“Send for Mr. Nayland Smith without delay!” she said, and her sweet voice was slightly tremulous.  “He must be put on his guard!”

I started up.

“Why?” I said.  “For God’s sake tell us what has happened!”

Aziz who evidently was as anxious as myself for information, and who now knelt at his sister’s feet looking at her with that strange love, which was almost adoration, in his eyes, glanced back at me and nodded his head rapidly.

“Something”—­Karamaneh paused, shuddering violently—­“some dreadful thing, like a mummy escaped from its tomb, came into my room to-night through the porthole . . .”

“Through the porthole?” echoed Stacey, amazedly.

“Yes, yes, through the porthole!  A creature tall and very, very thin.  He wore wrappings—­yellow wrappings—­swathed about his head, so that only his eyes, his evil gleaming eyes, were visible. . . .  From waist to knees he was covered, also, but his body, his feet, and his legs were bare . . .”

“Was he—?” I began . . .

“He was a brown man, yes,”—­Karamaneh divining my question, nodded, and the shimmering cloud of her wonderful hair, hastily confined, burst free and rippled about her shoulders.  “A gaunt, fleshless brown man, who bent, and writhed bony fingers—­so!”

“A thug!” I cried.

“He—­it—­the mummy thing—­would have strangled me if I had slept, for he crouched over the berth—­seeking—­seeking . . .”

I clenched my teeth convulsively.

“But I was sitting up—­”

“With the light on?” interrupted Stacey in surprise.

“No,” added Karamaneh; “the light was out.”  She turned her eyes toward me, as the wonderful blush overspread her face once more.  “I was sitting thinking.  It all happened within a few seconds, and quite silently.  As the mummy crouched over the berth, I unlocked the door and leaped out into the passage.  I think I screamed; I did not mean to.  Oh, Dr. Stacey, there is not a moment to spare!  Mr. Nayland Smith must be warned immediately.  Some horrible servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu is on the ship!”

CHAPTER XXXII

THE TRAGEDY

Nayland Smith leaned against the edge of the dressing-table, attired in pyjamas.  The little stateroom was hazy with smoke, and my friend gripped the charred briar between his teeth and watched the blue-gray clouds arising from the bowl, in an abstracted way.  I knew that he was thinking hard, and from the fact that he had exhibited no surprise when I had related to him the particular’s of the attack upon Karamaneh I judged that he had half anticipated something of the kind.  Suddenly he stood up, staring at me fixedly.

“Your tact has saved the situation, Petrie,” he snapped.  “It failed you momentarily, though, when you proposed to me just now that we should muster the lascars for inspection.  Our game is to pretend that we know nothing—­that we believe Karamaneh to have had a bad dream.”