The window from which the girl had looked was nearly on a level with our eyes, and as I raised my head above the woodwork, I quite distinctly saw her go out of the room.  The door, as she opened it, admitted a dull light, against which her figure showed silhouetted for a moment.  Then the door was reclosed.

“We must risk the other windows,” rapped Smith.

Before I had grasped the nature of his plan he was over and had dropped almost noiselessly upon the casks outside.  Again I followed his lead.

“You are not going to attempt anything, singlehanded—­against him?” I asked.

“Petrie—­Eltham is in that house.  He has been brought here to be put to the question, in the medieval, and Chinese, sense!  Is there time to summon assistance?”

I shuddered.  This had been in my mind, certainly, but so expressed it was definitely horrible—­revolting, yet stimulating.

“You have the pistol,” added Smith—­“follow closely, and quietly.”

He walked across the tops of the casks and leaped down, pointing to that nearest to the closed door of the house.  I helped him place it under the open window.  A second we set beside it, and, not without some noise, got a third on top.

Smith mounted.

His jaw muscles were very prominent and his eyes shone like steel; but he was as cool as though he were about to enter a theater and not the den of the most stupendous genius who ever worked for evil.  I would forgive any man who, knowing Dr. Fu-Manchu, feared him; I feared him myself—­feared him as one fears a scorpion; but when Nayland Smith hauled himself up on the wooden ledge above the door and swung thence into the darkened room, I followed and was in close upon his heels.  But I admired him, for he had every ampere of his self-possession in hand; my own case was different.

He spoke close to my ear.

“Is your hand steady?  We may have to shoot.”

I thought of Karamaneh, of lovely dark-eyed Karamaneh whom this wonderful, evil product of secret China had stolen from me—­for so I now adjudged it.

“Rely upon me!” I said grimly.  “I . . .”

The words ceased—­frozen on my tongue.

There are things that one seeks to forget, but it is my lot often to remember the sound which at that moment literally struck me rigid with horror.  Yet it was only a groan; but, merciful God!  I pray that it may never be my lot to listen to such a groan again.

Smith drew a sibilant breath.

“It’s Eltham!” he whispered hoarsely—­“they’re torturing—­”

“No, no!” screamed a woman’s voice—­a voice that thrilled me anew, but with another emotion—­

“Not that, not—­”

I distinctly heard the sound of a blow.  Followed a sort of vague scuffling.  A door somewhere at the back of the house opened—­and shut again.  Some one was coming along the passage toward us!

“Stand back!” Smith’s voice was low, but perfectly steady.  “Leave it to me!”