where I had thought no aid possible.

How I contrived to divert the blade, I do not know to this day; but I
do know that its mighty sweep sheared a lock from Smith's head and
laid bare the scalp. With the hilt in my quivering hands I saw the
blade bite deeply through the carpet and floor above Nayland Smith's
skull. There, buried fully two inches in the woodwork, it stuck, and
still clutching the hilt, I looked to the right and across the room--I
looked to the curtained doorway.

Fu-Manchu, with one long, claw-like hand upon the top of the First
Gate, was bending over the trap, but his brilliant green eyes were
turned in the same direction as my own--upon the curtained doorway.

Upright within it, her beautiful face as pale as death, but her great
eyes blazing with a sort of splendid madness, stood Karamaneh!

She looked, not at the tortured man, not at me, but fully at Dr.
Fu-Manchu. One hand clutched the trembling draperies; now she suddenly
raised the other, so that the jewels on her white arm glittered in the
light of the lamp above the door. She held my Browning pistol!
Fu-Manchu sprang upright, inhaling sibilantly, as Karamaneh pointed
the pistol point blank at his high skull and fired. . . .

I saw a little red streak appear, up by the neutral colored hair,
under the black cap. I became as a detached intelligence, unlinked
with the corporeal, looking down upon a thing which for some reason I
had never thought to witness.

Fu-Manchu threw up both arms, so that the sleeves of the green robe