The Golden Scorpion Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  "JEY BHOWANI!"

  As the door closed upon Chunda Lal, Miska stepped back from it andstood, unconsciously, in a curiously rigid and statuesque attitude,her arms pressed to her sides and her hands directed outward. It wasthe physical expression of an intense mental effort to gain controlof herself. Her heart was leaping wildly in her breast--for thefuture that had held only horror and a living tomb, now opened outsweetly before her. She had only to ply her native wiles for a fewprecious moments ... and _someone_ would have her in his arms, tohold her safe from harm! If the will of the awful Chinaman threatenedto swamp her individuality, then--there was Chunda Lal!

  But because of his helpless, unselfish love, she hesitated even at theprice of remaining alone again with Fo-Hi, to demand any furthersacrifice of the Hindu. Furthermore--he might fail!

  The lacquer door slid noiselessly open and Fo-Hi entered. He paused,watching her.

  "Ah," he said, in that low-pitched voice which was so terrifying--"a_gaziyeh_ of Ancient Egypt! How beautiful you are, Miska! Youtransport me to the court of golden Pharaoh. Miska! daughter of themoon-magic of Isis--Zara el-Khala! At any hour my enemies may beclamoring at my doors. But _this_ hour is mine!"

  He moved at his customary slow gait to the table, took up the keys ...and locked both doors!

  Miska, perceiving in this her chance of aid from Chunda Lal utterlydestroyed, sank slowly upon the _diwan,_ her pale face expressing theutmost consternation. Suppose the police did not come!

  Fo-Hi dropped the keys on the table again and approached her. Shestood up, retreating before him. He inhaled sibilantly and paused.

  "So your 'acceptance' was only a trick," he said. "Your loathing ofmy presence is as strong as ever. Well!" At the word, as a volcanoleaps into life, the hidden fires which burned within this terribleman leapt up consumingly--"if the gift of the flower is withheld, atleast I will grasp the Dead Sea Fruit!"

  He leapt toward Miska--and she fled shrieking before him. Runningaround a couch which stood near the centre of the room, she sprang tothe door and beat upon it madly.

  "Chunda Lal!" she cried--"Chunda Lal!"

  Fo-Hi was close upon her, and she turned striving to elude him.

  "Oh, merciful God! _Chunda Lal!"_

  The name burst from her lips in a long frenzied scream. Fo-Hi hadseized her!

  Grasping her shoulders, he twisted her about so that he could lookinto her eyes. A low, shuddering cry, died away, and her gaze becameset, hypnotically, upon Fo-Hi. He raised one hand, fingersoutstretched before her. She swayed slightly.

  "Forget!" he said in a deep, guttural voice of command--"forget. I_will_ it. We stand in an empty world, you and I; you, Miska, and I,Fo-Hi, your master."

  "My master," she whispered mechanically.

  "Your lover."

  "My lover."

  "You give me your life, to do with as I will."

  "As you will."

  Fo-Hi momentarily raised the blazing eyes.

  "Oh, empty shell of a vanished joy!" he cried.

  Then, frenziedly grasping Miska by her arms, he glared into herimpassive face.

  "Your heart leaps wildly in your breast!" he whispered tenderly."Look into my eyes...."

  Miska sighed and opened her eyes yet more widely. She shuddered and aslow smile appeared upon her lips.

  The lacquer screen making the window was pushed open and Chunda Lalleapt in over the edge. As Fo-Hi drew the yielding, hypnotised girltowards him, Chunda Lal, a gleaming _kukri_ held aloft, ran with asilent panther step across the floor.

  He reached Fo-Hi, drew himself upright; the glittering bladequivered ... and Fo-Hi divined his presence.

  Uttering a short, guttural exclamation, he thrust Miska aside. Shestaggered dazedly and fell prone upon the floor. The quivering bladedid not descend.

  Fo-Hi drew himself rigidly upright, extending his hands, palmsdownward, before him. He was exerting a superhuman effort. The breathwhistled through his nostrils. Chunda Lal, knife upraised, endeavoredto strike; but his arm seemed to have become incapable of movementand to be held, helpless, aloft.

  Staring at the rigid figure before him, he began to pant like a manengaged in a wrestle for life.

  Fo-Hi stretched his right arm outward, and with a gesture of hand andfingers beckoned to Chunda Lal to come before him.

