The clock on the tower of the ferry building showed fifteen minutes past nine when Martin dropped off the car at the foot of Market Street. He paused a moment on the corner, enjoying the never-ending bustle about the city's gateway. He had plenty of time—Green Street and the Black Cruiser, was but a quarter hour's leisurely walk distant, and it was then forty-five minutes till ten o'clock. He turned and walked slowly northward along the Embarcadero.
The wide street was swept by a keen wind, and Martin found the night even rawer than he had anticipated. But overcoated, he was protected, and the walk was anything but lonely and uninteresting. To his lively mind, this night stroll along the famous East Street was a fitting complement to his strange encounter with the red boatswain of the brigCohasset, a fitting prelude to the secret business he was engaged upon.
The very breath of the street was invigorating—the salt tang of the breeze, the pungent, mingled smell of tar and cordage from the ship chandleries, the taste of the Orient from the great warehouses, even the gross smells of the grog-shops, and it set Martin's blood a-coursing. It conjured visions of tall ships, wide seas, far ports.
Across the way, at the wharves, great steamers were disgorging. The rattle of their winches filled the air. On his side of the street, the sidewalk was thronged with stevedores, stokers, sailors, what not. Each of the innumerable saloons he passed possessed its wassail group, and rough ditties boomed out through swinging doors. Great loaded trucks rumbled by. It was a world that worked and played both night and day.
But as Martin continued northward, the street's character changed. The kens and cheap eating-places gave way for the most part to the warehouses—great brick and concrete fortresses that turned a blank dark face to the night.
Pedestrians became few, mainly straggling seamen bound for their ships. Across the way, the steamers at the wharves were smaller, and here and there loomed the spars of a sailing vessel, a delicate tracery upon the blue-black starlit sky.
Martin speculated upon these last. The intricate, woofed masses of wood and cordage captured his fancy. He wondered if by any chance the boatswain's ship was over there. He wondered what the brigCohassetwas like. He wondered what the "blessed little mate" was like. He visioned that surprising person who had such influence over rough boatswains—a prim little man with mutton chop whiskers, he decided. Yes, the 'blessed little mate' of the brigCohassetwould be a little, white-crowned, bewhiskered old gentleman, perhaps somewhat senile and decrepit. It was inherent respect for old age that inspired the boatswain's affection.
So musing, Martin came to a by-street that divided two warehouses. He crossed the alleys, but lingered on the far curb.
The alley was dark, but he noticed some distance down it the outline of an automobile standing with its lights hooded. He had a passing wonder at the presence of an apparently deserted machine in such a location, but it was a subconscious interest.
The next street, he knew, was Green Street. Those lights that shone on the next corner must mark his destination, the Black Cruiser saloon. He pulled out his watch; still five and twenty moments before ten o'clock.
As he stood there under a dim street light consulting his timepiece, there came to his ears out of the darkness just ahead, a voice, a rich and throaty tenor, singing softly. The sweet sounds pierced his preoccupation. He looked, and some thirty or forty paces distant perceived a gnome-like figure perched atop a fire hydrant, at the edge of the sidewalk.
The figure was little better than a grotesque shadow in the gloom, but there was no need of light to give definite shape. That pure, musical voice once heard was not easily forgotten. Martin knew the missing steward of the brigCohassetwas there before him.
The voice rose and fell in a careless carol, an ancient, lilting, deep sea chantey.
A roving, a roving,Since roving's been my ru-u-in,I'll go no more a roving,With Thee, Fair Maid.
Martin stood entranced. The songster adventured on with the "Amsterdam Maid," another stanza and chorus. The soft bell-like tones, the salty words, the air, like all the chanteys, both sad and reckless, caressed Martin's ears like a siren charm. The boatswain's words, "'E sings like a blessed angel," crossed his mind. Rather, a blessed merman! To Martin, greedy for the oceans and beyond, the ditty seemed the very whisper of bright and beckoning distance—a whisper of tropic seas, of spice-scented nights, of blue isles. It heaped fuel on his sea-lust. His heels itched.
The song ended and was followed by a chuckle, a care-free clucking of subdued mirth. The singer was evidently in a jovial mood. A few softly spoken, laughter-tinged words reached Martin.
"The audience is requested to kindly move forward. No extra charge for box seats. Front row reserved for bald heads. Next show starts right away. Especially staged for young gentlemen of the law."
Martin came to himself with a start. The words were addressed to him. He was the sole audience in sight. And the facetious hunchback evidently recognized him, remembered him and the fact of his employment in a law office. Martin was standing beneath the dim glow of a street lamp, but Little Billy must have very sharp eyes to recognize features in that half-light.
Martin moved forward promptly. First the weeping boatswain, now the happy hunchback. It was a night of odd meetings! But Little Billy seemed not so downcast as the bosun.
"Ah, ha, my amiable acquaintance of the afternoon walks abroad!" chuckled the voice, as Martin came to a halt beside the hydrant. "Is it thus he cools a brow fevered of too much Trent and Blackstone?"
"Well, it is a good night for such a cooling," was Martin's good-natured retort.
"True," admitted the other. "And other things than the law fever the head—heavy ordnance of cruisers of accursed blackness, the fatal rum and gum, the devious workings of the Oriental mind, the slithering about of fat and greasy varlets. Yes, many things fever the brow, and 'tis a good night for a cooling. As witness!"
Martin stared at the other. No reek of alcohol met his nostrils, as with the boatswain, but, none the less Little Billy's cryptic jargon confirmed his suspicions. Also drunk, he reflected. The revered and gentle old mate of the brigCohassetwould have cause for grief when his two prodigals came roistering home.
Martin could not make out Little Billy's features very distinctly; the hydrant was beyond the street lamp's circle. But the hunchback's body was plain enough—the queer body squatted upon the hydrant, legs dangling, the ridiculous velvet hat rakishly aslant the large head. The hunchback's eyes were bright and alive.
"I can well believe your mind is care-ridden," bandied Martin, falling in with the other's mood. "It must be a wearisome and thankless task to scatter universal knowledge amidst the brainless. Have you still got your book? That thing you tried to sell to me?"
"Alas, I must confess I have it not," was the blithe response. "I ditched it, sir. It oppressed me to bear about such a store of wisdom. The marvel of the ages, the compendium of universal knowledge, reposes in the dust-bin. Mayhap some aspiring dust-man, in whose mind smolders untaught genius, will chance upon it. It may prepare some dim soul for future brilliancy—the arts, the crafts, the sciences, are all contained in that wonderful volume. Who knows, out of that black dust-bin may rise a radiant glow of light. The janitor, the collector of garbage, the industrious people who rake over the dumps—there are many chances of the right hands grasping that printed jewel.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
"'Tis a pleasant thought, my legal friend. Ah, I am happy in contemplation. I may not have lived in vain."
