THE DEVIL DOCTOR. Sax Rohmer

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THE DEVIL DOCTOR - Sax  Rohmer


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a jug of milk, and a

      trowel!

      Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by the

      common, then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly direction. Its

      lights twinkled yellowly through the greyness, but I was less

      concerned with the approaching car than with the solitary traveller

      who had descended from it.

      As the car went rocking by below me I strained my eyes in an endeavour

      more clearly to discern the figure, which, leaving the high-road, had

      struck-out across the common. It was that of a woman, who seemingly

      carried a bulky bag or parcel.

      One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent powers

      in man which man, in modern times, neglects or knows not how to

      develop. I became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity respecting

      this lonely traveller who travelled at an hour so strange. With no

      definite plan in mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from the rack and

      walked briskly out of the house and across the common in a direction

      which I thought would enable me to head off the woman.

      I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have it, and

      with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I came upon

      her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the bundle which had

      attracted my attention. I stopped and watched her.

      She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common

      black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the

      dexterous hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white, and I

      perceived a pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside

      her. As she threw open the wrappings and lifted out something that

      looked like a small shrimping-net, I stepped around the bush, crossed

      silently the intervening patch of grass and stood beside her.

      A faint breath of perfume reached me--of a perfume which, like the

      secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The glamour

      of the Orient was in that subtle essence, and I only knew one woman

      who used it. I bent over the kneeling figure.

      "Good morning," I said; "can I assist you in any way?"

      She came to her feet like a startled deer, and flung away from me with

      the lithe movement of some Eastern dancing-girl.

      Now came the sun, and its heralding rays struck sparks from the jewels

      upon the white fingers of this woman who wore the garments of a

      mendicant. My heart gave a great leap. It was with difficulty that I

      controlled my voice.

      "There is no cause for alarm," I added.

      She stood watching me; even through the coarse veil I could see how

      her eyes glittered. I stooped and picked up the net.

      "Oh!" The whispered word was scarcely audible; but it was enough. I

      doubted no longer.

      "This is a net for bird-snaring," I said. "What strange bird are you

      seeking, _Kâramanèh_?"

      With a passionate gesture Kâramanèh snatched off the veil, and with it

      the ugly black hat. The cloud of wonderful intractable hair came

      rumpling about her face, and her glorious eyes blazed out upon me. How

      beautiful they were, with the dark beauty of an Egyptian night; how

      often had they looked into mine in dreams!

      To labour against a ceaseless yearning for a woman whom one knows, upon

      evidence that none but a fool might reject, to be worthless--evil; is

      there any torture to which the soul of man is subject, more pitiless?

      Yet this was my lot, for what past sins assigned to me I was unable to

      conjecture; and this was the woman, this lovely slave of a monster, this

      creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

      "I suppose you will declare that you do not know me!" I said harshly.

      Her lips trembled, but she made no reply.

      "It is very convenient to forget, sometimes," I ran on bitterly, then

      checked myself, for I knew that my words were prompted by a feckless

      desire to hear her defence, by a fool's hope that it might be an

      acceptable one. I looked again at the net contrivance in my hand; it

      had a strong spring fitted to it and a line attached. Quite obviously

      it was intended for snaring. "What were you about to do?" I demanded

      sharply; but in my heart, poor fool that I was, I found admiration for

      the exquisite arch of Kâramanèh's lips, and reproach because they were

      so tremulous.

      She spoke then.

      "Dr. Petrie--"

      "Well?"

      "You seem to be--angry with me, not so much because--of what I do, as

      because I do not remember you. Yet--"

      "Kindly do not revert to the matter," I interrupted. "You have chosen,

      very conveniently, to forget that once we were friends. Please

      yourself; but answer my question."

      She clasped her hands with a sort of wild abandon.

      "Why do you treat me so?" she cried. She had the most fascinating

      accent imaginable. "Throw me into prison, kill me if you like for what

      I have done!" She stamped her foot. "For what I have done! But do not

      torture me, try to drive me mad with your reproaches--that I forget

      you! I tell you--again I tell you--that until you came one night, last

      week, to rescue some one from"--(there was the old trick of hesitating

      before the name of Fu-Manchu)--"from _him_, I had never, never seen

      you!"

      The dark eyes looked into mine, afire with a positive hunger for

      belief--or so I was sorely tempted to suppose. But the facts were

      against her.

      "Such a declaration is worthless," I said, as coldly as I could. "You

      are a traitress; you betray those who are mad enough to trust you--"

      "I am no traitress!" she blazed at me. Her eyes were magnificent.

      "This is mere nonsense. You think that it will pay you better to serve

      Fu-Manchu than to remain true to your friends. Your 'slavery'--for


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