"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest!Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest!Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest!
Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
The inn rocked with the volume of sound. I stood there fascinated, with a sort of horror. The thing—knowing what I knew—was so daring and grim that, more than anything else, it showed me with whom we had to deal.
The application was lost upon Danjuro, but I told him what it meant in French, and he nodded with contracted eyes.
"Drink, and the devil had done for the rest,Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
"Drink, and the devil had done for the rest,Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
"Drink, and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"
One would have thought that the room could not contain the noise, and that the very windows must be shattered, and in the very middle of it I heard something else—the urgent, throbbing sound of an engine.
Danjuro heard it as soon as I did. "Motor-bicycle," he whispered.
The sound grew insistent. Whoever was coming rode hell for leather and with the exhaust open. Then there was a succession of reports, a grinding noise, and the door of the bar was flung suddenly open.
A tall man in goggles and overalls covered with dust walked in. As he did so, the pirate chant stopped with dramatic suddenness, and the singers jumped to their feet. Then he removed his glasses and his cap.
It was Major Helzephron.
They clustered round him thickly, and to each one he said a quiet word. In every case, when this happened, the man spoken to nodded and vanished into the night. I could hear them running outside the inn. Lastly, Helzephron took Vargus by the arm, and they also passed out. I could see the man more plainly than ever before. There was a great bruise round about the left eye, and the face was pale. But it blazed with will and purpose, and the cruel mouth was set in a malicious and abominable smile.
"The wolves are hunting to-night!" Danjuro said to me two minutes later in my bedroom, and once again his face was like a demon of Old Japan. "Helzephron will not appear at the police court to-morrow. He has arranged it somehow, and, after all, it is a trivial affair. He has ridden down from London during the day."
"You mean that there is going to be a raid to-night?"
"I feel sure of it. Why else should Helzephron rush from London? And you observed the manner of his confederates. Don't you see this—with all his cunning precautions the pirate is far too clever not to know that his career must be a short one. He cannot hope to remain concealed for any great length of time. His object is to obtain an immense fortunequickly. Already I calculate he has stolen jewels and money to the value of two hundred thousand pounds. A few more such coups and he can disband his crew and disappear for ever. Speed is the essence of his plan."
"But we must do something, we must stop it...."
"Our opportunity for action is improved, Sir John. In the first place, you must take steps to concentrate a fleet of patrol ships in this neighbourhood."
"The car is here. I can write official telegramsin code to Plymouth and London. Within an hour the hinterland and the sea from here to Scilly can be covered with a swarm of ships. St. Ives is only six miles away."
"Write the dispatches at once. I will call Thumbwood, who must take them in, together with an official note from you to the postmaster."
I unlocked my portfolio and wrote the wires. There should be such an invasion of the air to-night as Far West Cornwall had never known!
Thumbwood appeared, I gave him full instructions, and heard the Rolls-Royce start below.
"And now, our part!" I said to Danjuro.
"If we are right in our conjecture, the pirates will shortly leave Tregeraint on their expedition. How they will join the airship or where we don't know. But we may safely assume that the house will be left in charge of one or at most two men. The others will all be wanted to man the ship; it is a simple calculation. Here is your chance. You must get inside Tregeraint, obtain conclusive evidence, and if the poor lady is there alive, bring her away in safety. Perhaps to-night the Pirate Ship will make its last cruise! Our presence here, our identity, is quite unsuspected. A concentration of hostile airships in this neighbourhood is the last thing Helzephron will expect to-night."
"And you, my friend?"
"I would that I could come with you, for yougo in danger of your life, but, as I see it, my work should be different. Someone, in view of its escape,mustsolve the mystery of the Pirate Ship itself. I have a theory already; I must put it to proof. There are boats in the cove below—I see that the moon is rising, I know what I must do. But, even so, I will come with you, Sir John, if you say so."
I shook my head. "No, I will go alone. It is my job."
Then Danjuro did a strange thing. He took my hand, bowed over it and kissed it! "You also are of the Samurai!" he said.
In a minute more he carried in a heavy bag from his own bedroom, and produced from it a miscellany of objects.
"Here is a twelve-shot automatic, with a dozen cartridge clips," he said. "You know all about the working of it? I thought so. This pair of wire-cutters you will need for the barbed fence. These two keys with adjustable wards—you turn the milled screw at the end to adjust them—will open any ordinary lock. Here also is an extremely powerful steel lever, with a wedge end. In the hands of a strong man like yourself it will wrench open most windows or doors."
God knows there was no lightness in my heart, but in the usual English way at serious moments, I laughed.
"The Complete Burglar!" I said.
Danjuro looked at me with a glance as cold as ice.
"I am in most deadly earnest, Sir John. You know what my experience has been. Well, I say deliberately that I have never been in such peril as you are going into."
"I meant nothing. And what is this?" I had taken up a little leather tube with a lens at one end.
"A powerful electric torch. But it is more than that. You can instantly reverse it in your hand, and if you press this stud, the plated bottom flies open, and by means of a spring an ounce of cayenne pepper is projected for several yards. It will stop anyone and operates instantaneously. A little thing I invented and have found most useful. These handcuffs are of papier mâché and weigh practically nothing. They are from Japan and tough as the hardest steel. You may require them. And I never go on an expedition without this tiny bottle of chloroform and pad. You can stow everything about you with ease, and the combined weight is as nothing."
I did so, and it was as he said. Then a thought struck me.
"Armed and prepared like this, I feel certain that I shall get in. But there are two Tibetan mastiffs let loose in the grounds at night. I can shoot them, but the noise of the report ..."
"That is provided for, Sir John. You see this gun?"