Martin grinned.
"You certainly are an optimist," he said. "But why did you cast such a wonderful gem aside?"
"Alas, the grossness of the commercial classes, the brutality of the tired business man! We Americans are a rude folk my friend; the courtesies are absent from our manners. Now, I am a young man with tender feelings, both mental and—er, physical. And these trousers I wear have already rendered long and faithful service; they have arrived at the stage where they require, let us say, humoring. The oft repeated impact of a number ten boot upon such delicate fabric could have naught but dire results. I discarded the book, sir, and resigned my membership in the peripatetic brotherhood, to avert a catastrophe. Both cloth and nerves were frayed. I am a cheerful youth, but sensitive, and I require considerate treatment to be happy. Ah, you are laughing! Never mind, I like people who laugh—like great Caesar, I would have them about me."
"Pardon me," gulped Martin. "I was just thinking how aptly the bosun described you. ''Ow 'e can chew the rag!' he said. And you can."
"The bosun!" exclaimed the other. "Did I understand you to say 'the bosun'? Can it be you have met my heart's chum, my dear bosun?"
"You bet I did!" replied Martin emphatically. "And I was lucky to end the encounter with a whole skin. Hasty man, your dear bosun!"
"'Tis true," admitted Little Billy. "He requires coddling, does my bosun. Red hair always does. My bosun has a tender heart, and he is a creature of impulse. Beneath that rough exterior surges the artistic temperament. But tell me, was the bosun, by any chance, inquiring for one Little Billy?"
"He was," said Martin. "Not only inquiring for Little Billy, but weeping for him, fighting for him—and for the larcerated feelings of the dear mate of the brigCohasset. Of course, I know you are Little Billy."
"Your perspicacity is remarkable," said Little Billy. "I am discovered. But your news is disturbing. Tears and temper are pregnant signs with my redheaded friend. You did not, by any chance, meet him in the city Bastile?"
Martin sketched for the other the scene at Johnny Feiglebaum's.
"But the bosun had the same misgivings of the police on your account," he finished.
"He stated positively you would sleep this night in jail. He gave you a turbulent character."
"Base libel," asserted Little Billy. "Bosun has imagination, but it functions within narrow limits. He is solely a son of experience. His idea of a pleasant and well spent evening ashore, is to introduce into the physical system an indefinite amount of variously tinted alcohol, and then to try a brave whirl of fisticuffs with the scorned minions of the law. To his understanding there is no other way of spending a holiday. Hence his solicitude for Little Billy. Of course, thinks he, Little Billy is off alone a-roistering. Why else should he have given his bosun the slip?"
"Did you give him the slip?" said Martin. "He thinks he mislaid you—that is a point in his distress. Did you run away from him to become a book agent?"
"You do not understand," stated the hunchback with dignity. "It was but a manifestation of the wanderlust, at once the curse and the blessing of my misshapen existence. Behold in me, sir, the rover, the argonaut, the adventurer!"
He straightened his slouched figure upon its slippery seat and attempted to strike an oratorical posture. He lost his balance and lurched sidewise towards Martin. He grasped Martin's overcoat.
Martin good-naturedly put an arm around the other to steady him. Little Billy, he guessed, was rendered dizzy by that rum and gum he had darkly hinted at. The hunchback teetered and clung to Martin's overcoat. Not for an instant did his tongue cease wagging.
"I am an explorer of strange lands, strange men, strange pursuits," he told Martin. "Behold in me a rollicking blade of the sea; one who has matched wits with all races, all colors, and sometimes, alas, come off second best; one who has followed many occupations. A sailor—yes. A book agent—yes. Also, sir, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. A wooz, a wizard, a king of legerdemain. Student, actor—But why continue?"
He had regained his balance upon his precarious seat by this time, and he finished with a fine, sweeping gesture:
"In this crippled carcass doth abide a vagabond spirit whose wanderlust has no purely geographical basis. I wander the wide world over, yes! Also, I wander in and out of men's lives, in and out of men's affairs. To wander—'tis my excuse for living. A fascinating obsession, sir!"
Martin was charmed. Never had he encountered such a flow of words, such musical eloquence. What a lawyer this chap would make! But Martin was also oppressed by his consciousness of the flight of time. He wanted to linger with his quaint companion; but the time!
He reached for his watch and noted that Little Billy's clutch had opened his overcoat. He struck a match and discovered it was four minutes to ten—four minutes to reach the next corner. He could make it in two, still it was time he was moving.
"I must leave you," he said to Little Billy. "I've an errand to that saloon on the corner. Wait for me; I'll be back this way in a few moments, and we'll go get a bite together."
"Would that I could," said Little Billy. "But I, too, must depart. My ship awaits."
"Well, then, so long," said Martin. "You know where I work, Little Billy, look me up sometime. Be glad to see you. I won't forget this meeting."
"Good-by. No, you'll not forget this meeting," responded the hunchback. He slipped down from his perch and shook hands. "No," he repeated, "you'll remember me all right."
Martin strode for the corner, and the Black Cruiser. Little Billy ambled across the street towards the dark wharves, and as he went he whistled blithely.
The street was empty. Martin passed but one living being during the rest of his journey. This was a figure in a gray greatcoat and cap, who lounged against a telegraph pole across the street from Martin's destination. The gray figure stared steadily towards the wharves; Martin passed it by almost without notice.
Martin was disappointed. The Black Cruiser—delectable name, of which he had expected much—was, it appeared, housed in a commonplace and very ugly two-story wooden building, a building with many dark and shuttered windows on the upper floor.
From where he stood upon the corner, Martin could see that the building was of considerable depth, and that the saloon appeared to occupy only the front downstairs portion. The upstairs, with its many shuttered windows, had the aspect of a deserted rooming-house. Just before him, over the closed door to the saloon, was the inscription Smatt had spoken of, in plain black letters, "Black Cruiser Saloon, Diego Spulvedo, Prop." It was a sordid and unprepossessing exterior; Martin felt that the Black Cruiser would prove the anti-climax to his evening's adventures.
The second-hand of his watch climbed toward the hour. He knew old Smatt's passion for exact punctuality; not a second before the appointed time must he enter the place. The hand touched the required point. Martin felt of the paper in his pocket and opened the door.
He stepped into a low-ceilinged bare and dingy room. The place reeked of stale drink. A battered bar filled one side, and before it stood five men in a row, attended upon by a heavily paunched and aproned fellow. Martin accosted this last, as he approached the bar.
"Mr. Spulvedo?" asked Martin. "I wish to see Mr. Spulvedo."
The aproned man regarded him with a stare from heavy lidded and nearly closed eyes. He had a swarthy, greasy, fat face, this officer of the Black Cruiser, and moist, thick lips. Martin recalled Little Billy's reminiscence concerning the "slithering about of fat and greasy varlets." Was this the varlet? The name fitted.
