I WAS being carried along a dimly lighted, tunnel-like place, slung1, sackwise, across the shoulder of a Burman. He was not a big man, but he supported my considerable weight with apparent ease. A deadly nausea2 held me, but the rough handling had served to restore me to consciousness. My hands and feet were closely lashed3. I hung limply as a wet towel: I felt that this spark of tortured life which had flickered4 up in me must ere long finally become extinguished.
A fancy possessed5 me, in these the first moments of my restoration to the world of realities, that I had been smuggled6 into China; and as I swung head downward I told myself that the huge, puffy things which strewed7 the path were a species of giant toadstool, unfamiliar8 to me and possibly peculiar9 to whatever district of China I now was in.
The air was hot, steamy, and loaded with a smell as of rotting vegetation. I wondered why my bearer so scrupulously10 avoided touching11 any of the unwholesome-looking growths in passing through what seemed a succession of cellars, but steered12 a tortuous13 course among the bloated, unnatural14 shapes, lifting his bare brown feet with a catlike delicacy15.
He passed under a low arch, dropped me roughly to the ground and ran back. Half stunned16, I lay watching the agile17 brown body melt into the distances of the cellars. Their walls and roof seemed to emit a faint, phosphorescent light.
"Petrie!" came a weak voice from somewhere ahead.… "Is that you, Petrie?"
It was Nayland Smith!
"Smith!" I said, and strove to sit up. But the intense nausea overcame me, so that I all but swooned.
I heard his voice again, but could attach no meaning to the words which he uttered. A sound of terrific blows reached my ears, too. The Burman reappeared, bending under the heavy load which he bore. For, as he picked his way through the bloated things which grew upon the floors of the cellars, I realized that he was carrying the inert18 body of Inspector19 Weymouth. And I found time to compare the strength of the little brown man with that of a Nile beetle20, which can raise many times its own weight. Then, behind him, appeared a second figure, which immediately claimed the whole of my errant attention.
It was indeed none other than Fu-Manchu—the Fu-Manchu whom we had thought to be helpless. The deeps of the Chinaman's cunning—the fine quality of his courage, were forced upon me as amazing facts.
He had assumed the appearance of a drugged opium23-smoker so well as to dupe me—a medical man; so well as to dupe Karamaneh—whose experience of the noxious24 habit probably was greater than my own. And, with the gallows25 dangling26 before him, he had waited—played the part of a lure—whilst a body of police actually surrounded the place!
I have since thought that the room probably was one which he actually used for opium debauches, and the device of the trap was intended to protect him during the comatose27 period.
Now, holding a lantern above his head, the deviser of the trap whereinto we, mouselike, had blindly entered, came through the cellars, following the brown man who carried Weymouth. The faint rays of the lantern (it apparently28 contained a candle) revealed a veritable forest of the gigantic fungi29—poisonously colored—hideously swollen—climbing from the floor up the slimy walls—climbing like horrid30 parasites31 to such part of the arched roof as was visible to me.
Fu-Manchu picked his way through the fungi ranks as daintily as though the distorted, tumid things had been viper-headed.
The resounding32 blows which I had noted33 before, and which had never ceased, culminated34 in a splintering crash. Dr. Fu-Manchu and his servant, who carried the apparently insensible detective, passed in under the arch, Fu-Manchu glancing back once along the passages. The lantern he extinguished, or concealed; and whilst I waited, my mind dully surveying memories of all the threats which this uncanny being had uttered, a distant clamor came to my ears.
Then, abruptly35, it ceased. Dr. Fu-Manchu had closed a heavy door; and to my surprise I perceived that the greater part of it was of glass. The will-o'-the-wisp glow which played around the fungi rendered the vista36 of the cellars faintly luminous37, and visible to me from where I lay. Fu-Manchu spoke38 softly. His voice, its guttural note alternating with a sibilance on certain words, betrayed no traces of agitation39. The man's unbroken calm had in it something inhuman40. For he had just perpetrated an act of daring unparalleled in my experience, and, in the clamor now shut out by the glass door I tardily41 recognized the entrance of the police into some barricaded42 part of the house—the coming of those who would save us—who would hold the Chinese doctor for the hangman!
"I have decided," he said deliberately43, "that you are more worthy44 of my attention than I had formerly45 supposed. A man who can solve the secret of the Golden Elixir46 (I had not solved it; I had merely stolen some) should be a valuable acquisition to my Council. The extent of the plans of Mr. Commissioner47 Nayland Smith and of the English Scotland Yard it is incumbent48 upon me to learn. Therefore, gentlemen, you live—for the present!"
"And you'll swing," came Weymouth's hoarse49 voice, "in the near future! You and all your yellow gang!"
"I trust not," was the placid50 reply. "Most of my people are safe: some are shipped as lascars upon the liners; others have departed by different means. Ah!"
That last word was the only one indicative of excitement which had yet escaped him. A disk of light danced among the brilliant poison hues51 of the passages—but no sound reached us; by which I knew that the glass door must fit almost hermetically. It was much cooler here than in the place through which we had passed, and the nausea began to leave me, my brain to grow more clear. Had I known what was to follow I should have cursed the lucidity52 of mind which now came to me; I should have prayed for oblivion—to be spared the sight of that which ensued.