"It looks like a short-barrelled rook-rifle, except for the great thickness at the breech."
"It holds ten conical bullets. They are hollow-nosed and expand on impact. The point is that the gun is perfectly noiseless. Powder is not used at all. The propelling power is liquefied carbonic-acid gas, and all that is heard at the moment of firing is a sharp snap. With this you can stalk the dogs and kill them easily enough. Do not forget your hunting flask and brandy and water. And for concentrated food, should you be detained in hiding, though I and Thumbwood will be coming to look after you if you don't appear by morning, these solid chocolate cakes are invaluable."
All this was done quickly, and with the most business-like precision. Although my sense of humour told me that I was like the White Knight in "Alice in Wonderland," I did realize that I should be a terribly nasty customer to tackle, and I was grateful.
While we had been talking there came sounds from below of the closing of the inn, and shortly after we were called to supper.
"Don't you stay up any longer, Mr. Trewhella," I said. "You must want your rest. As for us, we are late birds. Both I and my friendsometimes take a five minutes' stroll last thing before we turn in. That won't inconvenience you?"
"Bless your life, no, zur. You do as you're a mind here. 'Tesn't like a town. The key of the front door hangs on a nail by the side. And if youshouldbe going out later, Billy Pengelly's in the empty pigsty, a sleeping off what he's had, and there's a bucket of cold water on the wall. In half an hour's time or so I know as he'd be grateful for having it poured over 'en!"
We promised to perform what was evidently one of the amenities of this primitive place and Mr. Trewhella withdrew.
"That coastguard may be useful to me," Danjuro said. "And now, Sir John, I don't want to hurry you, but my advice is that you start. I don't suppose that the band has left Tregeraint yet. But there are a hundred hiding-places on the moor all round the domain, and you may be able to see which way they go before you make your own attempt. I shall be on the trail in a very few minutes after you."
"And Charles? He will be back shortly."
"I shall need him. I know he would wish to be with you, Sir John, but I believe your chances are better alone. I shall not leave until he returns, provided he is not unduly detained."
He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. "A waning moon," he said, "whichwill be at full power about midnight, when there may be such a battle in the air as the world will hear with wonder!"
I saw to my gear. It fitted about me very comfortably.
"Well, good-night," I said, and without further words I went quietly out of the house.
When I got a hundred yards away I turned and looked at it, all silvered in the moon. The air was sweet with the perfume of shy moorland flowers that give up all their treasure to the night. The Atlantic, far below, made a sound like fairy dreams, and on the distant slopes of Carne Zerran an owl sounded his melancholy oboe note.
A lovely night, gentlemen!
The moon was in its last quarter, and shed a faint spectral light over the moor as I came quietly up to the first of the barbed-wire fences that surrounded Tregeraint. I lay down in the heath, certain that I was quite invisible, and waited.
An hour had hardly elapsed since the band had left "The Miners' Arms." Were they still here, or had they set out for their unknown destination? I could not hear a sound of any kind. From where I lay the high wall hid the house, and among the mine buildings higher up there was neither light nor movement. Tregeraint might have been deserted for a hundred years, and the roaring company of the inn had vanished into thin air. And strain my eyes as I would, there was no sign of the great Tibetan dogs.
I remained motionless for a quarter of an hour by the illuminated dial of my watch. Then, as nothing happened, I began operations. The wirewas tough and intricate, but ten minutes' work with Danjuro's powerful cutters disposed of it sufficiently for me to crawl through both the first and second fence without a scratch. I stood now in the lower portion of a large, oblong paddock of short grass, all grey in the moon. The surrounding wall of the Manor was about a hundred yards up the slope, and with the gas rifle on my arm I glided over the intervening space like a ghost. My boots were soled with india-rubber and I made no sound at all.
I found the wall to be ten or eleven feet high. It was crowned with acheval de friseof iron spikes, and, owing to its height and smooth surface, quite insurmountable. But I knew there must be an entrance somewhere, and never expected to climb the barrier, and I began a cautious circuit. About half-way round the extent I came to a wooden door set in the wall. It was a mere postern, not more than five feet high, and had a barredgrillein the centre of about a foot square. I reflected that this must be a side or garden exit, and that the main gate was probably on the other side, facing the mine-head. But it was all the better for my purpose if this was so, and I took out my steel "jemmy" and prepared to tackle it.
My intention was to prise it open with my tool, for I am a very powerful man, but suddenly another idea occurred to me. The bars of thegrillewere old and rusted. As there was no key-hole in the door, it was obviously secured by bolts. I inserted my lever, and without putting out my full strength, and with little more sound than is made by the striking of a match, soon had three of the bars out of the wood and lying on the grass.
My arms are long. I pushed my right through and my fingers, after a little groping, caught the handle of the bolt, which slid back easily enough. It had been oiled and showed that the door, which swung back at once, was in constant use.
I stepped within, treading like a cat, and closed the door behind me. I stood in a large and neglected garden, where shrubs and flowers grew as they would and formed a miniature jungle, through which I could see the dark façade of the house, now quite close. Everything was as still as death, and I listened with strained attention for several minutes. So far the work had been ridiculously easy, but as I crept up a moss-grown path towards the building every nerve was on the alert. I was not afraid, I think I can truly say so, but there was a chill on my soul. This old house, with its atmosphere of robbery and murder, its singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and, above all, the thought that Connie might be within it, all combined to wrap me in a terrible gloom of the spirit. Yet,looking back, I see that this was well. It hardened all my resolution and made me terrible.
I had no thought of it then, but now I can see the grim horror of such a being as I had become approaching the house step by step....