"Spulvedo!" repeated Martin. "Are you Mr. Spulvedo?"
"Yais," drawled the man.
Martin dropped his voice to a whisper.
"I would like to speak with you alone," he commenced.
He shot a glance out of the corners of his eyes toward the five patrons. Smatt had said to take care not to be overheard. He caught his breath with surprise. The glance revealed five stolid, yellow-brown faces turned toward him, five pairs of black, oblique-set eyes regarding him intently. Five Japanese! They were interested in him, there was the thrill. Martin sensed some connection between himself and the five. That envelope in his inner pocket!
"You weesh to speak weeth me, yais?"
The drawling voice compelled his attention.
"Yes—alone," said Martin.
Spulvedo nodded. He turned and waddled fatly around the farther end of the bar, and Martin rejoined him at the other end of the room.
"You are the messenger we expect, yais?" purred Spulvedo.
"I wish to see Captain Carew," stated Martin. "I was told to see you and ask for him; told you would conduct me to him. Is he here?"
"Yais, you see heem," answered Spulvedo.
He turned to a door in the wall behind him and unlocked it. He opened it a crack and held whispered parley with some one within. Then he turned to Martin.
"Thees way—come!" he bade.
Martin brushed through the door, opened just wide enough to admit his body. He expected the greasy saloonkeeper to follow, but instead that worthy slammed the door upon him and turned the lock. Martin was left alone in pitch darkness.
He stood still, nonplused by that cavalier desertion and disturbed by the darkness. He stretched out both arms and touched two walls. He was in a hallway. Alone? The air about him seemed to be filled with rustlings. He fancied he heard breathing. He took a tentative step forward, arm outstretched. A cold, clammy hand grasped his wrist and drew from him a startled yelp.
"Have no afraid," soothed a soft voice. "I make show he way to he hon'ble."
There was, it seemed, more than one fashion in spoken English at the Sign of the Black Cruiser; this fellow did not talk like Spulvedo. Martin's eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness, and he made out the vague outlines of a short figure before him. The figure moved, and the clutch on his wrist urged him to follow.
They moved forward some twenty paces, passed through a door, and encountered a stairway leading upstairs at right angles to the passage they had just traversed. It was not so dark here; a gas light burned somewhere in the hall upstairs, and a moiety of its glow found its way below.
His conductor released his wrist, and commenced to ascend the stairs. Martin, as he started to follow, noticed there was a second door at the foot of the stairs. He guessed it let upon the street.
They gained the upstairs landing and paused. Martin saw before him a long hall with at least a dozen doors opening upon it. A gas light burned at the farther end. As he had suspected from without, this place was, or had been, a cheap lodging-house. Nothing save that light seemed to speak of occupancy now.
Martin took his first good look at his guide. He was, as he had noted on the stairs, a Japanese; a chunky little man with an apologetic manner, and a muscular and bow-legged figure. If he had been a white man, Martin would have listed him a sailor.
The Japanese smiled. His teeth flashed startlingly white in his dark face.
"He, hon'ble, catch it Captain down there," he stated.
He waved a hand toward the gas light at the other end of the hall. Then he opened the door of the room nearest to hand.
"He, hon'ble, stop by here," he invited. "I go make prepare."
Martin shrugged his shoulders. There seemed to be many preliminaries to an audience with this Captain Carew. Through the door the Jap held open he saw the outlines of a bed, and a rag of carpet. When he stepped through the door, the musty, sour air of the room smote his nostrils like a blow.
The Japanese closed the door, and the retreating echo of his footsteps sounded from the hall. Martin had not expected to be thus shut in darkness, but after all it was a small matter. He felt his way to the bed and sat down on its edge.
After a moment he struck a match. The flare revealed, as he expected, the meanly appointed bedroom of a tenth rate hostelry. The single window was shuttered.
He composed himself to patience. This business was getting on his nerves. This visit to the Black Cruiser was not proving the evening's anti-climax, as he had feared, but he was not enjoying himself. The loose face of the Cruiser's commander, the mysterious Japanese, the disturbing secrecy, the foul air—he would be glad when his errand was completed, and he was once again outdoors in the clean, fresh air.
There was an alien taint in that poisonous room. With the Japanese in mind he placed it—it was that indefinable odor the man of the Orient leaves about his abiding place, the smell one gets during a walk through Chinatown. Was this Spulvedo conducting this rookery as a Japanese lodging-house?
A strange place for a sea-captain to lodge. This Carew—this "Wild Bob" Carew, as the boatswain had termed him—must be a man very indifferent to his surroundings, or else mightily anxious to remain under cover. The captains Martin had met were particular men; one would not find them in such a noisome hole. This Carew must be some rough renegade. Perhaps he was not even white; perhaps he was a half-caste. That would explain his choice of lodgings. One would think from all the secret mummery with which he surrounded himself that he was the Mikado, himself. He certainly was not very popular with the boatswain.
Thus far had Martin got with his musings, when his attention was attracted by noises that suddenly disturbed the unearthly quiet of the house. They reached him quite plainly through the thin walls.
A door slammed, below stairs. He heard sounds of a scuffle. The sounds drew nearer—grunts, exclamations, footsteps. They were coming up the stairs. In the hall outside a door was noisily opened. Some one ran past his door, and sentences were, spoken in a harsh, clicking, alien tongue.
Martin sat tensely on the edge of the bed. What was about, there in the hall? The scuffling had reached the head of the stairs; now it was opposite his door. Several pairs of feet were making that noise. Martin heard a voice exclaim chokingly, and in English——
"Let go—let go of me!"
It was a strange voice, a rich and thrilling voice, and it carried an appeal. A man's voice?
Martin felt his way to the door. This affair without was none of his business, but he must see what was being done to the owner of that voice. He must confirm or dispel that vague suspicion.
He turned the knob and pulled, and the door came a few inches. There was an exclamation from some one who stood in front of the door. An arm shot through the opening, a clenched hand impacted against the pit of his stomach, and Martin went reeling backward. The door slammed shut and the lock clicked.
Martin fetched up against the bed and sat down heavily, experiencing that sharp agony that follows upon a plexus punch. In that brief instant he had held the door ajar, however, he had witnessed a sight that caused him to ignore the pain. He had seen what was transpiring in the hall. He had seen the group of little yellow men clustered about and urging along a single figure that slightly overtopped them; a figure clad in a gray overcoat.
At the very second Martin had looked, a gray cap had fallen from the head in the scuffle, and a wonderful mass of dark hair had tumbled down about the gray-clad shoulders. An excited, protesting face had turned toward him. It was a woman those chunky aliens were urging along the hallway, a woman clad in a man's gray overcoat. A white woman—a young and beautiful woman!
