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 for that," 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 by stiffening 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 that you 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 time ought" – I said it with meaning – "to be worth more to you now than all the valuables you picked from the pockets of the Atlantis passengers."
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. He had been 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 it becomes 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 the Gazette."
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'll bet 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 very different 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. They whispered 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.
CHAPTER XV LED OUT TO DIE
In relating what is immediately to follow I shall do so with as plain and unvarnished a narrative as my pen can command. You will read of what Constance and I endured, but do not ask me to do more than hint at the anger of my soul. It is impossible to describe, at least it would require the pen of a Dante or a Milton, nor would I describe it if I could. It is bad enough to live that hour again even faintly and in imagination. To call it up into full memory – soul memory – is a task for which I have not the least inclination. You shall, therefore, have the facts with very little comment upon them.
I think it's about all you'll need.
Helzephron was away for a considerable time. During his absence Vargus peeped in once and looked at me. I won't describe his face.
When the hawk-faced man returned, he dragged my chair to the far end of the room, and pushed the writing-table in front of it to form a barrier. There was a deliberation in all he did that was inexpressibly alarming. His lips were drawn in a tight smile, so that I could see the teeth…
He set a chair over against the wall opposite, and then he went again through the curtained door. A moment afterwards he entered, followed by Connie.
The room grew whirlingly dark and cleared. I could not speak, for my throat seemed to be closing up, but I saw my girl very distinctly.
She was, as I had never seen her, deadly pale, with large, dark rings under her eyes and all the joy of life ironed out of her sweet face. Yet she was not thinner and there were no lines. The colour had gone from her cheeks and the lustre from her hair, but I somehow thought that her physical health had not suffered alarmingly.
When she spoke I knew that this was true, and I knew why. Her indomitable spirit remained. The sunny courage of the past had condensed within her soul and turned to unconquerable purpose. Her voice was so full of scorn that it cut even me like the lash of a whip. It was a marvel that the tall man could have borne it for a moment.
But his eyes had a red light in them, like the eyes of a hound – mad.
"What new devilry is this?" the girl said, as her eyes fell upon me, trussed up there behind the table. "Do you suppose that I want any further evidence to tell me from where you come and whom you serve?"
"Look at this gentleman; look at him well."
"Another of your unhappy prisoners! So you add torture to your crimes. And you dare to make me witness it!"
She turned in a fury of disgust and loathing, and made a step towards the door. But before she moved further – God bless her! – she said: "You have fallen into the hands of a very horrid scoundrel, sir, but …"
At that I managed to cry out: "Connie, dearest, don't you know me?"
I ought not to have been so sudden. I cursed myself for it. It was just as if I had struck her down, for she reeled, and fell into the chair in a swoon.
I myself was near to it. There was a rush as of cataracts, a sensation of drowning. When I recovered, the maid, Wilson, was ministering to her mistress; there was a sound of pouring liquid, though I could see nothing, for Helzephron stood directly in front of me, watching what went on.
"Look here, Helzephron," I said hoarsely. "This can't go on. For God's sake stop it! Get her away before she recovers and do what you like to me." I thought desperately for something that would move him.
He turned round slowly. "Too late now," he said slowly. "You've got to go through with it, both of you."
The malice had faded out of his eyes. He spoke dreamily: "There is no other way…"
He moved away and leant against the wall at the side, looking down moodily at Constance, who was coming to herself. Her eyes opened, and Helzephron made an impatient gesture with his arm. The maid, Wilson, vanished like a ghost. I could see that she, poor thing, went in terrible fear.
I spoke out directly I thought Connie could understand. I was desperately determined to have my say. It might be the last chance. To my surprise, though I soon understood the reason, Helzephron did not interrupt.
"Yes, it is I, Constance. I'm disguised; that is why you didn't know me. Darling, it's going to be all right. Be brave a little longer!"
I saw comprehension dawn in her eyes, and then they blazed out into love. "John! You've come at last. It's been weary waiting. But you are tied up." Her voice changed. "You're in the power of this man, too!"
"For this moment I may be; but that is nothing. He is tracked down and his hour has come. He knows it. I made a mistake and he captured me, but outside the forces are converging, and for him the whole world is now no wider than this little room."
Helzephron made no sign. From his great height he stared down at us like a stone figure. I doubt if he either saw or heard.
"Tell me quickly – he has not ill-used you, he has not laid hands on you, hurt you…"
A bitter laugh burst from her. "He has stolen me away from life and kept me here a prisoner. But there has been food to eat, and the cage is gilded with the proceeds of his thefts. He knows well enough that if he dared to touch me I should kill myself. No power on earth and none of his cunning precautions could prevent it, and that also he knows. Thank God his time has come."
"Tell me everything, quickly. A lot depends on it." How could I explain that he was going to kill me, that he could and would do so long before there was any chance of help arriving?
"He has dared," she said, and I never knew that a woman's voice could be so hard, "dared to offer me what he calls love. The word is hideous in such a mouth. He has raved, threatened and implored me to – to marry him – to fly away with him and be his wife."
She shuddered terribly and sank back in the chair, as if exhausted. I racked my brains for words. What could I say or do? That she would kill herself rather than yield an inch I was certain. But he could still prolong her torture. The chances were that he would get away in his marvellous ship for a time. On the other hand, it might well be that the searching airships were in such force by now that even the Pirate Ship could not escape. There would be a battle in the air. She would be shot to pieces by our cruisers' heavy guns. And Connie would be on board…
What could I say?
