momentarily possessed me.  For, struggle as I would to dispel the illusion—­there, looking out at me over that ancient piece of pottery, was the bewitching face of the slave-girl!