Martin crouched on the bed's edge and panted to recover his breath. The scuffling without grew faint, a door slammed, and the house was again quiet.
Martin's mind was awhirl, but uppermost in the confusing chaos was that startling picture, photographic in its clearness, of the squat outlanders surrounding the protesting figure. A woman—a white woman—in the hands of these yellow men!
Surely he had seen aright. It was an ill light in the hall, but he had looked from a dense darkness, and had seen clearly. And had he not heard her voice? And seen the feminine tresses tumble about the gray-clad shoulders as the cap came off? There was some faint stirring of memory in connection with the thought of that gray, mannish apparel, but Martin was too excited to notice it. He was possessed by the event. He had caught a glimpse of the angry, vivid face. Angry, that was it—not fear, but anger, in her bearing. They had not wanted him to observe the incident, the outrage. They had offered him violence. They had slammed and locked the door. He was prisoner.
By this time, Martin, a thoroughly aroused young man, was again at the door. He, Martin Blake, would not submit to maltreatment and imprisonment! He would find out what this yellow crew was doing with that girl.
In the back of his excited mind danced grim shadows of the tales every San Franciscan knows; stories of white slaves, of white women being seen entering Oriental dens, and being lost forever to the world that knew them; of horrible relics of womanhood being discovered years after in some underground cave of Chinatown. Sickening thoughts!
Martin yanked at the door and pounded upon the panel. His blows echoed without, but brought no other response. He lifted his foot and drove his boot against the door. It shivered and splintered.
Before he could kick a second time, there came a cry from the hall, a hurried footfall, and the door was unlocked. Martin jerked it open. Confronting him was the Japanese who had been his guide, who had gone to "make prepare" Captain Carew.
"You come now," announced the little man, bowing courteously.
"What does all this mean?" demanded Martin angrily. "Who struck me through the door? How dare you lock me in? Who——"
"He Captain speak you come," said the other, smiling blandly. He shed Martin's rain of words as if he were some yellow oilskin. "I make him way—hon'ble fellow my show."
"What is going on in this house?" demanded Martin. "Who was that white woman? What was that gang doing with her?"
The other backed away before Martin's excited questioning. "No understand," he said. "No woman—no gang. No savvy."
"No savvy—big lie!" cried Martin, and he pounced down upon the gray cap which was lying on the hallway floor. He held it up for the other's inspection. "You savvy this?" he demanded.
The Jap shook his head. His smile was gone, and there was a hostile gleam in his eyes.
"That—no understand," he said crisply. "You come for he Captain—you catch business he Captain!"
Martin saw he could get nothing from this fellow. He was being told very plainly to mind his own business. Very well, this Captain Carew was perhaps a white man.
Without further words, Martin followed the Japanese. They went the length of the hall and paused before the last door, the one before which the light burned. The guide rapped. A deep voice rumbled orders within, chairs scraped, a door slammed, and the door before which they stood was opened.
Martin lurched forward past the man who opened the door into a room that was brightly lighted by gas and kerosene lamps. It was a room bare of furniture save for a common kitchen table, littered with charts and papers, and several kitchen chairs.
It was a large room, much larger than the one he had just quitted, the full width of the house, and, it seemed, part of a suite, for two doors, besides the one he entered through, let upon it, from the rear wall. But these details only impressed themselves upon Martin's mind later, and gradually. At the instant of his tempestuous entrance, he was entirely engrossed with his obsession, and he had eyes only for the dominant figure that stood behind the paper-littered table in the center of the room. To this man Martin addressed himself without preliminary.
"That woman—didn't you hear?" he cried. "These Japs have a woman prisoner in this house—a white woman! See! This is her cap. I saw——"
"Are you the messenger who was to come to me tonight?" interrupted the man addressed. He spoke in a commanding and vibrant bass voice.
It was suddenly borne in upon Martin's consciousness that he was in the presence of a personality. They were immobile yellow gargoyles, those two Japs who stood against the farther wall, they did not count. But this man who stood across the table from him—the air of the room was electric with his presence. A commanding and forceful personality, but a hostile personality, there was a chill in that interruption. But the momentum of his feelings carried Martin on.
"In the hall—shoving her along—she was struggling! A white girl! Those yellow——"
"What is your business with me?" The heavy voice beat down Martin's words. It was as if he had not spoken. "I am Captain Carew. You have a message for me?"
Martin checked his splutter of words. The other's sentences were like a dash of cold water; they cleared his mind. There was menace in that heavy voice, in the other's attitude, in the frosty gleam of his eyes. That veiled threat sobered Martin. He stood still and played his eyes upon the other in appraisal.
And he was a picture to fill the eye, this man who bore himself so disdainfully, this Captain Wild Bob Carew. Went glimmering the graceless, blasphemous sea-renegade of Martin's fancy. Martin caught his breath with unforced admiration as he measured the other's form and face.
Captain Carew was big and blond, as Smatt had predicted. He was also quite the handsomest man Martin had ever seen. He stood at least six feet, and was leanly and finely built. He was, perhaps, thirty-five years old, but the springiness of youth was still in his carriage.
Martin gained from him the impression of great physical strength. The face was finely chiseled, virile, aristocratic, a face to compel men's admiration, to turn women's heads. But Martin divined the flaw in that fine mask. The full, curved lips were shaded by a short, blond mustache, but that hirsute covering did not conceal the cruel quirk at the lips' corners. The face was ruddy, even in that light, and unlined. The eyes, probably blue in daylight, were black and glittering; and they bore Martin's scrutiny without a flicker. But after a moment the cruel lips curled scornfully.
"Well, my good fellow, have you quite finished with your inspection?" said Carew. "I hope you have discovered nothing about my appearance that displeases you."
The cavalier tone brought Martin to himself with a start. He had been taken aback by the appearance of Captain Carew, the man so different from his preconceived picture. This was no rough bully of the seas; Carew's bearing and dandified apparel bespoke gentility. Martin had just observed one of the captain's hands, a slender, white, aristocratic hand, small for the man's size. On the back of the hand was a star, tattooed in red.
The tattooing recalled Smatt and Smatt's words; recalled to Martin his reason for being in that room; banished for the moment his knight-errant mood. He thrust his hand into his inside overcoat pocket and felt of the envelope. Smatt's formula came to his lips.
"I wish to see you on the Hakodate business," he said.
"It is time that business was settled. Did the Chief send you?" Carew responded promptly.
"That is correct," said Martin.
He half withdrew the envelope from his pocket and then hesitated. This Carew was a severe and superior person. The packet delivered, Martin foresaw instant dismissal. And that poor girl! Yet, Carew was a white man.
