The Hand of Fu-Manchu | Page 3

God! I can't stand it any longer!" he babbled, and threw himself upon Smith, who
was foremost, clutching pitifully at him for support. "Come and see him, sir--for
Heaven's sake come in! I think he's dying; and he's going mad. I never disobeyed an
order in my life before, but I can't help myself--I can't help myself!"
"Brace up!" I cried, seizing him by the shoulders as, still clutching at Nayland Smith, he
turned his ghastly face to me. "Who are you, and what's your trouble?"
"I'm Beeton, Sir Gregory Hale's man."
Smith started visibly, and his gaunt, tanned face seemed to me to have grown
perceptively paler.
"Come on, Petrie!" he snapped. "There's some devilry here."
Thrusting Beeton aside he rushed in at the open door--upon which, as I followed him, I

had time to note the number, 14a. It communicated with a suite of rooms almost identical
with our own. The sitting-room was empty and in the utmost disorder, but from the
direction of the principal bedroom came a most horrible mumbling and gurgling sound--a
sound utterly indescribable. For one instant we hesitated at the threshold--hesitated to
face the horror beyond; then almost side by side we came into the bedroom....
Only one of the two lamps was alight--that above the bed; and on the bed a man lay
writhing. He was incredibly gaunt, so that the suit of tropical twill which he wore hung
upon him in folds, showing if such evidence were necessary, how terribly he was fallen
away from his constitutional habit. He wore a beard of at least ten days' growth, which
served to accentuate the cavitous hollowness of his face. His eyes seemed starting from
their sockets as he lay upon his back uttering inarticulate sounds and plucking with
skinny fingers at his lips.
Smith bent forward peering into the wasted face; and then started back with a suppressed
cry.
"Merciful God! can it be Hale?" he muttered. "What does it mean? what does it mean?"
I ran to the opposite side of the bed, and placing my arms under the writhing man, raised
him and propped a pillow at his back. He continued to babble, rolling his eyes from side
to side hideously; then by degrees they seemed to become less glazed, and a light of
returning sanity entered them. They became fixed; and they were fixed upon Nayland
Smith, who bending over the bed, was watching Sir Gregory (for Sir Gregory I concluded
this pitiable wreck to be) with an expression upon his face compound of many emotions.
"A glass of water," I said, catching the glance of the man Beeton, who stood trembling at
the open doorway.
Spilling a liberal quantity upon the carpet, Beeton ultimately succeeded in conveying the
glass to me. Hale, never taking his gaze from Smith, gulped a little of the water and then
thrust my hand away. As I turned to place the tumbler upon a small table the resumed the
wordless babbling, and now, with his index finger, pointed to his mouth.
"He has lost the power of speech!" whispered Smith.
"He was stricken dumb, gentlemen, ten minutes ago," said Beeton in a trembling voice.
"He dropped off to sleep out there on the floor, and I brought him in here and laid him on
the bed. When he woke up he was like that!"
The man on the bed ceased his inchoate babbling and now, gulping noisily, began to
make quick nervous movements with his hands.
"He wants to write something," said Smith in a low voice. "Quick! hold him up!" He
thrust his notebook, open at a blank page, before the man whose movement were
numbered, and placed a pencil in the shaking right hand.
Faintly and unevenly Sir Gregory commenced to write--whilst I supported him. Across

the bent shoulders Smith silently questioned me, and my reply was a negative shake of
the head.
The lamp above the bed was swaying as if in a heavy draught; I remembered that it had
been swaying as we entered. There was no fog in the room, but already from the bleak
corridor outside it was entering; murky, yellow clouds steaming in at the open door. Save
for the gulping of the dying man, and the sobbing breaths of Beeton, there was no sound.
Six irregular lines Sir Gregory Hale scrawled upon the page; then suddenly his body
became a dead weight in my arms. Gently I laid him back upon the pillows, gently his
finger from the notebook, and, my head almost touching Smith's as we both craned
forward over the page, read, with great difficulty, the following:--
"Guard my diary.... Tibetan frontier ... Key of India. Beware man ... with the limp.
Yellow ... rising. Watch Tibet ... the Si-Fan...."
From somewhere outside the room,