Helzephron stood up from the wall. With slow movements he lit a cigarette, but his hand was trembling as if in a palsy. He spoke to Constance.
"You have already told me that you love Sir John Custance," he said. "I heard that from your own lips two days ago. But 'love' means many things. And you may well have said it to keep me at arm's length. Sir John Custance is here now, and in my power. What of him and you?"
Connie looked at him for a moment without a word. There was not a trace of fear in her eyes. "I will tell you," she said at length. "That man is my man, and I am his woman from now until the end of time and for all eternity. You cannot understand, I know. But if words have meaning, mine are plain enough."
Helzephron suddenly threw away his cigarette and gave what seemed to be a sigh of relief. The sound, the gesture, were startling. I could not understand…
"Well," he said, "that is another, and the last, illusion gone. My life has been a succession of lost illusions, I think. I loved you, and I love you still, with all the force and power of a nature which, whatever else it may be, is stronger than that of most men in this feeble world. I would have given you a love so rich, abundant and wonderful that you would have forgotten your passion for this man. Mine would have consumed it utterly. And you would have responded. You think not, but I know better. It would have been flame and flame, LOVE. Now I see that it is indeed too late."
His tones were not raised; there was nothing particularly eloquent in the actual words he spoke. But to me they tolled like a great bell – a bell that tolls while the iron gates of hell are opening slowly…
"Yes, too late!" Connie said quickly. "And you see it now! It could never have been. And now you will let us go! Oh, be quick! Untie John, please do; it must be hurting him so!"
For the first and last time that night two tears rolled down my cheeks.
I suppose that for a brief space there had been some lingering nobility in Helzephron's mind, some flicker of life in that dark soul. The man had not always been under the dominion of evil.
But now I saw, without possibility of mistake, the final eclipse of good. It was a visible thing, the last awful act in the terrible drama of his life, and it took place before one's eyes like crystals dissolving in a glass.
He looked steadfastly at Constance.
"Sir John can go," he said, "for all the debt of ill-will I owe him, he can go from here unharmed. My dear girl, it rests entirely with you!"
She did not understand.
"Oh, then let him go now, at once."
"That man," he answered, "lives, or dies a peculiarly unpleasant death; goes free, or is nothing but a heap of clothes in half an hour, as you shall decide, Constance."
By the slow dilation of her eyes, I think she knew what he would say.
"It is like this," he went on. "If I cannot have Love, the real thing, at least Fate has put it in my power to demand – and have! – the second best, the semblance of it. The moment that you give me your solemn promise to marry me, Sir John walks out on to the moor."
I gave Constance one swift, warning look. Would the man believe that another was as base as he himself? Everything depended on that.
"You cannot do it, Constance," I said, with a careful tremor in my voice, trying to suggest a slight dawn of hope, and again I sent her a signal of caution.
Helzephron gave an almost imperceptible start, and a faint smile began to play about his cruel lips.
The fish was rising.
"It would be a martyrdom," I went on. "What is my life worth – even to the State" – I thought that was a clever touch – "in exchange for such a sacrifice?"
Praise God for her quick wits! She saw that I was acting, and fell into her part with supreme naturalness. A wail of pain came from her, and she covered her face with her hands. "I cannot let you die," she cried. "Do I not love you? Is not your life of supreme value?"
I spoke in a tone of hardly veiled eagerness: "But your own happiness, what of that?"
Connie made a passionate gesture of renunciation. She turned to our torturer. "Sir," she said, "have you no mercy, no compassion?"
"I have nothing but one overmastering need."
"Then leave us. Let me be alone with Sir John for a few minutes." She beckoned to him and he came, leaning his head low.
"Go," she whispered. "I cannot persuade him while you are here. Leave us alone and I will do my best."
The fool was wax in her hands. That one confidential whisper seemed to have transformed him.
"Yes, I'll go," he said, but I heard every word. "I don't think our friend will take much persuading! You may be glad to marry a man, after all!"
He was half-way to the door when suspicion took hold of him. "How do I know that you won't be up to some trick?" he snarled; "try to loose him or something? Not that there would be any chance of escape if you did."
"I give you my word of honour," Connie answered, "or you can tie me up, too. That would be the best way. Fasten me in this chair so that I can't move."
Helzephron shook his head impatiently. Then the door banged and we were alone.
I began to speak at once. There was no time to waste.
"Dearest love of my heart, it is good-bye. We have managed to snatch these few moments for farewell."
Her face shone with love and courage as she smiled at me. "Is there no way, darling?"
"None. This is the end. We have fooled that devil for a minute. When he returns and finds out the end will come quickly. Now, listen…"
In a few sentences I told her exactly how matters stood, and of my certainty that Helzephron's course was almost run. Nor did I disguise from her that in any attack upon the Pirate Ship her own fate was sure.
"What does it matter? I should kill myself, anyhow, rather than submit to one touch from him. I have the means ready. Oh, my love, I am prouder of you at this moment than I ever was!"
How I rejoiced in her! Never for a single instant had she believed that I would let her do this thing. It was not even spoken of between us. It was worth while dying for love and trust like this!
"And you see, dear love," she went on, "it will not be long. We shall be together again in a few hours, never to part any more…"
Very solemnly and quietly we said farewell. Neither of us was unhappy. A 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.
