"All right, Petrie! Shall join you in a moment!"
I started up, looked to right and left; but, although the voice had been that of Nayland Smith, no sign could I discern of his presence!
Seriously doubting my senses, I looked in the direction from which the voice had seemed to proceed--and there was Nayland Smith.
He stood on the islet in the centre of the pond, and, as I perceived him, he walked down into the shallow water and waded across to me!
"You must think me mad this morning, Petrie!" he said. "But I have made several discoveries. Do you know what that islet in the pond really is?"
"Nothing of the kind; it is a burial mound, Petrie! It marks the site of one of the Plague Pits where victims were buried during the Great Plague of London. You will observe that although you have seen it every morning for some years, it remains for a British Commissioner lately resident in Burma to acquaint you with its history! Hullo!"--the laughter was gone from his eyes, and they were steely hard again--"what the blazes have we here?"
He picked up the net. "What! A bird-trap!"
Smith turned his searching gaze upon me. "Where did you find it, Petrie?"
"I did not exactly find it," I replied; and I related to him the circumstances of my meeting with Kâramanèh.
He directed that cold stare upon me throughout the narrative, and when, with some embarrassment, I had told him of the girl's escape--
"Petrie," he said succinctly, "you are an imbecile!"
I flushed with anger, for not even from Nayland Smith, whom I esteemed above all other men, could I accept such words uttered as he had uttered them. We glared at one another.
"Kâramanèh," he continued coldly, "is a beautiful toy, I grant you; but so is a cobra. Neither is suitable for playful purposes."
"Smith!" I cried hotly, "drop that! Adopt another tone or I cannot listen to you!"
"You _must_ listen," he said, squaring his lean jaw truculently. "You are playing, not only with a pretty girl who is the favourite of a Chinese Nero, but with _my life_! And I object, Petrie, on purely personal grounds!"
I felt my anger oozing from me; for this was strictly just. I had nothing to say and Smith continued:
"You _know_ that she is utterly false, yet a glance or two from those dark eyes of hers can make a fool of you! A woman made a fool of me once, but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn yours. If you are determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke up Adam, do so! But don't involve me in the wreck, Petrie, for that might mean a yellow emperor of the world, and you know it!"