Читать книгу The Mask of Fu Manchu - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 13
ОглавлениеThe Man on the Minaret
That vague supernatural dread which latterly I had shaken off swept back again like a cloud, touching me coldly. The window space was perfectly blank, now. The iron box had gone; the black man had gone. This miracle had been achieved with scarcely any sound!
The legend of Spring-heeled Jack crossed my mind again. Then I was up. My period of enforced inactivity was ended.
I pressed the button of my torch and, springing out from behind the big trunk, directed a ray along the narrow room. The air was still heavy with a vague sickly perfume of mimosa; but I gave no glance at the pillow which had been sprayed with this strange anesthetic. The bed had been carefully prepared by Nayland Smith to produce the appearance of a sleeper.
“An old dodge of mine, Greville,” he had said, “which will certainly fail if the enemy suspects that I am here.”
Either the enemy did not suspect, or, like the ancient confidence trick, it was a device which age did not wither nor custom stale....
As though it had been a prearranged cue, that flash of light in the empty room heralded a sound—THE sound ... an indescribable humming which rose and rose, developed into a sort of wail, then died away like muted roaring....
I must explain at this point that from the moment of the figure’s disappearance from the window to that when, switching on the light, I ran forward, only a very few seconds had elapsed.
Leaping upon the low cupboard, and staring down into the street, I witnessed a singular spectacle.
That extraordinary sound, the origin of which had defied all speculation, was still audible, and since it seemed to come from somewhere high above my head, my first instinct was to look up.
I did not do so, however.
At the moment that I sprang into the open window, my glance was instantly drawn downward. I saw a figure—that of the black creature who had just quitted the room—apparently suspended in space, midway across the street!
His arms raised above his head, he was soaring upward towards a window of the Ghost Mosque!
“Good God!” I said aloud—“it isn’t human——”
There came a wild scream. The flying figure faltered—the upraised arms dropped—and he was dashed with a dull thud against the wall of the mosque, some eight feet below the window. From there he fell sheerly to the street below. A second, sickening, thud reached my ears ...
The crack of a pistol, a sharp spurt of flame from the gallery of the minaret far above my head, drew my glance upward now. I saw a black-robed black-faced figure there, bathed in brilliant moonlight, bending over the rail and firing down upon the roof of the mosque below!
Once he fired, and moved further around the gallery. A second time. And then, as he disappeared from view, I heard the sound of a third shot....
Pandemonium awakened in the house about me. Ali Mahmoud was unfastening the heavy bolt which closed the front door. Rima’s voice came from the landing above.
“Shan! Shan! Are you all right?”
“All right, dear!” I shouted.
Turning, I ran along the room and out into the corridor. I heard Barton’s great voice growling impatiently in the lobby below. But before I could reach him he had raced out into the street. Ali, rifle in hand, followed him, and I brought up the rear.
Far above, Rima leaned from an open window, and:
“For God’s sake, be careful!” she cried. “I can see something moving along the roof of the mosque!”
“Don’t worry!” I called reassuringly. “We’re all armed.”
I was bending over a figure lying in the dust, a figure at which Sir Lionel was already staring down with an indescribable expression. It was that, as I saw now quite clearly, of a small but powerfully built Negro.
He presented an unpleasant spectacle by reason of the fact that he had evidently dashed his skull against the wall of the mosque at the end of that incredible flight from side to side of the street. He wore, as I had thought, nothing but a dark loincloth.
Thrust into this, where it was visible as he lay huddled up and half upon his face, was a dull metal object which gleamed in the light of our torches. For, although moonlight illuminated the minaret and upper part of the mosque, the street itself was a black gulley. Stooping, I examined this object more closely.
It was a metal spray, such as dentists use. Its purpose I had already seen demonstrated; then:
“Look at his hands!” the chief said huskily. “What is he holding?”
At first I found it difficult to reply; then I realized that the Negro was clutching two large iron hooks to which had been attached a seemingly endless thread of what looked like catgut, no thicker than the D string of a violin. The truth was still far from my mind; when:
“A West African,” Sir Lionel continued—“probably from the Slave Coast. What in hell’s name brought such a bird to Persia?”
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “he was sold. Slavery is still practised in these parts.”
Further speculation on the point was ended by a sudden loud cry from the minaret.
“Standby, there!”
Sir Lionel, Ali Mahmoud, and I raised our heads. A tall figure draped in a black native robe stood on the gallery. Upright, now, moonlight silvering his hair, I knew him. It was Nayland Smith!
“Ali Mahmoud!” he shouted, “round to the side door of the mosque and shoot anything you see moving. Barton! Stand by the main door, where you can cover three windows. Let nothing come out. Quick, Greville! You know the way into the minaret. Up to me!”