  And now, Miska, awakening as from a fevered dream, looked wildly abouther, and then, serpentine, began to creep to the table upon which thekeys were lying. Always watching the awful group of two, she roseslowly, snatched the keys and leapt across to the open window....

  Chunda Lal, swollen veins standing out cord-like on his brow, hisgaze set hypnotically upon the moving hand, dropped his knife andbegan to move in obedience to the will of Fo-Hi.

  As he came finally face to face with the terrible Adept of RacheChuran, Miska disappeared into the shadow of the balcony. Fo-Hi byan imperious gesture commanded Chunda Lal to kneel and bow his head.The Hindu, gasping, obeyed.

  Thereupon Fo-Hi momentarily relaxed his giant concentration and almoststaggered as he glared down at the kneeling man. But never was thatdreadful gaze removed from Chunda Lal. And now the veiled man drewhimself rigidly upright again and stepped backward until the fallen_kukri_ lay at his feet. He spoke, "Chunda Lal!"

  The Hindu rose, gazing before him with unseeing eyes. His foreheadwas wet with perspiration.

  Fo-Hi pointed to the knife.

  Chunda Lal, without removing his sightless gaze from the veiledface, stooped, groped until he found the knife and rose with it inhis hand.

  Back stepped Fo-Hi, and back, until he could touch the big table. Hemoved a brass switch--and a trap opened in the floor behind ChundaLal. Fo-Hi raised his right hand, having the fingers tightly closedas if grasping the hilt of a knife. With his left hand he pointed tothe trap. Again he spoke.

  _"Tum samauhe ho?"_

  Mechanically Chunda La replied:

  _"Ah, Sahib, tumhara huken jaldi: kiya' jaega'"_ (Yes, I hear andobey.)

  As Fo-Hi raised his clenched right hand, so did Chunda Lal raise the_kukri._ Fo-Hi extended his left hand rigidly towards the Hindu andseemed to force him, step by step, back towards the open trap. Almostat the brink, Chunda Lal paused, swayed, and began to utter short,agonised cries. Froth appeared upon his lips.

  Raising his right hand yet further aloft, Fo-Hi swiftly brought itdown, performing the gesture of stabbing himself to the heart. Hisghastly reserve deserted him.

  _"Jey Bhowana!"_ he screamed--"Yah Allah!"

  Chunda Lal, uttering a loud groan, stabbed himself and fell backwardinto the opening. Ensued a monstrous crash of broken glass.

  As he fell, Fo-Hi leapt to the brink of the trap, glaring down madlyinto the cellar below. His yellow fingers opened and closedspasmodically.

  "Lie there," he shrieked--"my 'faithful' servant! The ants shall pickyour bones!"

  He grasped the upstanding door of the trap and closed it. Itdescended with a reverberating boom. Fo-Hi raised his clenched fistsand stepped to the door. Finding it locked, he stood looking towardthe open screen before the window.

  "Miska!" he whispered despairingly.

  He crossed to the window and was about to look out, when ahigh-pitched electric bell began to ring in the room.

  Instantly Fo-Hi closed the screen and turned, looking in the directionfrom whence the sound of ringing proceeded. As he did so, a secondbell, in another key, began to ring--a third--a fourth.

  Momentarily the veiled man exhibited evidence of indecision. Then,from beneath his robe he took a small key. Approaching an ornatecabinet set against the wall to the left of one of the lacquer doors,he inserted the key in a hidden lock, and slid the entire cabinetpartly aside revealing an opening.

  Fo-Hi bent, peering down into the darkness of the passage below. Amuffled report came, a flash out of the blackness of the river tunnel,and a bullet passed through the end of the cabinet upon which hishand was resting, smashing an ivory statuette and shattering the
glass.

  Hurriedly he slid the cabinet into place again and stood with his backto it, arms outstretched.

  "Miska!" he said--and a note of yet deeper despair had crept into theharsh voice.

  Awhile he stood thus; then he drew himself up with dignity. The bellshad ceased.

  Methodically Fo-Hi began to take certain books from the shelves and tocast them into the great metal bowl which stood upon the tripod. Intothe bowl he poured the contents of a large glass jar. Flames andclouds of smoke arose. He paused, listening.

  Confused voices were audible, seemingly from all around him, togetherwith a sound of vague movements.