All the lower windows were shuttered. There was not a gleam of light anywhere as I followed the path and came to the front, where there was a grass-grown gravel sweep and iron gates in the wall. This part of the house was plain and unadorned, save for a pillared porch and steps leading down to the drive. A thick growth of ivy covered it from the ground to the first-floor windows, and after I had gently tried the heavy front door, which, as I expected, was locked, this suggested a mode of entrance. If I could climb up and get on to the roof of the porch, it might be possible to force the central bedroom window, which I could see was unshuttered.
The ivy was of ancient growth, the stems thick and tough. Any schoolboy could have mounted to the top of the porch. And any boy could have pushed back the catch of the window with the blade of his pocket-knife, opened it and stepped inside.
I stood in a bedroom, dark, except for a little pool of moonlight by the window. I felt curtains, and I drew them before I switched on my torch. It was an ordinary bedroom, very untidy,furnished with a suite of painted deal. There was, however, a great saucer-bath full of water, and a pair of Indian clubs. The wall was hung with photographs of football teams, and in an open drawer of the little dressing-table was a pile of gold and notes.
Commonplace enough, like an undergraduate's room at Oxford, but, nevertheless, it affected me unpleasantly. It was like a sudden intimacy with something abominable, as I opened the door inch by inch, and felt for the powerful pistol in my pocket. My heart hung poised for an instant as I stepped out into a dark corridor, and then I gave a gasp, and my heart almost stopped beating.
I stood at the head of broad, shallow stairs. Below was a large hall, dimly lit, and pouring up to me in a volume of sound came the melodious thunder of a piano played by a master hand!
At first my knees grew weak, and I clutched the shadowy banisters to save me from falling. Constance! Who could be playing in this evil house but she! I can never forget the agonized pang of mingled joy and horror that I felt. But as I crouched and listened, the fierce emotion passed away. Whoever was playing, it was not my girl. A lost soul made that music.
I glided down the stairs. Certainly the wolves had left their lair, though in what manner I couldnot divine. The house was inhabited by but one or two people at most. All the doors along the corridor stood open, as if the rooms had been left in a hurry. The buildingfeltdeserted, empty of its usual inhabitants....
A dim light came from an open door at the right of the hall. I peeped in and saw a long shadowy room of great size. The walls were panelled and hung here and there with pictures, the floor carpeted. Two immense oak tables, with their complement of chairs, went up and down the centre, and it hardly needed a butler's hatch in the wall, doubtless communicating with the kitchen, to tell me that this was the dining-room of Helzephron and his buccaneers.
At the far end, and opposite the entrance door, was a wide and lofty archway, half covered by a curtain. It led to another room beyond, and it was from this that a bright light streamed, and the sound of music came.
I placed my gas rifle on the floor by the wall, took out my automatic, unlocking the safety catch, and went to the curtain on tiptoe. There was an alcove at the side, where some shelves had been, and this was perfectly dark. I marked it as a possible hiding-place, and then pulled the curtain aside for half an inch. Just as I did so there was a clash of prelude, and the pianist began the enchanted Third Ballade of Chopin.
It was the man known to me as Vargus, the man with the smooth voice, the face that was evil and refined. He sat at a magnificent grand piano, swaying a little on his stool....
Do you know that marvellous composition of Chopin's? Most people have heard it at least once or twice in their lives, played by somemaestro. I have heard the renderings of the great pianists of the world, but none played as this man played.
A terrible remorse informed the unearthly music. It was as though the player strained with every power of his being to recapture something irrevocably lost. When he came to that strange passage which has been so often compared to the soft cantering of a horse, the pain in the lovely chords was unbearable. The artist, Aubrey Beardsley, made a wonderful drawing of this passage—a spectral white charger ambling through a dark wood of pines, bearing a lady in a cloak of black velvet. The picture rose before my eyes as I stood, but it flashed away, and words of awful significance took its place in my mind and fitted themselves to the closing chords....
"Night and day he was among the tombs, and on the hills, crying out and beating himself with stones."
"Night and day he was among the tombs, and on the hills, crying out and beating himself with stones."
As you may know, the piece ends in a furious welter of sound. It had just concluded, and the player sat motionless as a wax doll, when anotherfigure heaved itself into my line of vision, a burly giant, with red hair and a heavy, sullen face.
"Now you've finished that —— row," he growled, "we'd better be moving. We may get signals coming through soon. And I suppose I must feed the canaries!"
I knew the man at once. There was no possibility of mistake. It was Michael Feddon, the famous Rugby international, and six years ago the idol of the public. It was said that he was the finest back that England had ever seen. In the height of his career he had been mixed up in a horrible, criminal scandal, and received five years' penal servitude.
I swallowed in my throat with loathing, but the next words drove all thought of Feddon's career from my mind.
"Everything is ready on a tray in the kitchen, and the soup is on the electric stove. It will be hot by now," said Vargus, in his soft, creamy voice.
"I'll get it, and I wish the damned business was over. I said from the first that when the Chief brought those two women here we ran more risk than ever before. It'll turn out badly yet. Mark my words, Vargus."
Vargus took up a bottle which stood on a table by the piano. It was brandy, and he poured out two glasses half full, adding soda from a siphon.
"Here's luck; not a bit of it," he said. "If all goes well to-night, a couple more expeditions will see us finished, with a hundred thousand each, and scattered all over the globe. We all have our fancies. The Chief's is this Shepherd girl. Well, in another fortnight he'll disappear with her. Every man to his taste."
