The Air Pirate
"We owe everything to him," I answered gravely. "He killed Helzephron
with his own hands"--I did not tell her about the dogs just then--"and
in a few hours we shall be back in the world. We can never, as long as
we live, pay our debt to Danjuro."
In as short a time as I could, I explained everything to her, from the
first moment when I had heard of her capture until now. I walked about
the room as I did so, and new life flowed into my cramped limbs. When I
had smoked a cigarette, I felt almost normal again.
"Now, dear," I said, when my story was over, "we aren't exactly out of
the wood yet, though there's nothing whatever to be alarmed at. Go into
your own room and collect your things together; whatever you want to
take away with you. Stay here with Wilson till I come again. I may be
some time. There are a good many things to straighten out."
One more embrace and I left her, sobbing with great happiness, and,
passing through the ante-room, hurried out into the great cave.
My first glance was towards the door of the rock passage leading to the
lift. It was still open. Sitting on the barrier twelve yards or so away
was Thumbwood. A rifle lay across his knees and he was placidly smoking
his pipe.
"All right?" I shouted.
"All O.K., Sir John," he answered, standing up.
"Not a sign of anyone. As a matter of fact, Mr. Danjuro and me have
ascertained that this 'ere dog-fancier 'adn't time to get through to his
friends upstairs. I got 'old of 'im just as he was topping the fence."
I followed his glance, and I saw Mr. Vargus, trussed like a fowl, on the
floor a yard or two away.
I had quite forgotten that ingenious and artistic person, and I started.
He was a sorry sight enough, dirty, blood-stained and horrible, as his
pale, wicked face stared up at me. He said nothing, and I shuddered as I
looked at him--shuddered as I had never done at Helzephron.
"Where's Mr. Danjuro?" I asked.
"Up at the mouth of the cave, Sir John. I was to send you to him
directly you came."
I nodded, turned, and began to walk up the great cave. The Pirate
Airship lay there, gleaming and wonderful. There was a light steel
ladder at her side as I passed, leading up into the fuselage, and it was
only by a strong effort of will that I could keep myself from mounting
it and exploring the mechanical marvels that I knew she contained.
However, I resisted the temptation and hurried on. The lights depending
from the roof grew dimmer each moment as I drew near the curving
entrance. "It must be full day outside," I thought, as the fresh sea-air
came to meet me, and then, as I turned round the bend, I saw the squat,
black figure of the Japanese silhouetted against the rosy fires of
sunrise.
Danjuro was standing motionless. He was looking down at some humped
objects upon the ground. The rope, like a wisp of spider's web, swung
gently to and fro. There was not a sound save the soft murmur of the sea
far down below.
"I'm all right now," I said, and he turned to me without a start, though
he could not have heard me coming.
His face was calm, but wrinkled up in every direction. He looked like a
man of immense age, and his narrow eyes were full of brooding, sombre
light. Almost at his feet lay the body of Helzephron. It had been
decently disposed with the hands upon the breast, and the morning light
played over the hawk-like, bronzed face and open eyes in which there was
now no cruelty.
The dead man was august as he lay there. There was a certain nobility
about the features. He did not look like a scoundrel, and all resentment
and hate passed away from me for ever as I looked at him.
The two huge dogs, one with a bullet through its brain, the other shot
in the chest and through the heart as it was in the act of leaping, were
hideous objects....
When I looked up again the wrinkles had gone from Danjuro's face, the
sombre expression from his eyes. It was a magical change, but I was long
past wonder at anything in connection with him.
"We will have those dogs skinned," he remarked in his ordinary voice.
"They will make a fine rug for your house, Sir John."
"No doubt; but we've got to get out of this first. Remember that there
are a dozen desperate scoundrels not far away. And I don't see either
Miss Shepherd or myself returning to the world up that rope! By the way,
I haven't heard how you managed to get here in time."
He told me the story shortly enough. There was not an unnecessary detail
and no comment whatever. Thumbwood supplied the lacking picturesqueness
some days later. But even as Danjuro told it, I realized the marvellous
sagacity and contempt of danger that had saved us.
It seemed that when he had arrived at Zerran, the idea of a cave, either
natural or enlarged by pretended mining operations, was already in his
mind. As soon as I had left the inn on my expedition, Danjuro and
Thumbwood had taken one of Trewhella's boats and set out eastwards along
the coast. The Japanese had already taken his bearings, and knew that
Tregeraint House would be a little to the left of the jagged peak of
Carne Zerran. They cruised along into the moonlight until they picked up
their mark, and not two hundred yards further on struck the entrance to
the S-shaped cove. Then Danjuro had no longer any doubts. No boat could
live in that cauldron of the waves, but it seemed a man could, for our
rescuers proved it!
He stripped and went in--I learnt afterwards that he was as much at home
in the water as a seal, and, of course, like so many of his countrymen,
he was simply a mass of steel muscles. In twenty minutes the secret was
a secret no longer.
Danjuro's next move was to row back to Zerran Cove at top speed, and
hasten up the cliff path to the inn. Here he disinterred the coastguard
from the pigsty and roused him to immediate action.
