The Air Pirate Guy Thorne 63333 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of
The Air Pirate
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: The Air Pirate

Author: Guy Thorne

Release date: July 28, 2012 [eBook #40361]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40361

Credits: Produced by Mark C. Orton, Martin Pettit and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AIR
PIRATE ***

The Air Pirate

Some Ranger Gull Books
HIS GRACE'S GRACE
BACK TO LILAC LAND
THE CIGARETTE SMOKER
PORTALONE
THE SERF }
THE HOUSE OF TORMENT } Historical Novels
WHEN SATAN RULED }
THE HARVEST OF LOVE
A STORY OF THE STAGE
THE PRICE OF PITY

The Air Pirate
by
Ranger Gull
Author of "The Serf,"
"Back to Lilac Land," "The Snare of the Fowler," etc.

LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LTD.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C.

Dedication
TO PERCY BURTON, Esq.
In memory of a certain celebrated walk from
Great Holland to Frinton-on-Sea, and the
salmon we met at the end of it. With all good
wishes from the Author.

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
—The Commissioner of Air Police for Great Britain rides To
I. 9
Plymouth in Good Company
II. —Fate of the Transatlantic Air-Liner "Albatros" 24
III. —"Cold-blooded Piracy in the High Air" 39
IV. —The Newspapers in Full Cry 55
V. —The Familiar Spirit of Mr. Van Adams 67
VI. —Mr. Danjuro, Thinking Machine, explains Himself 83
VII. —The curious Fight in the Restaurant 99
VIII. —The Hunting Instinct is stimulated by a Procession 111
IX. —The Man with the Wicked Face 128
X. —Sir John Custance comes upon the House of Helzephron 138
XI. —"The Air Wolves are hunting to-night!" 150
XII. —The Killing of Michael Feddon 165
XIII. —The Secret that puzzled two Continents 176
XIV. —The Air Pirate at last 187
XV. —Led out to die 203
—The Hounds from Thibet and Mr. Vargus; with a Discovery
XVI. 216
on board the Pirate
XVII. —The Moment of Triumph 236
XVIII. —The Golden Dream 253
XIX. —Last Flight of the Pirate Airship 266
Epilogue 277

THE AIR PIRATE

CHAPTER I
THE COMMISSIONER OF AIR POLICE FOR
GREAT BRITAIN RIDES TO PLYMOUTH IN
GOOD COMPANY
Nearly two years ago a leading London daily newspaper said: "The
Government have assured us that all danger from present and future air
piracies is now over, and that the recent events which so startled and
horrified both this country and the United States of America can never
recur. For our own part we accept that assurance, and we do not think that
the Commissioner of Air Police for the British Government will be caught
napping again.
"In saying this we do not in the least mean to imply that Sir John Custance
could either have foreseen or prevented the astounding mid-Atlantic
tragedies. Sir John, though barely thirty years of age, is an official in every
way worthy of his high position, an organizer of exceptional ability and a
pilot of practical experience. Press and public are perfectly well aware that
it is owing to his personal exertions that our magnificent Transatlantic air-
liners are no longer stricken down by the Night Terror of the immediate
past. And in saying this much, we have both a suggestion and a request to
make.
"The inner history of the piracies is only fully known to one man. It is a
story, we understand, that puts the imagination of the boldest writer of
fiction to shame. Such parts of it as have been made public hint at a story of
absorbing interest behind. The bad old days of censorship and secrecy have
vanished with the occasions that made them necessary. We suggest that a
full and detailed 'story' of the first—and we trust the last—Air Pirate should
be written, and given to the world. And we call upon that most popular
public man, Sir John Custance, to do this for us. He alone knows
everything."

At the time that it appeared I read the above to Charles Thumbwood, my
little valet, as I finished breakfast, in my Half Moon Street chambers.
"Not quite correct, Charles. You know almost as much about it as I do. To
say nothing of a certain friend ..."
"I wouldn't say that, Sir John," said Charles, brushing my light overcoat.
"Though I rode part of the course alongside of you; to say nothing of Mr.
Danjuro." Thumbwood was a jockey before I took him into my service.
"Are you going to write it all down, Sir John?"
"That depends on several things, and on one person especially. I must think
it all over."
Think it over I did as I drove to my offices in Whitehall—the Scotland Yard
of the Air—and I discussed it afterwards with a certain lady....
Which is how the following narrative came to be written, though I did not
complete it until the best part of two years had elapsed.
II
I never did any flying during the Great War. I was too young, being only
fifteen and at Eton when Peace was signed. But from the very earliest days
that I can remember aviation fascinated me as nothing else could. My
father, the first baronet, left me a moderate fortune. He died when I was
eighteen, and instead of going to Oxford, I entered as a cadet in the R.F.C. It
is not necessary to detail how, when I had earned my wings, I joined the
civil side of flying and became a pilot-commander in the Transatlantic
Service. I had a good deal of influence behind me, and, to cut a long story
short, at twenty-eight I was Assistant, and at thirty Chief Commissioner of
the British Air Police. I was answerable to Government alone, and, within
its limits, my powers were absolute.
It was on a morning in late June, the 25th to be exact, when the wheels
began to move. I date the start of everything from that morning. About one
o'clock on the preceding night Thumbwood had waked me from refreshing
sleep. A wireless message, in code, had been received at Whitehall. It was
addressed to me personally, and was from the Controller of the White Star

Air Line at Plymouth. My people at Whitehall, on night duty, thought it of
sufficient importance to send on even at this hour.
As soon as I was thoroughly awake, and had done cursing Thumbwood, I
read the message. It only said that a matter of the gravest importance
required my personal presence at Plymouth, and would I come down at
once.
Now considerable experience of the fussy great men who controlled the air-
liner companies, which linked up England with all parts of the world, had
made me somewhat sceptical of these urgent demands for my presence.
More than once I had to explain that I was not at the beck and call of any
commercial magnate, and if I had made myself disliked in certain quarters I
had, at least, made my office respected.
Accordingly I scribbled instructions to the chief inspector on duty that he
should send a wireless to Plymouth requesting further details. Then I went
to sleep again.
As a matter of fact, I was going to Plymouth the next morning in any case,
though on private business. Sir Joshua Johnson, Controller of the White
Star Line, did not, of course, know that. His midnight message was a
coincidence.
I could have flown down from Whitehall in my fast police yacht in an hour,
but, as it happened, I was going to train from Paddington. Sir Joshua could
wait until I turned up some time after lunch.
How well I remember the morning of my departure from town. The long
departure platform at Paddington was crowded with well-dressed, happy-
looking people, as I stood by the door of my reserved carriage in the Riviera
Express—that superb train, with its curved roof, which runs to Plymouth
without a stop.
Thumbwood, invaluable little man, filled the carriage with flowers, great
bunches of white lilac and June roses, and the station-master, who came up
for a chat, looked curiously at the bower my valet had made. The Chief
Commissioner of Air Police was not wont to travel like that!

For my part, I was wildly exhilarated, and at the same time, as nervous as a
boy making his first flight. To-day might prove one of the happiest or quite
the most miserable of my life. I was going to put it to the test. Confound it,
why didn't Connie come?
On this morning Miss Constance Shepherd, the young light-comedy actress,
adored of London, and to me the rose of all the roses, was travelling down
to Plymouth to catch the air-liner starting from that port to New York at
eight-thirty this evening. And she had promised to travel with me!
Would she have done so, I kept on asking myself, if she didn't know quite
well what I meant to say to her? Or was it just friendliness? I knew she
liked me.
... Why didn't she come? Here it was, only eight minutes before the train
started. As I searched the platform, with an eye that strove to appear calm
and unconcerned, I saw faces that I knew—faces of theatrical celebrities,
two or three of the prettiest girls in England, a handsome, hook-nosed
young man, who was, perhaps, the best known theatrical manager in
London, two eminent comedians carrying bouquets. And the Press
photographers were beginning to arrange their cameras....
I had completely forgotten what a tremendous celebrity dear little Connie
was. I might have known they'd have given her a send-off on her way to the
States. All the same, it annoyed me, as it seemed to be annoying a tall,
hatchet-faced man in Donegal tweeds, who scowled at the little crowd. Was
he a friend, too, I wondered?
She came at last, very late of course, and after a brief smile at me,
underwent the public ceremonies of the occasion, while I—I own it—
retired into the carriage for a minute or two. But I saw the cameras click,
and the girls embrace, and the crowd of sightseers trying to push into the
charmed circle, and then Connie was in the corridor, leaning out of the
window, waving and smiling as the train began to move to an
accompaniment of loud cheers.
"My dear Connie, royalty isn't in it!" I said, as she stepped laughingly into
the carriage, and I pushed the sliding door home.

"Oh, they're dears!" she said, "and they do really mean well, despite the fact
that we shall all be in the picture papers to-morrow morning, and that's
good for business."
"I thought you were never coming."
"It is an impression I convey," she answered; "but I'm very careful, really.
My maid was here with the luggage half an hour ago. What lovely flowers
you have got for me, John!"
She lay back in her seat as the train gathered speed and Ealing flashed by
with a roar, and I feasted my eyes on the fairest picture in the world.
She wore a simple travelling coat and skirt of white piqué, and the white
lilac was all about her, framing her face as she held up a branch to inhale its
fragrance. All England knew that face in the days when little Connie sang
and danced herself into the heart of the public, but none knew it as well as I.
How can I describe that marvellous hair of dark chestnut, those deep
amethyst eyes, and the perfect bow of lips which were truer to the exact
colour of coral than any I have ever seen? It only makes a catalogue after
all. It's the expression—the soul, if you like—that makes the true face; and
here was one so frank and kind and sweet that when one looked it seemed
as if hands were placed beneath the heart, lifting it up!
On one other day only did I see her more lovely than she was now.
Well, it was too early to say what I wanted to say, and, besides, I was
nervous as yet. We hadn't settled down. As I expected, her breakfast had
consisted of tea and a macaroon, so I produced a basket—lunch was to
come later—in which a silver box of caviare sandwiches was surrounded by
crushed ice in a larger box of zinc. There was also iced hock and seltzer
water. We both felt more at home in a few minutes.
We had lit our cigarettes, and I was thinking hard, when someone passing
along the corridor looked in upon us for a moment. I had an impression of a
brown face and a scowl. It was the man in tweeds that I had noticed at
Paddington.
"That beast!" said Connie suddenly.

I turned and looked at her. She was frowning adorably, and I thought she
looked rather pale.
"D'you know him, then?"
"I did, and I simply hate him."
"Who is he?"
"I expect you've heard his name, John. Most people have in town. He is
Henry Helzephron, a big man in your way once."
I did know the name as that of a pilot of extraordinary courage and ability
during the Great War. He had gained the Victoria Cross when a lad of
twenty, and his exploits during two wonderful years formed part of the
history of aviation. He had not flown for years now, and divided his time
between the more dissipated haunts of the West End and an estate he had
somewhere in Devon or Cornwall, a "has-been" with a sinister reputation, a
lounger of thirty-six.
"I know. 'Hawk Helzephron' he used to be called. Gone all to pieces, I
understand. But how do you know him, dear?"
"He did me the honour to ask me to marry him about two months ago," she
answered, "and since then he is always putting himself in my way. He does
not speak, but he comes to the theatre and glares. I am always meeting him,
and I hate the sight of him. He makes me afraid...."
Here was my chance and I took it like a shot. She should never be
unprotected from Helzephrons and all the tribe who haunt the stage door
any more!
A successful aviator takes instantaneous decisions. He must. If he hesitates
he's lost.
What I said, as the Riviera Express hurled itself through the summer noon,
is not part of this narrative. I daresay I was no more original than most men,
but the results were eminently satisfactory for, as we ran past the towers and
winding river of Exeter, Connie and I were engaged.

I remember that I lugged the ring out of my waistcoat pocket—sapphires
and diamonds, a top-shelf ring!—precisely as we glided through Exeter
Station.
"O-oh!" said Connie, as the thing winked and shone in the sunlight; and
then: "You wretch! I'll never forgive you—never!"
I wondered what was the matter. In fact, I asked her.
"You made so sure of me that you actually bought this beforehand!"
"It doesn't do to leave anything to chance," I said, and I made her put it on,
and gave her several other things of no particular importance while she was
doing it.
For the rest of the journey, past the red cliffs and blue seas of Teignmouth
and Paignton, we had a long and happy talk, finding out—of course—all
sorts of delightful things about each other which we had only suspected
before.
Perhaps there is nothing fresher and more delightful in life than those first
few hours of revelation, when a man and a girl who love each other have, at
last, become engaged. It is like coming into harbour after an anxious
voyage, and yet, all the time there is the splendid knowledge that there are
new and marvellous seas waiting to be explored, this time—together!
Connie was to act in New York for a month and in Boston for a fortnight. It
was a 'star' engagement, and six weeks would soon pass. Besides, now that
Plymouth was barely thirty hours from New York, there was nothing to
prevent me from popping over once or twice to see her. I was responsible to
no one for my time, and half a dozen quite real matters in connection with
my job would provide a valid excuse. After the six weeks were over, why,
then, we would be married!
"There is absolutely no reason on earth why we should wait," I told her, in
sublime ignorance of what the Fates had in store for both of us. "I'll have a
special licence ready, and the day you land again on this side you shall be
Lady Custance, darling!"