Feddon swallowed his brandy at a gulp. "She'll lead him a dance yet!" he said. "I never saw such a spitfire. I hate going near her, and I wish it wasn't my turn to stay at home. I'd tame her, though, if she were mine. I wouldn't stand her pretty ways and the things she says, like the Chief does. He's mad about the girl."
"And what would you do, my beefy friend?" said Vargus, with his abominable smile.
Feddon touched his middle. He was wearing a leather belt. "Take this to her," he said, "and beat her black and blue."
Vargus rose, grinning. "Well, get the food," he said. "I'll go down at once. You'll find me in the wireless cabin."
Feddon lurched forward. I had just time to press myself into the alcove, when he came through the curtain and strode heavily through the room into the hall.
Vargus went to a tall mirror by the piano, as I watched him breathlessly. He did something that I could not see, and it swung open like a door.There was the snap of an electric switch, and I saw him step into a lift, pull a rope, and sink out of sight, leaving the door open.
He could not have sunk ten feet when I was in the room. It was large and square, furnished with something like luxury, and brilliantly lit with electric globes.
There was an arm-chair in full view of the archway. I sat down, and it was still warm from its last occupant. That seemed to me amusing, and I smiled.
Something clanked, a soft swishing noise changed to a distant rumble, and the lift came into sight. I had it covered, but it was empty—waiting for the man who was going to "feed the canaries."
I waited for him, too. There was a box of cigarettes close by. I lit one and smoked quietly. Then I heard him coming through the dining-room, his footsteps and the rattle of a tray.
The half-drawn curtain bellied out and was pushed aside. Feddon stood there with the tray in his hands and the light shining on his ugly red hair.
He saw me. His mouth opened and his eyes started out. He seemed unutterably foolish, like a great cod, and I laughed aloud.
But he was quick, oh, quick and clever! Like the famous footballer that he was! In a second he had ducked, and the loaded tray wasskimming across the room straight at my head, as he hurled himself after it, quick as a snake strikes.
I was ready, though. He was not. My first shot broke his shoulder and stopped him for an instant. Then, with a roar of pain and fury, he came on again, and I shot him through the heart when he was three feet away.
Mr. Feddon would feed no more canaries.
I stood looking down at Michael Feddon's body. I was stunned. For the man I had just killed I cared nothing, felt no emotion. I had saved him from the drop; that was all. But, though I had been convinced that Danjuro's and my own suspicions were absolute fact, the full realization had come so suddenly that it clouded the mind.
Constancewashere, and she was unharmed!
I had, indeed, penetrated into the very centre of this lair of the air-wolves, and already had enough evidence to hang the lot. For a minute the mingled joy and relief was so great that I could not grasp them.
The brandy bottle of Mr. Vargus was still on the side table. I stepped over the body—the leather belt which he had proposed as an instrument of correction for Constance was in full view—and helped myself sparingly. Almost immediately my brain cleared.
I listened intently. The two shots from my automatic had alarmed no one. The sinister house was as silent as before. It seemed quite certain that Feddon and Vargus alone remained to guard it. Even the two Tibetan mastiffs of which I had heard so much had disappeared.
To my right, the tall mirror swung on its hinges, and the lift beyond was lit by a globe in the roof. To what it led I did not know, probably some cellar where poor Constance and her maid were imprisoned, though a lift seemed superfluous. At any rate, Vargus—the next person to tackle—was down there, and it was long odds that I could not get the better of him. Moreover, and this was in my favour, he was expecting Feddon, and the arrival of the lift would not startle him at first, if he were close by.
I examined the lift. It was electrically operated, and of a type perfectly familiar to me, fitted with an automatic magnetic brake. I saw that it travelled from its secret recess behind the mirror to one other spot only, stopping nowhere on the way. A touch of the rope started it, and it would stop itself when its journey was done.
Well, there was no use waiting. Again I must plunge into the unknown. Connie was waiting! I wondered how honourable Danjuro was getting on, and laid myself long odds that he wasn't having such an exciting time as I was! How hewould stare if he came back to "The Miners' Arms" in a few hours and found me there with Connie, and the artistic Mr. Vargus cooling down in the patentpapier mâchéhandcuffs from Japan! Mr. Trewhella of the inn had shown me a large pig, which he called "Gladys," and of which he was fond. There was a vacant and stoutly-built sty next door, which would be an excellent place of confinement for the interpreter of Chopin!
... Yes, I thought these thoughts, even at that moment. I was madly exhilarated. Everything had gone so easily and well. I stepped into the lift humming a song. It was the old chanty that the pirates had roared in the inn two short hours ago:
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest."
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest."
There was a looking-glass on one side of the lift—probably the thing had been bought entire at some sale—and I saw myself in it. The song died away. Whose was this grim and terrible face, gashed with deep lines, with eyes that smouldered with a red light? Mine? I have told you how Danjuro looked when the bloodhound that he was emerged for an instant from behind the bland Oriental mask. There was not a pin to choose between us.
The lift sank slowly. Every second I expected the soft jerk of its stopping. But the secondswent on. Down and down, what cellar was it that lay so low? Were we dropping to the centre of the earth? It seemed an age before the motion slowed, and I had already obtained an inkling of the truth when a dim archway rose up before me, and the machine came to rest.
This was no cellar. I was deep down in Tregeraint Mine, which must run under the house itself! In the necessity for fox-like caution, I did not follow out the thought—not yet. But I believe that the subconscious brain had already seen far into the mystery....
I stepped out into a mine cutting. The walls were cut in the rock, and the roof here and there shored up with heavy timber props. It was wide enough for two men to walk abreast, and quite eight feet high. Every fifteen yards or so hung a roughly-wired electric lamp, and the floor was beaten hard by the passage of many feet. The air was hot and stagnant.
