The Mask of Fu-Manchu Read Online Free Page A

his staff poisoned themselves in the hour of defeat. From that day to this, no one has known where he was buried. His sword, which he wore on ceremonial occasions, and which he called the Sword of God, forged to conquer the world, his New Creed graved upon golden plates, and the mask of gold with which he concealed his mutilated features, disappeared at the time of his death and were supposed to be lost.”
    I shifted uneasily in my chair. The startling apparition had vanished as suddenly as it had come. Above all things I wanted to avoid alarming Rima. Already I suspected sleepless nights; I realised that she could know no peace in the shadow of the Ghost Mosque with its unholy reputation.
    The apparition did not reappear, however; and I turned, looking swiftly at Rima.
    She was watching the chief. Clearly, she had seen nothing.
    Walking up and down while speaking, in that manner of a caged bear, Sir Lionel had paused now and was staring at the ominous green box.
    “Amir Khan did not lie,” he went on. “The tomb-mosque that contained the ashes of the prophet is a mere mound of dust today; what it concealed was never more than a legend. Its site, though, is strictly avoided—supposed to be haunted by djinns and known as the Place of the Great Magician. We camped there, and our excavations were carried out secretly. Few pass that desolate place on the edge of the desert. We found—what we had come to find.”
    “Is that a fact?” said Stratton Jean in an odd voice.
    Sir Lionel nodded, smiling grimly.
    The prophet was dust,” he added; “but we found his gold mask, his New Creed engraved upon plates of gold, and his sword, a magnificent blade with a jewelled hilt. There were other fragments— but these were the most important.”
    He paused and pointed to the green box.
    “Those two Persian birds were mighty keen to know what was in this box. I told them it contained priceless records. They pretended to be satisfied, But they weren’t. It’s a heavy thing to travel—but strong as a safe.”
    He began to pace up and down again.
    “I left the Place of the Great Magician, taking the relics of El Mokanna away in that box! Van Berg and I had a conference before we left; Greville, here, was present. In spite of our precautions, there were rumours flying about, and it was becoming fairly clear that some sort of small but fanatical sect still existed who held the name of El Mokanna in reverence. The desertion of our Afghan guide, Amir Khan, was very significant—wasn’t it Greville?”
    “It was,” I agreed.
    At the chief’s words I lived again in memory, instantaneously, through those days and nights in that lonely camp, with Rima’s presence to add to my anxieties. I knew that we were hundreds of miles from any useful help, and I knew that in some mysterious way the influence of the Veiled Prophet lived, was active, although the Hidden One himself was dead; that if the truth should leak out, if it should become known that the sacred relics were in our possession, our lives would not be worth a grain of sand!
    Almost, in those anxious days and nights, I had come to hate Van Berg, who was the instigator of the expedition, and to distrust Sir Lionel, whose zeal for knowledge had induced him to lead Rima into such peril. His scientific ardour brooked no obstacle. She was a brilliantly clever photographer, and there was a portfolio, now, on poor Van Berg’s table, which in the absence of the actual relics constituted a perfect record of our discoveries.
    “I improvised a bomb,” Sir Lionel went on, “to which I attached a time fuse. We were headed south for Ispahan when all that remained of the tomb-mosque of El Mokanna went up in a cloud of dust.”
    That wild light, which was more than half mischief, leapt into his eyes as he spoke.
    “Although I had covered my tracks, there were consequences which I hadn’t counted on. Most of the work had been done at night, but it appears that travellers from a distance had