Fu-Manchu their Lord and Master.
* * * * *
I cannot dwell upon the end of that encounter; I cannot hope to make
acceptable to my readers an account of how Nayland Smith, glassy-eyed,
and with consciousness ebbing from him instant by instant, stood
there, a realization of Leighton's "Athlete," his arms rigid as iron
bars even after Fu-Manchu's servant hung limply in that frightful
grip.
In his last moment of consciousness, with the blood from his wounded
head trickling down into his eyes, he pointed to the stick which I had
torn from the grip of the dacoit, and which I still held in my hand.
"Not Aaron's rod, Petrie!" he gasped hoarsely ... "the rod of
Moses!--Slattin's stick!"
Even in upon my anxiety for my friend, amazement intruded.
"But," I began--and turned to the rack in which Slattin's favourite
cane at that moment reposed--had reposed at the time of his death.
Yes! There stood Slattin's cane; we had not moved it; we had disturbed
nothing in that stricken house; there it stood, in company with an
umbrella and a malacca.
I glanced at the cane in my hand. Surely there could not be two such
in the world?
Smith collapsed on the floor at my feet.
"Examine the one in the rack, Petrie," he whispered, almost inaudibly,
"but do not touch it. It may not be yet...."
I propped him up against the foot of the stairs, and as the constable
began knocking violently at the street door, crossed to the rack and
lifted out the replica of the cane which I held in my hand.
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