I prowled down this passage without a sound, my pistol in my hand, ready to shoot at sight, but for what seemed an interminable time I met no one, and saw nothing but the damp walls, here and there sparkling with yellow pyrites and the green of copper.
There came at length a rough wooden door, which swung easily open, and beyond a much narrower and higher passage than before, a morenatural cleft in the immemorial rock, it seemed, owing nothing to the agency of human hands. It dripped with water. Hitherto I had been walking on a level, now I trod a fairly steep descent, while the path was no longer straight, but full of fantastic twistings. Each moment the air grew cooler, and each moment a deep, murmurous noise, like very faint and muffled drums, grew louder.
The lights, now suspended from a thick and tarry cable, were less frequent than at first, and the place was full of shadows. But as for the noise, that could only be one thing, the Atlantic ground-swell. I was approaching the sea, doubtless by one of the old mine "adits," made for ventilation many years ago and long before the invention of the electric fan.
The narrow way ended in a door. It was latched but not locked, and I pushed it slowly open. Immediately there was a sense of vast and gloomy space. I say "gloomy," for it was not absolutely dark. Here and there hung dim, yellow lights....
Advancing a step or two upon a floor of hard earth on sand, I found myself in a vast cavern. It seemed as large as the shell of a cathedral, and for organ there was the plangent, echoing sound of sea waves. The sound came from my right, and was carried on a current of sweet, brine-laden air. Peering through the darkness, I seemed to beaware of a faint, ghostly radiance, a considerable distance away.
I had lost the capacity for amazement, but not of quick thinking. In a lightning flash of realization I knew that I had penetrated to the heart of Helzephron's secret, even before my thoughts arranged themselves in sequence. And then, as near as possible coincident with my stepping through the door, I heard a shout.
Someone had seen me....
The shout came from the other side of the long, aisle-shaped cave. Simultaneously, half-way up the side, at a height of thirty feet from the floor, there was a sudden illumination. I saw a broad ledge in the wall, railed round, with a ladder staircase descending from it. A little black figure was leaning over the rail, and it was from this that the shouting came. It did not need his words to tell me that here was a wireless station. I could see the drum and the battery shelf quite distinctly.
"A signal!" he shouted, and I knew that he took me for the dead man above. "They're coming back! The sky swarms with armed patrols and warships. They've had to run for it, but the Chief thinks he's shaken them off. I must switch on the guides!"
I gave an answering shout, keying my voice down to something like Feddon's bass growl.
"It's C.Q.D.!—C.Q.D.!" came in a shrill voice of alarm, and Mr. Vargus ran down the ladder like an ape.
C.Q.D.! The signal of "extreme danger." Well, I rather thought it was!
Where I stood I was in deep shadow, and my face could not possibly be seen. I was much the same height and build as the dead man, and Vargus ran down the cave without the least suspicion. He had gone to his left, my right, to where I had already seen a pale light, and I followed him, more slowly, at a distance of some ten yards. It was a natural instinct enough. My only idea was to silence him, find Constance, and fly from the horrible place. I could not know that I was making a fatal mistake.
I was running forward into complete understanding. The great cave turned a little to the right. It opened out every second until at length I saw the mouth, wide as that of the largest-sized hangar on an aerodrome, flooded with moonlight!
Opposite, sixty yards away, was a precipitous wall of black rock; between it and the mouth of the cave a terrible chasm, which fell sheer to the water. It was all clear now. Far above, on the top of the cliffs, was that fenced-in part with the "dangerous" notice boards. You will remember that I had lain down by the side of this fence andpeered downwards. I had looked into the same gulf that I was now looking into from a much lower altitude. And the rock there overhung so greatly that there was no possible indication of the cave mouth where I now stood.
Moreover, the cave itself turnedinwardfrom the sea, running parallel to the cliff.From the sea, as from the land, the opening of the cave was entirely hidden.
Vargus was fumbling at a switch-board. He pulled down a vulcanite handle; there was a green spark, and lights at the top, bottom and sides of the entrance glowed out brightly.
Imagine an illuminated rabbit-hole in the side of a railway embankment, and you have an exact miniature of what this vast secret cave had now become. Go a little further and think of a bat whose lair was in this hole, and was guided to it by the lights....
Vargus snapped another and smaller switch. I watched him with a sense of complete detachment. I knew, as well as if I had been told, that he was lighting guiding lamps somewhere on the two headlands that guarded the entrance to the cave outside. No thought of danger came to me; I think joy at this complete discovery, and wonder at the stupendous cunning and achievement of it all were my only emotions.
"They may be here at any moment, Feddon.I tell you I don't like it at all. I told the Chief that it was madness not to lie low for a bit. But you know what he is. The Government has got the tip somehow, the Cornish seas arehummingwith enemies. That fellow, Custance, is smart as they make them...."
He was moving towards me as these words came from him in a nervous, disjointed stream of words. Then he saw me, and stopped bang in the middle of a sentence.
It was my moment.
"How do you do, Mr. Vargus," I said. "You mentioned my name. Indeed, you paid me a compliment for which I thank you. I thought I'd drop in for a chat. Sorry to find Major Helzephron out."
I never saw a man in such deadly fear. His face went the colour of cheese, and a horrible choking noise began in his throat. He staggered to within a yard of the brink; another step and he would have plunged into the abyss.
"You, you,you!" he said, the last word in a dreadful whisper.
"The Oxford professor—yes. Mr. Vargus, I am a lover of music, and you have entertained me royally to-night. But you have played Chopin for the last time in this world."