  Fo-Hi took up vials and jars and dashed them to pieces upon the tiledhearth in which the furnace rested. Test-tubes, flasks and retorts heshattered, and finally, raising the large glass case of orchids hedashed it down amid the debris of the other nameless and pricelessmonstrosities unknown to Western science.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE WAY OF A SCORPION

  A black cloud swept past the face of the moon and cold illuminationflooded the narrow lane and patched with light the drive leading upto the front of the isolated mansion. Wrought-iron gates closed bothentrances and a high wall, surmounted by broken glass and barbedwire, entirely surrounded the grounds.

  "This one also is locked," said Gaston Max, trying the gate and thenpeering through the bars in the direction of the gloomy house.

  All the visible windows were shuttered. No ray of light showedanywhere. The house must have been pronounced deserted by anyonecontemplating it.

  "Upon which side do you suppose the big room to be?" asked Max.

  "It is difficult to judge," replied Stuart. "But I am disposed tobelieve that it is in the front of the house and on the first floor,for I traversed a long corridor, descended several stairs, turned tothe right and emerged in a part of the garden bordering the lane inwhich Inspector Kelly is posted."

  "I was thinking of the window and the balcony which 'The Scorpion'informed you commanded a view of Hampton Court. Hampton Court," heturned half-left, "lies about yonder. Therefore you are probablyright, doctor; the room as you say should be in front of the house.Since we do not know how to disconnect the alarms, once we haveentered the grounds it is important that we should gain access to thehouse immediately. Ah! _morbleu!_ the moon disappears again!"

  Darkness crept over the countryside.

  "There is an iron balcony jutting out amongst the ivy just above andto the right of the porch!" cried Stuart, who had also been peeringup the moon-patched drive. "I would wager that that is the room!"

  "Ah!" replied Max, "I believe you are right. This, then is how weshall proceed: Inspector Kelly, with the aid of two men, can get overthe wall near that garden door by which you came out. If they cannotforce it from inside, you also must get over and lead the way to theentrance you know of. Sowerby and two more men will remain to watchthe lane. The river front is well guarded. We will post a man hereat this gate and one at the other. Dunbar and I will climb this oneand rush straight for that balcony which we must hope to reach by climbing up the ivy. Ah! here comes Inspector Dunbar ... and_someone_ is with him!"

  Dunbar appeared at the double around the corner of the lane whichled riverward, and beside him ran a girl who presented a bizarrefigure beside the gaunt Scotsman and a figure wildly out of placein that English riverside setting.

  It was Miska, arrayed in her flimsy _harem_ dress!

  "Miska!" cried Stuart, and sprang towards her, sweeping her hungrilyinto his arms--forgetful of, indifferent to, the presence of Max andDunbar.

  "Ah!" sighed the Frenchman--"yes, she is beautiful!"

  Trembling wildly, Miska clung to Stuart and began to speak, herEnglish more broken than ever, because of her emotion.

  "Listen--quick!" she panted. "Oh! do not hold me so tight. I have thehouse-keys--look!"--she held up a bunch of keys--"but not the keys ofthe gates. Two men have gone to the end of the tunnel where the boatis hid beside the river. Someone--he better climb this gate and by theivy he can reach the room in which Fo-Hi is! I come down so. You donot see me because the moon goes out and I run to the side-door. Itis open. _You_ come with me!"

  She clung to Stuart, looking up into his eyes.

  "Yes, yes, Miska!"

  "Oh! Chunda Lal"--she choked down a sob. "Be quick! be quick! _He_will kill him! he will kill him!"

  "Off you go, doctor!" cried Max. "Come along, Dunbar!"

  He began to climb the ironwork of the gate.

  "This way!" said Miska, dragging Stuart by the arm. "Oh! I am wildwith fear and sorrow and joy!"

  "With joy, dear little Miska!" whispered Stuart, as he followed her.

  They passed around the bend into the narrower lane which led towardthe river and upon which the garden-door opened. Stuart detained her.If the fate of the whole world had hung in the balance--as indeed,perhaps it did--he could not have acted otherwise. He raised herbewitching face and kissed her ardently.

  She trembled and clung to him rapturously.

  "I _live_!" she whispered. "Oh! I am mad with happiness! It is ChundaLal that gives me life--for he tells me the truth. It is not with theliving-death that _he_ touches me; it is a trick, it is all a trickto bind me to him! Oh, Chunda Lal! Hurry! he is going to kill him!"

