Now my feet sank in a soft carpet, and a curtain brushed my shoulder.  A gong sounded.  We stopped.

The din of distant drumming came to my ears.

“Where in Heaven’s name are we?” hissed Smith in my ear; “that is a tom-tom!”

“S-sh!  S-sh!”

The little hand grasping mine quivered nervously.  We were near a door or a window, for a breath of perfume was wafted through the air; and it reminded me of my other meetings with the beautiful woman who was now leading us from the house of Fu-Manchu; who, with her own lips, had told me that she was his slave.  Through the horrible phantasmagoria she flitted—­a seductive vision, her piquant loveliness standing out richly in its black setting of murder and devilry.  Not once, but a thousand times, I had tried to reason out the nature of the tie which bound her to the sinister Doctor.

Silence fell.

“Quick!  This way!”

Down a thickly carpeted stair we went.  Our guide opened a door, and led us along a passage.  Another door was opened; and we were in the open air.  But the girl never tarried, pulling me along a graveled path, with a fresh breeze blowing in my face, and along until, unmistakably, I stood upon the river bank.  Now, planking creaked to our tread; and looking downward beneath the handkerchief, I saw the gleam of water beneath my feet.

“Be careful!” I was warned, and found myself stepping into a narrow boat—­a punt.

Nayland Smith followed, and the girl pushed the punt off and poled out into the stream.

“Don’t speak!” she directed.

My brain was fevered; I scarce knew if I dreamed and was waking, or if the reality ended with my imprisonment in the clammy cellar and this silent escape, blindfolded, upon the river with a girl for our guide who might have stepped out of the pages of “The Arabian Nights” were fantasy—­the mockery of sleep.

Indeed, I began seriously to doubt if this stream whereon we floated, whose waters plashed and tinkled about us, were the Thames, the Tigris, or the Styx.

The punt touched a bank.

“You will hear a clock strike in a few minutes,” said the girl, with her soft, charming accent, “but I rely upon your honor not to remove the handkerchiefs until then.  You owe me this.”

“We do!” said Smith fervently.

I heard him scrambling to the bank, and a moment later a soft hand was placed in mine, and I, too, was guided on to terra firma.  Arrived on the bank, I still held the girl’s hand, drawing her towards me.

“You must not go back,” I whispered.  “We will take care of you.  You must not return to that place.”

“Let me go!” she said.  “When, once, I asked you to take me from him, you spoke of police protection; that was your answer, police protection!  You would let them lock me up—­imprison me—­and make me betray him!  For what?  For what?” She wrenched herself free.  “How little you understand me.  Never mind.  Perhaps one day you will know!  Until the clock strikes!”