I lifted the pistol and covered his heart. His yellow mask quivered and was still. "Quickly,please," he said, and there was even a faint smile of relief about his pallid lips.
He could face death gladly, and I knew why. To have shot him there and cast his body to the void would have been a mercy. I had other uses for Mr. Vargus.
My pistol hand was steady as a rock. With the left I took out Danjuro's handcuffs and walked up to him.
"Not yet," I said, when I was within a foot.
He saw what I meant. As comprehension leapt into his eyes he tried to step back. He nearly did it, but I was just too quick for him. I caught his ankle with the crook of my right foot, and he crashed on his back with his head and shoulders actually over the chasm. Before he could move again I had jerked him backwards by the legs, and had him handcuffed.
I pulled him to his feet by his collar, and half marched, half carried him back into the cave. He was nothing more than a bundle of clothes in my hands.
"Now," I said, "take meat onceto the place where Miss Shepherd is confined, and, though I make no promises, it may go less hardly with you than the rest."
He twisted his head and tried to look me in the face. "If I do, will you shoot me?" he whispered, fawning on me like a beaten dog. "ForGod's sake shoot me, or give me an opportunity to shoot myself."
"The hangman will save you the trouble," I answered brutally. "Now then, march!" He gave a great wail of despair.
"Ah, you don't know what I was once!" he cried, and there was such a horror of remorse, a damnation so profound in that cry of agony, that a fiend would have been moved.
"I heard you play the Third Ballade," I answered, and my voice was no longer firm.
"Death, please, Death."
"Take me quickly to Miss Shepherd. Then perhaps—I can't kill you myself, but ..."
It was as though my words poured a new life into his veins. His knees still knocked together in a loathsome paralysis, but he made effort to shamble forward.
Vargus was silent now. Our feet made no noise upon the sandy floor of the cave. It was then that I heard something like a cat purring.
Unconsciously I stopped to listen. No, it wasn't a cat, it was the faint drone of some night beetle; it was ...
On the right wall of the cavern, remember that my back was turned to its mouth and the sea—there was a sudden flash of white light.
The rest happened in five seconds.
The light leapt out from the wall, and instantaneously the vast vaulted place was brilliantly illuminated. I had a fleeting vision of wooden galleries, a workshop and smithy, piles of stores, and then I wheeled round with a shout of terror. The drone had leapt up to a deep, menacing note, like the E string of a double bass. A circular furnace of white light in the centre of a gigantic shadow rushed at me with incredible speed.
A blast of wind struck me like the shell froma six-inch gun; the drone rose to the echoing shout of an army as the Pirate Airship entered the cave that was its home.
I had just the millionth part of a second in which to realize the truth before my head struck; the wind seemed to tear out my very vitals, and I knew nothing more.
* * * * * *
Once, when I was a boy at the seaside in Wales, I dived into a deep rock pool, and, deceived by the clearness of the water, hit my head against a submerged ledge, and for several seconds was stunned. There was no one with me, but, fortunately, I recovered in time, and with bursting lungs regained the surface.
The experience was repeated now, or so it seemed, with a curious subconscious memory. I thought that I was rushing violently upwards towards the light out of a well of darkness. Each moment the radiance increased and my speed grew greater. There was a sound as of many waters in my ears.
I opened my eyes. The light was brilliant, painful. Also, it moved and flashed, and so it was not the sun of twenty years before beating down....
Someone spoke: "Yes, it's the man himself. He's shaved off his moustache, and his hair andskin are dyed. He's a fair chap really. Look at his lower neck and chest. It's Sir John Custance right enough!"
I lay and listened. Although I heard every word, and perceived that an electric torch was dancing about, the conversation hardly seemed to concern me.
There was another voice: "Vargus said he admitted it, but Vargus has fainted again."
Hands felt me all over. Things were taken from my pockets, and there were sharp exclamations of surprise. Somebody gave a long, low whistle.
"No bones broken. His eyes are opening. Give me that flash, Gascoigne."
Someone poured brandy down my throat—I knew it was brandy—and I moved my limbs and groaned.
Then I heard a shout as a door that I could not see was burst open. "Feddon's killed!" came in a high, excited voice. "Poor old Feddy's shot through the heart."
I think it was at this precise moment that I regained full consciousness, and realized that I was not badly hurt. My whole body felt as if it had been severely beaten, but instinct told me that there was no real damage. As for the shock, it was not until several hours afterwards that I felt its effect, though then it meant collapse.
I lay perfectly still, this time by design, and closed my eyes. Everything had come back to me; I remembered every incident from the moment I had cut the barbed wire to that when I had escaped, by a miracle, death from the returning Pirate Ship.
My first thought was one of bitter disappointment. So they had run the gauntlet, after all! The mystery ship had escaped the swarm of cruisers and patrol boats that were looking for her. I believe I ground my teeth with rage. A second afterwards I groaned out loud. The sound was wrung from my very heart. I was too late to rescue Constance now....
All round me there was a buzz of low-pitched voices. Without any trouble at all, I could detect the note of fear and consternation. And it was tonic. My plight seemed desperate enough, but there was a chance yet. They had taken my weapons from me, but others might prove as valuable. The pirates were disorganized, alarmed. Well, craft should meet craft! Surely, the moment was favourable?
I was in a dimly-lit place, surrounded by dark figures. How long I lay thus I do not know, probably for no great space of time. At any rate, I had not been in full possession of my faculties for many minutes when a door opened, and a voice spoke in accents of authority.
It was a voice that I had never heard before, but I knew whose it was.
"I have made a careful examination of the house," came in clear, well-bred tones, "and there is no one there. It is the same outside and all round the fence. I let the dogs loose and they discovered nothing."
