"
I became fully master of my senses, and I became fully alive to a
stupendous fact. At last it was ended; we were utterly in the power of
Dr. Fu Manchu; our race was run.
I sat in a low vaulted room. The roof was of ancient brickwork, but
the walls were draped with exquisite Chinese fabric having a green
ground whereon was a design representing a grotesque procession of
white peacocks. A green carpet covered the floor, and the whole of the
furniture was of the same material as the chair to which I was
strapped, viz. ebony inlaid with ivory. This furniture was scanty.
There was a heavy table in one corner of the dungeonesque place, on
which were a number of books and papers. Before this table was a
high-backed, heavily carven chair. A smaller table stood upon the
right of the only visible opening, a low door partially draped with
bead-work curtains, above which hung a silver lamp. On this smaller
table, a stick of incense, in a silver holder, sent up a pencil of
vapour into the air, and the chamber was loaded with the sickly sweet
fumes. A faint haze from the incense-stick hovered up under the roof.
In the high-backed chair sat Dr. Fu Manchu, wearing a green robe upon
which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first glance
was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a huge white
peacock. He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of his amazing
skull, and one clawish hand resting upon the ebony of the table, he
sat slightly turned toward me, his emotionless face a mask of
incredible evil.
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