"It's Logan!" cried Inspector Weymouth; and I could tell that he was struggling to free himself of his bonds. From his voice it was evident that he, too, was recovering from the effects of the narcotic53 which had been administered to us all.
"Logan!" he cried. "Logan! This way—HELP!"
But the cry beat back upon us in that enclosed space and seemed to carry no farther than the invisible walls of our prison.
"The door fits well," came Fu-Manchu's mocking voice. "It is fortunate for us all that it is so. This is my observation window, Dr. Petrie, and you are about to enjoy an unique opportunity of studying fungology. I have already drawn54 your attention to the anaesthetic properties of the lycoperdon, or common puff-ball. You may have recognized the fumes55? The chamber56 into which you rashly precipitated57 yourselves was charged with them. By a process of my own I have greatly enhanced the value of the puff-ball in this respect. Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, proved the most obstinate58 subject; but he succumbed59 in fifteen seconds."
"Logan! Help! HELP! This way, man!"
Something very like fear sounded in Weymouth's voice now. Indeed, the situation was so uncanny that it almost seemed unreal. A group of men had entered the farthermost cellars, led by one who bore an electric pocket-lamp. The hard, white ray danced from bloated gray fungi to others of nightmare shape, of dazzling, venomous brilliance60. The mocking, lecture-room voice continued:
"Note the snowy growth upon the roof, Doctor. Do not be deceived by its size. It is a giant variety of my own culture and is of the order empusa. You, in England, are familiar with the death of the common house-fly—which is found attached to the window-pane by a coating of white mold. I have developed the spores61 of this mold and have produced a giant species. Observe the interesting effect of the strong light upon my orange and blue amanita fungus62!"
Hard beside me I heard Nayland Smith groan63, Weymouth had become suddenly silent. For my own part, I could have shrieked64 in pure horror. FOR I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. I realized in one agonized65 instant the significance of the dim lantern, of the careful progress through the subterranean66 fungi grove67, of the care with which Fu-Manchu and his servant had avoided touching any of the growths. I knew, now, that Dr. Fu-Manchu was the greatest fungologist the world had ever known; was a poisoner to whom the Borgias were as children—and I knew that the detectives blindly were walking into a valley of death.
Then it began—the unnatural scene—the saturnalia of murder.
Like so many bombs the brilliantly colored caps of the huge toadstool-like things alluded68 to by the Chinaman exploded, as the white ray sought them out in the darkness which alone preserved their existence. A brownish cloud—I could not determine whether liquid or powdery—arose in the cellar.
I tried to close my eyes—or to turn them away from the reeling forms of the men who were trapped in that poison-hole. It was useless:
I must look.
The bearer of the lamp had dropped it, but the dim, eerily69 illuminated70 gloom endured scarce a second. A bright light sprang up—doubtless at the touch of the fiendish being who now resumed speech:
"Observe the symptoms of delirium71, Doctor!" Out there, beyond the glass door, the unhappy victims were laughing—tearing their garments from their bodies—leaping—waving their arms—were become MANIACS72!
"We will now release the ripe spores of giant entpusa," continued the wicked voice. "The air of the second cellar being super-charged with oxygen, they immediately germinate73. Ah! it is a triumph! That process is the scientific triumph of my life!"
Like powdered snow the white spores fell from the roof, frosting the writhing74 shapes of the already poisoned men. Before my horrified75 gaze, THE FUNGUS GREW; it spread from the head to the feet of those it touched; it enveloped76 them as in glittering shrouds77.…
"They die like flies!" screamed Fu-Manchu, with a sudden febrile excitement; and I felt assured of something I had long suspected: that that magnificent, perverted78 brain was the brain of a homicidal maniac—though Smith would never accept the theory.
"It is my fly-trap!" shrieked the Chinaman. "And I am the god of destruction!"
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1
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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3
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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7
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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8
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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10
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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12
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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13
tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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14
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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15
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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16
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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17
agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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18
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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20
beetle
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| n.甲虫，近视眼的人 | |
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21
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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22
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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23
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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24
noxious
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| adj.有害的，有毒的；使道德败坏的，讨厌的 | |
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gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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26
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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27
comatose
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| adj.昏睡的，昏迷不醒的 | |
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28
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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29
fungi
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| n.真菌，霉菌 | |
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30
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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31
parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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32
resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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37
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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38
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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39
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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40
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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41
tardily
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| adv.缓慢 | |
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42
barricaded
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| 设路障于，以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 )； 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守 | |
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43
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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44
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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45
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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46
elixir
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| n.长生不老药，万能药 | |
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47
commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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48
incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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49
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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50
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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51
hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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52
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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53
narcotic
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| n.麻醉药，镇静剂；adj.麻醉的，催眠的 | |
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54
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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55
fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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56
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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57
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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58
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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59
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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60
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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61
spores
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| n.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的名词复数 )v.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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62
fungus
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| n.真菌，真菌类植物 | |
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63
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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64
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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66
subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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67
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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68
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
eerily
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| adv.引起神秘感或害怕地 | |
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70
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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71
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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72
maniacs
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| n.疯子（maniac的复数形式） | |
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73
germinate
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| v.发芽；发生；发展 | |
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74
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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75
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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76
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77
shrouds
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| n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 )；寿衣；遮蔽物；覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 )；保密 | |
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78
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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