A COOL breeze met us, blowing from the lower reaches of the Thames. Far behind us
twinkled the dim lights of Low's Cottages, the last regular habitations abutting upon the
marshes. Between us and the cottages stretched half-a-mile of lush land through which at
this season there were, however, numerous dry paths. Before us the flats again, a dull,
monotonous expanse beneath the moon, with the promise of the cool breeze that the river
flowed round the bend ahead. It was very quiet. Only the sound of our footsteps, as
Nayland Smith and I tramped steadily towards our goal, broke the stillness of that lonely
place.
Not once but many times, within the last twenty minutes, I had thought that we were ill-
advised to adventure alone upon the capture of the formidable Chinese doctor; but we
were following out our compact with Karamaneh; and one of her stipulations had been
that the police must not be acquainted with her share in the matter.
A light came into view far ahead of us.
"That's the light, Petrie," said Smith. "If we keep that straight before us, according to our
information we shall strike the hulk."
I grasped the revolver in my pocket, and the presence of the little weapon was curiously
reassuring. I have endeavored, perhaps in extenuation of my own fears, to explain how
about Dr. Fu-Manchu there rested an atmosphere of horror, peculiar, unique. He was not
as other men. The dread that he inspired in all with whom he came in contact, the terrors
which he controlled and hurled at whomsoever cumbered his path, rendered him an
object supremely sinister. I despair of conveying to those who may read this account any
but the coldest conception of the man's evil power.
Smith stopped suddenly and grasped my arm. We stood listening. "What?" I asked.
Smith was peering back over the marshes in his oddly alert way. He turned to me, and his
tanned face wore a peculiar expression.
"You don't think it's a trap?" he jerked. "We are trusting her blindly."
Strange it may seem, but something within me rose in arms against the innuendo.
"I don't," I said shortly.
He nodded. We pressed on.
