The Moonlit Way Part 86

"The explosives bought and sent there by Tauscher himself are on a big, fast power-boat which is lying at anchor in a little cove called Saibling Bay. The boat flies the Quebec Yacht Club ensign, and a private pennant to which it has no right.

"Two of Skeel's gang are already aboard--a man named Con McDermott and another, Kelly Walsh. Skeel joins the others at a hamlet near the Lake sh.o.r.e, known as Three Ponds. The tavern is a notorious and disreputable old brick hotel--what you call a speak-easy. That is their rendezvous.

"Well, then, I have wired to your people, to Canada, to Washington. But Three Ponds is not a very long drive from here, if one ignores speed limits. Yes? Could you help us maintain a close surveillance over that d.a.m.ned tavern to-night? Is it too much to ask?

"And if you and Mr. Westmore are graciously inclined to aid us, would you be so kind as to come armed? Because, mon ami, unless your Government people arrive in time, I shall certainly try to keep Skeel and his gang from boarding that boat.

"Au revoir, donc! I am off with Jacques Alost and Emile Souchez for that charming summer resort, the Three Ponds Tavern, where, from the neighbouring roadside woods, I shall hope to flag your automobile by sunrise and welcome you and your amiable friend, Mr.

Westmore, as our brothers in arms.

"RENOUX, your comrade and, friend."

There was a silence. Then Westmore looked at his watch.

"We ought to hustle," he remarked. "I'll get on some knickers and stick a couple of guns in my pocket. You'd better telephone to the garage."

As they hastened up the stairs together, Barres said: "Have I time for a word with Dulcie?"

"That's up to you. I'm not going to say anything to Thessa. I wouldn't care to miss this affair. If we arrived too late and they had already dynamited the Welland Ca.n.a.l, we'd never forgive ourselves."

Barres ran for his room.

They were dressed, armed and driving out of the Foreland Farms gates inside of ten minutes. Barres had the wheel; Westmore sat beside him shoving new clips into two automatics and dividing the remaining boxes of ammunition.

"The crazy devils," he said to Barres, raising his voice to make himself heard. "Blow up the Ca.n.a.l, will they! What's the matter with these Irishmen! The rest are not like 'em. Look at the Flanders fighting, Garry! Look at the magnificent record of the Irish regiments! Why don't our Irish play the game?"

"It's their blind hatred of England," shouted Barres, in his ear.

"They're monomaniacs. They can't see anything else--can't see what they're doing to civilisation--cutting the very throat of Liberty every time they jab at England. What's the use? You can't talk to them. They're lunatics. But when they start things over here they've got to be put into straitjackets."

"They _are_ lunatics," repeated Westmore. "If they weren't, they wouldn't risk the wholesale murder of women and children. That is a purely German peculiarity; it's what the normal boche delights in. But the Irish are white men. And it's only when they're crazy they'd try a thing like this."

After a long silence:

"How fast, Garry?"

"Around fifty."

"How far is it?"

"About twenty-five miles further."

The car rushed on through the night under the brilliant July stars and over a perfect road. In the hollows, where spring brooks ran under stone bridges, a slight, chilling mist hung, but otherwise the night was clear and warm.

Woods, fields, farms, streamed by in the darkness; the car tore on in the wake of its glaring, golden headlights, where clouds of little winged creatures of the night whirled and eddied like flecks of tinsel.

Rarely they encountered other cars, for the hour was late, and there were no lights in the farm houses which they pa.s.sed along the road.

They spoke seldom now, their terrific speed and the roaring wind discouraging conversation. But the night air, which they whipped into a steadily flowing gale, was still soft and fragrant and warm; and with every mile their exhilaration increased.

Now the eastern horizon, which had already paled to a leaden tone, was becoming pallid; and few stars were visible except directly overhead.

Barres slowed down to twenty miles. Long double barriers of dense and misty woodland flanked the road on either hand, with few cultivated fields between and very rarely a ramshackle barn.

Acres of alder swamp spread away on either hand, set with swale and pool and tussock. And across the flat desolation the east was all a saffron glow now, and the fish-crows were flying in twos and threes above the bog holes.

"There's a man in the road ahead," said Westmore.

"I see him."

The man threw up one arm in signal, then made a sweeping gesture indicating that they should turn to the left. The man was Renoux.

"A cart-track and a pair of bars," said Westmore. "Their car has been in there, too. You can see the tire marks."

Renoux sprang onto the running board without a word.

Barres steered his car very gingerly in through the bars and along the edge of the woods where, presently, the swampy cart-track turned to the right among the trees.

"All right!" said Renoux briskly, dropping to the ground. He shook hands with the two new arrivals, pa.s.sed one arm under each of theirs, and led them forward along a wet, ferny road toward a hardwood ridge.

Here Souchez and Alost, who lay full length on the dead leaves, got up, to welcome the reinforcements, and to point out the disreputable old brick building which stood close to the further edge of the woods, rear end toward them, and fronting on a rutty crossroad beyond.

"Are we in time?" inquired Barres in a low voice.

"Plenty," said Renoux with a shrug. "They've been making a night of it in there. They're at it yet. Listen!"

Even at that distance the sound of revelry was audible--shouts, laughter, cheering, boisterous singing.

"Skeel is there," remarked Renoux, "and I fancy he's an anxious man.

They ought to have been out of that house before dawn to escape observation, but I imagine Skeel has an unruly gang to deal with in those reckless Irishmen."

Barres and Westmore peered out through the fringe of trees across the somewhat desolate landscape beyond.

There were no houses to be seen. Here and there on the bogs were stakes of swale-hay and a gaunt tree or two.

"That brick hotel," said Renoux, "is one of those places outside town limits, where law is defied and license straddles the line. It's run by McDermott, one of the two men aboard the power-boat."

"Where is their boat?" inquired Westmore.

Renoux turned and pointed to the southwest.

"Over there in a cove--about a mile south of us. If they leave the tavern we can get to the boat first and block their road."

"We'll be between two fires then," observed Barres, "from the boat's deck and from Skeel's gang."

Renoux nodded coolly:

"Two on the boat and five in the hotel make seven. We are five."