"To Rangoon—yes; and there I hear news at last. I hear that you have seen her—have seen Kâramanèh—that you are back in London." He was not entirely at home with his English. "I know then that she must be here, too. I ask them everywhere, and they answer 'yes.' Oh, Smith Pasha!" —he stepped forward and impulsively seized both Smith's hands—"You know where she is—take me to her!"
Smith's face was a study in perplexity now. In the past we had befriended the young Azîz, and it was hard to look upon him in the light of an enemy. Yet had we not equally befriended his sister?—and she....
At last Smith glanced across at me where I stood just within the doorway.
"What do you make of it, Petrie?" he said harshly. "Personally I take it to mean that our plans have leaked out." He sprang suddenly back from Azîz, and I saw his glance travelling rapidly over the slight figure as if in quest of concealed arms. "I take it to be a trap!"
A moment he stood so, regarding him, and despite my well-grounded distrust of the Oriental character, I could have sworn that the expression of pained surprise upon the youth's face was not simulated but real. Even Smith, I think, began to share my view; for suddenly he threw himself into the white cane rest-chair, and, still fixedly regarding Azîz:
"Perhaps I have wronged you," he said. "If I have, you shall know the reason presently. Tell your own story!"
There was a pathetic humidity in the velvet eyes of Azîz—eyes so like those others that were ever looking into mine in dreams—as glancing from Smith to me he began, hands outstretched, characteristically, palms upward and fingers curling, to tell in broken English the story of his search for Kâramanèh....
"It was Fu-Manchu, my kind gentlemen—it was the hâkîm who is really not a man at all, but an efreet. He found us again less than four days after you had left us, Smith Pasha!... He found us in Cairo, and to Kâramanèh he made the forgetting of all things—even of me—even of me...."
Nayland Smith snapped his teeth together sharply; then:
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded.