The Air Pirate
ticklish job enough, and would require the most delicate care,
especially with an untried ship. But in the past I had landed on the
deck of a moving battleship, and there were few stunts that were not
familiar to me. I felt I could do it.
"I don't think I shall let you down," I said, and hurried to the ship.
Five minutes showed me that I had got the hang of the apparatus and that
electrical connection was restored, and I spent a further ten in
thoroughly examining and getting accustomed to the controls. Moreover, I
made one new and startling discovery.
There was no need, in this marvellous ship, for mechanics to swing the
propeller at the start. Again electricity from the ship's dynamo was
employed, and the starting device was a miracle of ingenuity, worked
from the pilot's cabin.
Mr. Vargus, though I offered to loosen his bonds at the feet, absolutely
refused to walk, and Danjuro carried him up the ladder and threw him
upon the floor of the cabin like a sack of corn. Gascoigne, now very
white and silent, was more amenable. It seems that Vargus had
acquainted him with everything that had passed as they lay together on
the ground.
"I'll go all right, sir," he said to me, as I helped him to his feet.
As I had the muzzle of my pistol in the small of his back, he couldn't
well do anything else, but he lost nothing by being civil.
"I can't believe that the Chief's dead and everything's finished," he
said, with a curious sort of sob. I realized that all sense of right and
wrong had left this youth early. He was the true stuff of which
criminals are made, incapable of putting himself in the place of his
victims, and while bitterly conscious of defeat and punishment to come,
incapable of remorse.
Without a trace of pose this man behaved just as if he were an officer
captured by the enemy in war-time, and I dare swear he felt just like
that. There is only one thing to do with these abnormals that get
themselves born now and then--destroy them.
Morally I felt sure that Gascoigne was not a hundredth part so
responsible as Vargus. But one was born a criminal, and, from that point
of view, insane. The other had had the capabilities of sainthood, but
had opened his soul to the Dweller on the Threshold and was doubly lost.
We went slowly towards the ship. "Good old bird!" he said, as any public
schoolboy might have said it. "I expect this'll be the last cruise I
ever take in her."
"Or in any ship at all," I answered. "I suppose you've no illusions as
to what's in store for you?"
"No, I suppose it's a hanging job," he replied, and I assented, though,
as you will learn, both his anticipations were to prove wrong.
Danjuro and I shifted Vargus out of the main cabin into the small one
where the tools and spare parts were stored. We didn't want Constance to
see him, and he was so well secured that he couldn't possibly do any
harm.
Gascoigne we left for the present on one of the seats, and I hurried to
fetch the two women, passing Thumbwood, still at his post.
"Everything is arranged," I called out, as I ran through Helzephron's
room. "We are going to fly to Plymouth at once in the Pirate Ship."
The maid Wilson shrieked.
"Oh, Sir John, that awful ship! I couldn't go in 'er again, not for my
life. Let's go in a taxi, Miss, please 'ave a taxi; I couldn't face the
ship."
"You'll lose your life quickly enough if you stay," I said to the
yelping fool, though, Heaven knows, the poor soul had gone through
enough to turn her mind entirely. Her mouth grew like a round O, and I
was preparing for another shriek when I suddenly thought of something.
"Miss Connie will be quite safe with me," I said quickly, "and I shall
put you in charge of Charles Thumbwood. You remember him? He'll look
after you all right, Wilson."
It acted like a charm. I had remembered Charles's attention to the
pretty maid in the train.
"Ow!" said Wilson. "Is Mr. Thumbwood here, then, Sir John?"
"Very much so. You will be his especial charge, and the journey won't
take more than three-quarters of an hour."
The girl picked up the dressing-bag, which she had dropped upon the
floor. "Then that will be all right," she said with a flush, and I
wondered if she thought Charles was going to pilot the ship himself. How
true it is that Faith can move mountains! No doubt Constance felt just
the same about me as Mary Wilson did about Charles.
... We had come out into the cave, and had walked a few yards towards
the looming bulk of the ship, when the telephone bell on the cave-side
ahead of us rang furiously. It kept on like an alarm-clock, and telling
the girls to remain still for a moment, I ran up and unhooked the
receiver.
A voice was bawling at the other end, so loud that the words rang and
buzzed one into the other, and I could only distinguish one or two. I
heard enough to know what had happened, though.
"Chief ... coastguard police ... rifles ... all round the house on the
moor were coming down ... two of us stay ... hold till last moment...."
So that was it! Billy Pengelly, the coastguard, had made good. The wires
had been at work while we had been about our mole-like warfare
underground. The avengers were among the gorse and heather, and the
remainder of the pirates were doomed....
"Come on," I shouted to Connie, realizing that there was literally not a
moment to lose, and, alarmed by the excitement in my voice, they started
to run.
When they had come up to me, and I started to run with them towards the
ship, there was a sudden thunderous report. Looking to the right, I saw
that Thumbwood had taken cover, and was lying on his stomach behind the
barrier. The open door was but a dim oblong of yellow light at that
distance, and I could not see a yard down the passage in the rocks.
Thumbwood fired again, and the echoing roar had not died away when
something went by my ear with a vicious _zipp_, and I heard the splash
of a bullet upon the granite.
