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A slight movement must have dispatched me; a sweep of the fearful weapon, I doubt not, would have severed my head from my body. "Smith!" I whispered hoarsely, "don't look around. For God's sake keep him covered. But a dacoit has his knife at my throat!" Then, for the first time, Smith's hand trembled. But his glance never wavered from the malignant, emotionless countenance of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
Gungapur, whose history became an epitome of that of certain other isolated cities, was for a few short weeks an intermittently besieged garrison, a mark for wandering predatory bands composed of budmashes outlaws, escaped convicts, deserters, and huge mobs drawn from that enormous body of men who live on the margin of respectability, peaceful cultivator today, bloodthirsty dacoit to-morrow, wielders of the spade and mattock or of the lathi and tulwar according to season, circumstance, and the power of the Government; recruits for a mighty army, given the leader and the opportunity the hour of a Government's danger.
After some few minutes, the ladies, who were inclined to oppose him, yielded to the tearful advice of their more timid sisters, and one by one they began to unclasp necklaces and belts and hand them over to the dacoit together with bracelets, bangles and rings. The ruffian, finding them docile, did not hustle them in any way but stood leisurely receiving the spoil.
The watchers distinctly saw three or four fall, but these were swiftly dragged among the trees by their comrades, and for a moment not a single dacoit was to be seen. Then, just inside the shelter of the trees, five figures were observed very busy placing a new jingal in position. At a glance the besieged saw that the gun was much larger than the first, and would throw a heavier ball.
Before my horrified gaze, four huge rats came tumbling out from the bag into the cage! The dacoit snatched away the sack and snapped the shutter fast. A moving mist obscured my sight, a mist through which I saw the green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu fixed upon me, and through which, as from a great distance, his voice, sunk to a snakelike hiss, came to my ears. "Cantonese rats, Dr.
"I parted but now, on the river, from a fellow boatman who of late has lain in prison at Hugli, put there, they say, by order of Sinfray Sahib. He is not a dacoit; no man less so; but false witnesses rose up against him. And, I bethink me, he said that the sahib's khansaman was one of these men with lying lips.
A Punjabee Dacoit In a railway train several Punjabee ladies sat on the lower berths of a second class compartment, laughing and talking gaily. They were, with one exception, all richly dressed and each of them wore a quantity of jewels. The exception was a capable, good-looking woman, of about twenty-five.
I was filled with the joy of dedication and unquestioning surrender. It gave me visions like opium dreams. Both kinds of opium I have taken freely, while walking in my sleep. I was ready for taking life; any desperate deed. Instead Tcha! I have to take money, like a common dacoit, because police must be bribed, soldiers tempted, meetings multiplied...."
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.
He got upon his feet. "He has a dacoit with him," he replied, and showed me the long curved knife which he held in his hand, a full inch of the blade bloodstained. "A near thing for me, Petrie." I heard the whir of a restarted motor. "We have lost him," said Smith. "But we have saved Lord Southery," I said. "Fu-Manchu will credit us with a skill as great as his own."
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