I became fully master of my senses, and I became fully alive to a stupendous fact.  At last it was ended; we were utterly in the power of Dr. Fu-Manchu; our race was run.

I sat in a low vaulted room.  The roof was of ancient brickwork, but the walls were draped with exquisite Chinese fabric having a green ground whereon was a design representing a grotesque procession of white peacocks.  A green carpet covered the floor, and the whole of the furniture was of the same material as the chair to which I was strapped, viz:—­ebony inlaid with ivory.  This furniture was scanty.  There was a heavy table in one corner of the dungeonesque place, on which were a number of books and papers.  Before this table was a high-backed, heavily carven chair.  A smaller table stood upon the right of the only visible opening, a low door partially draped with bead work curtains, above which hung a silver lamp.  On this smaller table, a stick of incense, in a silver holder, sent up a pencil of vapor into the air, and the chamber was loaded with the sickly sweet fumes.  A faint haze from the incense-stick hovered up under the roof.

In the high-backed chair sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a green robe upon which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first glance was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a huge white peacock.  He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of his amazing skull, and with one clawish hand resting upon the ebony of the table, he sat slightly turned toward me, his emotionless face a mask of incredible evil.  In spite of, or because of, the high intellect written upon it, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu was more utterly repellent than any I have ever known, and the green eyes, eyes green as those of a cat in the darkness, which sometimes burned like witch lamps, and sometimes were horribly filmed like nothing human or imaginable, might have mirrored not a soul, but an emanation of hell, incarnate in this gaunt, high-shouldered body.

Stretched flat upon the floor lay Nayland Smith, partially stripped, his arms thrown back over his head and his wrists chained to a stout iron staple attached to the wall; he was fully conscious and staring intently at the Chinese doctor.  His bare ankles also were manacled, and fixed to a second chain, which quivered tautly across the green carpet and passed out through the doorway, being attached to something beyond the curtain, and invisible to me from where I sat.

Fu-Manchu was now silent.  I could hear Smith’s heavy breathing and hear my watch ticking in my pocket.  I suddenly realized that although my body was lashed to the ebony chair, my hands and arms were free.  Next, looking dazedly about me, my attention was drawn to a heavy sword which stood hilt upward against the wall within reach of my hand.  It was a magnificent piece, of Japanese workmanship; a long, curved Damascened blade having a double-handed hilt of steel, inlaid with gold, and resembling fine Kuft work.  A host of possibilities swept through my mind.  Then I perceived that the sword was attached to the wall by a thin steel chain some five feet in length.