So it was settled, lightly and happily enough, and when we left the train at
Plymouth Station there was not a cloud in the sky or in our hearts.
I found that Mr. Thumbwood had been making excellent use of his time,
even as his master had, for the little man was assisting a demure and well-
looking maiden to collect luggage, who turned out to be Connie's maid,
Wilson.
We left them to it and drove to the Royal Hotel, not before I had seen the
train start again on its journey to Cornwall, with Mr. Helzephron—whom I
had quite forgotten—standing in the corridor and regarding us with a
malignant scowl upon his hawk-like, dissipated countenance. But Mr.
Helzephron, and all other men alive, were about six a penny to me just then.
Connie was to leave the sea-drome at eight-thirty in that fine flying-liner
Atlantis. She was a Royal Mail ship, and about the fastest and finest flyer in
the Transatlantic service, with a carrying capacity of three hundred and fifty
passengers, and a thousand tons dead weight of cargo. Her crew numbered
forty, and she was commanded by Captain Swainson, one of the most
reliable pilot commanders in the air. He was a man I both knew and liked.
Connie wanted a rest and a sleep. "At least, I want to be alone to think it all
over!" she said, so she went up to her room in the hotel at once. I arranged
to call for her at five, when we would go for a stroll and afterwards have an
early dinner. Then I washed my hands and strolled into the famous long bar
of the hotel for a sandwich and a whisky and soda, before proceeding to the
offices of the White Star Line on the Hoe.
As I munched my sandwich, I wondered what the affair was that had made
Sir Joshua Johnson send me a wireless message in the middle of the night—
a time when obese old gentlemen should be fast asleep in bed. I had told my
people at Whitehall to ask for further particulars, but I had not the least
intention of being bothered with them—or any police business whatever—
until I had settled my own personal affairs with Connie. Accordingly, when
I left my chambers in the morning to go to Paddington, I sent a message to
Whitehall to say that I was proceeding to Plymouth during the day, and
would wait till my arrival to hear what the business was. Muir Lockhart, my
assistant, would perfectly understand, and was quite capable of dealing with
anything that might come along.

The long bar was, as usual, full of naval officers, with a sprinkling of Air
Merchant Service men in their uniform of grey, silver and light blue. I saw
no one that I knew, until the swing-doors leading into the hotel were flung
open, and a wiry little man in the black and silver uniform of my own corps
came hurriedly in. His peaked cap, with the silver wings and sword badge,
was pushed back on his head, and he was in a state of unenviable heat and
perspiration. He was Pilot Superintendent Lashmar, chief of the Ocean
Patrol stationed at Plymouth, with equal rank to a lieutenant-commander in
the Navy, and one of my most trusted officers in the West.
He went up to the bar and ordered a "long glass of iced ginger-beer, with a
dash of gin in it," and then I clapped him on the shoulder. He wheeled
round in a second, and when he saw who it was his face changed from
anxiety to relief.
"Thank Heaven you're come, sir," he said, as he saluted. "We've been
signalling to Whitehall all the morning, and all we could get was that you
were on your way. I've been backwards and forwards from the A.P.
Headquarters to the White Star Office a dozen times."
"I came down by train, Mr. Lashmar," I said, realizing in an instant that
there really was something important afoot, and that by bad luck I was
behind time. Sir Joshua Johnson was all very well, but when my own
people began to send out signals—that was quite another matter.
"We thought you'd fly down in the yacht, sir, and we've been sending
wireless trying to pick you up."
"I couldn't. I have had some most important business to attend to. Anyhow,
I'm here now. What's it all about?"
"You haven't heard anything, sir?" he asked in amazement.
Again I cursed my luck, but I wasn't going to give it away. "We'll go round
to Sir Joshua Johnson at once," was all I said.
"That will be best, sir, and then every detail can be put before you in
sequence. I have my report with me, written up to date. I think I've taken all
possible measures up to the present, but, of course, we've been waiting for
you. Sir Joshua, as you may imagine, is half out of his wits."

"He's not had very far to travel, then," I said to gain time. All this was so
much Greek to me, and I had to walk warily.
In a minute more Lashmar and I were on the Hoe and approaching the
stately offices of the Line, which stood in the very centre of that famous
promenade above the blue waters of the Sound.

CHAPTER II
FATE OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC AIR-LINER
"ALBATROS"
There were a good many people in both the ante-room and the secretaries'
room as I was led to Sir Joshua. I was immediately aware of an unusual stir
and excitement, and people nodded and whispered as I passed—"That's Sir
John Custance, the Police Commissioner." "I expect there's some news,"
were two of the sotto voce remarks I heard.
Sir Joshua sat in his own magnificent apartment, with the great window
looking out over Drake's Island and Mount Edgcombe to the horizon. A tray
and a decanter showed that he had lunched there, and there was a good deal
of cigar smoke in the air.
Sir Joshua was a tall and corpulent man of nearly seventy, with a red face
with little purple veins in the cheeks, a thatch of snow-white hair and close
whiskers. He had been an early pioneer of commercial flying, and had
reaped his reward in the control of the finest air fleet in the world and the
Lord knows how many millions of money. He was distinctly an able and
upright man, and his only faults were a slight pomposity and a mistaken
idea that the Commissioner of A.P. for Great Britain was a sort of unpaid
official of The White Star Line! A good many of the great air-shipping
magnates had tried to take that line in the past—and been snubbed for their
pains!
Sir Joshua was not pompous this afternoon, and his face was twitching as
he shook hands.
"Thank God you're come, Sir John," he said, "I am almost out of my mind
with worry and anxiety. You will agree with me that this affair is as grave as
it well can be?"
To that I was diplomatically silent. What I said was: "I have seen
Superintendent Pilot Lashmar. What I want now, Sir Joshua, as a

preliminary, is a brief and exact account from your own lips."
"Sit down," he said, pushing a padded chair towards me and handing a box
of cigars. "You shall have it in a nutshell." He sat down opposite to me,
pulled some papers towards him with a hand that shook a little, and began
to read.
... "Our liner Albatros, carrying the mails, left New York yesterday morning
about seven a.m., American time. She was consequently due here at
Plymouth about six-thirty this afternoon—Greenwich. The weather
conditions at the ten thousand feet mail-ship level were perfect. In addition
to the mails there were about two hundred passengers, and she carried,
though this was known only to a few officials, a parcel of particularly fine
Brazilian diamonds, consigned from Tiffany's of New York to Aaron and
Harris, the dealers in precious stones, of Hatton Garden. The jewels were in
the ship's safe, in charge of the purser. Various ships—I have the full list—
sighted the Albatros during the day and exchanged signals, while she duly
reported herself by wireless as she passed each lightship, as soon as dusk
fell. The lightships, as you know, are a hundred miles apart from the Fastnet
to Long Island, and are connected by cable with our telegraph room here.
The indicating dials register, degree by geographical degree, the exact
position of any of our ships when in the air. This record is printed on a tape
beneath each dial, and each record is examined every hour or two by a
clerk."
Of course, I knew all this. The minutest detail of the system was familiar. I
wished that Sir Joshua would "cut the cackle and come to the 'osses." No
doubt my face showed something of what I felt, for Sir Joshua half
apologized.
"You see, Sir John," he said, "I thought it best to prepare some sort of short
and coherent statement for the Press. As yet they have got hold of nothing,
but we can't possibly keep it much longer. Even you couldn't, with all your
powers. And what I am reading is this statement. I particularly want you to
hear it, as, of course, it rests with you if it shall be published in this form or
not."
I bowed, and Sir Joshua continued:

"At ten o'clock last night the clerk on duty examined the tapes. When he
came to the one recording the progress of the Albatros, he found that for
two hours there was no record of her at all. The last record was that she had
passed and signalled to Lightship A. 70 that all was well. A two hours' gap
is so unusual, owing to the—er—perfection of our organization, that the
clerk was alarmed, and reported the matter to a superior upstairs.
"A general call to all our ships in the air at that moment was at once sent
out, and in a few minutes responses were received from several of them to
the effect that the Albatros had not been sighted. Nor was there any answer
from the ship herself. A signal to Lightship A. 71, the next guide-boat the
Albatros should have passed, elicited the information that she had never
done so. By eleven o'clock all these facts were known in this office. The
night staff here became seriously alarmed. By a fortunate coincidence I was
attending a performance at the Theatre Royal close by, with Lady Johnson
and my daughters. This was known, and a messenger caught me at the close
of the play, and I came round at once. I had not been in the offices for five
minutes, when news of the most extraordinary and sensational character
began to come in from our receiving station by the Citadel.
"Captain Pring, one of our most reliable pilot commanders, was in charge of
the Albatros. The message was from him, and this is the gist of it. At
sundown the Albatros was flying on the ten-thousand-foot level. The
Lightship A. 70 was some twenty miles astern. No other airships were in
sight, when the look-out man reported a boat coming up at great speed from
the east. The Albatros was doing her steady ninety knots, but as the two
ships approached, it was seen that the stranger, a much smaller boat, was
flying at an almost incredible rate. Pring reports that she was doing a
sixteen to eighteen second mile, but there is doubtless a mistake in the
message.
"The boat showed no distinguishing lights, and failed to signal, as she
flashed past the liner at the distance of half a mile. There were several
curious features about her which attracted attention, though what these were
we do not yet know. This strange ship turned and came up with the
Albatros, actually flying round her in spirals with the greatest ease. Then,
without the slightest warning, she opened fire on our vessel, and the first
shell, obviously by design, blew away our wireless."

My heart simply bounded within me. This was news with a vengeance! I
had to exercise all my self-control not to pour out a stream of frantic
questions. It was beyond thinking! Such a thing had not happened since the
League of Nations came into being. It might mean hideous war once more
—anything!
Sir Joshua had paused to drink a glass of water. He understood the immense
gravity of this news as well as I did, and his voice was unsteady as he went
on in answer to my nod!
"The Albatros was helpless. Since the international agreement that only
naval, military and police ships may fly armed, she had no possible means
of defence. Flight, even, was impossible, and the loss of her wireless
forbade her to summon help. Then the anonymous ship turned a machine
gun on her rudder and shot it out of gear. There was nothing for it but to
descend to the water and rest on her floats. Pring was forced to give the
order, and she planed down. The other ship followed and took the water not
two hundred yards away.
"She then signalled in Morse code, with a Klaxon horn, that she was
sending men aboard the Albatros, and that if the captain or crew offered the
slightest resistance she'd blow her to pieces. They launched a Berthon
collapsible boat from a door in the stern fusilage. There were four men in
her, all armed with large-calibre automatic pistols, and wearing pilot's
hoods and masks with talc eye-pieces, so that it was impossible to identify
them. Pring could do nothing at all. He had the passengers to consider.
These ruffians cleared out the safe and the women's jewel-cases—they left
the mails alone—and in ten minutes they were back again with the loot. The
ship lifted and went off in the dark at two hundred miles an hour, leaving
the Albatros, helpless upon the water.
"It was a business of several hours to rig up a makeshift rudder, but,
fortunately, her searchlights were all right, and she kept on signalling with
these until she was sighted by a big cargo steamer, a Baltimore to Cadiz
boat, coming up from the south, the Sant Iago. She took off the passengers
and is bringing them home; she's only a fifteen-knot boat, but I have already
dispatched one of our smaller liners to pick her up and take the passengers
aboard. They ought to be here some time to-morrow.

"The Sant Iago has wireless, and was able to communicate, not only with
us, but also with the air-yacht May Flower, which she sighted on the four-
thousand-foot level at dawn. The May Flower belongs to Mr. Van Adams,
the Philadelphia millionaire, who is crossing to England with a party of
friends. She came down to the water and took up Commander Pring and the
second officer, and should be here by tea-time this afternoon. Then we shall
know more of this unprecedented, this deplorable business."
"And the Albatros, Sir Joshua?"
"A small crew was left on her, and an emergency tender and workmen
started at dawn. She ought to be flying again to-night."
I had all the available facts at last, and long before Sir Joshua had finished
my mind was busy as a mill. There was going to be the very biggest sort of
commotion over this. England and America would be in a blaze of fury
within twenty-four hours, and every flying man, from the skippers of the
lordly London-Brindisi-Bombay boats, or the Transatlantic Line, to the
sporting commercial traveller in a secondhand 50 h.p. trussed-girder blow-
fly, would be wagging the admonishing finger at ME.
"Thank you, Sir Joshua. Most lucid, if I may say so. As a clear statement of
fact, combined with a sense of vivid narrative, your account could hardly be
improved on."
"You think, Sir John ..."
"When the time comes to make a statement for the newspapers I would not
alter a word."
Thus did the tongue of the flatterer evade a situation that might have been a
trifle awkward for me. I rose at that. "I must leave you now, Sir Joshua," I
said, "as I have a great deal to see to and must rejoin Mr. Lashmar. Steps
have already been taken, and later on in the day I shall be able to tell you
more. Meanwhile I shall see Captain Pring directly the May Flower arrives,
and before anyone else. Our future action must depend a great deal on his
statement."
This was said in my curtest official manner, and then I got out of the room
as quickly as I possibly could. Lashmar was waiting, and I took him by the

arm and hurried him out of the office.
"I've only just heard full details, Lashmar, and pretty bad they are. Now has
anything been done—by us, I mean?"
"I had two of our patrol ships out at two-thirty this morning cruising over a
wide area, sir. They are out still, and reporting every hour. No results, no
strange airship seen anywhere. I've been out myself up and down the Irish
coast and round the Scillies this morning, more for form's sake than
anything else. And I've cabled the whole story, as far as we know it, to the
States."
"Good! Any reply from them?"
"Their police ships are out from Cape Breton to the Bermudas, but they
don't seem to have sighted anything out of the ordinary as yet."
"Of course, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack along that
huge stretch, eight hundred miles if it's an inch. But, as far as I can see, it's
up to them; not us."
"You think so, sir?"
"Why, yes. It's a case of sheer rank and daring piracy. It's been organized
with great skill, and the pirates, whoever they are, have command of
something quite out-size in the way of a ship. There isn't a works in
England where such a boat could be built without our knowing about it
before it was launched. And it's dead certain that there's nowhere in these
little islands to hide her. Every single bit of spruce and piano wire with a
motor-bicycle engine that can fly ten yards has to be registered and licensed
by me. No, this is an American stunt."
We had been crossing the Hoe as we talked, in the direction of the Citadel,
and we now came to the long, low building of Dartmoor stone, which is the
Plymouth Headquarters of the A.P. It is perched on the edge of the cliff, and
within five yards of the spot where Sir Francis Drake is said to have
finished his game of bowls when the Armada was coming up Channel.
We passed through the gates, where the police sentry presented arms, and
began to walk up and down the terrace.

