Part 30 (2/2)
”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 s.h.i.+p...._”
”Good G.o.d! _What_ s.h.i.+p?”
”Their own s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p'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 s.h.i.+p, when I saw lights flas.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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.
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