The Air Pirate
the Great War--when flying first began to come into its own. But there
was still a great deal of physical strain, which greatly lessened
efficiency upon a long cruise. Moreover, the instant decision necessary
to be taken by an aviator--when a fraction of a second may spell safety
or ruin--had been always hampered by the comparative mechanical slowness
of control.
In the Pirate Ship this disability did not exist. Just as the largest
ocean-going liner--sea-ship, not airship, I mean--can be steered by a
wheel not more than two feet in diameter by the invention of the steam
steering gear, so the Pirate Ship was controlled by a series of little
wheels and levers, covered with leather, that looked like toys.
Electricity had been brought into play, and a touch of the pilot's hand
was magnified into power that in an instant would deflect a mighty
lifting plane or vast rudder.
The fuel capacity of the ship was immense. She carried as much petrol,
in the huge and ingeniously contrived tanks below the fuselage, as one
of the great air-liners, though she was not a fifth of the size. I saw
at once that she could keep the air for days.
Examining the cockpit, in which two quick-firing guns were placed, I
found them both of the very latest pattern, and mounted with a swivel
device that was far in advance of anything attempted hitherto. Only the
great battle-planes of the world's air navies could mount guns of such
power, and she could circle round them with ease while in full flight.
But it was when I mounted to the little deck above, and began to examine
the two huge six-cylinder engines, that my admiration and interest grew
beyond all bounds. The chief triumph of all, the silencing mechanism
that reduced the ordinary roar of air engines to no more than the hum of
a dynamo, did not at once become clear. It would have been necessary to
take the machines to pieces to have discovered everything; but an
examination of the exhausts put me on the track, and I marvelled at the
creation of a master-mind.
I was looking at the twin propellers, which had a curve that was new to
me, and even material that I could not immediately define, when Danjuro
hailed me from the pilot's room.
I tumbled down to find the little man bending over the various controls
ranged in front of the pilot's seat.
"It seems to me, Sir John," he said, "pray correct me if I am wrong,
that there is something wanting here. I know little about airships, but
something of electricity, and can quite understand this system. But it
seems to me that a key-part of the mechanism has been removed."
He pulled over a lever a few inches long. Its movement should have been
registered upon a dial above, but the needle never moved.
"Do that again!" I cried, and, mounting a step, put my head into the
little dome of glass in the cabin roof which commanded the whole length
of the ship. One of the tilting planes by the rudder should have moved
when the lever was pulled over.
It remained motionless.
"One of the honourable gentlemen upstairs has got a small but very
essential piece of linking apparatus in his pocket," said Danjuro.
It was only too true. A moment's reflection satisfied me of that, and I
stared blankly at my companion.
My gorgeous, if somewhat vainglorious, plan was knocked on the head.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MOMENT OF TRIUMPH
I descended from the airship in silence. Danjuro followed me. Thumbwood
was still on guard. The bundle that was Mr. Vargus lay upon the ground,
and a face like a white wedge of venom stared up at us. There was no
sign of the enemy, but I felt that we should not be left in peace much
longer, and my disappointment at the discovery on board the pirate was
keen.
"There is still a chance," Danjuro whispered in my ear. "And with your
permission, Sir John, I am going to try it."
I nodded, and he stepped up to Vargus and pulled him up into a sitting
posture, propping him against the barrier.
"There is a part of the control mechanism of the airship missing,"
Danjuro said, with silky politeness.
Vargus grinned suddenly, a momentary rictus that came and went, utterly
horrible.
"And we want that piece of the machine," the Japanese went on.
Vargus spoke, in his peculiar oily voice. "Then you may go on wanting,
you putty-faced little spawn of a monkey."
I cannot hope to describe the depth of poisonous hate the man put into
the words. His accent was cultured and refined; the great dome of the
blood-stained forehead spoke loudly of intellect, yet the voice somehow
reeked of the pit. I know that it struck me cold, and I saw the rifle in
Thumbwood's hands was shaking. Although this was the man who had devised
an abominable death for me, I can honestly say that I felt no personal
resentment. I can't account for it, but it was so.
I should have welcomed that, rather than the inward loathing, like a
shudder of the soul, at something inhuman and unclean.
What Danjuro felt I don't know, but he didn't turn a hair.
"I think you will assist us," he said.
For answer the thing below spat in his face.
I expected to see Danjuro leap upon him and strangle him where he sat. I
shouldn't have raised a finger to stop it. But it was not so. The little
man stepped aside and carefully wiped his face with a silk handkerchief
that seemed to come from nowhere. Then he went behind Mr. Vargus and
began to feel his head all over, with quick, delicate movements of his
fingers.
"How can you touch him?" I cried, hardly knowing what I said, for the
thing was ugly and uncanny beyond belief. Danjuro was like some sinister
phrenologist in a nightmare, feeling the bumps of a devil.
"I know now what I wanted to know about him," Danjuro purred after a
moment. "I never doubted the intelligence, Sir John. It is very marked.
And there is great energy and courage of a sort. But our friend who
spits has one little failing. He is afraid of physical pain."
"You're not going to ...?"
