“Merciful God!” I cried.

Of all the pictures which remain in my memory, some of them dark enough, I can find none more horrible than that which now confronted me in the dim candle-light.  Burke lay crosswise on the bed, his head thrown back and sagging; one rigid hand he held in the air, and with the other grasped the hairy forearm which I had severed with the ax; for, in a death-grip, the dead fingers were still fastened, vise-like, at his throat.

His face was nearly black, and his eyes projected from their sockets horribly.  Mastering my repugnance, I seized the hideous piece of bleeding anatomy and strove to release it.  It defied all my efforts; in death it was as implacable as in life.  I took a knife from my pocket, and, tendon by tendon, cut away that uncanny grip from Burke’s throat . . .

But my labor was in vain.  Burke was dead!

I think I failed to realize this for some time.  My clothes were sticking clammily to my body; I was bathed in perspiration, and, shaking furiously, I clutched at the edge of the window, avoiding the bloody patch upon the ledge, and looked out over the roofs to where, in the more distant plantations, I could hear excited voices.  What had been the meaning of that scream which I had heard but to which in my frantic state of mind I had paid comparatively little attention?

There was a great stirring all about me.

“Smith!” I cried from the window; “Smith, for mercy’s sake where are you?”

Footsteps came racing up the stairs.  Behind me the door burst open and Nayland Smith stumbled into the room.

“God!” he said, and started back in the doorway.

“Have you got it, Smith?” I demanded hoarsely.  “In sanity’s name what is it—­what is it?”

“Come downstairs,” replied Smith quietly, “and see for yourself.”  He turned his head aside from the bed.

Very unsteadily I followed him down the stairs and through the rambling old house out into the stone-paved courtyard.  There were figures moving at the end of a long alleyway between the glass houses, and one, carrying a lantern, stooped over something which lay upon the ground.

“That’s Burke’s cousin with the lantern,” whispered Smith in my ear; “don’t tell him yet.”

I nodded, and we hurried up to join the group.  I found myself looking down at one of those thick-set Burmans whom I always associated with Fu-Manchu’s activities.  He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back of his head was a shapeless blood-dotted mass, and a heavy stock-whip, the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it, lay beside him.  I started back appalled as Smith caught my arm.

“It turned on its keeper!” he hissed in my ear.  “I wounded it twice from below, and you severed one arm; in its insensate fury, its unreasoning malignity, it returned—­and there lies its second victim . . .”

“Then . . .”