"Signal to Southampton," I ordered, "and get a couple of their fastest boats
here at once. They may be useful in an emergency, and it will look as if we
are doing something. Ready for action, of course, and with full service
ammunition and bombs. Sir Joshua may have a fit if he likes, but there is
nothing to be done until we know more—unless you can suggest anything?"
The little man shook his head. He was keen as a terrier, of course, and he
had already acted with great promptitude and wisdom.
Just then an orderly came out on to the terrace and handed me a signal.
I read it out to Lashmar: "Air-yacht May Flower just passed St. Mary's
doing ninety knots." It was from our most westerly A.P. station on Tresco in
the Scillies. Lashmar made a rough calculation: "Twenty-five miles west-
sou'-west of Land's End, add another seventy—she'll be here just under the
hour, sir."
"Then I tell you what, Mr. Lashmar, go and meet her and escort her home.
Not a living soul must speak to Captain Pring before I do—not even Sir
Joshua or any of the White Star people. Give that as my orders when you
meet the yacht. But put it very politely to Mr. Van Adams—my
compliments and that sort of thing. He's the sort of person who could buy
the goodwill of the universe for ready money. Make your escort appear a
compliment from the Government!"
Lashmar never wasted words. He understood exactly, saluted, and hurried
to the electric railway, which ran down like a chute into the sea-drome far
below. I lit a cigarette and watched, and it was a sight worth watching.
Beyond, stretched the largest sea-drome in Great Britain, a harbour within a
harbour, surrounded by massive concrete walls. In the roughest weather,
when even within the distant breakwater the Sound is turbulent, the sea-
drome is calm as a duck-pond. Now it was like a sheet of polished silver,
and resting on their great floats at their moorings were three gigantic air-
liners, with electric launches and motor-boats plying between them and the
landing-stages.
Right in the centre was the splendid Atlantis, graceful as a swan, by which
Connie was to leave for the States in a few hours. She was surrounded by a
swarm of boats no bigger than water-beetles from where I stood.

A bell rang, there was a rumbling sound, and from a tunnel just beneath me
the car, with Lashmar in it, shot down to the water like a stone running
down a house roof. As the car dwindled to a punt, a match-box, and finally
a postage stamp, I heard the creak and swish of the semaphore behind me
on the roof of the station. On the far side of the sea-drome was our Patrol
Ship No. 1, stream-line fusilage, with the familiar red, white and blue line,
snow-white planes, guns fore and aft, and twin propellers of phosphor
bronze winking white-hot in the afternoon sun.
The semaphore was sighted in five seconds. I got a pair of glasses, and saw
that the engines were already "ticking over" as Lashmar jumped into a
launch and went over the pool, with a cream-white wake behind him and
two ostrich plumes of spray six feet high at the bows. He was on board in
less time than it takes to write it. I heard the faint throbbing of the four
high-compression engines change to the drone of a hornet. No. 1 Patrol slid
over the water until her floats lifted—lifted until they barely touched the
surface, and she was clear. One clean spiral over Pinklecombe way, and
then, as she mounted, she turned and was off over Rams Head like an arrow
from a bow. Though I say it that shouldn't, my officers and men of the A.P.
were just about as good as they're made!
There was a good three-quarters of an hour to spare, and the Royal Hotel
was not four minutes away. After the recent excitements a cup of tea with
Connie seemed just the thing. As I legged it over the Hoe, I realized that I
might be very busy for some time, and, in consequence, late for dinner. I
must tell my girl that something of great importance had happened, though,
in any case, I was determined to see her off, come what might.
Then I remembered something. As Chief Commissioner I had absolute
control over the airports of England in a time of crisis. In any case, it would
be as well to, close the sea-drome in preparation for the May Flower's
arrival. I should then be certain that no one could possibly get at Captain
Pring before I could. And if I chose to detain even the Royal Mail for half
an hour later on in the evening—under the circumstances!—no one would
say me nay.
There is a telephone box in the hall of the Royal Hotel. In thirty seconds my
orders were given, and not a living soul would enter or leave Plymouth sea-

drome without my permission. Then I strolled into the winter gardens,
where I found Connie sitting at a little table among tubs of azaleas and
listening to the strains of a ladies' orchestra.
"I've half an hour and ten minutes exactly, darling," I said, putting my watch
on the table and helping her to early strawberries. "Tell me when the time's
up, and then I must rush away for an hour before we dine."
Straightway I forgot all about the Albatros, Captain Pring, and the
mysterious armed ship in mid-Atlantic.
Knowing what I know now, I wonder how I could have taken it so lightly,
even then. But grave and serious as the affair was, amazing, too, in its
boldness, an elaborate and unexpected masterpiece of crime, it seemed
remote and very far away, like something one reads of in a foreign
newspaper, never conceiving that it can have anything to do with one's own
personal life.
If only I could have peeped but a little way into the future!

CHAPTER III
"COLD-BLOODED PIRACY IN THE HIGH
AIR"
Pilot-commander Pring was a tall, lean, lantern-jawed officer, who, though
of English nationality, had spent most of his life in America. His face was
still pale and grim with passion and mortification as I closed the door of my
private room at the A.P. Station on him, Mr. Van Adams, the multi-
millionaire, and Mr. Rickaby, second officer of the Albatros.
"Now, gentlemen, sit down, please," I said. "And I will ask Captain Pring a
few questions. Sir Joshua Johnson has given me the main facts, but I want
details. I won't detain you long, but I felt I ought to see you before anyone
else."
"Oh, quite!" said Mr. Van Adams, a fleshy man, with a watchful eye and a
jaw like a pike.
"This is an extraordinary affair, Captain Pring," I went on. "But, thank
goodness, you haven't lost your ship, or any lives. I know what you feel
about the Albatros."
"She is father, mother, brother, sister, hired girl and dog under the waggon
to me!" said Pring, and then he blazed up into fury. I disentangle the few
words I can. The majority were too overdressed for respectable society.
"... His Majesty's Mails! First time in history of flying, and it's happened to
ME! Cold-blooded piracy in the High Air! They'd have blown us to pieces as
soon as look at us! When I get hold of that slime-lapping leper, the pirate
skipper, I won't leave him hide or hair to cover the wart he calls his heart!
..." and so on, for a good two minutes by the office chronometer.
I let him rip. It was the quickest way. It's dangerous to throttle down a man
like Pring.
"The Captain is, naturally, furious," I said.

"Oh, quite!" answered Mr. Van Adams.
Then we got to business. "The strange airship, Captain Pring. Let's begin
with that. She approached you flying West, I understand?"
"She did, Sir John. Does that put you wise to anything?"
"It would appear that she was coming from Europe. But that was probably a
trick. She might have been waiting about for hours."
"Curious thing, then, that all the ships in the air during the last thirty hours
that were within fifteen hundred miles of the American and Canadian coast
never saw anything of her. The Air Police of the U.S.A. have questioned
every registered boat, Transatlantic and coastal trade, and not one of them
sighted her. And, as you know, Sir John, from Cape Race to Charleston in
summer weather the air's as thick with craft as gnats over a pond. Ain't that
so, Mr. Van Adams, sir?"
"Quite, Captain Pring."
"I see your inference. Well, we'll leave that for a moment. I understand that
there were some peculiar features about this ship. What were they?"
"She's the fastest thing in the air, bar none. That I can swear to. A pilot of
my experience can't well be deceived, and if that ship—she's one of the
very few I've seen with four propellers—can't do two hundred and forty
miles an hour, without a following wind, mind, then I'm a paretic!"
I whistled. Such speeds had been dreamed of but never known. "Nearly
three times hurricane velocity!" I said.
"She'd race the dawn, Sir John! and that's my honest belief. There's never
been such a flying boat before. And she don't carry a crew of more than
twelve or fifteen men, in my opinion. The rest's all engines and petrol. She
ain't more than twice the size of one of your patrol ships, all over."
This was talking! Each moment the affair grew more tense and interesting.
"That narrows our field of search no end," I remarked. "A boat like that
can't be built anywhere in the world without leaving traces."

"It colours the cat different, sure," said Captain Pring. "Now, here's another
point. Gum! I'm going to startle you some more, Sir John, but, as God sees
me, I'm speaking truth. Here's Mr. Rickaby here as'll swear to all I say...."
He looked at the second officer, a good-looking, brown-faced lad. "It's all
gospel, Sir John," he broke in.
"Of course," I said impatiently, "I know you couldn't be mistaken, Pring,
and I won't insult you by thinking you'd pull a Chief Commissioner's leg
over an affair of this importance. What's number two? Let's have it!"
"The man who runs her, or the man who built her, has solved another
problem. He's produced silent engines at last! That ship's motors don't make
more noise than a June bug! On a dark night she could pass within two
hundred yards of you, and you'd never guess that she was near."
From that moment I saw the thing in its true proportions. From that moment
the air became unsafe. A man-eating tiger let loose upon a quiet country-
side was not a tithe as dangerous.
The three other men saw that I understood.
"The scoundrels who came aboard the Albatros and looted the ship. What of
them?"
"They were masked so's their mothers wouldn't, have known 'em. Armed to
the teeth, too. We'd have downed them quick enough, even at the cost of a
life or two, but there was the pirate with a four-inch gun trained on us. And
she meant business. I did right, Sir John?"
The poor fellow's voice shook, and his face was corrugated with anxiety.
"I should have done exactly the same myself under the circumstances,
Pring. Your first duty was to the women and children under your care. That
view, I am certain, will be accepted by the company and the Government, to
say nothing of the public, when it gets out. About these men, again, did you
judge them to be American or foreigners?"
"They didn't speak much, except, to give a few orders. But what they did
say I heard, every word. I was with them all the time, and so was Mr.
Rickaby here. I'll spring another surprise on you, Sir John, and then I've

done. Those chaps were English, every one of them. And, what's more, they
weren't any plug-ugly crowd neither! They were educated men of some
social position, club men at some time or other, or I'm a short sport!"
The second officer spoke. "Captain Pring is perfectly right, sir," he said
modestly. "I'll swear that they had been public school or 'Varsity men at
some time or other."
"Where were you?" I asked quickly.
"Harrow, sir."
I nodded. Here was another astounding fact for consideration when I was
alone.
"And then, after a time," Pring continued, "the Sant Iago tramp steamer
freighter came up from way down South and rescued us. After that we
sighted the lights of Mr. Van Adams' air yacht, the May Flower, and in
answer to our signal he came down and took me and Rickaby aboard."
"Quite," said the laconic millionaire.
"To-night, Captain Pring, I shall want a long talk with you. Now I must
surrender you to Sir Joshua. For the present, I want you all three to give me
your words of honour that you will tell no one at all anything about the
appearance or speed of the ship, that her engines were silent, or you suspect
the ruffians on her to be English. That is most important. In fact, I must
make it an order, under the powers with which I am invested by the
Secretary of State. As an order, it cannot apply, to you, Mr. Van Adams, but
you have been so kind and helpful hitherto that I feel sure you'll give me
your promise? You must see how necessary it is."
Mr. Van Adams was going to use his word-of-all-work, I saw it coming,
when he changed his mind.
"I'm on," he said instead.
The two pilots gave me their assurances, and we walked out of the office
together. As we went along the terrace Pring pointed down to the sea-
drome, where the millionaire's air yacht, a beautiful boat, painted cream
colour and black, was now resting at her moorings.

