The Air Pirate Part 30

The station superintendent met me in the office, which was brilliantly lit and cooled by an electric fan.

"I expect you're feeling pretty well done, Sir John," he said.

"I feel pretty tired, Johnson, I own."

"There's a big thunderstorm coming up, not a doubt of it. The air'll be cooler afterwards. All the arrangements about the prisoners are made, sir."

The staff had been in communication with London all day upon this matter, but I had not heard the result. I inquired from the superintendent now.

"Our two birds, Sir John, and the three they've got at Penzance are to travel to London to-night. They'll be brought up at Bow Street for a minute or two, and remanded for a week to suit your convenience. The Home Office will communicate with you, sir."

"Very well. How are they going?"

"The night mail train leaves Penzance at twelve, and gets here at two.

The other three will be on board and well guarded. Our prisoners will join the train at Mill Bay Station. I've detailed Prosser and Moore to escort them."

"See that the men are well armed. How are the prisoners?"

"Very quiet, sir. They seem to realize that it's all up with them.

They've taken their food all right."

"They are both together?"

"Yes, Sir John. You see, we've only the one cell that is absolutely safe. But that can't make any difference. A man looks in every half-hour. They can't hear him coming, and he reports that they don't even talk."

"They're not handcuffed?"

"No, I didn't think it necessary, sir. They will be, and chained together, too, when they leave for the train. We searched them thoroughly, and took everything they had on them away half an hour after they were brought in. Would you like to see them, sir?"

"I don't think so, Johnson. I've been a good deal too much in their society during the last day or two. I don't want to look at that Vargus again until he's in the dock, and I'm giving evidence against him."

"He's a wicked-looking customer, if ever I saw one," said the inspector, with a face of disgust. "Well, good-night, sir, and I hope you'll sleep well. I've told the station attendant to have your bath ready at eight. He'll call you then."

The good Johnson went away, and I was left alone. My head ached, and I felt disinclined for sleep at once. I undressed, however, and sat in pyjamas as I smoked a final pipe. There was whisky, soda and a bowl of ice, and I took a peg. I felt singularly low and dispirited. It was, I supposed, the inevitable reaction of the nerves after all I had endured, combined with the heavy pressure of the atmosphere and the electric tension of the storm. At any rate, I remember feeling--as everyone does at times--that the greatest triumphs and successes were worth very little, after all, when once they were achieved. There is bitterness at the bottom of every cup--_surgit amari aliquid_--and life was a poor thing at best. And I fell to reflecting on the evil and misery that can be wrought by one man.

The gaunt spectre of Hawk Helzephron haunted my mind, and the long row of dead men that must be laid to his account, the brave fellows of my own service, the Transatlantic people--to say nothing of the black scoundrels that he had made and tempted, who had been hurried into eternity with their crimes unrepented....

It was a morbid train of thought, but I was worn out, and the dark hour had its way with me, until I thought of Connie and her merciful preservation from harm, my own rescue. Then, rather ashamed of myself, I made an effort to banish these gloomy imaginings, said my prayers, and got into bed.

All the same, as I fell asleep, the stammer of the approaching thunder and the white glare of lightning, which now and then flashed into the darkened room, seemed like the growling of those awful dogs and the glare of the advancing airship in the cave....

I think now that I must have had some unconscious premonition of the tragedy which was racing towards me all the time.

... I was awakened sharply and suddenly, at first I thought by a flash of lightning. But it was not so. The electrics had been suddenly turned on, and there were men in uniform round my bed. The wind had risen and was whistling outside. A deluge of thunder rain was in progress, and great sheets of water were flung against the window.

I saw Superintendent Johnson. His face was white as linen.

"What is it?" I shouted.

He shouted in answer, and I heard his voice above the tumult of the storm.

"The prisoners, Sir John," he wailed. "They've got away. They picked the lock of the cell somehow, got into the pa.s.sage, and broke the bars of the window at the end. We none of us heard a sound!"

I leapt out of bed and began to bellow orders for pursuit--until I saw Johnson's terrified face again, and knew that I had not heard all.

"... They got down to the water somehow, sir. They must have climbed down the lift rails. _And they swam to the ship...._"

"Good G.o.d! _What_ ship?"

"Their own ship, Sir John. Somehow or other they managed to get on board; we've just heard...."

"_Where are they?_"

"They did for the two men on board, and must have managed to start the engines--_the ship's gone_. The searchlights are all over the pool, and there's no trace of her. They were seen, Sir John, I ..."

He broke off short, the words drying up in his mouth. All the other men shrank together in a frightened group as Danjuro came slowly into the room.

I have never seen a figure so awe-inspiring, or terrible.

In moments of supreme emotion a European grows chalk-white, an Asiatic grey.

The j.a.panese was livid grey now, and his face seemed carved with fantastic gashes--grey rubber slashed with a knife. He was like a man who had slept a thousand years and wakened to find himself old, and in h.e.l.l.

He came slowly up to me, moving like a thing on wheels drawn by a cord, and when he was close, he spoke.

I can never recall his voice without an almost physical state of fear.

Suppose that you could go with Dante to that gate over which is written, "_Abandon hope all ye who enter here._" And suppose, as you stood there and listened, you heard a well-known voice far down, saying, "I am tormented in this flame...."

Well, Danjuro's voice was like that.

"During a lull in the storm," he said, as if repeating a lesson, "I went up on the deck of the _May Flower_ for a breath of air. Mr. Van Adams accompanied me. We were looking over the water to the Pirate Ship, when I saw lights flashing up and down through the portholes of the fuselage.

It struck me as strange. We wondered what the two men in charge could be doing. As we watched, we were just able to distinguish two men coming up on deck. Then there came a vivid flash of lightning, and I saw everything plainly. The two men were Vargus and Gascoigne, and they were carrying the body of a man in uniform, which they lowered into the water."

Inspector Johnson gave a quick gasp. Danjuro continued:

"Without a moment's delay I got a couple of pistols, and Mr. Van Adams and I jumped into the electric launch, which was moored alongside the _May Flower_, though on the other side to that which faced the Pirate.

There was no time to summon help. We shot out into the pool just as the storm began again with thunder-claps and a deluge of water. We were within a few yards of the ship and making ready to board her, when Mr.

Van Adams flashed a powerful electric torch, and I saw Vargus with a knife in his hand hacking at the mooring ropes. At the same time I noticed that the lights in the pilot's cabin had been turned on.

"I took a snap-shot at Vargus and missed him. Almost simultaneously he fired directly at the light of the torch which Mr. Van Adams held. The bullet went through Mr. Van Adams' heart, and he fell back dead in my arms--I was steering the launch. I fired off all the cartridges in my pistol, but the thunder drowned the noise. The Pirate Ship began to move. I saw the lights in her side moving along--and then she lifted and disappeared."

The awful voice ceased, and all of us in that room stood like waxen figures in a show.

For three days the Press and public were kept in entire ignorance of what had happened during the storm.

Upon the fourth, just as I was beginning to think that all my measures were in vain and that the Pirate Ship had vanished utterly, the Head Office in Whitehall received two long telegrams from the Prefect of Finistere in France and the Chief of Police of Quimper, the old cathedral city in Brittany.