I glanced at Karamaneh, who, since the moment of my arrival, had never once removed her gaze from me; she remained in that state of passive fear in which I had found her, the lovely face pallid; and she stared at me fixedly in a childish, expressionless way which made me dread that the shock to which she had been subjected, whatever its nature, had caused a relapse into that strange condition of forgetfulness from which a previous shock had aroused her. I could see that Stacey shared my view, for-- "Something has frightened you," he said gently, seating himself on the arm of Karamaneh's chair and patting her hand as if to reassure her. "Tell us all about it." For the first time since our meeting that night, the girl turned her eyes from me and glanced up at Stacey, a sudden warm blush stealing over her face and throat and as quickly departing, to leave her even more pale than before. She grasped Stacey's hand in both her own--and looked again at me. "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 up 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 port-hole...." "Through the port-hole?" echoed Dr. Stacey amazedly. "Yes, yes, through the port-hole! 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. "No," added Karamaneh; "the light was out." She turned her eyes toward me, as the wonderful blush overspread her face once more. "I was sitting thinking. It all happened within a few seconds, and quite silently. As the mummy crouched over the berth, I unlocked the door and leapt out into the passage. I think I screamed; I did not mean to. Oh, Dr. Stacey, there is not a moment to spare! Mr. Nayland Smith must be warned immediately. Some horrible servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu is on the ship!" CHAPTER XXXII THE TRAGEDY