"The Atlantis starts to-night," he said significantly.
"She will be escorted by an armed patrol," I said, "until she meets one of the
American A.P. ships in mid-ocean. Surely, you don't think there's any
danger?"
To tell the truth, I had been so concentrated upon the matter in hand that I
had hardly given a thought to the outgoing liner. Can you blame me?
Anyway, duty came before any private considerations. Now, Pring's remark
started a new set of thoughts. I looked at him with great anxiety. He did not
know the whole of my reason, but he saw that I was disturbed.
"No, Sir John," he answered, "I don't think the danger worth the waggle of a
mule's ear. It was only a passing remark. It stands to reason that Captain
Kidd'll know that the police boats of two hemispheres are out looking for
him in swarms by now. He'll figure that out, sure. If he was to start any of
his stunts within the next few days, he'd have about as much chance as a fat
man in Fiji."
"That's what I thought."
"You may make your mind easy about the Atlantis, sir. Besides, as you say,
to put the lid on, she'll be escorted."
"Quite," I said involuntarily, and then we both laughed.
"Royal Hotel at ten-thirty," I said. "I shall be staying there to-night."
I shall never forget that dinner with Connie. One of her greatest charms is
her serene light-heartedness. It is not silliness or frivolity, don't think that,
but the bloom upon the fruit of a clear and happy nature whose conscience
is at rest. My girl wasn't a fool. She was not ignorant of evil and the grey
sides of life. But they left her untouched. Perhaps her very simplicity, the
gay and stainless courage that she wore like a flag through life, had helped
her to her great success. The British public might admire and enjoy the
work of other artists, but they had taken little Connie Shepherd to their
hearts.
She was gay at our dinner, bubbling over with joy and fun. I did my best to
respond, but it was rather difficult. There was a shadow on my mind, and it

would not go away.
"Dearest old John!" she said once, "what is it? You're sad, inside of you, and
you're pretending you're not!"
"Darling, in an hour or two you'll be gone. How can I be very happy?"
She shook her head. "It's not that. You can't deceive me. I don't want to part,
either, especially on this day of days. But we are both of us sensible, and we
both know it's only for six weeks. You aren't in the least sentimental—
horrid word!—nor am I. We go deeper than that."
"Well, then, to tell you the truth"—and it was the truth—"I am a bit under
the weather, and I can't quite say why. Perhaps it's reaction. But most
probably, it's because I have been hearing some news, a matter in
connection with my work which has excited me. It's a problem of
organization I must solve at once. Forgive me, sweetheart!"
"My dear, if you were not what you are, I should never have said 'yes.' No
one has ever had such a position as you at your age, and I know how you've
fought for it. I love you to be preoccupied about your work."
We finished dinner, however, in a happier mood, and then walked down to
the sea-drome together. Connie's heavy luggage had gone to New York by
steamer a week ago. The two small trunks she had brought with her from
London were already on board the Atlantis, and Wilson and Thumbwood
carried a couple of dressing-bags.
It was a perfect evening. The sun, in going to rest, had hung the sky with
banners, golden and glorious. The music of a band upon the pier came
softly up to the terrace of the A.P. Station. Young men and maidens in
summer clothes strolled up and down over the greens, and a sickle-shaped
new moon was rising over Devonport and the Hamoaze.
We went down in the electric car, and boarded the Atlantis from one of my
launches. She was lit up in all her triple decks, as we climbed aboard by the
saloon accommodation ladder, and a steward took Connie and her maid to
her cabin, while I went to find my old friend, Captain Swainson.

The big, bearded man was sitting alone in his little room. There was a cup
of black coffee by his side, and he was chewing an unlighted cigar. I saw at
once that he had heard something.
"The very man!" he cried, jumping up from his basket chair and gripping
me warmly by the hand. "I heard you were here, Sir John, and I made sure
of seeing you before I started. Now what's all this? Sir Joshua's half out of
his mind with worry, the offices are turned upside down, and Seth Pring—
confound him!—is as close as an oyster!"
I found out that he knew just what Sir Joshua knew, and no more. He was
indignant but quite cool, inclined to minimize the whole affair.
It seemed to me that to tell him the whole truth would serve no good
purpose.
Pilot Superintendent Lashmar, whom I was going to send in command of
the escort, would, of course, know everything.
"Well, I'm sending an escort with you half-way across," I said. "Lashmar
will go—you know him?—in No. 1 Patrol Boat. It's heavily armed, and he
can shoot straighter than any man in the service. Got his experience in the
Great War."
"Escort be blowed!" said hearty Captain Swainson. "I can't think what old
Pring was about to let himself be held up like that—though, of course, it's
just as you wish, Sir John."
"I don't suppose there's the least need of it, Swainson. But this business'll
make a bit of a noise, and it looks well. Now I'll tell you a secret. I'm
engaged to be married! Settled it coming down in the train this morning."
"The deuce you are! A thousand congratulations!"
"Thanks. What's more, the lady is aboard your ship, and flies to New York
with you to-night. I want you to look after her for me."
"Can a duck swim? Well, this is news! Now I understand about that escort!
But do introduce me, Sir John. It will be more than a pleasure to make the
young lady comfortable."

We went off to seek Connie, and found her sitting behind one of the
multiplex wind-screens on the saloon deck, listening to the music of a piano
and violin that came through the open hatch of the palm-court below.
I remember that the musicians were playing a selection of old English airs,
sweet, plaintive music, and had just got to "The Last Rose of Summer."
I'm not emotional, but when I hear that tune to-day—thank goodness, it isn't
often!—I go out of the room.

At a quarter to nine I stood on the Hoe and watched the Atlantis start for
America. Her navigation lights were all turned on; the innumerable port-
holes of the huge fusilage made an amber necklace below the immense grey
planes.
Then, from the towers on the sea-drome wall the "flare-path" shot out—an
avenue of white and steady light to guide the liner outwards. From the roof
of the A.P. Station the compressed air-horn sent out three long, brazen calls.
I had arranged it so. It was my Godspeed to Constance. Old Swainson
answered on his Klaxon, and then the liner began to move slowly over the
glittering water. Every second she increased her speed and lifted until she
rose clear and slanted upwards. I had a vision of the mysterious silvery
thing like a moth in the centre of the light-beam, and then the flare-path
shifted out to sea, and rose till it was almost at a right angle with the water.
The Atlantis was spiralling up to her ten-thousand-foot level, and in a
moment or two she was nothing more than a speck.
Just as I lost sight of her, Patrol Ship No. 1 lifted and followed like a hawk
after a heron, and then both ships were lost in the night.
The band on Plymouth Pier was still playing. The young men and maidens
were still strolling round the lawns in the moonlight. The air was sweet and
pure, full of laughter and the voices of girls. But I went back to the station
with a heavy heart.
Two shorthand clerks and two telegraphists were waiting for me, and in the
next hour I got through an infinity of work. There was a mass of telegrams
to answer from America. They had been re-wired from Whitehall. I had to

send out fifty or sixty signals to organize a complete patrol of the Atlantic
air-lanes. There was a long and confidential "wireless" to my assistant, Muir
Lockhart, in London, and last, though by no means least, a condensed
report of everything for the Home Secretary. It was after ten when I had
finished, and I walked slowly back to the "Royal," dead tired in mind and
body. When I came to think of it, I realized that this had been one of the
most eventful and exciting days of my life.
Thumbwood—you will hear a great deal about him before this narrative is
over—was waiting in the hall. He hurried me upstairs to where a tepid bath
dashed with ammonia was waiting. Five minutes in this, a brisk rub down, a
complete change into evening kit, a tea-cup of Bovril with a tablespoon of
brandy and a pinch of celery salt in it—what Thumbwood called my "bran-
mash"—and I was a new man again.
For a perfect valet commend me a man who has had charge of racehorses in
his time!
Then I went down to meet Captain Pring. I saw at once, as I came into the
public rooms of the hotel, that the news was out. Groups of people were
standing together and talking earnestly. There was a buzz of suppressed
excitement, natural anywhere, but particularly so in the principal air-port of
England.
And there were special editions of the evening papers....
These—I got one and looked—had made the most of very scanty material.
Nothing like the whole truth had leaked out, but there was, nevertheless, a
sensation of the first magnitude. I was recognized and pointed to; a naval
captain even spoke, and tried to pump me!—though he soon found that
there was nothing doing—and when Captain Pring came into the lounge
some idiot started to cheer, and there was what the papers describe as a
"scene."
Pring and I supped alone in a private room and had a long confidential talk,
in the course of which I learnt many things. I am not going to give any
details of that talk at present. It was momentous—it is enough to say that
now—and has its proper place further on in the story.

The worthy Captain went at twelve, and I retired to bed. Thumbwood slept
in a dressing-room opening out of my bedroom. By his couch was a
telephone, which I arranged was to be connected with the A.P. Station all
night long. If any signal came Thumbwood was to take it, and, if important,
wake me at once.
... I am going to conclude this first portion of the narrative in as few lines as
possible. Even to-day I shirk the writing of them.
I was awakened suddenly to find my room blazing with light; I afterwards
found that the exact time was 2.30 a.m.
Thumbwood was standing by the bed. "Sir John," he said hoarsely, "there's
a signal!"
One glance at the lad's face was enough, and I set my teeth—hard.
"Bad news?"
"Terrible news, Sir John!"
"Go on."
"Atlantis attacked two hundred miles west of Cork. Captain Swainson and
four other men shot dead. Patrol Boat No. 1 disabled. Commander Lashmar
and most of the crew killed. Signal got through by two survivors of crew,
who managed to repair wireless."
Twice I swallowed with a dry mouth. Thumbwood knew what I wanted to
ask.
"The young lady, Sir John, and her maid ..."
"Dead, too?"
"No, Sir John. They were taken from among all the other passengers and
put aboard the pirate ship, which then flew away with them."

CHAPTER IV
THE NEWSPAPERS IN FULL CRY
You are to imagine, if you please, the private room of the Chief
Commissioner of Air Police at Whitehall.
A soft Turkey carpet of dull brick-reds and blues covers the parquet floor.
The walls are hung with pictures of famous airmen of the past, inventors,
fighters, pioneers of the great commercial service of air-liners which now
fills the skies and has shrunk the planet—for all practical purposes—to a
fifth of its former size. There are two or three huge writing-tables covered
with crimson morocco; the chairs are thickly padded and luxurious. A range
of tall windows looks down upon the endless stir and movement of the wide
street, where the nerves of Empire meet in one central ganglion.
Standing by one of these windows is a light-haired young man of thirty in a
lounge suit of dark blue. He wears a rather heavy, carefully-trimmed
moustache, and his face is seamed and furrowed with anxiety and grey from
want of rest.
Thus you see me in London, two days after Thumbwood brought the
terrible news to my bedroom in the hotel at Plymouth.
General Sir Hercules Nichelson, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Flying
Corps, had been with me for half an hour, and was just taking his leave.
"Then all that is satisfactorily arranged, Sir John," he said. "We shall
supplement your patrol ships with three war-ships at Plymouth and three at
the Scillies. They will, of course, be air cruisers, both faster and better
armed than your boats, and between us both we shall put an end to this pest
before many days are over."
"I sincerely trust so," I said. "And I do not see how it is possible that there
should be any further outrages. The net will be too close. America, with its
much greater coastal area, is taking extraordinary precautions."

"It will be impossible for these devilish scoundrels to escape," the General
repeated with confidence—the onus of it all was not falling upon him!
—"and now, we quite understand one another."
"Perfectly, I think, Sir Hercules."
"Your chief station officer is to be in full command, under you, at each air-
port."
"It was your suggestion, Sir Hercules, and since it came from you, I do
think it would be best. My men are always patrolling the air-lines. The
organization is complete already."
"Exactly. And as for my fellows, they will be proud to serve under such
gallant and experienced officers as those of the A.P."
"It's kind of you to say so."
"Not at all. It is the truth. And now, as an older man, let me give you a little
advice, if I am not taking a liberty. Don't let this affect you too much, Sir
John. Every sane man knows that neither you nor anyone else could have
avoided what has happened, or have provided against it. It is a great thing to
have an acute sense of responsibility; I honour you for it. But don't overdo
it. I know the strain you are enduring. Don't let it go too far. If you were to
break down now, that would be a final disaster...."
The kind, white-haired old man shook me warmly by the hand, and left the
room.
Almost immediately young Bickenhall, my private secretary, came in.
"Here is the morning's Press, sir," he said, and upon my table he put down
various columns cut from the journals of that morning—all dealing with the
sensational and terrible events on the Atlantic that were now the common
knowledge of the world.
I sat down to glance through them—I was keeping an iron grip upon myself
these times—in order to gauge public opinion. It occurs to me that, in order
to acquaint you with the progress of events from my awakening at
Plymouth till the morning of which I speak, I cannot do better than quote a

paragraph here and there from the daily papers. It will bring us up to date
more quickly and concisely than in any other way.
This, then, from one of the leading London journals, a weighty, somewhat
ponderous sheet, with considerable influence:

"... We have given an account of the first attack upon the air-liner Albatros,
under command of Captain Pring, whose conduct in such a trying situation
did not deviate from the best traditions of our British aviators. Most people
would have thought that after such a dastardly outrage, the unknown pirate
would have been content to rest upon his infamous laurels and retire to his
lair, with the valuable booty he had secured. But it was not so. With an
audacity unparalleled in the annals of crime, this vulture, on the very next
night, commits an outrage which, for ferocity and daring, makes the first
one seem like a mere frolic.
"It is now possible to disentangle something of the truth from the various
conflicting stories that have reached us, and it is, moreover, confirmed in its
essential details by the authorities of the Air Police at Whitehall, who have
issued a guarded statement.
"It appears that two nights ago the famous air-liner Atlantis left the
Plymouth sea-drome about nine in the evening. The Captain, Commander
Pilot Swainson, was one of the best known and trusted officers in the
Transatlantic service. He did not anticipate the slightest danger. Sir John
Custance, Chief Commissioner of the Air Police of Great Britain, was
himself at Plymouth, having hurried down from London upon receiving
news of the first piracy. Sir John insisted that the Atlantis should be
escorted, for half of her journey to America, by the armed Patrol Ship '1,'
under command of Superintendent Pilot-Commander Lashmar, D.S.O.,
himself an officer of great distinction. Half-way across the Atlantic the liner
was to be met by a similar escort of the United States A.P., and let us here
say that it is difficult to tell what other precautions Sir John Custance could
have devised.
"The Atlantis carried the Royal Mail and a full complement of passengers,
among whom were some distinguished names. Mr. Bootfeller, of the United

States Senate, Mr. Greenwell, the well-known publisher, the Duke of Perth,
and 'Walty Priest,' the cinema 'star,' were among the men, while in the list of
ladies was Miss Constance Shepherd, a young actress, of whom it is not too
much to say that she has endeared herself to the British public.
"About two o'clock in the morning disastrous and terrible news began to
filter through to the Plymouth wireless stations. It can be summarized as
follows: When not more than two hundred and fifty miles west of Ireland,
the patrol ship, which was flying three miles or so behind the Atlantis, was
suddenly attacked by an unknown airship. The moon had set, the ten-
thousand-feet level was dark, and the attack was delivered without the
slightest warning. Patrol Ship No. 1 was instantly disabled by a rain of
shells. Captain Lashmar was shot dead, and with him perished all of the
crew except three men, one of whom was so seriously wounded that his life
is despaired of, the other two being only slightly wounded.
"An utter wreck, the patrol ship was just able to descend to the water, where
she rested like a wounded and dying bird.
"Meanwhile the unknown ship caught up with the Atlantis and commenced
—as in the case of the Albatros—with shooting away her wireless aerials.
The rudder and stern propeller were then destroyed, and the great liner
forced to plane to the surface of the water. Six masked and armed ruffians
went aboard of her, and a systematic looting of the ship commenced.
Captain Swainson could not bear this. He drew a revolver and shot one of
the pirates dead. Then, calling on his crew to assist him, he made a
determined rush, regardless of consequences. The fight was unequal.
Captain Swainson was the only defender who carried fire-arms, while the
robbers were provided with heavy automatic pistols.
"Five men of the Atlantis were killed almost instantly, and the rest cowed,
while the systematic robbery continued. And now, alas! 'horrors upon
horror's head accumulate.' Their evil work completed, the ruffians sought
out Miss Constance Shepherd and her maid, Miss Wilson, from among the
passengers. These unfortunate ladies were forced at the pistol's mouth to
embark upon the pirates' small boat, in which they were rowed rapidly to
the pirate ship and taken on board. The ship then rose from the water and
was lost to sight.

"Meanwhile two heroes were at work. On board the broken patrol ship two
able navigators, Paget and Fowles, were wounded, indeed, but not entirely
disabled. Both men had some knowledge of wireless, and with superhuman
toil, as the hours went on, they contrived to rig up a temporary apparatus
which, at last, served to send out a brief account of the disaster and a call
for help.
"When rescue ships arrived at early dawn, they found that the patrol ship
had drifted close to the Atlantis, and that Dr. Weatherall, the surgeon of the
liner, had swum aboard the No. 1 and rendered what help he could to the
wounded men.
"Press representatives are at Plymouth, but, so far, few of the passengers of
the Atlantis have been able, and none have been allowed by the authorities,
to make personal statements for publication. This embargo, we are assured,
will be removed by this evening.
"This is a precise account of what has happened. We must now turn to the
consideration of the situation...."

Another journal, a weekly one this time, headed its remarks with a portrait
of my unhappy self. Underneath was written: "The Man the Atlantic Pirates
tricked!" The rag had an immense circulation in all the tap rooms of
England.
Well, I would see what the blackguards of the country were reading about
me. Shrewd young Bickenhall wouldn't have brought the unclean thing in if
he hadn't thought it worth while. I give it for what it's worth:

"Poor Johnny Custance! You're up against it good and thick to-day, and no
mistake, and Paul Pry"—this was the signature of the tout who wrote the
article—"can't say he's very sorry for you. For some time past a little bird
has been whispering in the clubs that all is not well in the State of Denmark
—to wit, the office of the Commissioner of Air Police at Whitehall. The
aristocratic young gentlemen who daily condescend to drop into this

palatial edifice for an hour or two have long held the reputation of being the
best dressed of all our minor Government officials, and, considering the
salaries they draw from the public purse, this is not surprising. But I have
never yet heard that they did any work worth mentioning, or, indeed,
anything to justify their precious and beautiful existence.
"Flying Police we must have, and never has the necessity for them been
greater than at this moment; but there is a vast deal of difference from the
handy pilot of a patrol ship at Plymouth or Portland and the bureaucratic
popinjays of Pall Mall.
"Sir John Custance, Bart., is the typical Government official of the musical
comedy or the comic paper. He is an aristocrat who, after a short experience
in the air, is shoved into the highly-paid and responsible position he holds
without any reason that the man in the street can understand. A baronet,
and, if report speaks truly, a man of considerable private means, I have—in
common with many other people—often asked myself what possible
qualification this young gentleman can have for his job. Johnny is a most
estimable person, no doubt, in private life. I have heard it remarked that his
moustache is one of the most perfect things in the West End of London, and
he is frequently to be seen adorning a stall or box at the Parthenon Theatre.
But few people have ever taken him seriously as the head of our Air Police,
and now nobody will."

There was a row of stars here, as if Mr. Paul Pry paused for breath, or was
stopping to pick up another handful of mud, and then he went on again:

"If the nation is called upon to pay thousands and thousands a year for the
upkeep of an efficient service of Air Police, it is entitled to see that it gets it,
and that the man in charge is able to provide it. What has happened? A crew
of murdering ruffians in an airship have looted two of our greatest air-
liners, slaughtered several people, kidnapped one of our most popular
actresses, and escaped scot-free. Vanished into the wide! While Sir John
Custance twiddles his thumbs in Whitehall and calls upon the air forces of

the Admiralty and War Office to supplement his own miserably inefficient
organization.
"As usual, we are not without some very special and exclusive information
in this office. My readers know from past experience that their Paul is not
easily caught napping. I believe that I shall have something to say that will
startle everyone in next week's number, though, for certain reasons, I cannot
be more explicit at present. Before concluding these remarks, however, I
must say a word or two about the extraordinary and sinister disappearance
of delightful Constance Shepherd. Sad as it is to hear of brave men shot
down while doing their duty, there is something peculiarly terrible in the
carrying off of the little lady to whom London owes so much. Dear little
Connie! We of Bohemia knew and loved you well! Many is the happy hour
that Paul Pry has spent in your company, many the bumper of bubbly water
he has quaffed to your success!
"No one could possibly have foreseen such a tragic ending to the American
journey which Miss Shepherd set out upon with such high hopes. And yet,
there was not wanting a slight shadow of premonition. Only a week ago she
said to me: 'Paul, I'm not so sure, after all, that everything will go well.
There are certain things. I can't tell you of them——' But I must refrain
from betraying a confidence. Let it be enough to say that my little friend
had her moments of dejection, when she was not entirely happy about the
future."

I put down the paper and rang for Bickenhall. "You've read this, I suppose?"
I asked, pointing to it.
He nodded. "Lies, of course," he said; "mere words to fill up the column."
"No doubt. Still, the man hints all sorts of things, damn him! And one can't
neglect any possible clue." I was in a raging fury, and Bickenhall saw it,
though he was far from suspecting the true cause.
"The office is in the Strand," he said, "three minutes by taxi. I'll go and
interview this Paul Pry and put the fear of God into him."

I knew my Bickenhall. He is an energetic and hefty young man, and though
I had little hopes that he would discover anything of value, I had a shrewd
suspicion that Mr. Paul Pry was about to experience a peculiarly unpleasant
ten minutes.
I was right in both my conjectures.
The secretary returned in half an hour. "Just a ramp," he said. "I found a
greasy ruffian smelling of gin in a back room, and frightened him out of his
life. He's never met Miss Shepherd, and has no private information
whatever. Will apologize in any manner you like."
I am not going to bother you with what the journalists wrote. There were
hundreds of columns of suggestions, conjecture, reproof, alarm, and so
forth. On the whole my department was let down fairly lightly, and I was
glad. Please don't think that I cared twopence for myself. I did not. But I
should have bitterly resented any serious reflections on my staff, officers
and men, who were, and are, as able and loyal a body as can be found
anywhere in the world.

CHAPTER V
THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT OF MR. VAN ADAMS
At mid-day I had an appointment with the Home Secretary. He received me
with the utmost kindness, and we had half an hour of highly confidential
talk. The purport of it will appear later. This is not the place for it.
Towards the end I informed him that I had a request to make.
"Tell me," he answered at once, "and let me repeat that the Government has
every confidence in you, Sir John. Don't take this too hardly, I beg of you."
I had a sudden impulse. "I trust," I said, "that my anxiety for the public
welfare is in no degree overshadowed by a private sorrow. Indeed, I am sure
that it isn't. But, if I may speak in confidence, I should like you to know, sir,
that I was engaged to be married to Miss Constance Shepherd."
There was a perceptible silence. I heard the great man take a long inward
breath, and murmur to himself, "Poor fellow!" Then he did the right, the
quite perfect thing: he stretched out his hand, and took mine in a firm, warm
grasp.
When I could speak, I returned to business.
"My request, sir, is this. I want to disappear for a month."
"Disappear, Sir John?"
"That's what it amounts to. Practically, I am going to ask for four weeks'
leave of absence. It must be private, though. If the news were published the
public would misunderstand, and think I was deserting my post in a time of
difficulty and danger."
"Whereas?"
"Whereas I want to investigate this affair in my own way. I believe that the
theories of the Press and public, and also those of Scotland Yard—with

whom I have been in consultation—are quite wrong. Nor do my
communications with America give me any reason to change my opinion.
This is a matter of life and death to me. I owe the Government, who have
promoted me so rapidly to the high position I occupy, a solution of this
mystery. I owe them and the public that the fiends who have committed
these outrages should be brought to justice. And, if God allows me, I will do
it. My honour and that of my department are at stake. Those two things
come before anything else. In addition, I have the private reasons of which I
have told you. And, in order to succeed, I am persuaded that my way is the
only way."
"You have certainly the strongest motives a man well could have to urge
you on. But can you be a little more explicit?"
"I want to leave Mr. Muir Lockhart in charge at the office. He is perfectly
capable of taking charge. He has everything at his fingers' ends. And I shall
arrange that he can always communicate with me at any time."
The Home Secretary thought for a moment, and drummed with his fingers
on the arm of his chair. He had been a famous barrister, and renowned for
the perfection of his turn-out. His finger-nails were pink and polished as the
light fell upon them, and I wondered if he had them manicured.
Then he looked up. "Very well, do as you like," he said suddenly. "I take it
that you know what you're about. And heartfelt good wishes for your
success."
... This is how I plunged into a series of dangerous adventures, a dark
underworld of crime and almost superhuman cunning, probably without
parallel in modern times.
Arrangements were soon made at Whitehall. Muir Lockhart was an
understanding man, and by three o'clock in the afternoon I walked out into
the sunshine free from all official cares for a month. I took a long, deep
breath as I crossed the Horse Guards Parade and made my way to the long,
green vista of the Mall. "The first act is over," I thought. "The curtain is
rising on the real drama. Somewhere in this world there is a man whose
discovery and death I owe to Society and to myself."
And I was a man who never failed to pay a debt.

