Fu-Manchu threw up both arms, so that the sleeves of the green robe fell back to the elbows.  He clutched at his head, and the black cap fell behind him.  He began to utter short, guttural cries; he swayed backward—­to the right—­to the left then lurched forward right across the cage.  There he lay, writhing, for a moment, his baneful eyes turned up, revealing the whites; and the great gray rats, released, began leaping about the room.  Two shot like gray streaks past the slim figure in the doorway, one darted behind the chair to which I was lashed, and the fourth ran all around against the wall . . .  Fu-Manchu, prostrate across the overturned cage, lay still, his massive head sagging downward.

I experienced a mental repetition of my adventure in the earlier evening—­I was dropping, dropping, dropping into some bottomless pit . . . warm arms were about my neck; and burning kisses upon my lips.

CHAPTER XXX

THE CALL OF THE EAST

I seemed to haul myself back out of the pit of unconsciousness by the aid of two little hands which clasped my own.  I uttered a sigh that was almost a sob, and opened my eyes.

I was sitting in the big red-leathern armchair in my own study . . . and a lovely but truly bizarre figure, in a harem dress, was kneeling on the carpet at my feet; so that my first sight of the world was the sweetest sight that the world had to offer me, the dark eyes of Karamaneh, with tears trembling like jewels upon her lashes!

I looked no further than that, heeded not if there were others in the room beside we two, but, gripping the jewel-laden fingers in what must have been a cruel clasp, I searched the depths of the glorious eyes in ever growing wonder.  What change had taken place in those limpid, mysterious pools?  Why was a wild madness growing up within me like a flame?  Why was the old longing returned, ten-thousandfold, to snatch that pliant, exquisite shape to my breast?

No word was spoken, but the spoken words of a thousand ages could not have expressed one tithe of what was held in that silent communion.  A hand was laid hesitatingly on my shoulder.  I tore my gaze away from the lovely face so near to mine, and glanced up.

Aziz stood at the back of my chair.

“God is all merciful,” he said.  “My sister is restored to us” (I loved him for the plural); “and she remembers.”

Those few words were enough; I understood now that this lovely girl, who half knelt, half lay, at my feet, was not the evil, perverted creature of Fu-Manchu whom we had gone out to arrest with the other vile servants of the Chinese doctor, but was the old, beloved companion of two years ago, the Karamaneh for whom I had sought long and wearily in Egypt, who had been swallowed up and lost to me in that land of mystery.

The loss of memory which Fu-Manchu had artificially induced was subject to the same inexplicable laws which ordinarily rule in cases of amnesia.  The shock of her brave action that night had begun to effect a cure; the sight of Aziz had completed it.