The Golden Scorpion

The Golden Scorpion

Sax Rohmer

5.0
Comment(s)
3
View
31
Chapters

The Golden Scorpion linked the story lines developed in the Yellow Claw (1915) with Dr. Fu Manchu who appears but is not named. "He wore a plain yellow robe and had a little black cap on his head. His face, his wonderful evil face I can never forget, and his eyes — I fear you will think I exaggerate — but his eyes were green as emeralds!"

The Golden Scorpion Chapter 1 THE SHADOW OF A COWL

Keppel Stuart, M.D., F. R. S., awoke with a start and discovered himself to be bathed in cold perspiration. The moonlight shone in at his window, but did not touch the bed, therefore his awakening could not be due to this cause. He lay for some time listening for any unfamiliar noise which might account for the sudden disturbance of his usually sound slumbers. In the house below nothing stirred.

His windows were widely open and he could detect that vague drumming which is characteristic of midnight London; sometimes, too, the clashing of buffers upon some siding of the Brighton railway where shunting was in progress and occasional siren notes from the Thames. Otherwise-nothing.

He glanced at the luminous disk of his watch. The hour was half-past two. Dawn was not far off. The night seemed to have become almost intolerably hot, and to this heat Stuart felt disposed to ascribe both his awakening and also a feeling of uncomfortable tension of which he now became aware. He continued to listen, and, listening and hearing nothing, recognized with anger that he was frightened. A sense of some presence oppressed him. Someone or something evil was near him-perhaps in the room, veiled by the shadows. This uncanny sensation grew more and more marked.

Stuart sat up in bed, slowly and cautiously, looking all about him. He remembered to have awakened once thus in India-and to have found a great cobra coiled at his feet. His inspection revealed the presence of nothing unfamiliar, and he stepped out on to the floor.

A faint clicking sound reached his ears. He stood quite still. The clicking was repeated.

"There is someone downstairs in my study!" muttered Stuart.

He became aware that the fear which held him was such that unless he acted and acted swiftly he should become incapable of action, but he remembered that whereas the moonlight poured into the bedroom, the staircase would be in complete darkness. He walked barefooted across to the dressing-table and took up an electric torch which lay there. He had not used it for some time, and he pressed the button to learn if the torch was charged. A beam of white light shone out across the room, and at the same instant came another sound.

If it came from below or above, from the adjoining room or from

Outside in the road, Stuart knew not. But following hard upon the mysterious disturbance which had aroused him it seemed to pour ice into his veins, it added the complementary touch to his panic. For it was a kind of low wail-a ghostly minor wail in falling cadences-unlike any sound he had heard. It was so excessively horrible that it produced a curious effect.

Discovering from the dancing of the torch-ray that his hand was trembling, Stuart concluded that he had awakened from a nightmare and that this fiendish wailing was no more than an unusually delayed aftermath of the imaginary horrors which had bathed him in cold perspiration.

He walked resolutely to the door, threw it open and cast the beam of light on to the staircase. Softly he began to descend. Before the study door he paused. There was no sound. He threw open the door, directing the torch-ray into the room.

Cutting a white lane through the blackness, it shone fully upon his writing-table, which was a rather fine Jacobean piece having a sort of quaint bureau superstructure containing cabinets and drawers. He could detect nothing unusual in the appearance of the littered table. A tobacco jar stood there, a pipe resting in the lid. Papers and books were scattered untidily as he had left them, surrounding a tray full of pipe and cigarette ash. Then, suddenly, he saw something else.

One of the bureau drawers was half opened.

Stuart stood quite still, staring at the table. There was no sound in the room. He crossed slowly, moving the light from right to left. His papers had been overhauled methodically. The drawers had been replaced, but he felt assured that all had been examined. The light switch was immediately beside the outer door, and Stuart walked over to it and switched on both lamps. Turning, he surveyed the brilliantly illuminated room. Save for himself, it was empty. He looked out into the hallway again. There was no one there. No sound broke the stillness. But that consciousness of some near presence asserted itself persistently and uncannily.

"My nerves are out of order!" he muttered. "No one has touched my papers. I must have left the drawer open myself."

He switched off the light and walked across to the door. He had actually passed out intending to return to his room, when he became aware of a slight draught. He stopped.

Someone or something, evil and watchful, seemed to be very near again. Stuart turned and found himself gazing fearfully in the direction of the open study door. He became persuaded anew that someone was hiding there, and snatching up an ash stick which lay upon a chair in the hall he returned to the door. One step into the room he took and paused-palsied with a sudden fear which exceeded anything he had known.

A white casement curtain was drawn across the French windows ... and outlined upon this moon-bright screen he saw a tall figure. It was that of a cowled man!

Such an apparition would have been sufficiently alarming had the cowl been that of a monk, but the outline of this phantom being suggested that of one of the Misericordia brethren or the costume worn of old by the familiars of the Inquisition!

His heart leapt wildly, and seemed to grow still. He sought to cry out in his terror, but only emitted a dry gasping sound.

