Around I came, in response to a shrill cry from behind me--an inhuman
cry, less a cry than the shriek of some enraged animal. . . .

With his left foot upon the first stair, Nayland Smith stood, his lean
body bent perilously backward, his arms rigidly thrust out, and his
sinewy fingers gripping the throat of an almost naked man--a man whose
brown body glistened unctuously, whose shaven head was apish low,
whose bloodshot eyes were the eyes of a mad dog! His teeth, upper and
lower, were bared; they glistened, they gnashed, and a froth was on
his lips. With both his hands, he clutched a heavy stick, and once--
twice, he brought it down upon Nayland Smith's head!

I leaped forward to my friend's aid; but as though the blows had been
those of a feather, he stood like some figure of archaic statuary, nor
for an instant relaxed the death grip which he had upon his
adversary's throat.

Thrusting my way up the stairs, I wrenched the stick from the hand of
the dacoit--for in this glistening brown man, I recognized one of that
deadly brotherhood who hailed Dr. Fu-Manchu their Lord and Master.

* * * * *

I cannot dwell upon the end of that encounter; I cannot hope to make
acceptable to my readers an account of how Nayland Smith, glassy-eyed,
and with consciousness ebbing from him instant by instant, stood
there, a realization of Leighton's "Athlete," his arms rigid as iron
bars even after Fu-Manchu's servant hung limply in that frightful
grip.