  But supreme above all the other truths in the world, the joyous truththat Miska was to live set Stuart's heart on fire.

  "Thank God!" he said fervently--"oh, thank God! Miska!"

  At the garden-door a group of men awaited them. Sergeant Sowerby andtwo assistants remaining to watch the entrance and the lane, Miskaled Stuart and the burly Inspector Kelly along that path beside thewall which Stuart so well remembered.

  "Hurry!" she whispered urgently. "We must try to reach him before ..."

  "You fear for Chunda Lal?" said Stuart.

  "Oh, yes! He has a terrible power--Fo-Hi--which he never employs withme, until to-night. Ah! it is only Chunda Lal, who saved me! ButChunda Lal he can command with his _Will._ From it, once he has madeanyone a slave to it, there is no escape. I have seen one in the cityof Quebec, in Canada, forget all else and begin to act in obedienceto the will of Fo-Hi who is thousands of miles away!"

  "My God!" murmured Stuart, "what a horrible monster!"

  They had reached the open door beyond which showed the dimly lightedpassage. Miska hesitated.

  "Oh! I am afraid!" she whispered.

  She thrust the keys into the hand of Inspector Kelly, pointing to oneof them, and:

  "That is the key!" she said. "Have your pistol ready. Do not touchanything in the room and do not go in if I tell you not to. Come!"

  They pressed along the passage, came to the stair and were about toascend, when there ensued a dull reverberating boom, and Miska shrankback into Stuart's arms with a stifled shriek.

  "Oh! Chunda Lal!" she moaned--"Chunda Lal! It is the trap!"

  "The trap!" said Inspector Kelly.

  "The cellar trap. He has thrown him down ... to the ants!"

  Inspector Kelly uttered a short laugh; but Stuart repressed a shudder.He was never likely to forget the skeleton of the Nubian mute whichhad been stripped by the ants in sixty-nine minutes!

  "We are too late!" whispered Miska. "Oh! listen! listen!"

  Bells began to ring somewhere above them.

  "Max and Dunbar are in!" said Kelly. "Come on, sir! Follow closely,boys!"

  He ran up the stairs and along the corridor to the door at the end.

  A muffled shot sounded from somewhere in the depths of the house.

  "That's Harvey!" said one of the men who followed--"Our man must havetried to escape by the tunnel to the river bank!"

  Inspector Kelly placed the key in the lock of the door.

  It was at this moment that Gaston Max, climbing up to the frontbalcony by means of the natural ladder afforded by the ancient ivy,grasped the iron railing and drew himself up to the level of theroom. By this same stairway Chunda Lal had ascended to death andMiska had climbed down
to life.

  "Mind the ironwork doesn't give way, sir!" called Dunbar from below.

  "It is strong," replied Max. "Join me here, my friend."

  Max, taking a magazine pistol from his pocket, stepped warily overthe ledge into the mysterious half-light behind the great screen. Ashe did so, one of the lacquer doors was unlocked from the outside,and across the extraordinary, smoke-laden room he saw Inspector Kellyenter. He saw something else.

  Seated in a strangely-shaped canopied chair was a figure wearing arich mandarin robe, but having its face covered with a green veil.

  _"Mon Deiu!_ at last!" he cried, and leapt into the room. "'TheScorpion'!"

  Even as he leapt, and as the Scotland Yard men closed in upon thechair also, all of them armed and all half fearful, a thing happenedwhich struck awe to every heart--for it seemed to be supernatural.

  Raising a metal hammer which he held in his hand, Fo-Hi struck thebronze bell hung beside the chair. It emitted a deep, loud note....

  There came a flash of blinding light, and intense crackling sound,the crash of broken glass, and a dense cloud of pungent fumes rosein the heated air.

  Dunbar had just climbed in behind Gaston Max. Bother were all buthurled from their feet by the force of the explosion. Then:

  "Oh, my God!" cried Dunbar, staggering, half blinded, _"look--look!"_

  A deathly silence claimed them all. Just within the doorway Stuartappeared, having his arm about the shoulders of Miska.

  The Throne of the Gods was empty! A thin coating of grey dust wassettling upon it and upon the dais which supported it.

  They had witnessed a scientific miracle ... the complete andinstantaneous disintegration of a human body. Gaston Max was thefirst to recover speech.

  "We are defeated," he said. "'The Scorpion,' surrounded, destroyshimself. It is the way of a scorpion."