But again the pencil was travelling over the paper:—lies upon you all ... end of message.
The operator stood up and unclasped the receivers from his ears. There, high above the sleeping ship's company, with the blue carpet of the Mediterranean stretched indefinitely about us, we three stood looking at one another. By virtue of a miracle of modern science, some one, divided from me by mile upon mile of boundless ocean, had spoken—and had been heard.
"Is there no means of learning," I said, "from whence this message emanated?"
Platts shook his head, perplexedly.
"They gave no code word," he said. "God knows who they were. It's a strange business and a strange message. Have you any sort of idea, Dr. Petrie, respecting the identity of the sender?"
I stared him hard in the face; an idea had mechanically entered my mind, but one of which I did not choose to speak, since it was opposed to human possibility.
But had I not seen with my own eyes the bloody streak across his forehead as the shot fired by Kâramanèh entered his high skull, had I not known, so certainly as it is given to men to know, that the giant intellect was no more, the mighty will impotent, I should have replied:
"The message is from Dr. Fu Manchu!"
My reflections were rudely terminated and my sinister thoughts given new stimulus, by a loud though muffled cry which reached me from somewhere in the ship below. Both my companions started as violently as I, whereby I knew that the mystery of the wireless message had not been without its effect upon their minds also. But whereas they paused in doubt, I leapt from the room and almost threw myself down the ladder.
It was Kâramanèh who had uttered that cry of fear and horror!