I have given you but little indication of my mental state during the last few
days. It won't bear much writing about even now. A cold fury, instead of
blood, came and went in my veins, and my heart was ice. Every now and
again, especially when I was alone, agony for which there is, there can be,
no name got hold of me, and sported with me as the wind sports with a leaf.
I suppose I had a tiny foretaste of what is felt by a soul that is eternally
damned. I dared not think too much of Constance and her fate. If I had let
myself go that way the running waters would have risen and overwhelmed
me utterly. But, thank God, my intellect held. The streak of hardness which
had served me so well in my career, and had enabled me to push to the top
at an early age, came to the rescue now. Every faculty was sharpened; the
will concentrated to a single purpose. I was alone, and I walked in darkness,
but I was conscious of Power—charged to the brim as a battery is charged
with the electric fluid. As I walked calmly up St. James', on the way to my
chambers, I doubt if a more single-minded and dangerous man than I
walked the streets of London.
And I knew, by some mysterious intuition, that I should succeed in the task
before me. I had not, as yet, more than the most rudimentary idea how I was
going to set about it, but I should succeed. Don't misunderstand me. I had
hardly any hope of seeing my dear love alive again. I believed that all the
joy of life was finally extinguished. But justice—call it vengeance rather—
remained, and I was as sure that I was the chosen instrument of that as I was
that I had just passed between Marlborough House and the Palace of St.
James.
My expensive but delightful chambers in Half Moon Street were on the
second floor—sitting-room, dining-room, bed and dressing rooms and bath.
The sitting-room was panelled in cedar-wood, which had been stained a
delicate olive-green, with the mouldings of the panels picked out in dull
gold. Connie and her gay young friends, when they came to have tea with
me, or supper after the theatre, used to say that it was one of the most
charming rooms in London.
I had spent an infinity of time and money on it, determined that it should be
"just so." For instance, the carpet was from Kairowan in Tunisia, and had
taken a whole family of Arab weavers five years to make. Never was there a

more perfect blue—not the crude peacock colour of the cheaper Oriental
rugs, but a blue infused with a silver-ash shade, contrasting marvellously
with the warm brick-reds and tawny yellows. It was a bargain at four
hundred pounds.
I had hung only half a dozen pictures in this room, all modern and all good.
My "Boys Bathing," by Charles Conder—better known as the painter of
marvellous fans—was a masterpiece of sunlight and sea foam which made
me the envy of half the collectors in town. Then I had a William Nicholson
—"Chelsea Ware"—that was extraordinarily fascinating. It was just some
old Chelsea plates and a jug standing on a table. It doesn't sound
fascinating, I know, but the painting was so brilliant, there was such vision
in the way it was seen, that one could look at it for hours.
There was an open hearth of rough red brick in the room, deep and square,
and when there was a fire it burned in a gipsy brazier of iron. I had a lot of
trouble to get this last of the right shape, and finally it had to be made for
me, from the design of an artist in Birmingham.
Such a room, with its perfect colour harmonies and severe lines, required no
knick-knacks. Nothing small or petty, however beautiful in itself, could be
allowed there. I had two cabinets of magnificent china in my dining-room,
but china would have been quite out of place here. Along one wall, about
four feet from the floor, was a single shelf of old pewter—cups and flagons
of the Tudor period with the double-rose hall-mark—and that was all.
As I entered and flung myself wearily into a chair, the afternoon sunlight
poured in through the half-drawn curtains of sea-green silk. In the ceiling a
hidden electric fan was whirring, and the room was deliciously cool. And as
I looked round, the place seemed hateful beyond all expression. I was sick
of it, loathed its beauty and comfort; an insane desire came to take a
hammer and wreak havoc there as my eyes fell on the only photograph in
the room. It was one of Constance, in a frame of dull silver, studded with
turquoises, and she had given it to me no longer than a fortnight ago.
Thumbwood slept at the top of the house. He came in, after I had been
resting for a few minutes.

"I've made the necessary arrangements, Charles," I said, "and we shall start
operations at once." I had no secrets from this devoted friend and servant.
"Glad to hear it, Sir John. I've been round the town this morning, and there's
a lot of talk."
He followed me into the sitting-room and brought me cigars.
"You see," he went on confidentially, "a gentleman's servant, especially if
he belongs to the club just off Jermyn Street, and more specially still if he's
been a racing man, hears all that's going on quicker than anyone. This
morning I've been talking to the porters and valets of two of the best clubs,
Sir John. Then I 'ad a crack with Meggit, the bookmaker, what does all the
St. James' smaller commissions, and after that I strolled to the Parthenon
Theatre, and took out the stage door-keeper and filled him up and made 'im
talk a bit. 'Im and me is great friends consequent of my taking so many
messages and flowers for you, sir, when Miss Shepherd was acting there."
"Ah! I see you haven't wasted your time." I smiled inwardly at
Thumbwood's idea of helping me.
"No, Sir John. I've learned a lot of funny little things, just trifles, so to say,
but they may prove useful later on. There's one thing you ought to know at
once. Them theatricals have been talking, and it's all over town that Miss
Shepherd travelled down to Plymouth with you. It's certain to be in the
papers this afternoon, if it ain't already. There's been half a dozen reporters
buzzing round the theatre this morning."
I ground my teeth with anger, but only for a moment. Of course, the thing
was inevitable. There was only one thing to do.
I took up the telephone on the writing-table and got put on to the Evening
Wire. "I am Sir John Custance," I said to the editor. "I hear that there is a
good deal of talk going about London in respect of Miss Constance
Shepherd and myself. To avoid the least misconception, I authorize you to
state, in your next edition, that Miss Shepherd and I were engaged to be
married. I'll send my servant down to your office at once, with a note
confirming this conversation."

It was the only way, much as I hated it, to stop malicious gossip, and I
scribbled a chit to the editor.
"Get into a taxi and take that at once," I said to Thumbwood. As I gave him
the letter, there was a ring at the front-door bell.
The little man went out and I heard voices, one harsh and deep, that seemed
familiar.
"Who is it?" I asked as Charles returned. "I can't see anyone...."
"Wouldn't take any denial, sir. It's the American gentleman who picked up
Captain Pring after the attack on the Albatros. Says he must see you."
"Mr. Van Adams?"
"Yes, Sir John."
"Show him in."
A moment afterwards I was shaking hands with the thickset man whose jaw
was like a pike's and whose eyes resembled animated steel. Thumbwood
went off with the letter. I heard the front door close after him.
Now I don't suppose at that moment I would have seen any other man in
London unconnected with my office at Whitehall. I didn't want to see the
millionaire, but directly he was inside the room my irritation vanished. He
had meant to see me. He had now accomplished his end, and I had a firm
conviction that sentries with fixed bayonets wouldn't have kept him out.
He sat down quietly in the chair I indicated, and took a cigar with great
deliberation. I was not in the least impatient. I knew now that I was glad
that he had come, and waited for him to begin. When he did speak the harsh
voice was considerably modified, and no one whatever could have said that
he was an American.
"Any success I may have made in life," he said without preliminary, "has
come from the faculty of judging men. I started, as a youth, with this power
in a more than ordinary degree. I've been developing it ever since."

He puffed thoughtfully at his cigar. He had said this with calm
determination, not in the least as if he were speaking of himself, but merely
as a man stating a fact which would be useful a little later on.
For my part I said nothing. I felt as though I was playing a sort of decorous
game with rigid rules. To speak then would be to revoke!
"... And, though the ordinary man does not like to hear such a statement, I
have a pretty good idea of you, Sir John. You're not an ordinary man. That's
why I'm here. I'll put it in two words. I want to help you. I can help you. It
is for you to say if you want me."
Now there could only be one answer to a question like that. The man in my
arm-chair was one of the most powerful men on earth. Moreover, his
reputation stood high. He was no financial pirate. The whole world trusted
him.
"I answer that, Mr. Van Adams, with a single word: Thank you."
He nodded as if pleased. "Quite!" he said, and then, half turning in his chair,
"of course I don't ask you to tell me any official secrets...."
I laughed at that. The Government would have let this man know all there
was to be known upon his simple request.
He saw that I understood. "There are none for one thing," I told him. "You
know exactly as much as my department knows, as I told the Home
Secretary this morning. There are no developments, except, of course, the
protective measures we and the States are taking. The one thing I can tell
you, and which is in strict confidence, is that I have arranged for my official
duties to be carried on by my assistant for a month. From this afternoon I
am absolutely free to do what I like and go where I like. No one will know
of this but my confidential servant. I intend to devote this evening to
mapping out a plan of campaign."
"That's good, Sir John. That is just what I wanted to hear. Let me explain
my motives. They are not complicated. One is that, as one of the chief
money-brokers of the world, I naturally want to prevent any financial panic.
Next, I am a bit of a sportsman in my way. I like hunting things down. This
pursuit appeals to me a good deal. And, last—when I was five-and-thirty, a

desperate gang of crooks in San Francisco kidnapped my little daughter
Pearl—she that is Duchess of Shropshire now—and held her up to ransom.
It was before you took notice, for I'm close on seventy, but the episode
created some considerable stir at the time. I can pretty well guess what you
are going through now."
As he looked at me his eyes were no longer like living steel, nor his jaw like
a pike's.
So he also knew! I mumbled something or other.
"Quite," he answered quickly, and then went on: "In thinking over various
ways in which I could be of use I have come to a certain conclusion.
Money, I suppose, won't help you—though, of course, any sum is
available?"
"I have the Government behind me, and I myself am not poor, thank you."
"It is as I thought. In England I myself can do nothing personally that others
cannot do as well. In America I have every sort of influence...."
I looked him in the face. "I am not going to trouble about America in the
very least."
"Quite! I see what you mean. And I am absolutely of your opinion. Now I'll
come to what I can do for you."
He rose slowly from his chair and came up to me. When he spoke he had
dropped his voice a full tone.
"I must let you into one or two little secrets about myself," he said. "In the
first place, a man so rich as I am does not become so without making
powerful and unscrupulous enemies. Also, American methods are direct. It
will probably surprise you to hear that my life has been attempted twelve or
fifteen times, but that is the case. Some of the methods were diabolically
ingenious, too! However, I stand here to-day, quite unharmed and quite
safe. Why? I'll tell you.
"Quite early in my successful career I saw what would happen. I watched
other men assassinated, and was determined that it shouldn't happen to me.
How was it to be avoided? I thought that point out very carefully, and came

to a conclusion. I must find, and then attach to my person, someone of
extraordinary intelligence, cunning, skill and personal prowess. My
ambitions ran high. I wanted someone who would devote his whole life to
my service, a familiar spirit, no less! It took me three years of steady work
to find that familiar spirit—to discover the exact combination of qualities I
required. But a multi-millionaire is the Magician of to-day, and I have a
Genie as clever and infallible as any out of the old 'Arabian Nights.' I pay
him the salary of a cinema star, and I say, meaning every word of it, that
there isn't another like him in the world. Do you think this tall talk, Sir
John?"
It was certainly amazing, but I could not but believe him.
"You startle and you interest me deeply," I replied. "You are to be
congratulated."
"I am—on a unique human possession. Well, you can't have failed to see
what I'm driving at. I will lend you this man, place his services entirely at
your disposal, for a month!"
For a moment or two I was silent. I believed every word that Van Adams
said, and I was not hesitating—only just letting the offer, and what it meant,
sink into my mind. It became plain. It was like the offer of a rope-ladder to
a man in prison, a light and a pickaxe to an entombed miner.
"It is the most generous offer I've ever heard of, Mr. Van Adams. I can't
express my thanks. You really mean this?"
"I do. And as an ounce of proof is worth a ton of talk—allow me to
introduce you to Mr. Danjuro!"
He turned round as he spoke and I with him. Then I gave a cry of
astonishment, which I could not have kept back to save my life.
Standing some yard or so away was a little Japanese gentleman, not much
more than five feet high. He wore gold pince-nez, a neat blue lounge suit
and brown boots. There was nothing noticeable about him in any way,
except an unusually fine cranial development—a massive forehead and a
great space between the corners of the dark eyes and the ears.

"Good heavens, how did he get here?" I said.
Van Adams laughed. "I daresay he'll tell you; I don't know," he answered. "I
just told him to be here. I wanted to give you an object lesson, in fact. Now,
Mr. Danjuro knows all that I know. You can trust him absolutely. He knows
what is in front of him, and he knows where to find me when I'm wanted.
Now I'll leave you together and say good-afternoon."
He was gone almost before I could thank him.

CHAPTER VI
MR. DANJURO, THINKING MACHINE,
EXPLAINS HIMSELF
"Won't you sit down?" I said foolishly. The little Japanese bowed politely
and did so.
I was at a loss what to say. My mind was in a whirl. I wanted to laugh, to
call Van Adams back, but my dominating sensation was one of supreme
annoyance. So this natty, commonplace little Asiatic was the millionaire's
"familiar spirit"! He was unique, was he! I cursed myself for several kinds
of fool to have saddled myself with this amazing stranger at the beginning
of my work. At any rate, I reflected irritably, as I sat down opposite, I could
easily send him off on some wild-goose chase or another....
Yes! I was never more annoyed in my life, and my annoyance lasted for
exactly sixty seconds. Without the slightest embarrassment of any sort, and
with no preliminaries at all, Mr. Danjuro plunged into business. His voice
was clear and low. He had no accent of any kind, though his English was a
trifle pedantic and scholarly. He spoke as impersonally as a gramophone.
"... I am entirely with you, Sir John, in your opinion that it is not in the
United States of America, but here—in England—that we shall solve the
mystery surrounding this dark business."
"But I never said ..."
He smiled faintly, almost wearily. "And since I have the great honour to be
associated with you, I trust you will allow me to suggest a plan of
campaign."
"I was going to try and think one out to-night."
"It is a privilege to assist. I have come in contact with many crafty and
malignant criminals during the last thirty years, but here one detects a

master. It will be a pleasure indeed to hunt him down. Have I your
honourable permission to smoke?"
With one hand he produced a square of rice paper and a pinch of tobacco
from his pocket, and rolled a cigarette on his knee like a conjuring trick. He
had not raised his voice, but a sudden gleam came into the oblique black
eyes which suggested the deep but hidden ferocity of his race.
He resumed. "From all I have gathered, and I have talked much with
Captain Pring, Mr. Rickaby and the passengers of the Albatros, we have to
look for a man who is (1) an aviator in the first rank; (2) an inventor and
mechanical genius, or able to command the services of such; (3) a person of
some wealth or able to procure money."
I followed him completely and said so. From what we already knew these
deductions were perfectly fair ones.
"I thank you. Now we come to the man himself. I believe him to be a
person of education, and one who has held a good social position. He is also
desperate in his circumstances, and a person to whom material pleasure is
the highest good."
"Rickaby said that the men who came aboard the Albatros spoke like
educated people."
"Yes. Our field of search already begins to grow narrower. Am I right in
saying that every aviator in this country must pass an examination and be
licensed before he is allowed to fly?"
"It is so. All aviators, professional or amateur, must have a licence from the
Air Police. This is registered. I have already had the records for the past ten
years searched at Whitehall. But this has yielded no result. There is no one
who could possibly be our man."
"It was well thought of, Sir John, if I may say so. But in my opinion we
shall have to go back a good deal further than ten years. We now come to
the question of the pirate airship itself and its peculiar qualities. Let us fix
upon one—the silence of its engines. I am aware that the constructors of
motor engines have been busy upon this problem for years."

