CHAPTER IV

THE FLOWER OF SILENCE


"We are dealing now," said Nayland Smith, pacing restlessly up and
down our sitting-room, "not, as of old, with Dr. Fu-Manchu, but with
an entirely unknown quantity--the Si-Fan."

"For Heaven's sake!" I cried, "what is the Si-Fan?"

"The greatest mystery of the mysterious East, Petrie. Think. You know,
as I know, that a malignant being, Dr. Fu-Manchu, was for some time
in England, engaged in 'paving the way' (I believe those words were
my own) for nothing less than a giant Yellow Empire. That dream is
what millions of Europeans and Americans term 'the Yellow Peril! Very
good. Such an empire needs must have----"

"An emperor!"

Nayland Smith stopped his restless pacing immediately in front of me.

"Why not an _empress_, Petrie!" he rapped.

His words were something of a verbal thunderbolt; I found myself at
loss for any suitable reply.

"You will perhaps remind me," he continued rapidly, "of the lowly place