"But, Captain Carew, you could not have understood me aright!" he appealed. "I tell you, these Japanese have a young white woman——"
"Enough!" barked Carew. His tone made Martin jump. "Young man, you were sent here to deliver certain papers to me. Do so."
Silently, Martin handed over the envelope. He was baffled. He was angry.
"Now—get out!" commanded Carew, waving him toward the hall.
Martin turned toward the exit. Hot, edged words were on his tongue's tip, and he could not trust himself to further urge this cold-blooded wretch. He took a step toward the door and then stopped short, staring into the corner of the room. He saw a man's gray overcoat lying on the floor in the corner.
He wheeled upon Carew again and found the latter's eyes upon him in a threatening glare. "You—you—that coat!" stammered Martin.
"Enough!" exclaimed Carew. "You have finished your business with me, young man. You will find your guide in the hall; he will conduct you to the street. And a word of advice, my good fellow: If you value your skin and your employment, you will promptly forget everything and anything you may have seen in this house!"
Martin choked upon his rage. Within him surged a hot hatred of this insolent sailor; this captain of yellow bravos; this abductor of girls; this man who dared not face the daylight. He was a worm beneath the Captain's feet. He was—well, the worm could turn.
He moved toward the door. Yes, he would go, and quickly.
"If you value your skin and your employment!" So that was it—a threat! He would show this high-handed captain that Martin Blake would risk his skin as readily as the next man; and as for his employment—a fig for Smatt, and Dr. Ichi, and all their ilk! They were crooks; this Carew was a crook. They held that girl against her will. It was all a piece of some dirty, crooked work. Well, the police....
"God, what treachery is this!"
The booming sentence arrested Martin at the door. He lifted his hand from the knob and turned to the voice. Carew, his face convulsed with passion, was regarding him.
"What does this mean?" cried Carew. He shook a handful of papers at Martin. "Come back here, you! Explain this beastly trick!"
Martin went back. He noticed, as he drew close to the other, that the envelope he had given the captain lay empty and torn on the table.
"Well, what is it? What trick?" he demanded shortly.
"What trick!" mimicked Carew. "Look here. Is this what you were to deliver to me?"
He thrust the sheaf of papers beneath Martin's nose. They were sheets of blank, white paper, and they had been creased by folding.
"This is what that precious envelope contained," continued Carew. "Tell me, what —— foolery is this? Where is that code translation? Where are my instructions? Where are my clearance papers? Hey—you staring fool!"
"Stop that!" flared Martin. "You moderate your tone when you speak to me! If you have any complaint to make about the contents of that envelope, make them to Josiah Smatt, and that Dr. Ichi. I know nothing about the contents. The envelope was given to me sealed, and I delivered it to you sealed."
"It has been tampered with," declared Carew.
"It has not," asserted Martin. "I have had it in my pocket, on my person, since Smatt gave it to me. I delivered it to you with the contents intact. If you found those blank sheets within, they were placed there before I received the envelope."
Carew favored Martin with a steely and searching stare; and Martin, ablaze with resentment, stared boldly back. Martin's bearing, and his positive statements, evidently impressed the captain.
"You had better take the matter up with the men who sent me here," said Martin. "I have finished with my part of the affair. I wish to go."
"You are jolly well right I'll take the matter up with the men who sent you here!" exclaimed Carew. "And I'll take the matter up at once. Meanwhile, you will remain here. I'll not lose track of you until I get to the bottom of this affair."
"Do you mean you intend to detain me here? Whether I will or no?" demanded the thoroughly angered Martin.
"I do," stated Carew.
He barked an order in a foreign tongue. The two gargoyles at the other end of the room sprang to life and started swiftly toward Martin.
Martin wheeled about and darted for the door to the hallway. He reached it, and was jerking it open, when the two Japs flung themselves upon him. He lifted one from his feet with a well-placed swing. The other flung his arms about Martin's neck and clung there.
Martin staggered into the hall, wrestling with that leech-like hug. He tore free from the fellow; and as he did he caught a glimpse of Captain Carew through the open door. The man had not moved from his station behind the table.
Then a mountain seemed to drop upon Martin's back. He was crushed face downward upon the floor, enveloped and smothered by a vast and sour-smelling bulk.
He struggled desperately and succeeded in partly rolling over on his back. He flailed his arm twice, and felt his fist strike against soft flesh. He saw hanging over him the unwholesome face of the saloonkeeper, Spulvedo.
Then a heavy blow smote his jaw-bone, and he went a-dancing through a world of bright, shooting stars, into darkness.
The results of a forceful tap on the human jaw are various. One man lies inert, dead of body, blank of mind; a second writhes about and babbles; a third retains a modicum of control over locomotion, but the mind journeys afar into a phantasmagoric world.
Martin was the third man during this, his first, reaction to a knockout blow. He was not completely unconscious, but that terrific jolt seemed to divorce body and mind. So far as further resistance was concerned, he was helpless. He swam about in an opaque mist. There, afar off, on the floor, was stretched another Martin Blake, a shadow of Martin Blake; and he saw monstrous things surrounding this adumbration of himself, headless bodies, and bodiless heads, and detached arms and legs.
He saw these parts of men haul the unreal Martin Blake to his feet and bundle him through the door, back into the big, lighted room. He saw this other self, body sagging, head hanging, stand again before the paper-littered table and sway to and fro upon tottering legs. He heard, from a great distance, the deep rumble of Captain Carew's voice—but all he could see of Carew was a foot and a section of leg. He saw a wide expanse of bare floor, and the floor was moving.
He hung suspended before a door. Came Carew's voice—
"Not there—fools—next room."
More moving floor. Another door. The door receded and showed a black hole. Again the deep voice—
"Good place—safe—just quill-pusher—dump."
A headlong flight through darkness, falling, falling, into the bottomless pit. A crash. And Martin's mind and Martin's body became one again as he struck the floor.
He was lying face downward upon a bare floor. He sat up. His head was ringing, and he could feel that his cheek was swelling. His addled wits slowly settled themselves. He moved his head about and took stock, as well as he could, of his new surroundings.
He retained a vague memory of his passage through the big room, and of the two doors. So, he knew the place he had been so unceremoniously dumped into was one of the rooms that opened upon Carew's headquarters. The only light that entered the place crept under the door from the room without. He knew, without experiment, the door was locked upon him.
The room felt bare. He struck one of his few remaining matches. The room was bare, not a stick of furniture in it. The single window was closed, and he supposed it was shuttered as well, for he could not see through it. But he would make sure. He clambered to his feet, a bit dizzy yet but well able to control his movements. He moved softly toward the window, feeling his way.
In a second his hand touched the window-ledge. He felt along the sash and shoved upward. To his surprise, the window lifted easily. But the hand he shoved without met, as he expected it would, a heavy wooden shutter; and his investigating fingers disclosed, moreover, a padlock, that, by means of a staple sunk in the sill, locked the shutter fast. No hope of getting away through the window.