"And with little result. The problem has not been solved."
"Except by our unknown friends. I have already examined all the recent
patents of silencing devices at your patent office here. I spent yesterday
morning there, and found nothing. The significance of that is obvious. Any
ordinary inventor who had discovered something of such importance would
protect it at once. We can therefore make up our minds that in no regular
motor-engineering works throughout this country has the complete silencer
been evolved. It would be impossible for the most brilliant inventor to keep
such a thing entirely to himself."
"Again the field shrinks?"
"Yes, Sir John. We now have a man of the character already indicated, who,
as he has undoubtedly constructed silent engines, must have done so in
secret. He must have had private engineering works in order to make an
important part of his machines. The point is, where? On the Continent? I
think not. He would be watched far more carefully than in this country.
America is still more unlikely. Let us assume England. Having done so, we
can, I think, safely deduce that for obvious reasons this man and his
confederates—for we know he has them—would endeavour to build his
pirate ship as near as possible to the place he intended to use as the base of
his operations. And that base—if your experience bears me out—is
certainly somewhere or other on the coast?"
"Of course, one would say that it must be so, Mr. Danjuro. And yet it seems
impossible. The whole coast of England is patrolled by the coastguards. For
all practical purposes England is no bigger than a pocket-handkerchief. I
thought of Scotland and the Northern Isles. I thought of wild places on the
Irish coast. I have had a fleet of airships surveying and photographing these
places for the last two days. No hangar bigger than a motor-shed could have
escaped their notice. All the land police of the villages round the coasts
have been interrogated by Scotland Yard. Nothing, nothing whatever has
been seen."
I spoke with some passion, for I felt it. The sense of impotence was
maddening.

The Japanese rolled another cigarette. As he did so the door opened and
Thumbwood came in.
"I delivered your note, Sir John, and the editor's compliments and thanks."
"Charles," I said, "this gentleman here is Mr. Danjuro. He is going to help
us. Mr. Danjuro is "—I hesitated for a moment, really it was difficult to
describe him!—"is one of the foremost detectives in the world!"
Thumbwood's hand went up to his forehead in the stable boy's salute. Then,
as he saw my guest full-face, he started. "I saw you this morning, sir," he
said. "You were talking to old Mrs. Jessop, the dresser at the Parthenon
Theatre. It was in the 'Blue Dragon,' just round the corner by the stage-
door."
"And you were with the stage-door keeper. A curious coincidence," Mr.
Danjuro replied, with his weary smile, and at a look from me Thumbwood,
very puzzled indeed, left the room.
"I spent part of this morning at the Parthenon Theatre, Sir John. Your
servant apparently thought of doing the same thing. A man of considerable
acumen?—I imagined so. To proceed. Now that we have cleared away a
few preliminary obstructions, we arrive at a point which I regard as of great
significance. You are engaged—I speak of intimate matters, but purely in
my character of a consultant—to Miss Constance Shepherd, a young lady of
beauty and celebrity."
... Confound the fellow, he spoke of Connie as if she were a fish!
"That is so," I told him.
"That young lady was kidnapped by the unknown airman. From among all
the passengers she and her maid were singled out. Now that fact—upon
which you must have already pondered considerably—is a key fact. Was it
done for the purpose of holding this lady up to ransom? I see the suggestion
has been made in the Press. I answer no. In the first place, it would be
altogether too dangerous a game, and the attempt would certainly lead to
discovery. Secondly, there were other people on board who would have
been more profitable prey. The Duke of Perth, for instance, or the cinema
actor who receives sixty thousand pounds a year. Now it is extremely

improbable that in the rush and excitement of the attack and robbery of the
Atlantis, the pirate leader was suddenly struck by a pretty face. Indeed, we
know from accounts of the passengers that Miss Shepherd was deliberately
searched for. That indicates with certainty that the pirate knew she was on
board, and had a design of capturing her. In its turn, this predicates a former
acquaintance, and, undoubtedly, a repulse in the past. Hence my inquiries
and my interview with the theatre dresser this morning."
I astonished that little man. It was the first and last time. Leaping up in my
chair, I believe I shouted like a madman. At any rate, Thumbwood was
inside the room before I could find words to speak.
Something had flashed upon me, white-hot and sudden, as an electric
advertisement flashes out upon one at night. It was something that I had
entirely and utterly forgotten until now.
"There was a man," I gasped, "a scoundrel who had been annoying Miss
Shepherd for a long time. He wanted to marry her. She told me of it. And he
was once a celebrated flying man!"
"Long ago, in the Great War," said Danjuro calmly. "Major Helzephron,
V.C. I was aware of it."
"And one of the boys if ever there was one, sir!" Thumbwood broke in.
"Warned off the course everywhere. I've got a bit of information too!"
I stared at them, trembling with excitement. And then reality, like a cold
douche of water, brought me to my senses. Of course, it was impossible.
The thing was a mere coincidence. Why, while the first ship—the Albatros
—had been attacked, this man, Helzephron, was in London! He had
travelled west in the same train with me and Connie.
"May I ask exactly what you know, Sir John?"
... I told Danjuro precisely what had happened at Paddington and how
Connie herself had explained it.
He listened to me in attentive silence. When I had finished, I saw that a
small leather pocket-book had appeared in his hands—everything that the

fellow did had the uncanny effect of a clever trick—and he was turning
over the leaves.
"So far," he began, "in the consideration of this problem we have been
eliminating impossibilities, or improbabilities so strong that they amount to
that. This has left us with a small residuum of fact, unproved fact, but
sufficient to work from. One thing emerges clearly. It is the nature and
personality of our unknown friend. It is not too much to say that he MUST be
very like what we have imagined him to be. A certain person appears dimly
on the scene—this Major Helzephron. Let us see how his personality
squares with the personality we have been deducing. Mr. Thumbwood has
apparently collected some information. I have done so, too. Let us pool
results!" He looked at Charles, who blushed.
"Out with it, Charles; you've done splendidly," I said.
"Well, Sir John, I found out that this gentleman is a pretty bad wrong-'un,
judging by the company he keeps. And he used to annoy Miss Shepherd
something chronic. He'd wait at the stage-door and try and speak to her
when she got into the car after the performance, and he was always leaving
notes and flowers with the stage-door keeper. Miss Shepherd would never
take them. She always sent them back from her room. It got so bad at last
that she complained to the stage manager, and he had a plain clothes man
from Vine Street there one night. Major Helzephron was told off pretty
plainly, I hear. He used to come very nasty sometimes, and once or twice he
was fair blotto! And Mr. Meggit, the commission agent, knows him well.
He's done a lot of racing in his time, and no open scandal. But he knows
how to work the market, and the best men won't lay him the odds no more."
I shrugged my shoulders. It was only what one expected. The man was one
of the fast blackguards who infest the West End of London; that was all.
There were dozens like him. The facts only seemed to prove that he could
not possibly be connected with the Atlantic outrages.
"You see?" I said to the Japanese, sure that he would follow my thought.
Then I thanked good little Charles and he left the room.
"That is the surface," Danjuro replied. "I cross-examined a woman who was
in constant attendance on Miss Shepherd. From her I learnt just what your

servant has discovered. But I went a little deeper. It is a case of genuine
overmastering passion on the part of this man. Nothing less. He is of a
dangerous age for that to come to him, certainly over forty-five years. A
woman knows. But that is not all."
"So far we have learnt nothing of importance." I was getting restive, I
wanted to be doing something. And yet, what was there to do? If I had
thought all night by myself I could not have mapped out the situation more
clearly. And as I looked at the little man, half lost in a big saddlebag chair, I
felt ashamed of my irritation. A brain packed in ice was there, a logical
machine of the first order. I could not expect humanity, sympathy, from
such a one. Still, it would have helped! Hadn't I lost the one thing that made
life worth living? What might not be happening to Connie even now?
... He read my thoughts like a book, confound him!
"I understand your feelings, believe me, Sir John," he said, "but I must go
my own way. We have not been talking for an hour yet! And if it is any
consolation for you to know, let me say that it is imperative that we leave
London to-night."
"My nerves are strained. Please go on," I answered. "I can hardly tell you
what a godsend your appearance on the scene really is to me."
"In my business as agent and guard to my patron, Mr. Van Adams, it is
always necessary that I keep more or less in touch with a certain circle of
what I may describe as the aristocracy, the brains of International Crime. It
has proved useful. After my visit to the Parthenon this morning I called
upon an old acquaintance, the Honourable James Brookfield."
"Lord Slidon's son? The man who got five years ..."
"Yes. Of course, everyone knows his name. He made one little slip. Mr.
Brookfield is very acute, and a great student of character. Entirely incapable
of understanding a man or woman of decent morals and normal instincts, he
is infallible in his judgment of the criminal type. Mr. Brookfield owes me
any little service he can render, and I supplemented my request for
information with a note for fifty pounds."
"And you learnt ...?"

"That Major Helzephron is all we have just heard, but a far more sinister
and formidable person than anyone suspects. He is a man of marked
intellectual powers. Below the veneer of coarse pleasures and fast life in
London and Paris, there is something that glows like a hot coal. His
appearances in town are irregular and fitful. His real life, Brookfield is
certain of this, is lived far away from cities. And it is a life with a purpose."
Quite suddenly and unexpectedly Mr. Danjuro began to reveal himself.
The last words were spoken in a changed voice. The flatness and monotony
had vanished. The words vibrated in the room, and I felt the thrill of them.
It was the power of personality, and from then onwards I was hand in glove
with this bizarre thinking machine that Fate had sent me.
I tried to emulate Danjuro's dispassionate and scientific method.
"It is curious," I said, "that a real intellect should care to spend part of its
time in rake-helling round the low clubs, the gambling-rooms and stage-
doors of London. Such a thing is known, but it is rare."
"You put your finger instantly upon what seems a weak spot in my
character sketch. But let us assume that it has been done with a deep
motive."
"Ah!" He knew, or suspected, something more. He referred to his notebook.
"Two years ago a certain Mr. Herbert Gascoigne was expelled from Christ
Church College, Oxford."
"Sent down, we call it; but go on."
"The case was a bad one. The young man had established a sort of gambling
club and ruined several of his contemporaries. It was discovered that he was
using a roulette wheel that had been tampered with. He came to London and
drifted into the worst gang of swindlers. Major Helzephron met him. They
became very friendly. The younger man was obviously under the influence
of the elder. Finally Gascoigne deserted his old haunts and has
disappeared."
I began to see light.

"On several occasions my astute friend, Mr. Brookfield, has witnessed
precisely the same phenomenon. Some young man of the upper classes has
been ruined socially, and our enigmatic friend has taken him up, been seen
about with him, and so forth. Finally the young man vanishes."
"It is not philanthropy, Mr. Danjuro."
"It is not, and it gives rise to curious speculations. Where could a
Napoleonic criminal, patiently planning and meditating a stupendous coup,
find a better recruiting ground than among the desperate and ruined young
men of his own class? The plan is in itself evidence of genius. They speak
his language, he understands their way of thought; there are a thousand
bonds between them. I can conceive no more solid and formidable
combination than just this. The one last virtue remaining to these desperate
and outcast young men will be loyalty to their leader. Society has cast them
out, therefore they will make war on Society. Given that attitude of mind, a
leader like Major Helzephron, and a plan so daring, and the thing becomes
plain as daylight. And if this man had not fallen into an overmastering
passion for Miss Shepherd there would have been no means of getting on
his trail at all."
It was only with great difficulty that I could control my thoughts. We
seemed miles nearer the truth than I had been an hour ago. Then one idea
emerged clearly.
"Quite so. And isn't it all in our favour that we, and we alone, are in a
position to connect Helzephron with the piracy? He will think himself
perfectly secure?"
"I do not for a moment believe," Danjuro replied with emphasis, "that a
single soul besides ourselves has the least suspicion. The man will have
taken supreme care to cover his tracks. My inquiries could have suggested
nothing to the people I interviewed. Mr. Brookfield thinks I required my
information for quite another reason. Yes, Sir John, we have a task of
immense difficulty and danger before us. You must recognize that to the
full. My sincere belief is that it would be somewhat safer to venture into a
cage of cobras than where we have to go. But"—he took out his watch—"it
is five o'clock. Let us say that the game begins at this moment! Very well.
We, and not the enemy, have scored the first point!"

