But had I not seen with my own eyes the bloody streak across his forehead as the shot fired by Kâramanèh entered his high skull, had I not known, so certainly as it is given to men to know, that the giant intellect was no more, the mighty will impotent, I should have replied:
My reflections were rudely terminated and my sinister thoughts given new stimulus, by a loud though muffled cry which reached me from somewhere in the ship below. Both my companions started as violently as I, whereby I knew that the mystery of the wireless message had not been without its effect upon their minds also. But whereas they paused in doubt, I leapt from the room and almost threw myself down the ladder.
It was Kâramanèh who had uttered that cry of fear and horror!
Although I could perceive no connection betwixt the strange message and the cry in the night, intuitively I linked them, intuitively I knew that my fears had been well grounded; that the shadow of Fu Manchu still lay upon us.
Kâramanèh occupied a large stateroom aft on the main deck; so that I had to descend from the upper deck on which my own room was situated to the promenade deck, again to the main deck, and thence proceed nearly the whole length of the alleyway.
Kâramanèh and her brother, Azîz, who occupied a neighbouring room, met me, near the library. Kâramanèh's eyes were wide with fear; her peerless colouring had fled, and she was white to the lips. Azîz, who wore a dressing-gown thrown hastily over his night attire, had his arm protectively about the girl's shoulders.
"The mummy!" she whispered tremulously, "the mummy!"
There came a sound of opening doors, and several passengers, whom Kâramanèh's cries had alarmed, appeared in various stages of undress. A stewardess came running from the far end of the alleyway, and I found time to wonder at my own speed; for, starting from the distant Marconi deck, yet I had been the first to arrive upon the scene.
Stacey, the ship's doctor, was quartered at no great distance from the spot, and he now joined the group. Anticipating the question which trembled upon the lips of several of those about me--
"Come to Dr. Stacey's room," I said, taking Kâramanèh's arm; "we will give you something to enable you to sleep." I turned to the group. "My patient has had severe nerve trouble," I explained, "and has developed somnambulistic tendencies."