The certainty that he was imprisoned in this sealed box of a room was not soothing to Martin's temper. He was not frightened—he was angry. The haughty Carew had aroused in him resentment; now, he had been slugged semi-conscious and locked in this room. His anger reached the proportions of a rage, a hot, furious rage.
He left the window and crossed to the door. He did not try this time to soften his footfalls—he did not care who heard him.
He tried the door. Locked. He shook it, and rattled it. No response, but his straining ears caught the sound of light footfalls without.
He pounded upon the door, shouted threats, demands, challenges. He was in the mood to flog the whole vile brood of this Pension Spulvedo.
He resorted to the method that had brought him freedom once before that night—he lifted his foot and drove his boot against the door. And, as before, the response was immediate.
A peremptory voice was raised in the other room.
"Be quiet, you, een there! Eef you be not quiet, I feex you!"
A well-remembered voice! That greasy villain of a saloonkeeper was out there! It was Spulvedo who had smote him on the jaw. Martin redoubled his blows on the door.
"Stop!Santa Maria, eef you not stop, I shoot!"
Martin kicked away. The door, of flimsy enough construction, seemed on point of giving way. Then, there happened in such rapid sequence as to seem simultaneous, several things.
There was an ear-splitting crash, a splintering of wood, a hot streak passing so close to Martin's head it scorched, a tinkle of broken glass from the window behind him, a smell of burnt gunpowder.
Martin stood on one leg, like a stork, his free foot suspended for the kick he did not deliver. There was a queer sinking feeling in that inward organ that received his food. He stared at a little hole in the door panel, just above his head—a little bullet-hole that glowed yellow with the light from the other room. The man had shot through the door at him!
"Eef you not stop the keek, I shoot lower!" came the voice.
Martin sat down quickly upon the floor. Then, on second thought, he crawled into the nearest corner and crouched against the wall.
To be shot at, to have Death's hot breath scorch one's very hair, might very well daunt a person of more tumultuous antecedents than Martin Blake. To a young man whose chief occupation in life has been the warming of an office chair, such an experience is apt to prove unnerving. It spoke well of the stuff Martin was made of that he was not overly frightened. But Martin was certainly a bit shaken.
He suddenly discovered there was a vast difference between braving death in spirit in the pages of a book, and braving death in person in a locked upstairs room of a dubious and isolated boozing den. It was all very well for, say, Roger De Puyster, hero of that swanking tale "Death before Dishonor" to disregard such trifles as revolver shots and threats of death. But as for Martin Blake, law clerk, well, he squatted low and hugged close in his corner. No panic gripped him, but the instinct of self-preservation is a primal instinct. Martin's condition of mind, for the moment, was that bromidic state, "better imagined than described."
Chiefly, he was astonished. He, Martin Blake, had at last encountered a real adventure! He, the obscure law clerk and messenger, whose existence was a drab routine, whose every act must favor dull convention, had suddenly tumbled into the meshes of a dark intrigue, undoubtedly unlawful, where men's violent passions were given free rein.
In the short space of a half-hour, he had witnessed an abduction, been assaulted, imprisoned, murderously shot at! These things had happened to him, to Mrs. Meagher's star boarder, to Martin Blake, the despised quill-pusher! There was in Martin's mood, as he crouched there in the corner, that transcended his anger, his wonder, his fear, something that was close akin to exhilaration.
It was very still. His thumping heart seemed to him to be the only sound that reached his straining ears.
What was going on out there in the big room? He had not heard Carew's voice. Was the captain still there? Was Spulvedo crouching without the door, pistol raised, waiting for him to "keek"? Where were the mysterious Japanese? What were they—Carew's men or Dr. Ichi's?
Strange thing about that envelope. Martin had been as much surprised as Carew at the contents. What kind of a game were Smatt and Ichi playing, sending him with injunctions of secrecy to deliver sheets of blank paper? Carew declared the envelope had been tampered with, but Martin knew better. It had not left his possession. Had Smatt foreseen the reception that would be accorded his messenger? He did not doubt it. Smatt was a cold-blooded fish; he would not hesitate to risk his clerk's skin if a dollar profit were in sight. Did Smatt and Ichi know about the abduction—the imprisonment of that girl who masqueraded in the gray overcoat?
Aye, the girl—that was the important thing! Who was she? Where had she been taken? If he could only get word to the police! He had no fears for himself, at least, not many. When Carew had adjusted the matter of the envelope with Smatt and Ichi, why, of course, he would be turned loose. But the woman—those yellow men....
Martin's ears became suddenly aware of a faint, strange sound. It was a sound he had been endeavoring subconsciously to place during the period of his musing; he had almost identified it as his heart-beats. Now, alert and listening, he placed it. It was a tapping on the other side of the wall he leaned against, a light tap-tap-tap. It started, stopped, started.
Somebody was tapping on the wall in the next room. Another prisoner! It was the girl—of course, it was the girl.
Martin was instantly sure of the tapper's identity, with a sureness born of intuition and memory. He remembered the two doors opening from the big room, the gray overcoat lying in the corner, Carew's words when the semi-conscious Martin Blake was held poised before the other door. "Not there—next room." Those were Carew's words. Why, of course, the Japs had brought the girl to Carew, and he had shut her in the next room.
Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap. There it came again. Martin rapped against the wall with his own knuckles, paused, rapped again. Instantly came the response from the other side, the same number of raps. A plain answer.
But Martin's elation was short lived. The unseen tapper immediately commenced again,tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap, tap.
Surely there was method in that irregular tapping. A signal, a talk in code! But he could not read it. Nor dare he lift his voice in shouted communication through the wall—Spulvedo, and bullets, hung over him. One experience of being shot at while unarmed and helpless was sufficient. It would not help the girl for him to get himself shot.
The unevenly tapped message came again. The best he could do was repeat the taps. But this, evidently, did not satisfy the sender. The tapping on the other side ceased. Though he rapped till his knuckles were sore, he could not induce the other to recommence.
The gloom of the room was less dense, Martin's accustomed eyes being now able to discern all four walls and the outline of the window. A-fever with excitement as he was, the inactivity palled upon him, became unbearable. He must do something. Well, he would try the window again.
But first he crept to the door and endeavored to peer through the key-hole into the big room. He hoped to get a view of what was happening without, of Carew, of Spulvedo. But he was disappointed. The key, thrust in the lock on the outer side, completely barred any outlook. He pressed his ear against the door, but heard nothing.
A second later he was at the window, feeling of the padlocked shutter.
