The Air Pirate
great exaltation and peace consoled us, but the moment is too sacred for
description here.
I gave one last look at her serene and radiant face, striving to image
it upon my brain, so that it should be the last thing I saw, and then I
called for Helzephron with a strong voice.
From the first instant that he stepped into the room and saw our faces,
he knew the truth.
He was very quiet, but his eyes shone again with the dull red light that
you may sometimes see in a dog's eyes. One could almost have pitied him,
for he was as one who desired even one drop of living water to cool his
tongue and was tormented in a flame.
I was praying hard for one boon--that Constance should not see me die.
It seemed that my prayer was answered, for he led her roughly to the
curtained door and pushed her through.
He whistled, and Vargus came in through the other door. The movements of
both men were detached and business-like. I had the odd fancy that this
was exactly how the paid executioner goes about his work in the prisons.
Once more the cloth was tied over my head, the chair was lifted, and I
was carried away. The swinging motion lasted a long time. I must have
been taken a considerable distance from the room of my agony when the
chair was finally set down. I heard the plangent beating of waves and
felt cool airs. I was in the central cavern once more, and near to the
mouth of it. So that was it! They were going to throw me to the
whirlpools and the rocks below!...
I felt strong and slender fingers about my neck--Vargus the
pianist!--and shuddered at the contact. The cloth was removed. It was as
I thought: all round was the cathedral-like cave, but now dozens of
lights were turned on, including a great blue arc-lamp suspended from
the roof, and all the shadows and mystery were gone.
Not far away, resting upon rubber-covered wheels, which were dropped
below the floats by an adaptation of the Raynor-Wallis patent, was the
great Pirate Ship, towering up under the domed roof, spreading her great
planes from side to side, lovely in her lines, an awful instrument of
power. Even at that supreme moment I longed to examine her, to go aboard
and make acquaintance with the wonders she held.
The ruling passion of a man's life dies hard!
CHAPTER XVI
THE HOUNDS FROM THIBET AND MR. VARGUS; WITH A DISCOVERY ON BOARD THE
PIRATE
They turned my chair so that I faced the mouth of the cave, which was
some thirty yards away. The moon had set. The short summer night was
over, and the first grey hint of the dawn, that I should never see, was
near.
Helzephron sat down on a stool a few yards away from me. His back was to
the cavern mouth. He spoke a word to Vargus, who padded away behind me.
"Why are we waiting?" I said.
"Because you had the misfortune to hear my friend Vargus pouring his
soul out at the piano, Sir John."
"I am still rather in the dark."
"I have no objection to satisfying a curiosity which is legitimate under
the circumstances. I was going to put a pistol to your ear and throw you
into the cove. But Mr. Vargus has fantastic tastes, and you have put his
back up. He asked me a favour, and as I owe him a good deal, I could
not refuse it. But I see he is returning. You shall have a concrete
explanation."
From, somewhere behind me I heard the padding of footsteps, accompanied
by a curious scuffling noise and the sound of heavy breathing. Then
Helzephron gave a short bark of laughter, and Vargus came round the
chair.
Then I knew.
On leather leashes Vargus held two monstrous dogs. Each one was as big
as a newly-born calf. They were like Newfoundlands, and yet unlike, for
there was a great bull-dog jowl to each....
"My Tibetan mastiffs," said Helzephron. "Death by dogs for a dog!"
Vargus brought the brutes within two yards of me. Their teeth were
bared, their hackles rose, there was the dull red light in their eyes,
too, but not a sound came from either.
Both men watched me intently, but they got none of the satisfaction that
they hoped. It was simply that the bitterness of death was over. That
was all. Fear was something that I was no longer capable of feeling. To
be worried to death by mastiffs was just like any other death, then. I
understood how it was that martyrs for religion, or any cause in which
they believed, died so quietly.
Helzephron cursed deeply. "Get it over," he said. "Take the dogs to the
far end of the cave. When I blow this whistle let them go. You'll hear
them running up behind you, Sir John," he said, with an insane chuckle.
Vargus disappeared.
I stared out at the cave mouth. Each moment it grew lighter. I thought
that I should have liked to have seen one more summer dawn. But
Helzephron was lifting his whistle; and then the mouth of the cave
seemed to recede and shrink to the size of a mere window.
A mere window. With idle curiosity I saw how a fat spider was slowly
descending his swinging thread, and I was a child again, seated at the
nursery window....
The whistle blew a shrill, echoing blast.
At once my mind awoke to full consciousness, and I braced myself to die
without a cry. The cave mouth became itself again, and the spider ...
_Hanging by one arm and a leg, half-way down a stout rope, was a short,
thick-set figure...._
As the rapid thud of the racing dogs grew loud the figure's right arm
raised itself.
_Bang! Crash! Bang! Crash!_ a wild howl of pain, thunderous echoes
rolling down the cavern, and Helzephron on his feet in time to see
something bounding towards him like an india-rubber ball.
I knew who that was. I had one glimpse of a terrible grinning face as
Danjuro leapt at the hawk-faced man; heard a strangled scream and a
long, crunching crack, and saw two whirling figures crash to the floor.