"How did this"—I was kicked brutally in the side—"get in, Chief?" asked a voice.
"Cut the fence wire, and managed to open the door in the east wall. Then climbed the porch and entered through Feddon's bedroom. The dogs followed the scent and showed. That doesn't matter much now. The point is that he's here."
"And we know what to deduce from that!" I heard, and pricked up my ears. My friend Mr. Vargus had revived then! There was a soft malignancy in his voice that made me shudder.
"Vargus is right. It is fairly certain that the game's up as far as this place is concerned. They've marked us down, sure enough. In a few minutes I shall take steps to find out exactly how much theydoknow. Meanwhile we appear to have some time before us, and we must carry out the emergency plan that we've so often rehearsed. Gascoigne, Jones and Sutton, Pointz, fill all the petrol tanks to full capacity, loademergency stores, examine and reverse ship. When finished, report to me in my room."
The men hurried away.
"Philips and Minver get on to the moor and report any man or body of men advancing on the house. You will take rifles and act as outposts. At any sign of approach, don't hesitate to fire. Then fall back on the house."
"Shall we take the dogs, Chief? They would be useful."
"No, I shall need them. The rest of you will hold the house till the last moment. Then get into the lift and come down. It will take them some time to find out the way and follow, while one man can hold the passages for any length of time. We shall all be fifty miles out at sea before anyone can break in down here, and all the swag is packed ready to go on board. Vargus, you will stay down here and help me in what I've got to do."
Several other men left the room.
In a lower voice, though I heard every word, Helzephron went on talking to his lieutenant.
"... Mind you, I don't actually expect an attack in force, but we must be prepared. For all we know, there may be a hundred men waiting on the moor. One thing is certain. They know where, or whereabouts we are, or that gentleman on the floor would not have got in, nor all thoseships be cruising about outside. So we must be off with all we can take to our emergency base in the Hebrides. Once outside, nothing can touch us, of course, and we'd get up to sixteen thousand feet at once. Barometer readings make it pretty certain that it will be cloudy at dawn, and it's a million chances to one against our even being seen."
I lay not three yards away. I had not noticed it until now, but my ankles were tied together, and, weak as I was, any physical effort was impossible. Helzephron had talked over his plans with an absolute disregard of my presence. He may or may not have known that I was conscious; quite obviously he didn't care twopence one way or the other. And that meant one thing and one thing only.
Before the Pirate Ship fled from its lair for the last time John Custance would have ceased to exist in the body.
"... Now for Sir John. How do you feel, Vargus? You took a nasty toss, and it's damned lucky for you we turned up when we did! Do you feel strong enough to drag Sir John into my room? If so, I'll go ahead and turn on the lights."
"I'm quite strong enough forthat," said Mr. Vargus, with a nasty laugh, and in a few seconds he had me by the heels, and was towing me like a log over an uneven floor. It was only bystiffening the muscles of my neck till they cracked that I could keep my head from bruising badly. Then a cloth of some sort was dropped on my face and tied round my head. I felt myself carried for a yard or two, put into a chair with an upright back, and then lashed securely to it by strong cords.
"I'll call you when I want you again," said the voice of Helzephron. "Go and help the others load the ship. And remember that we must take every round of ammunition we can stow in her. Twenty-four hours' rations will be ample. We can renew those at any time. Shells are quite another matter. Sacrifice everything to them."
A door closed. I heard the creak of a chair as Helzephron sat down. There was a long silence, and through the cloth I could feel that he was watching me.
The duel to the death began. I was as a naked man before another with a sword. I braced every nerve and stiffened my will!
"You are in a very unpleasant predicament, Sir John Custance."
The voice was passionless, even a little weary.
"I think it's mutual, Mr. Helzephron," was my answer, and I put an accent on the "Mister." He should have no honourable military title from me.
"Well, that is possible. Indeed, I admit thatyou have seriously deranged my plans. But the trumps are mine, after all. With your intelligence you must be aware that you have a very short time to live."
"I don't doubt that, but I dispute your estimate of your hand."
"May I ask why?"
"With pleasure. I don't care twopence about my own life in comparison with my duty to society. You care a good deal for yours, and you also have a short time in front of you. If it is any satisfaction to you to know, you're in a net from which even the particular minor devils that preside over thieves can't free you."
Thus I lied bravely. A good deal, I thought, might depend on my ability to get the scoundrel into a furious rage, and, anyway, it was a delight to insult him.
A sharp breath told me that I had drawn blood.
"You use dangerous language, Sir John. You'll be sorry if you go on."
"Now, look here," I rapped out, in the tone I should have used to an impudent office boy, "please understand that you can't frighten me. I know that bounders of your type don't understand a gentleman and how he feels about things. I only assure you that you will waste your time. And timeought"—I said it with meaning—"to be worth more to you now than all the valuablesyou picked from the pockets of theAtlantispassengers."
He came up to me, and I thought that this was the moment. But he only tore the cloth from my head and returned to his chair.
I looked round with interest. The room, no doubt part of the cavern system into which the mine had penetrated, was matchboarded all round. The boarding was painted white, and a cluster of electrics hung from the ceiling. There was a carpet on the floor, a couple of arm-chairs, a writing-table, and a big steel safe. In one corner was another door than the entrance one, partly concealed by a green curtain hanging from a brass rod.
Helzephron himself sat opposite. The handsome, hawk-like face was badly bruised. He stared at me with concentrated malignancy. Then he smiled, with a flash of large white teeth.
"Really, I should hardly have known you," he said.