He drew his penknife from his pocket. It was a tiny, ridiculous blade, and it seemed futile to hope it would dig that stout staple out of the sill; still, thought Martin, any sort of attempt was better than no attempt.
He leaned over the sill and pecked away with his office tool. Of a sudden, a draft of cold, fresh air rushed up into his face. At the same instant, his other hand, which was leaning against the shutter, felt the shutter bulge slightly outward, and his ears caught a distinct, but not loud, scraping sound.
The sound increased, the bulge increased, the draft increased. Martin felt the staple that held the padlock bending, felt, also, the prying edge of a small steel bar between the sill edge and the shutter. Some one was outside, breaking entrance.
He drew to one side, shrinking against the wall, instinctively holding his breath. The prying of the shutter from without steadily continued. Conjectures and hopes surged through his mind—it was a burglar, it was the police, it was some unknown, unguessed friend. He didn't care who it was so long as the shutter was opened.
His heart beat a bass-drum solo against his ribs. There were distinct, rasping creaks from the window-sill—the staple was groaning at being hauled from its wooden bed. There was a sharp crack, and the shutter swung open. Martin heard a relieved grunt, felt the cool, fresh air enveloping him, and saw a square of black sky, lighted with a few stars.
A hand grasped the window-sill and slid along it. Martin stared at the hand, fascinated. It seemed no more than a writhing shadow.
Then a head abruptly bobbed into the square of uncertain light. It was a familiar head; even against that dark background Martin recognized it promptly; it was an unusually large head, surmounted by a ridiculously small hat. A well remembered voice reached Martin's ear in a guarded whisper:
"Miss Ruth, Miss Ruth! Are you there, Miss Ruth?"
It was the hunchback, Little Billy.
Martin's long-held breath exploded with a sudden pop. The hunchback stiffened at the sound and hung motionless, half over the sill. He peered into the dark room evidently endeavoring to locate the noise.
"Miss Ruth?" he hissed sharply.
Martin stepped from the wall towards the window.
"It is I," he commenced.
"Stop! Don't move, don't yell. I have you covered!" was Little Billy's sharp injunction; and Martin caught the gleam of steel in the other's hand, saw the muzzle of a revolver pointed at his chest.
"No, no, don't shoot!" he exclaimed. "It is I, Martin Blake, the law clerk. Don't you remember—the fellow who was talking to you by the fire hydrant?"
"The law clerk! Good Lord! Have they shanghaied you?"
"Yes, I'm locked in this room," said Martin. "They are guarding the door. That fellow, Spulvedo, just took a shot at me because I tried to break out. Don't speak loudly—they'll overhear."
"I'm coming in," whispered Little Billy.
He wriggled his body further over the sill, swung about and dropped to the floor by Martin's side. Immediately, he turned and thrust his head out of the window and spoke a few words in an undertone to some one below.
Martin leaned over Little Billy's shoulder and peered out. He discovered the means by which the hunchback had reached that second story window—about nine feet below was the roof of a shed that abutted against the side of the building, and on the farther side of the shed was a dark space that looked like an alley, a freight entrance probably to the great brick warehouse that reared its blank, windowless side just opposite. He saw that his previous surmise had been correct—this room he had been confined in was a rear room, the shed below was doubtless an outhouse of the saloon, the street yonder was Green Street.
Martin grasped these details at a glance. What really interested him at the moment was a man's figure just below him on the roof of the shed. The upturned face was but a few feet distant; the man bulked huge in the shadow. It was the boatswain. Martin divined the method of the hunchback's assault upon the shutters—he had evidently stood upon the giant's shoulders.
"Stand by, Bos," called Little Billy softly. "I'm inside, all right."
"Aye, aye," came the answering rumble. "'Ave you found 'er, lad? 'Oo's that lookin' over your shoulder?"
"It is that clerk," said Little Billy. "'Wild Bob' locked him up. No, she isn't——"
He straightened up and clutched Martin's arm.
"You in here alone?" he demanded. "I am looking——"
"I know—a girl," interrupted Martin excitedly. "I think she is in the next room. A white girl. The japs caught her and turned her over to Carew. Had on a man's gray overcoat, and——"
"Did you see her? Is she safe?"
"Think so. They haven't had time to harm her. I think she is in the next room. Some one was rapping on the wall."
"Code talk!" supplemented the hunchback. "That is Ruth. She thinks I was caught, too. She has been trying to communicate with me. Must have heard them put you in here. Which wall?"
He darted to the side of the room Martin indicated, moving lightly and soundlessly. He started a light tapping on the wall, the same irregular tapping that had puzzled Martin a few moments before. Hardly had he begun when faint replies came from the next room.
Martin tiptoed to the door and pressed his ear against it. Events were crowding him swiftly. He had no time or data for cool reasoning. The boatswain, the hunchback, the imprisoned woman, Carew, the envelope, Ichi and Smatt—it was all a mysterious jumble that he had no time to bother with. His impulse controlled him, and his impulse enlisted him upon the girl's side against Carew. Little Billy and the boatswain he accepted without question as friends. Had they not opened the window, and the way to freedom? So he listened at the door while the hunchback exchanged signals, alert for alarming sounds from the big room. But he heard nothing.
For several moments the strange conversation continued through the wall. Twice, Martin heard the hunchback mutter an oath. Then, after a final series of raps, the little man left the wall and crept to Martin's side.
"Yes, she is in there," he announced. "We will have to work swiftly. What do you know of this house—how constructed?"
Martin described in whispers the plan of the building as he knew it—the hall and stairs, the large room, the two smaller rooms opening off it. He also told Little Billy of his own rough experience, though he did not mention the envelope.
"Spulvedo is on guard on the other side of this door," he concluded. "He is armed, and he won't hesitate to shoot."
"I know he would shoot," said Little Billy grimly. "So will I shoot, if necessary. You have been thrust into a desperate business, my friend. Oh, I understand your position, even better than you, yourself. I know why you were seized and locked in here. I warn you truly, you are in some danger. Carew, or any of his crowd, would snuff you out in an instant if he thought fit. I am not going to ask you to risk your skin in an affair that does not concern you. There is the window—the bosun will let you pass."
"I'll stay and help you, if you'll have me," promptly replied Martin. "I am not afraid to take a chance. And that girl—those yellow——"
"I knew you would stick!" interrupted the hunchback. His hand grasped Martin's in a congratulatory grip. "I knew I had not misjudged you—you are a white man. We must get her away, and we dare not call the police into this affair. But there is nothing crooked on our side of the fence. Here, take this—you may need it!"
Little Billy thrust something into Martin's hand, and Martin thrilled at the feel of it. It was a pistol, a compact, automatic messenger of death. But once or twice before had Martin ever handled such a weapon, and he had never shot one at a living mark. Nevertheless, it fitted snugly and naturally into his palm. He even contemplated, with a certain amount of pleasure, its instant use upon the divekeeper's gross person. There was a subtle and lasting change of character in that brief moment—Martin Blake, law clerk, became of the dead past, and Martin Blake, adventurer, stepped into the law clerk's boots.
