The Air Pirate

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?"

"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 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.