It was in an odd frame of mind that I walked to the next corner, as directed; for I was thinking, not of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the great and evil man who dreamed of Europe and America under Chinese rule, not of Nayland Smith, who alone stood between the Chinaman and the realization of his monstrous schemes, not even of Karamaneh the slave girl, whose glorious beauty was a weapon of might in Fu-Manchu’s hand, but of what impression I must have made upon a patient had I encountered one then.

Such were my ideas up to the moment that I crossed to the common and vaulted into the field on my right.  As I began to run toward the elms I found myself wondering what it was all about, and for what we were come.  Fifty yards west of the trees it occurred to me that if Smith had counted on cutting Forsyth off we were too late, for it appeared to me that he must already be in the coppice.

I was right.  Twenty paces more I ran, and ahead of me, from the elms, came a sound.  Clearly it came through the still air—­the eerie hoot of a nighthawk.  I could not recall ever to have heard the cry of that bird on the common before, but oddly enough I attached little significance to it until, in the ensuing instant, a most dreadful scream—­a scream in which fear, and loathing, and anger were hideously blended—­thrilled me with horror.

After that I have no recollection of anything until I found myself standing by the southernmost elm.

“Smith!” I cried breathlessly.  “Smith! my God! where are you?”

As if in answer to my cry came an indescribable sound, a mingled sobbing and choking.  Out from the shadows staggered a ghastly figure—­that of a man whose face appeared to be streaked.  His eyes glared at me madly and he mowed the air with his hands like one blind and insane with fear.

I started back; words died upon my tongue.  The figure reeled and the man fell babbling and sobbing at my very feet.

Inert I stood, looking down at him.  He writhed a moment—­and was still.  The silence again became perfect.  Then, from somewhere beyond the elms, Nayland Smith appeared.  I did not move.  Even when he stood beside me, I merely stared at him fatuously.

“I let him walk to his death, Petrie,” I heard dimly.  “God forgive me —­God forgive me!”

The words aroused me.

“Smith”—­my voice came as a whisper—­“for one awful moment I thought—­”

“So did some one else,” he rapped.  “Our poor sailor has met the end designed for me, Petrie!”

At that I realized two things:  I knew why Forsyth’s face had struck me as being familiar in some puzzling way, and I knew why Forsyth now lay dead upon the grass.  Save that he was a fair man and wore a slight mustache, he was, in features and build, the double of Nayland Smith!

CHAPTER V

THE NET

We raised the poor victim and turned him over on his back.  I dropped upon my knees, and with unsteady fingers began to strike a match.  A slight breeze was arising and sighing gently through the elms, but, screened by my hands, the flame of the match took life.  It illuminated wanly the sun-baked face of Nayland Smith, his eyes gleaming with unnatural brightness.  I bent forward, and the dying light of the match touched that other face.