Tales of Chinatown
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Sax Rohmer >> Tales of Chinatown
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"I!"
"She hypnotized you at some time, and, by means of this uncanny
power of hers, ordered you to steal the Key of the Temple of
Heaven in such and such a fashion at a certain hour in the
night. . ."
"I had a strange seizure while I was at her house. . . ."
"Exactly! During that time you were receiving your hypnotic
orders. You would remember nothing of them until the time to
execute them--which would probably be during sleep. In a state
of artificial somnambulism, and under the direction of Madame's
will, you became a burglar!"
As Madame de Medici's car drove off from the house of Colonel
Deacon, and Madame seated herself in the cushioned corner, up
from amid the furs upon the floor, where, dog-like, he had lain
concealed, rose the little yellow man from the Temple of Heaven.
He extended eager hands toward her, kneeling there, and spoke:
"Quick! quick!" he breathed. "You have it? The Key of the
Temple."
Madame held in her hand an ivory Buddha. Inverting it she
unscrewed the pedestal, and out from the hollow inside the image
dropped a gleaming Key.
"Ah!" breathed the yellow man, and would have clutched it; but
Madame disdainfully raised her right hand which held the
treasure, and with her left hand thrust down the clutching yellow
fingers.
She dropped the Key between her white skin and the bodice of her
gown, tossing the ivory figure contemptuously amid the fur.
"Ah!" repeated the yellow man in a different tone, and his eyes
gleamed with the flame of fanaticism. He slowly uprose, a
sinister figure, and with distended fingers prepared to seize
Madame by the throat. His eyes were bloodshot, his nostrils were
dilated, and his teeth were exposed like the fangs of a wolf.
But she pulled off her glove and stretched out her bare white
hand to him as a queen to a subject; she raised the long curved
lashes, and the great amber eyes looked into the angry bloodshot
eyes.
The little yellow man began to breathe more and more rapidly;
soon he was panting like one in a fight to the death who is all
but conquered. At last he dropped on his knees amid the fur. . .
and the curling lashes were lowered again over the blazing amber
eyes that had conquered.
Madame de Medici lowered her beautiful white hand, and the little
yellow man seized it in both his own and showered rapturous
kisses upon it.
Madame smiled slightly.
"Poor little yellow man!" she murmured in sibilant Chinese, "you
shall never return to the Temple of Heaven!"
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