I counted myself lost, and in view of the Doctor's words, studied the
progress of the experiment with frightful interest. But a few moments
sufficed in which to realize that, for all my training, I knew as
little of Chemistry--of Chemistry as understood by this man's
genius--as a junior student in surgery knows of trephining. The
process in operation was a complete mystery to me; the means and the
end were alike incomprehensible.
Thus, in the heavy silence of that room, a silence only broken by the
regular bubbling from the test-tube, I found my attention straying
from the table to the other objects surrounding it; and at one of them
my gaze stopped and remained chained with horror.
It was a glass jar, some five feet in height and filled with viscous
fluid of a light amber colour. Out from this peered a hideous,
dog-like face, low-browed, with pointed ears and a nose almost
hoggishly flat. By the death-grin of the face the gleaming fangs were
revealed; and the body, the long yellow-grey body, rested, or seemed
to rest, upon short, malformed legs, whilst one long limp arm, the
right, hung down straightly in the preservative. The left arm had been
severed above the elbow.
Fu-Manchu, finding his experiment to be proceeding favourably, lifted
his eyes to me again.
"You are interested in my poor _Cynocephalyte_?" he said; and his eyes
were filmed like the eyes of one afflicted with cataract.
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