Ropes and crowbars were procured, the fenced-off "dangerous" area on the
cliff-top invaded, and Danjuro, with Charles, descended in the nick of
time. But there was more than this. The coastguard had his orders.
Directly the two men disappeared over the brink he was instructed to
make all haste to the watch-house, some two miles away in the direction
of St. Ives. From there the Chief Boatswain was to telephone all along
the coast to the various stations, and also to the police at St. Ives,
Camborne and Penzance.
"In three or four hours, perhaps sooner," Danjuro concluded, "an armed
force should be concentrating on the moors upon the house above. The
pirates will be desperate, and will put up a fight--at least, I think
so, but the end is certain."
"And meantime, all we can do is to wait here until something happens?"
"That is as you please, Sir John," he answered, looking at me curiously.
For a minute I did not see what he meant, but then a great idea dawned
upon me.
"The Pirate Ship!" I burst out.
"I have always heard that Sir John Custance is a skilled pilot," he said
with a bow.
I saw it all clearly. There was a gorgeous, dramatic end to it all well
within my grasp! It would be something to make the whole world gasp! The
Pirate Ship was, I knew, already loaded with the proceeds of the
pirates' robberies. It was not only full of loot, but prepared in every
way for a long cruise. Helzephron and his ruffians had planned an almost
immediate escape from the cave to some new refuge of which I had heard
them speak. Doubtless, if things had gone right with them, they would
have been off by now, with my mangled body tossed in the whirlpools
below and Constance still a prisoner. Helzephron would have mounted to a
great height, and trusted to his immense superiority in speed over all
the airships in existence for escape. I have little doubt that, had
things fallen out as he planned, he would have been able to carry out
his scheme. But God disposes....
There was nothing, so I thought at the moment, to prevent _me_ from
piloting the airship out of its lair. Once in the sky I could make a
bee-line for Plymouth, and get there in a little more than half an
hour--if it was indeed true that the mysterious ship could do her two
hundred and forty M.P.H. To swoop down to Plymouth sea-drome with
Constance, the Pirate Ship and the recovered treasure! That would,
indeed, be a triumph such as is given to few men to experience. I have a
fairly vivid imagination, and I saw it all in one radiant picture.
"Let's go and have a look at the ship at once," I said, and almost ran
back into the cavern, where she towered up and threw black velvet
shadows in the fierce blue light that streamed down from the suspended
arcs. Danjuro followed.
As I swung myself over the side and descended a short ladder, I found
myself in a roomy main cabin. A switch to my hand illuminated it, and
even then I saw that the ship had been designed by a master hand. Below
the port-holes, filled with toughened glass and provided with shutters
of a design that was new to me, ran a continuous seat of woven camels'
hair cord, easily convertible into sleeping bunks for half a dozen
people. There was an electric stove of polished aluminium for cooking,
and an electric radiator for warming the cabin, clustering round a
central supporting column. I saw also that there was a very complete
telephone installation connecting this main cabin with the pilot's room
forward.
Under the seats was a collection of wooden cases and a box of japanned
steel, which I judged, and rightly, contained the treasure taken from
the _Albatros_ and the _Atlantis_. A sliding door aft led into a
store-room, which seemed to contain everything necessary for a cruise of
several days. I noticed boxes of expensive cigars, bottles of whisky and
liqueurs, tinned oysters, larks, asparagus, such as wealthy yachtsmen
provide themselves with. The dogs did themselves well!
Leading out of this was a final cabin fitted with tools of every sort, a
rack of automatic rifles and pistols, and several thousand rounds of
small-arms ammunition. Here also, with a padded door, was a little
compartment for the wireless operator, and I pictured one of the
black-hearted scoundrels sitting there and picking up the messages from
airships of the trade routes with a grin upon his face.
Danjuro came with me and looked about him quickly, but with no change of
expression. "So far, so good," I said to him; "but all this is
unimportant, really, though it is very complete. What really matters is
the pilot's cabin, the engines, controlling gear, petrol supply, and so
on. Let's go forward. Do you understand anything about airships?"
"A very little, Sir John," he replied, and--so petty are we all at
times--I felt a perceptible thrill of pleasure at hearing there was at
least something of which this paragon was ignorant.
"Never had occasion to study them?" I asked, as we passed again through
the main cabin.
"I have watched the pilot in Honourable Van Adams' yacht the _May
Flower_, but that is all...."
I hardly heard him, for I was in the pilot's room at last.
I saw at a glance that here were a number of things absolutely new to
me, and so to all the aviators of the world. I am not going to be
technical. This narrative is written for the general reader, and my
expert conclusions have been published elsewhere. I can but indicate
some of the wonders of mechanical skill with which I was confronted.
For instance, the designer of the ship was the first man to solve the
problem of easy control. Up to the present all pilots had controlled
their ships--the movements of planes and rudders, etc.--with a certain
amount of manual labour. It is true that recent inventions had minimized
this; ball-bearings, the rack and pinion, had made the main control
levers and wheels much easier to move than they were in the old days of