Read Online Emperor Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer - Free Book Online

rub onto his face, neck and arms.
    * * *
    Dr. Fu-Manchu closed the little trap, smiling his mirthless smile.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    I t was a long way up the creek to the canal behind Niu-fo-tu. And having found it, Tony had to go on for another mile or more before finding a suitable mooring where they might safely tie up. Dawn was very near by the time they made fast.
    After a scant breakfast, he made Yueh Hua promise not to leave the boat until he returned. Reluctantly, she did so, and Tony set out.
    He found a road lined with cypress trees which evidently led to the town. Already the sun was very hot. It promised to be a sweltering day. Soon he found himself in the shadow of one of several memorial arches which spanned the road outside the gate. Not without misgivings, for he was a marked man, he pressed on.
    Entering the town, he saw the market place directly on his right, and the stalls of dealers who sold everything from sugar cane, water chestnuts, pork and pumpkins to clothing and millet whiskey.
    As he turned in, expecting to get information here, a rickshaw coolie came out and nearly knocked him down.
    A fat Chinese woman smoking a cigarette sat in the rickshaw. The wife of some sort of official, he judged.
    “Why don’t you look where you’re going?” she snapped at him.
    He lowered his head humbly, and passed on.
    An old woman selling preserved duck stuck on long sticks and other Chinese hors d’oeuvres, gave him a toothless grin.
    “There she goes. See what it is to be the wife of a jailer.”
    “A jailer?”
    “Don’t you know her? Her husband is head jailer at Chia-Ting. Give me the old days.”
    Head jailer at Chia-Ting. The leering brute who used to gloat over his misery. The man Yueh Hua had claimed as her father.
    Yueh Hua’s instincts hadn’t misled her. Niu-fo-tu was dangerous.
    “Can you tell me the way to the house of the Lama?” he asked.
    “You can’t miss it, son. Straight up the main street. The second turning on the right, and his house faces you.”
    He bought two of her smelly delicacies and returned to the main street.
    It was just possible to see part of the waterfront, sails and masts of junks. Then, he saw the fat woman in the rickshaw. She was talking to an excited boy who stood beside her.
    His heart seemed to miss a beat.
    It was the cross-eyed little monster Tony thought they had shaken off.
    He must make a decision—and swiftly.
    The group was some distance away down the narrow, crowded street. But even so, he heard the shrill voice of the fat woman.
    “Impudent liar! My daughter indeed! My husband will flog the skin off her back!”
    Tony cast one swift, longing glance toward the gate, and as he did so, Mahmud, Dr. Fu-Manchu’s giant bodyguard, came in.
    Instinctively, Tony swung around, forced his way through a surge of people hurrying in the direction of the disturbance, and plunged into a narrow and odorous alley on the right which would lead him from the point of danger. Some heads craned from windows, but they were all turned in the direction of the main street.
    He cursed the hour that he had entered Niu-fo-tu for now, from behind, he heard a renewed uproar and detected the words, “Escaped prisoner! Reward.”
    Swift footsteps were following him. To run would be to betray himself. But he knew that his life hung in the balance. He went on walking fast. The following footsteps drew nearer. A hand touched his shoulder.
    “Have you seen a man with a crutch?” came a crisp inquiry.
    The password!
    Gulping his relief, Tony gave the countersign. “What is the name of his crutch?”
    He twisted around. The speaker was a Buddhist lama, his head closely shaved; he wore horn-rimmed glasses. The proper reply was “Freedom.” But the monk gave another.
    “Nayland Smith,” he snapped and went on in English. “I wasn’t sure, McKay, but, thank God, I was right. Your disguise is perfect. Keep calm, and keep walking. I came to look for you. Don’t bother to say anything.