"It is too risky to make a rush through this door," Little Billy was saying. "They would hear us and be on guard. We will try the next window."
He darted to the window, and Martin followed. The purposeful hunchback was a stimulating surprise, a far cry from the eloquent Little Billy of the fire hydrant to the energetic Little Billy of the moment! The man of words become the man of action.
Little Billy leaned out of the window, and whispered.
"Aye, aye," Martin heard the hoarse whisper in reply.
"Stand by, we are coming out—both of us," admonished Little Billy.
He vaulted over the sill, clung a moment, and dropped. Martin saw the boatswain catch the little man in midair and lower him gently to his feet.
"Come on," the hunchback then called softly.
Martin divested himself of his overcoat. The cause, he thought, was worth the sacrifice, and the garment was cumbersome. Then he clambered over the sill and lowered himself.
He was preparing to drop, when a resistless clutch fastened upon his hips. He was handed through the air as if he were a feather, and set gently upon his feet at Little Billy's side. The boatswain's gruff whisper was in his ear—
"Swiggle me, ladibuck, I 'ad no thought to run afoul of you again."
"Come on—next window," commanded Little Billy.
He shrank against the side of the building and began to edge himself along. Martin and the boatswain followed. Martin looked up. The window they had just climbed through was a mere black blot, the window that was their objective was a mere outline overhead and a few feet to one side. No betraying light hazarded them, there on the shed. The warehouse behind them, and the building against which they crouched, combined to drape them in black shadow. Unless they made a noise, Martin divined there was not much chance of their being discovered.
Little Billy paused beneath the other window, and Martin and the boatswain pressed close to his side.
"Now, bosun, lend me your shoulders," said Little Billy. "If this shutter is fastened the same way the other one was, we won't have much trouble. Hand me the bar."
The boatswain produced a short steel bar from some place about his person and handed it to the hunchback. Then he braced his back against the building, directly below the desired window, and picking up Little Billy, hoisted the little fellow to his own broad shoulders. The hunchback perched there a moment and delivered instructions to Martin.
"You stand lookout," he instructed. "Watch the street. Listen for footsteps."
Martin obediently crept to the edge of the shed's roof that overlooked the street and posted himself there as watchman. The alley was on his left hand, but it was so dark there he could not see the ground. The street, just before him, was not so impervious to peering eyes.
The cobblestones and the sidewalk pavement gleamed dully. By stretching his neck, he could see the corner where the street lamp spluttered before the saloon entrance, and beyond the corner, the wide vista of the Embarcadero and a section of dark wharf. But he saw nothing threatening in the scene. Nothing moved—the street was empty of life. The only sounds were the hooting of steamboat whistles on the bay and the light rattle of Little Billy's bar against the shutter.
Then, abruptly, came from around the corner, in front of the saloon, the muffled throb of an automobile engine. It sank to a purr, and stopped. Martin stiffened tensely and gripped the revolver in his hand. Behind him, he heard the boatswain mutter:
"'Ear that, Billy? Swiggle me, 'e's back—'urry!"
The scraping sound of the steel bar upon the shutter increased in volume. Martin heard a mumble of voices, and a stamping of feet on the pavement. Then a door closed and the sounds ceased. Martin knew that several men had entered the saloon. The danger seemed to have passed them by.
He heard Little Billy give vent to a satisfied grunt. He looked up, over his shoulder, and saw that the jimmy had completed its task. The shutter was open, Little Billy was clambering down from the boatswain's shoulders, an indistinct figure was half over the sill, clambering out of the newly opened window. And in the same glance, he saw a beam of yellow light illumine the other window, the window of the room in which he had been prisoner. His ears were assailed with a sudden outcry coming through that window——
"He ees gone!"
It happened in the twinkling of an eye. Martin wheeled about at the sight and sound. He had no time for reflection, but he knew instantly that his escape had been discovered, that the light above came from the big room where he had bearded Carew, that they had opened the door and found him gone.
Feet trampled in the room. A man's figure was framed in the lighted window—a bloated bulk that he knew was Spulvedo. A flame shot from that figure into his very face. The missile struck the roof close to his side and splattered shingle and dirt in his face. Without hesitation, he straightened his own arm and fired point blank at the living mark. Spulvedo emitted a stifled shriek and fell from sight.
The window was empty again. Not until long afterward did Martin recall that his conscious mind never received the sound of those two shots.
A dark figure brushed past him and dropped over the edge of the roof to the street. The boatswain followed. Little Billy was by his side, grasping his shoulder.
"Come on—roll off!" the hunchback was urging.
The second window overhead was suddenly alight, and a booming voice was cursing in the room. Martin rolled off the edge and fell into the boatswain's arms.
Then he was on his feet, running, by the boatswain's side. Just in front of him raced the hunchback, and a queer figure in man's clothes, whose long hair streamed behind. He heard men shouting.
They passed the corner and started across the Embarcadero toward the wharves. Far down the street a police whistle was blowing shrilly. Behind them, the Black Cruiser was spewing forth its brood.
The street was wide. They were not nearly across when these sounds of pursuit reached Martin's ears. He heard the pounding of feet behind him, and the sound of shots. He heard the hunchback fling over his shoulder:
"Hold them back, bos! We'll get the boat free!"
The boatswain stopped short and wheeled about. Martin's momentum carried him several steps farther, then he too checked his stride. Intuitively, he knew his place was at the boatswain's side.
The boatswain was on one knee, shooting rapidly at a cluster of retreating figures. The Black Cruiser was still emptying itself. Everywhere before the saloon, it seemed to Martin, were darting forms.
From behind telegraph poles, from kneeling figures, came the spurting flames of revolver shots. The reports were a sharp rattle. Martin dropped to his knee and raised his arm. The gun in his hand leaped like a live thing as he pulled the trigger. He was given entirely over to the battle lust of the moment. He was cool, he was happy, he laughed aloud, and he shot rapidly, with intent to kill, at the enemy figures yonder.
The police whistles sounded insistently, more shrilly. Martin sensed there was a commotion a block or so down the street—approaching police, he knew.
The boatswain was on his feet and backing toward the dock. His voice warned Martin——
"Avast there, nipper!"
Martin found his feet also and commenced to retreat. One of the enemy figures was coming straight for them, ignoring the shots. There was something distinctive, contemptuous, about that charge. Martin knew the approaching figure was Carew. He took aim, crooked his finger, and found his weapon empty. He drew back his arm and hurled the gun straight at the other, and at the same instant the charging man shot. And darkness enveloped Martin as he fell.