The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer

further dissimulation useless.
    I leaped to my feet. Snatching my revolver from the pocket of
the rough jacket I wore, I bounded to the stair and went blundering
up in complete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries clamored from
behind, with a muffled scream rising above them all. But Nayland
Smith was close behind as I raced along a covered gangway, in a
purer air, and at my heels when I crashed open a door at the end
and almost fell into the room beyond.
    What I saw were merely a dirty table, with some odds and ends
upon it of which I was too excited to take note, an oil-lamp swung
by a brass chain above, and a man sitting behind the table. But
from the moment that my gaze rested upon the one who sat there, I
think if the place had been an Aladdin's palace I should have had
no eyes for any of its wonders.
    He wore a plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that
of his smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and
bony, and he held them knuckles upward, and rested his pointed chin
upon their thinness. He had a great, high brow, crowned with
sparse, neutral-colored hair.
    Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table, I
despair of writing convincingly. It was that of an archangel of
evil, and it was wholly dominated by the most uncanny eyes that
ever reflected a human soul, for they were narrow and long, very
slightly oblique, and of a brilliant green. But their unique horror
lay in a certain filminess (it made me think of the membrana
nictitans in a bird) which, obscuring them as I threw wide the
door, seemed to lift as I actually passed the threshold, revealing
the eyes in all their brilliant iridescence.
    I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the
malignant force of the man was something surpassing my experience.
He was surprised by this sudden intrusion-yes, but no trace of fear
showed upon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitying contempt.
And, as I paused, he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his
gaze from mine.
    "IT'S FU-MANCHU!" cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice that
was almost a scream. "IT'S FU-MANCHU! Cover him! Shoot him dead
if-"
    The conclusion of that sentence I never heard.
    Dr. Fu-Manchu reached down beside the table, and the floor
slipped from under me.
    One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a
scream I was unable to repress I dropped, dropped, dropped, and
plunged into icy water, which closed over my head.
    Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, had heard another cry
following my own, a booming sound (the trap), the flat note of a
police whistle. But when I rose to the surface impenetrable
darkness enveloped me; I was spitting filthy, oily liquid from my
mouth, and fighting down the black terror that had me by the
throat-terror of the darkness about me, of the unknown depths
beneath me, of the pit into which I was cast amid stifling stenches
and the lapping of tidal water.
    "Smith!" I cried… . "Help! Help!"
    My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was about to cry out
again, when, mustering all my presence of mind and all my failing
courage, I recognized that I had better employment of my energies,
and began to swim straight ahead, desperately determined to face
all the horrors of this place-to die hard if die I must.
    A drop of liquid fire fell through the darkness and hissed into
the water beside me!
    I felt that, despite my resolution, I was going mad.
    Another fiery drop-and another!
    I touched a rotting wooden post and slimy timbers. I had reached
one bound of my watery prison. More fire fell from above, and the
scream of hysteria quivered, unuttered, in my throat.
    Keeping myself afloat with increasing difficulty in my heavy
garments, I threw my head back and raised my eyes.
    No more drops fell, and no more drops would fall; but it was
merely a question of time for the floor to collapse. For it was
beginning to emit a dull, red glow.
    The room above me was in flames!
    It was drops of burning oil from the lamp,