I can't express the suddenness of it all. Before my brain could register
the impression, another person was sprinting by me, yelling like a
fiend. Then Danjuro rose from the floor--alone--and my ropes were being
divided, my stiff limbs rubbed, and a calm, exultant voice remarked:
"Exit Honourable Helzephron."
I began to laugh weakly.
"You were just in time, Danjuro. Have you killed him?"
He was about to reply when there was a diversion.
Charles Thumbwood appeared. He had Mr. Vargus by the collar, and was
kicking him along to the accompaniment of flowers of language that I
shall not attempt to reproduce.
"Caught 'im at the telephone," gasped Charles. "Gr-r-r, you little
swine"--a furious kick--"Gr-r-r, you slime-lapping leper you! 'E was
telephoning to 'is friends, Sir John. Thank Gawd we come in time, Sir
John! Gr-r-r, there's one as you won't forget in an 'urry!" and lifting
Mr. Vargus several inches from the floor with a final kick, Little
Thumbwood flung him away, began to feel me all over with trembling
hands, and burst into a flood of tears.
But I had caught his words. The telephone! We should have all the band
upon us in two minutes, desperate and fighting for their lives.
"Quick!" I shouted, "follow me. We must get Miss Shepherd safe. There
isn't a moment to lose."
I don't know how I did it, and the first few yards were like running on
red-hot ploughshares; but I got going, and raced down the great cave,
past the Pirate Ship, to the door at the end.
I noticed a door on the left as I ran. It was the one by which I had
first entered, the one that marked the passage leading to the lift.
"Block that somehow!" I called to Thumbwood. "It may keep them back for
a minute or two. Shoot anyone who breaks through."
He understood and stopped at once. I saw him dragging up some cases to
make cover and lying down behind them, as I turned just outside the door
which led to the ante-room to Helzephron's private sanctum.
... We found Constance upon her knees in a richly furnished room. Her
maid, Wilson, was weeping and trembling in a corner. As we burst in she
shrieked with terror.
But Constance fainted dead away.
I took that unfortunate woman, Wilson, and shook her into sanity. There
was nothing else to be done, and I remember that it seemed quite
natural and obvious at the time. I knew that we hadn't a moment to lose,
and I was in a state of abnormal excitement.
When she had regained some sort of control, which was in less than a
minute, I ordered her to attend to Constance, and, when she came to
herself, to tell her that we were all saved and Helzephron as powerless.
Then I hurried out into the cave.
Danjuro and Thumbwood were working like demons. Piles of boxes and other
impedimenta had been erected in two strategic positions commanding the
door. Behind each pile were two or three automatic rifles and many clips
of ammunition. Just as I came up Danjuro went to the door and opened it
wide.
I grasped his idea at once. As you may remember from my former
description, the passage was a mere cleft in the rock. Certainly not
more than one man could walk abreast, and he could be shot down the
moment he turned the corner. A child who could shoot straight would have
been able to hold the passage, and behind the barrier on the floor of
the cave would have been safe enough.
"I trust honourable lady quite safe?" said Danjuro in his quiet, silky
voice.
"Yes; the maid's attending to her. Thank God that unutterable scoundrel
has not harmed her."
Then I remembered something. Danjuro's face was perfectly placid and
ordinary. The grinning devil-mask had vanished as if it had never been.
To look at him no one would have guessed that he was anything but a
peaceable little Eastern student, such as you may see by the dozen any
day round about the Law Courts in town. He rolled a cigarette in his
conjuring way as I spoke, and yet, a few moments ago those slender hands
had just broken the neck of the Master Criminal of Europe!
"Look here, old chap," I said. "I haven't had a moment to thank you. You
and Charles arrived in the very nick of time. A few seconds more and I
should have been done for; and as for Miss Shepherd ..."
I couldn't go on. I just held out my hand.
He didn't take it--cold-blooded little beggar! He just bowed politely
and murmured something that sounded like "Glad to be of any help!" Then
he brightened up. "I think, Sir John," he said, "that we can reckon
ourselves as quite safe from any intrusion now!" and he waved his hand
towards the open door.
"Let 'em all come!" remarked Thumbwood.
Then, quite suddenly, the floor of the cave seemed to heave up and down.
The great arc lights which made it as bright as day began to wheel round
like fireworks, and I fainted for the second time.
When I recovered it was to find myself in the late Helzephron's own
room. Something cold was on my forehead and something chilly and scented
trickled down my face. I opened my eyes, and Constance was kneeling by
my side.
"My love, my dear love!" she whispered. "I never thought that I should
see you alive again. Oh, thank God, thank God!"
Then her arms were round me, and for a long time we spoke no word. I
think I know what the man who was called back from death in Palestine
long ago must have felt....
She gave me food and wine, and at last, though I felt physically weak
and shaken, my mind worked again, and I stood up. We were alone in the
room, and no sound came from outside, so I concluded that all was safe
for the present.
"A little Japanese carried you in here," Connie said, "as easily as if
you were a child. I had just come to myself, and I thought, oh, John, I
thought that you had been killed, and that he was one of those awful
people. But he shouted out at once that what Wilson said was true and we
were saved. I believed him, in spite of the shock his appearance gave me
at first, and when he had put you down gently in this chair he hurried
away. John, who is he, and how are we saved?"