The great gleaming knife was so near to my neck that a sheet of notepaper could scarcely have been slipped between blade and vein, I think; but my heart throbbed even more wildly when I heard those words.
"An impasse," said Fu-Manchu. "I have a proposal to make. I assume that you would not accept my word for anything?"
"I would not," replied Smith promptly.
"Therefore," pursued the Chinaman, and the occasional guttural alone marred his perfect English, "I must accept yours. Of your resources outside this cabin I know nothing. You, I take it, know as little of mine. My Burmese friend and Doctor Petrie will lead the way, then; you and I will follow. We will strike out across the marsh for, say, three hundred yards. You will then place your pistol on the ground, pledging me your word to leave it there. I shall further require your assurance that you will make no attempt upon me until I have retraced my steps. I and my good servant will withdraw, leaving you, at the expiration of the specified period, to act as you see fit. Is it agreed?"
Smith hesitated. Then:
"The dacoit must leave his knife also," he stipulated. Fu-Manchu smiled his evil smile again.
"Agreed. Shall I lead the way?"
"No!" rapped Smith. "Petrie and the dacoit first; then you; I last."
A guttural word of command from Fu-Manchu, and we left the cabin, with its evil odors, its mortuary specimens, and its strange instruments, and in the order arranged mounted to the deck.
"It will be awkward on the ladder," said Fu-Manchu. "Dr. Petrie, I will accept your word to adhere to the terms."
"I promise," I said, the words almost choking me.
We mounted the rising and dipping ladder, all reached the pier, and strode out across the flats, the Chinaman always under close cover of Smith's revolver. Round about our feet, now leaping ahead, now gamboling back, came and went the marmoset. The dacoit, dressed solely in a dark loin-cloth, walked beside me, carrying his huge knife, and sometimes glancing at me with his blood-lustful eyes. Never before, I venture to say, had an autumn moon lighted such a scene in that place.
"Here we part," said Fu-Manchu, and spoke another word to his follower.
The man threw his knife upon the ground.
"Search him, Petrie," directed Smith. "He may have a second concealed."
The Doctor consented; and I passed my hands over the man's scanty garments.
"Now search Fu-Manchu."
This also I did. And never have I experienced a similar sense of revulsion from any human being. I shuddered, as though I had touched a venomous reptile.
Smith threw down his revolver.
"I curse myself for an honorable fool," he said. "No one could dispute my right to shoot you dead where you stand."
Knowing him as I did, I could tell from the suppressed passion in Smith's voice that only by his unhesitating acceptance of my friend's word, and implicit faith in his keeping it, had Dr. Fu-Manchu escaped just retribution at that moment. Fiend though he was, I admired his courage; for all this he, too, must have known.
The Doctor turned, and with the dacoit walked back. Nayland Smith's next move filled me with surprise. For just as, silently, I was thanking God for my escape, my friend began shedding his coat, collar, and waistcoat.
"Pocket your valuables, and do the same," he muttered hoarsely. "We have a poor chance but we are both fairly fit. To-night, Petrie, we literally have to run for our lives."
We live in a peaceful age, wherein it falls to the lot of few men to owe their survival to their fleetness of foot. At Smith's words I realized in a flash that such was to be our fate to-night.
I have said that the hulk lay off a sort of promontory. East and west, then, we had nothing to hope for. To the south was Fu-Manchu; and even as, stripped of our heavier garments, we started to run northward, the weird signal of a dacoit rose on the night and was answered — was answered again.
"Three, at least," hissed Smith; "three armed dacoits. Hopeless."
"Take the revolver," I cried. "Smith, it's — "
"No," he rapped, through clenched teeth. "A servant of the Crown in the East makes his motto: 'Keep your word, though it break your neck!' I don't think we need fear it being used against us. Fu-Manchu avoids noisy methods."
So back we ran, over the course by which, earlier, we had come. It was, roughly, a mile to the first building — a deserted cottage — and another quarter of a mile to any that was occupied.
Our chance of meeting a living soul, other than Fu-Manchu's dacoits, was practically nil.
At first we ran easily, for it was the second half-mile that would decide our fate. The professional murderers who pursued us ran like panthers, I knew; and I dare not allow my mind to dwell upon those yellow figures with the curved, gleaming knives. For a long time neither of us looked back.
On we ran, and on — silently, doggedly.
Then a hissing breath from Smith warned me what to expect.
Should I, too, look back? Yes. It was impossible to resist the horrid fascination.
I threw a quick glance over my shoulder.
And never while I live shall I forget what I saw. Two of the pursuing dacoits had outdistanced their fellow (or fellows), and were actually within three hundred yards of us.
More like dreadful animals they looked than human beings, running bent forward, with their faces curiously uptilted. The brilliant moonlight gleamed upon bared teeth, as I could see, even at that distance, even in that quick, agonized glance, and it gleamed upon the crescent-shaped knives.
"As hard as you can go now," panted Smith. "We must make an attempt to break into the empty cottage. Only chance."
I had never in my younger days been a notable runner; for Smith I cannot speak. But I am confident that the next half-mile was done in time that would not have disgraced a crack man. Not once again did either of us look back. Yard upon yard we raced forward together. My heart seemed to be bursting. My leg muscles throbbed with pain. At last, with the empty cottage in sight, it came to that pass with me when another three yards looks as unattainable as three miles. Once I stumbled.
"My God!" came from Smith weakly.
But I recovered myself. Bare feet pattered close upon our heels, and panting breaths told how even Fu-Manchu's bloodhounds were hard put to it by the killing pace we had made.
"Smith," I whispered, "look in front. Someone!"
As through a red mist I had seen a dark shape detach itself from the shadows of the cottage, and merge into them again. It could only be another dacoit; but Smith, not heeding, or not hearing, my faintly whispered words, crashed open the gate and hurled himself blindly at the door.
It burst open before him with a resounding boom, and he pitched forward into the interior darkness. Flat upon the floor he lay, for as, with a last effort, I gained the threshold and dragged myself within, I almost fell over his recumbent body.
Madly I snatched at the door. His foot held it open. I kicked the foot away, and banged the door to. As I turned, the leading dacoit, his eyes starting from their sockets, his face the face of a demon leaped wildly through the gateway.
That Smith had burst the latch I felt assured, but by some divine accident my weak hands found the bolt. With the last ounce of strength spared to me I thrust it home in the rusty socket — as a full six inches of shining steel split the middle panel and protruded above my head.
I dropped, sprawling, beside my friend.
A terrific blow shattered every pane of glass in the