The psychology of panic is obscure and has been but imperfectly explored. The presence of the terrible cowled figure afforded a confirmation of Stuart's theory that he was the victim of a species of waking nightmare.

Even as he looked, the shadow of the cowled man moved-and was gone.

Stuart ran across the room, jerked open the curtains and stared out across the moon-bathed lawn, its prospect terminated by high privet hedges. One of the French windows was wide open. There was no one on the lawn; there was no sound.

"Mrs. M'Gregor swears that I always forget to shut these windows at night!" he muttered.

He closed and bolted the window, stood for a moment looking out across the empty lawn, then turned and went out of the room.

Continue Reading

Other books by Sax Rohmer

More

You'll also like

Betrayed Bride: Claimed By The Brother

Betrayed Bride: Claimed By The Brother

Reilly Mcardle
5.0

I arrived at the hotel with Julian's favorite takeout, ready to surprise my fiancé before our big merger. But the moment I swiped the keycard, the silence of the hallway felt heavy and wrong. Inside, a red-soled stiletto lay on the marble floor-the same one I'd watched my best friend Lila try on at Saks last week. Through the cracked bedroom door, I watched Julian's back arch as Lila looked me straight in the eye and smiled, wrapping her legs tighter around him to mock my heartbreak. I fled to the penthouse to hide, only to find Grafton, Julian's "crippled" brother, waiting in the dark. To my horror, the man who was supposed to be paralyzed stood up from his wheelchair, gripped my chin with cold fingers, and forced me to sign a contract that gave him control of my family's shares. He knew about my mother's secret medical bills and used them to buy my silence, effectively turning my life into a calculated game of corporate chess. The betrayal tasted like acid, and the injustice of it all burned in my throat. My fiancé was a liar, my best friend was a thief, and the man now controlling my fate was a predator who had been faking his disability for years. I couldn't understand how everyone I trusted had turned out to be a monster. I was trapped between a man who cheated on me and a man who wanted to own me, with no way out and no one to turn to. But when Julian came looking for me, Grafton didn't hide; he stood tall, looming over me with a possessive glint in his eyes. "Help me destroy Julian," I rasped, realizing that to survive the Faulkner men, I had to become the most dangerous player of them all.

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Madel Cerda
4.7

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch—a titan of industry and my best friend’s father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
The Golden Scorpion The Golden Scorpion Sax Rohmer Literature
“The Golden Scorpion linked the story lines developed in the Yellow Claw (1915) with Dr. Fu Manchu who appears but is not named. "He wore a plain yellow robe and had a little black cap on his head. His face, his wonderful evil face I can never forget, and his eyes — I fear you will think I exaggerate — but his eyes were green as emeralds!"”
1

Chapter 1 THE SHADOW OF A COWL

30/11/2017

2

Chapter 2 THE PIBROCH OF THE M'GREGORS

30/11/2017

3

Chapter 3 THE SCORPION'S TAIL

30/11/2017

4

Chapter 4 MADEMOISELLE DORIAN

30/11/2017

5

Chapter 5 THE SEALED ENVELOPE

30/11/2017

6

Chapter 6 THE ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER

30/11/2017

7

Chapter 7 CONTENTS OF THE SEALED ENVELOPE

30/11/2017

8

Chapter 8 THE ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER'S THEORY

30/11/2017

9

Chapter 9 THE CHINESE COIN

30/11/2017

10

Chapter 10 CLOSE YOUR SHUTTERS AT NIGHT

30/11/2017

11

Chapter 11 ZARA EL-KHALA

30/11/2017

12

Chapter 12 CONCERNING THE GRAND DUKE

30/11/2017

13

Chapter 13 A STRANGE QUESTION

30/11/2017

14

Chapter 14 I BECOME CHARLES MALET

30/11/2017

15

Chapter 15 BAITING THE TRAP

30/11/2017

16

Chapter 16 DISAPPEARANCE OF CHARLES MALET

30/11/2017

17

Chapter 17 I MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

30/11/2017

18

Chapter 18 THE BRAIN-THIEVES

30/11/2017

19

Chapter 19 THE RED CIRCLE

30/11/2017

20

Chapter 20 MISKA'S STORY

30/11/2017

21

Chapter 21 No.21

30/11/2017

22

Chapter 22 THE HEART OF CHUNDA LAL

30/11/2017

23

Chapter 23 THE MAN WITH THE SCAR

30/11/2017

24

Chapter 24 IN THE OPIUM DEN

30/11/2017

25

Chapter 25 THE SUBLIME ORDER

30/11/2017

26

Chapter 26 THE LIVING DEATH

30/11/2017

27

Chapter 27 THE FIFTH SECRET OF RACHE CHURAN

30/11/2017

28

Chapter 28 THE GUILE OF THE EAST

30/11/2017

29

Chapter 29 WHAT HAPPENED TO STUART

30/11/2017

30

Chapter 30 JEY BHOWANI!

30/11/2017

31

Chapter 31 THE WAY OF A SCORPION

30/11/2017