The pirates were coming down in force, and, finding themselves between
Scylla and Charybdis, had turned at bay.
I knew Thumbwood would keep them where they were for a minute or two,
and I raced to the ship with Connie at my side. Wilson had fainted, and
we had to drag her between us.
Half-way up the light, steep accommodation ladder Danjuro was waiting,
perfectly calm and unconcerned. We handed up the unconscious maid, and
he disappeared with her in a second. Then Connie was helped up the
ladder, while the whole cavern began to thunder with a fusillade of
rapid firing.
"The police and coastguards are surrounding the house," I shouted, "and
the rest of the crew have come down, and are trying to fight their way
into the cave."
"It is what I thought, Sir John. Those gentlemen must be considerably
surprised at their reception! We can shoot them all down before they get
out of the passage. Perhaps, now that rescue is at hand, we had better
wait and do so?"
His eyes were glistening; I saw the light of slaughter in them. For an
instant I hesitated. What he said was sane enough. The risk was
comparatively small; it would only be postponing the triumphal flight.
Then I took a decision--it rested with me, and I was alone responsible.
"We mustn't shoot them all down," I shouted through the din, for bullets
were streaming into the cave behind as though they were pumped from a
hose. "Some of them must be brought to justice. We had better be off
and leave the coastguards and police to deal with them."
Thus I spoke. I said what I honestly thought was best at the moment,
though perhaps my mind was a little influenced by the natural and
terrible anxiety to get my girl away from further horrors.
At any rate, I decided, and all my life long I shall never cease to
regret it.
"Very good," said Danjuro. "Up into the pilot's cabin, quick, Sir John.
You are indispensable there. Prepare for an instant start. I will run
and fetch Thumbwood. We shall have to fire thirty or forty rounds
quickly into the passage to keep them back. Of course, they are firing
automatic pistols round the bend now, and not exposing themselves any
more. After we have fired we shall run for the ship. You will hear me
shout and then start like lightning!"
He slipped past me, and, crouching almost to the ground, ran back
towards Thumbwood like some great cat.
I flung myself aboard. Constance was attending to Wilson in the main
cabin. Gascoigne was lying bound where he had been thrown, but his eyes
were blazing with excitement.
I put a stop to that at once. "The remainder of your friends are being
shot down," I said curtly. "Lucky for you to be here."
All the animation died out of his face. And, as I didn't want to leave
him alone with Connie--it seemed a desecration that he should be in the
same place with her even for a moment--I whipped out my knife, cut the
bonds at his feet, and pushed him into the pilot's cabin, making him lie
upon the floor at my side as I got into the swivel chair. I could shoot
him dead in an instant if he moved.
Then I sat rigid, with my hand upon the switch which started the
engines.
In reality, I know now that the time of waiting was very short, but it
seemed an eternity to me. For the first time my nerves felt upon the
point of giving way. My hand trembled. I began to think of the narrow
S-shaped passage between high walls of rock to the sea, and realized the
appalling nature of the task before me. A mere touch of the planes upon
those iron barriers, and all the long struggle would prove unavailing,
the triumph turn to a defeat in which my girl and I, the superman
Danjuro, and faithful Thumbwood would lose our hard-won lives.
One touch and the ship would crumple up like paper and fall like a stone
into the cruel cauldron of jagged rock and furious waves far below.
There came a voice from the floor. Had the prisoner divined something of
my thoughts?
"... Look here, Sir John, you're up against a nasty job. It's the very
devil getting out of here if you don't know the way and haven't
practised it."
Something in the young fellow's voice told me that this was not mockery.
He was, moreover, the second pilot of the Pirate Ship, trained by
Helzephron himself.
"I did not ask you to speak," I answered.
"No, but really it's no end of a stunt. The controls are ten times as
sensitive as in an ordinary machine. If you were the best pilot living,
you'd find it hard to manage in a ship that's quite new to you, and has
all sorts of habits and tricks that no other has."
He spoke truly enough, and I knew it, but it was none the less
unpleasant to hear.
"I suppose you're afraid for your damned skin," I sneered.
"Oh, come, draw it mild," he replied. "I only spoke to try and help you.
I know when I'm beaten, and I don't bear any malice."
"If I do take you safely out, it will only mean the gallows."
"Oh, no, it won't!" he said. "I shall turn King's evidence. There are
lots of things I know that no one else except Vargus knows now. I shall
get let off with fifteen years. Bet you a fiver, if you like. It's to my
interest to help you out."
I can generally tell when a man is sincere, and I realized that this
young scoundrel was, despite--and perhaps because of--the baseness of
his motive.
"Help me?"
"Yes, out of the passage. Once you get in clear air you'll fly her
easily enough--and you'll be astonished, by Jove! But you'd better let
me pilot you. It's the lift and the sharp right bank that are so
difficult...."
"Get up," I said.
He scrambled to his feet.
"Stand there!" He leaned against the wall at my side, his hands tied
behind him and his arms tightly bound.
He was about to speak, when suddenly we both started. Something had
happened. For a moment I did not realize what it was. Then I knew. The