"Send for Mr. Nayland Smith without delay!" she said, and her sweet
voice was slightly tremulous. "He must be put on his guard!"
I started up.
"Why?" I said. "For God's sake tell us what has happened!"
Aziz who evidently was as anxious as myself for information, and who
now knelt at his sister's feet looking at her with that strange love,
which was almost adoration, in his eyes, glanced back at me and nodded
his head rapidly.
"Something"--Karamaneh paused, shuddering violently--"some dreadful
thing, like a mummy escaped from its tomb, came into my room to-night
through the porthole . . ."
"Through the porthole?" echoed Stacey, amazedly.
"Yes, yes, through the porthole! A creature tall and very, very thin.
He wore wrappings--yellow wrappings--swathed about his head, so that
only his eyes, his evil gleaming eyes, were visible. . . . From waist
to knees he was covered, also, but his body, his feet, and his legs
were bare . . .
"Was he--?" I began . . .
"He was a brown man, yes"--Karamaneh divining my question, nodded, and
the shimmering cloud of her wonderful hair, hastily confined, burst
free and rippled about her shoulders. "A gaunt, fleshless brown man,
who bent, and writhed bony fingers--so!"
"A thug!" I cried.
"He--it--the mummy thing--would have strangled me if I had slept, for
he crouched over the berth--seeking--seeking . . ."
I clenched my teeth convulsively.
"But I was sitting up--"
"With the light on?" interrupted Stacey in surprise.
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