Danjuro looked me full in the eyes, and in his I saw a stony resolution
that I was in no state to combat.
"I will go and see Miss Shepherd," I said, and turning on my heel,
walked quickly to the inner end of the cavern. As I went I heard Danjuro
ask Thumbwood for a box of matches....
I am quite aware that there are lots of softhearted people who will say
I ought never to have allowed Danjuro to do what he did. Well, they must
have their own opinion, that's all. I believe it was nothing like so bad
as the cat-o'-nine-tails which is constantly administered in our
prisons, and under the circumstances I think it was justifiable. Call me
what names you like as you read this--you have not seen Mr. Vargus and
his dogs, nor spent a small eternity in the pirates' cave.
... Constance was wonderfully recovered. I spent a minute or two with
her, and then returned to the scene of action.
Mr. Vargus was speaking in a quick, panting voice, and these were the
words I heard:
"Gascoigne, Mr. Gascoigne; he has it. He was our second pilot. It was
always in his charge."
Danjuro gave his little weary smile. Then he put his hand gently upon my
arm and drew me away to the other side of the cave.
"We will now summon honourable Gascoigne," he said. "He is the young
gentleman we saw with late honourable Helzephron at the 'Mille
Colonnes.' The little necessary piece of the mechanism in his possession
is, I have just learnt, generally referred to as 'the link.'"
"But how ...?" I was beginning, when he pointed to a telephone
instrument upon a screen of tongue-and-groove boarding. "This
communicates with the house," he whispered. "Mr. Vargus nearly got
through recently, you will remember, just before the good Thumbwood
caught him."
He raised the instrument to his mouth and ear.
In a second or two a bell rang and Danjuro began to speak. I nearly
jumped out of my boots. The words were simple enough, but the voice
with its oily refinement was the voice of Mr. Vargus!
"Is that you, Gascoigne? Yes, Vargus speaking. The Chief says you are to
come down at once and bring the control link with you. What? No, the
others are to wait till they're sent for. What? Oh, yes, quite dead. I
wish you could have seen it!"
It was a triumph of mimicry that I shall never forget, the more so as it
was the only occasion on which I heard this marvellous man attempt
anything of the sort. Heaven knows what other talents he must have
possessed!
"The young gentleman was asking about you, Sir John. He seemed quite
curious about your end!"
I smiled grimly. "What are you going to do?" I asked.
In answer he hurried back to the open door and crouched down in the
shadow by its side. I motioned to Thumbwood to lie down behind the
barrier which was exactly facing the passage, and drawing my automatic
pistol, which I had regained from Helzephron's room, I retired to the
opposite side of the door and outside the line of direct vision.
There was silence for a minute or so, and then, far away in the rock, I
heard a hollow rumble and the clank of a gate. The lift had descended
and Gascoigne was on his way. A few seconds afterwards I heard a merry
whistle, fresh and sweet, as if the performer had not a care in the
world. He was whistling the lilting tune of a popular song which all the
street boys were singing at that time:
"_Merry Maudie met her fate at Margate!_"
Callous young dog! In a moment he would not be so cheerful....
I had left it to that concentrated muscle, Danjuro, though I stood ready
to help if necessary. But I knew that he was a supreme exponent of
jiu-jitsu--_teste_ the hideous death Helzephron died--and I had little
fear. Indeed, I found myself looking on with a detached and interested
curiosity as one might at a prize-fight. I wondered if Danjuro would
kill him or not. And if you had supped so full of horrors as I had in
that awful cave, you'd have felt like that, too!
... For a second I saw Gascoigne in the full light from the roof and
framed by the archway, like a picture. It was the same young fellow,
with the dissipated face, that I had seen at the restaurant, though he
had not been among the singing pirates at the inn. He was extremely
handsome still, with the face of a lost angel. As a boy at school he
must have been beautiful.
Then the squat shadow that crouched by the lintel of the door, like a
monstrous toad, expanded swiftly. Danjuro caught Gascoigne by the right
hand with the speed of lightning, and pulled the arm out straight with a
jerk. Then, as the young man was falling forward, the left arm of the
Japanese shot out _under_ his captive's rigid right and the hand seized
the lapel of Gascoigne's coat. He was powerless. If he made the
slightest movement Danjuro would have broken his arm like a pipe-stem.
He could not swing round and hit with his left, and I saw his mouth open
with foolish amazement like the mouth of a fish, as his legs were kicked
from under him, and he fell back with his assailant on the top of him.
I tied his ankles together with neatness and dispatch, while I listened
to a sickening flood of blasphemous profanity that flowed from the
clear-cut lips of this _ci-devant_ gentleman in a ceaseless stream. More
and more I realized what a crew of utter devils Helzephron had got round
him.
At last he was bound, and Danjuro took from him a leather box, which he
wore suspended round his shoulders by a strap. He handed it to me, and,
opening it, I found it was the control link that we sought.
"You can fit that in all right, Sir John?"
"Oh, yes, I don't think it presents any difficulty."
"Very well, then, in a few minutes we will start; that is, if you think
you can take the ship out of this place?"
I had already considered that and decided that I could. It was a