"I should have recognized you anywhere, even with the bruises!" I replied. "Mr. Ashton left you your teeth, I see."
His face grew dark. He nodded twice. "I thought that," he said, half to himself.
"I saw the whole thing, and it was most amusing, Mr. Helzephron. I was sitting in the smaller arm of the gallery at the 'Mille Colonnes,'behind a centre-piece of flowers. I,and my companion, had concealed a periscope in the flowers, and got the whole thing framed, as it were. It gave a zest to the Burgundy. But I thought you'd have made a better fight of it!"
The man leapt from his chair with a savage curse and took two steps towards me, with clenched fist and lifted arm.
I looked up in that convulsed and purple face.
"Quite so!" I said quietly. "I'm tied up. It's quite safe to hit me."
If he was going to torture me, and I had few illusions on the matter, I was having my innings now. Hehadbeen a gentleman once, he had been a brave soldier. It was because I knew this that I could stab him.
He didn't strike. He began to walk up and down the room, swallowing his rage with an almost superhuman effort—being what he was. Perhaps shame helped him, perhaps it was cunning, but he sat down again, and though he trembled, his voice was calm.
"So you think me a coward, do you?" he said. "I'll do you the justice to say that you're none."
My mind was working with an insight that it has never possessed before or since. The key to the man's psychology was in my hand at last.
All criminals are vain. In great criminals vanity assumes colossal proportions until itbecomes a real madness. Criminologists call it megalomania. It is egotism fostered and indulged to the point of monstrosity, when all moral considerations are swept away, and the subject thinks himself superior to all law, and glories in his greatness.
Lord of himself, that heritage of woe!I think Byron said that.
"You've correctly expressed me," I told him.
"Perhaps your detective work has not gone so far as to inform you that I hold the Victoria Cross?" Yes! he was mad! No sane man of his extraction would have said that.
"It is a distinction above all others, Mr. Helzephron. And you'll have another very soon. Indeed, you'll never be forgotten. You'll be historic as the one V.C. who was degraded. They'll do it the day before they hang you at Pentonville, and it will be in theGazette."
He grew quite white, whether from anger or shame I do not know. But I went on. Something inside me that was not myself seemed to be speaking.
"You've been living quite an artificial life, you see, surrounded by your amicable young friends and the artistic Mr. Vargus. You, no doubt, think of yourself as of a very glorious order. Making war on society, Ajax defying the thunder, King of the air, and all that sort of thing. I'llbet anything you've compared yourself to Napoleon a thousand times! It's the way the late Kaiser of Germany fell. It's called megalomania. But you aren't anything of the sort, you know. You are a cowardly thief, who steals and murders for the sake of his pocket. You asked me a question and I've answered it."
He heard each word. His eyes became glassy and his jaw dropped. For all the world he was like an evil child who hears the truth about itself, and all the power was wiped out of his face as chalk marks are wiped off a blackboard.
He got up abruptly, and left the room by the curtained door. He was away for ten minutes. When he returned he was his old self, but with an addition—he had been drinking back his devilishness. There was a strong odour of brandy as he entered. His eyes were full and liquid, and he was amazingly vital. I knew that I could hurt him no longer. He wore impenetrable armour. He sat down and lit a cigarette. He smiled with an evil good-humour. It was his hour now.
"Well, we've got acquainted at last," he began in an easy conversational tone. "You've been excessively clever in hunting me down, and your powers of insult are exceptional. I admit again that you have smoked me out here, but as to putting an end to my activities, that's a verydifferent story. Your people can't get at me once I'm out of this snug retreat, and they can't force an entry here until I'm gone. So much as between the Commissioner of Police and the Pirate. You've had your say and I've had mine."
"Then there is nothing more to be said."
"Excuse me, as man to man, there's a good deal. I purchased an evening paper on the afternoon of the evening when I was attacked by your hired bully."
At last the conversation was growing interesting.
"With stolen money?" I asked impudently. But it fell dead flat. I don't think he even heard me.
"The paper made public some news that I had already gathered from another source. The news of your engagement, Sir John Custance."
We stared at each other in dead silence for half a minute.
"To Miss Constance Shepherd," he went on.
I said nothing.
"... Who at this moment is not twenty yards away from you, and who will fly with me to-night to where all your police boats will never find us."
"By force."
"Well, up to the present I admit that I have had to take the law into my own hands. I am a man who believes in getting what he wants.Your arrival, the fact that you're my guest for a short time, has given my thoughts quite a new direction."
I saw that there was a deep and sinister meaning in what he said, but not an inkling of the abominable truth came to me. He understood that from my face, and he laughed out loud.
"Oh, this is going to be enormously refreshing!" he cried. "This is going to make everything worth while!"
My heart turned to stone as I watched that unholy merriment.
When he had finished laughing, he said: "Miss Shepherd does not know as yet that I have the honour of entertaining you. I am about to inform her. And then, if she wishes it, as no doubt she will, you must really meet. Journeys end in lovers' meetings, they say."
He was about to add something when there was a knock at the door. Mr. Vargus came in.
"All loaded," he said, looking nervously at me, as if wondering what had passed during his absence. "All loaded and everything ready for a start. The others have gone up to the house."
"Well, there's nothing to report, or they would have telephoned down. There is no hurry for an hour yet...."
Helzephron took the short man by the arm and drew him into a corner of the room. Theywhispered together for nearly ten minutes. I could not catch a word.
Then Vargus nodded with an air of triumphant comprehension, and left the room.
"On second thoughts," said Helzephron, "I am not going to prepare Miss Shepherd. We will let it be in the nature of a pleasant surprise."
He disappeared through the green-curtained door.