He suddenly glided from his chair with a single sinuous movement. As he
stood up he was transformed. The bland modern look faded from his face. It
grew terrible. The eyes narrowed to slits of light, the square jaw protruded,
the grey lips were caught up in a tiger-grin, and the slim body seemed to
swell out with iron muscle like a wrestler stripped in the arena.
You have seen some of the real old Japanese colour-prints, pictures of the
ancient Samurai or the frightful Akudogi shouting at you—yes? The flat,
awful stolidity, the incarnate hate....
Then you have seen something of what I saw then.
Wow! Millionaire Van Adams was well served!

CHAPTER VII
THE CURIOUS FIGHT IN THE RESTAURANT
"It is a good deal to ask, Sir John," said Danjuro briskly, "but, for the
moment, will you place yourself entirely in my hands?"
"I am perfectly content to do so."
"Then permit me to press the bell." He did so.
"I left a black bag in the hall," Danjuro said politely when Thumbwood
came in. "Would you please let me have it?"
The bag was brought. Danjuro placed it on the table and opened it.
"You are very well known, Sir John," he remarked. "Major Helzephron and
his friends have either seen you at some time or other, or have certainly
seen the numerous pictures of you that have appeared in the newspapers
during the last few days. It is imperative that you change your appearance at
once. I foresaw that and have brought materials."
I am afraid I whistled with dismay. The idea didn't please me in the very
least. "Is it really necessary?..."
"Absolutely. But it will not inconvenience you. Will you go into your
bedroom and clip off your moustache with scissors, afterwards shaving the
upper lip clean? You see, the man who leaves London to-night must not in
the least resemble the Chief Commissioner of Air Police."
I went and did it. I had to. When the operation was over I shouldn't have
known myself, it made such a difference. I never knew that I had such a
grim and forbidding mouth!
I returned to the sitting-room. Mr. Danjuro did not make the least comment,
but he removed my collar and tie with the deftness of a barber and fastened
a towel round my neck. Then he sponged my skin all over with some faintly

pink stuff out of a bottle. When he had done that, he began on my hair with
something else, and finally my eyebrows.
"May I ask what you are doing?" I said after a time.
"I am dyeing your hair black, Sir John. The dye can be removed at any
time. The appearance is absolutely natural. The drug I am using is not
generally known. I procure it from a friend in the Honcho Dori at
Yokohama, and also the liquid which has already changed your skin from
blond to swarthy. I will treat your hands in a minute."
I suppose I was three-quarters of an hour under his ministrations before he
stepped back and looked at me critically. "Part your hair in the centre,
instead of at the side, wear a low collar instead of a high one, and spectacles
—they can be of plain glass—and you need not have the slightest fear of
recognition. In fact, Sir John, as far as outward appearance goes, you have
already ceased to exist!"
There was a mirror over the mantel-shelf. I stood up and looked. It was
marvellous! It was uncanny, too. A dark-haired, dark-skinned stranger
leered out of the glass at me, and I turned away with mingled feelings of
amazement and disgust.
"Do you drive an automobile?" the Japanese asked.
I jumped at the suddenness of the question, for my thoughts were far away.
"Yes, I have a touring car of my own in a neighbouring garage."
"It will be better not to use it. We shall take one of Mr. Van Adams' cars. It
is ready."
I laughed. "I've a lot to hear yet, you know, Mr. Danjuro, though I have
placed myself in your hands without reserve. But you made very sure of me
beforehand, didn't you?"
"It is Mr. Van Adams' command," he answered simply, and I reflected that
here, indeed, was a man with a single soul.
"We shall leave London at midnight," he went on, "and drive through the
whole of the night. I, also, am an expert chauffeur, and we can relieve each
other."

"Thumbwood can drive, too. Of course we take him with us?"
"He will be of the greatest assistance. Now, Sir John, if you want to take a
little sleep, now is the time. I should like to consult with your servant, if I
may, and have a chat with him. We shall have a good deal to do with one
another."
Strangely enough, I did feel drowsy, despite my excitement. A couple of
hours' sleep would refresh me wonderfully, and I knew it.
"Very well; I think it is a good suggestion. Say for two hours."
"By all means. I will carry out some other arrangements meanwhile. You
shall have full explanations later on, and I thank you sincerely for the
confidence you have reposed in me."
While we were talking we had left the room and crossed the hall.
"A pleasant sleep," he said, politely opening the door for me. "We will go
and have a look at Major Helzephron later on."
"What?" I shouted.
"He is in London. I have never seen him and I must certainly do so."
"In London?" I cried, a dozen conflicting thoughts crowding and crushing
into my mind.
"... It is the reason that we leave London to-night."
Then he had shut the door on me and was gone. I had known him less than
two hours. I was a man accustomed to rule, whose whole life was spent in
giving orders, and I lay down on my bed like a lamb without a further
question. And, what is more, I did exactly as Mr. Danjuro had said. I fell
into a deep, dreamless sleep.
At a little after eight Mr. Danjuro and myself sat at dinner at the Restaurant
Mille Colonnes. Most people know that expensive and luxurious home of
epicures, with Nicholas, its stout and arrogant proprietor, and M. Dulac, its
famous chef.

We sat in the south gallery, at the extreme end, against the wall. The electric
lights in the roof above us had been extinguished, and our table was lighted
by candles in red shades. Indeed, we sat in a sort of darkness which must
have made us almost invisible to the other diners, most of whom sat in the
longer arm of the gallery at right angles to our own.
We, on the contrary, could see everything. We could look over the gilded
rail into the hall of the restaurant below, and every detail of the gallery on
our own level was clear and distinct, though there was such a towering
erection of flowers and ferns in the centre of our table that it obscured what
would otherwise have been a perfect view.
I wore a low, turned-down collar and a dark flannel suit. Danjuro, also, had
changed his clothes, and, in some real but indefinite way, his appearance.
He wore a flannel suit and a straw hat, and also a necktie which I suddenly
spotted as that of my old college, Christ Church, Oxford. But the
extraordinary thing about him was that he seemed fifteen years younger.
He had promised to explain at the "Mille Colonnes." As we began upon the
salted prawns and the stuffed olives he did so.
"You are now Mr. Johns, an Oxford tutor, Sir John. I am a young Japanese
gentleman, my own name will serve, whom you are coaching. We are going
into the country with this disguise. It is one which will easily account for
your being in the company of an Asiatic gentleman, and which you will
have no difficulty in sustaining."
It was, indeed, a simple and excellent plan for avoiding undue curiosity. I
said so, and then: "Now perhaps you will tell me where we are going. I
have my ideas...."
"We are going west," he answered gravely. "To Cornwall."
My heart beat fast. It was what I wanted him to say. "To the home of
Helzephron?"
"Yes. For it is there we shall be in the very centre of the web. In those far
western solitudes, despite the recent opening up of the Duchy to tourists,
there are still vast spaces of lonely moorland and unvisited coast where one
may walk for half a day and meet no living soul. There is a great Hinterland

between the little town of St. Ives and the Land's End that for all practical
purposes is unknown and unexplored. Later on, I will show you certain
maps.... It is in one of the remotest spots of all that Major Helzephron has
his house. I tell you, Sir John," he continued, with a sort of passion, "that in
those lost and forgotten solitudes, where England stretches out her granite
foot to spurn the Atlantic, strange secrets lie hid to-day! On those grey and
lonely moors, where the last Druids practised their mysterious rites, and
which are still covered with sinister memorials of the past, lies the
explanation of the terror which is troubling the world! There, and there
only, shall we discover the secrets of the air, and—if human skill and
determination are of any avail—Miss Constance Shepherd!"
An obsequious waiter came with iced consommé. He was followed by the
great Nicholas himself, bulging out of his buttoned frock-coat—Nicholas
never wore evening dress—who bowed low and had a whispered
confabulation with Danjuro.
I remarked on this unusual honour. "I do what I wish here," the Japanese
replied. "It is, of course, through Mr. Van Adams. I hold this place in the
hollow of my hand—as you will presently see!"
He gave one of his rare and weary smiles, and then said quietly: "Please do
not get up or move. Major Helzephron has just come into the gallery!"
I could not have moved. His words turned me to stone.
"I felt sure," he went on, "that for a day or two Helzephron would show
himself in London. Knowing what we know—or at least suspect—such a
move was a certainty. He is in the habit of coming here. He booked his
usual seat at this restaurant, and his usual box at the Parthenon Theatre—
and for reasons obvious to you and me, if to no one else in the world! I
confess to an anxiety to look upon this man."
"You have had this corner darkened?" I said quickly. "No one can see us
here?"
"Not clearly. And Helzephron would not know who we are if he did see us.
But, as he is sure to come upon us in Cornwall, it is better to take no risks.
To that end I have had a little device arranged for us which proved of great
service to me once in Chicago."

He bent forward to the mass of ferns and flowers in the centre of the table,
disarranging the greenery at its base. At once a green-painted tube became
visible, and then a slanting mirror, the size of a postcard.
"What on earth is that?" I whispered.
"An adaptation of the periscope!" he replied, taking a magnifying glass
from his pocket, adjusting it, and bending over the mirror. "The lens is
focussed upon Helzephron's table. With this magnifier I enlarge the image
in the mirror. Ah! So that is the honourable gentleman!"
A faint hissing noise came from him. His face stiffened into fixed and
horrible intentness as he stared through his magnifier at the little oblong of
mirror.
"Shi-ban, Go-ban, hei!" he muttered. "There are two, then. I expect the
younger man is the Honourable Herbert Gascoigne, of whom we have
heard!"
The hissing noise continued, the ecstasy of attention did not relax for two or
three minutes.
At last Danjuro looked up. His face, which had seemed carved out of jade,
relaxed.
"Will you take my seat?" he said politely, handing me his reading-glass. "A
little drama will commence in a few minutes. It will interest you!"
I gave him a glance of interrogation as we exchanged chairs.
"We shall be in Cornwall to-morrow, and in advance of our friends," he
whispered. "But, in order that we may carry out our preliminary inquiries
quite undisturbed, I have thought out a little plan by which, if all goes well,
Major Helzephron will be detained in London for a day or two—you will
see."
Trembling with eagerness I stared down at the mirror.
The periscope was perfectly focussed. The addition of the reading-glass
made everything perfectly clear.

Two men in evening clothes were seated at a table. Their heads were close
together, and they were talking earnestly. One was a tall, handsome boy of
two-and-twenty, with a fair complexion and a reckless, dissipated cast of
face. Young as he was, evil experience had marked him, and his smile was
that of a much older man.
But I scarcely cast a glance on him as I stared at the coloured, moving
miniature of "Hawk Helzephron." The man's face was deeply tanned; above
the brows a magnificent dome of white forehead went up to a thatch of dark
red hair—the forehead of a thinker if ever I saw one. The face below was
seamed and lined everywhere. The thin nose curved out and down like that
of a bird of prey. The mouth was large, well-shaped, but compressed, the
chin a wedge of resolution. And, as he talked, I saw a pair of slightly
protruding eyes, cold and fierce. The whole aspect of the man was ferocious
and formidable to a degree.
"Watch!" whispered Danjuro.
I watched, and this is what I saw.
Into the picture came a thick-set, brutal-looking man, with a blazing
diamond in his shirt-front. He was passing Helzephron's table when his
dinner jacket caught a wine-glass and swept it to the floor.
The hawk-faced man looked up with a scowl and said something just as the
portly Nicholas and a waiter appeared in the background, as if passing
casually by.
The thick-set man bent down till his face was close to Helzephron's. He said
something also, with an unpleasant smile.
Instantly Helzephron leapt up and drove his fist full into the other's face.
The fight that followed ended very speedily. The thick-set man took the
blow calmly. Then, without heat, and in a fashion which instantly told me
the truth of the matter, he set about Helzephron, hitting him where and
when he chose, until a shouting crowd of guests and waiters separated the
combatants and a policeman and commissionaire hurried them away from
the gallery.

During all the tumult Mr. Danjuro sat quietly smoking a cigarette.
"That was Mr. Wag Ashton, the pugilist," he remarked. "Honourable
Nicholas and the waiter saw that the honourable Helzephron struck him
first. I think the Major will be resting for a day or two before Mr. Ashton
summonses him for assault."
I felt faint with surprise and amazement.
"So you, you arranged ..."
He interrupted me. "Now let us finish our dinner in peace," he said. "Some
river trout, meunier, are coming."
An hour afterwards, with myself at the wheel, a huge sixty horse-power
limousine, loaded with luggage and with Messrs. Danjuro and Thumbwood
inside, was rolling down the Piccadilly slope.
To Penzance.

CHAPTER VIII
THE HUNTING INSTINCT IS STIMULATED
BY A PROCESSION
The big car rolled down Piccadilly. She was a beauty to handle, as I
discovered in the first two minutes. The very latest type of electric starter, a
magnificent lighting installation—every convenience was ready to my
hand. I was in an extraordinary state of mind as I steered the car through the
late theatre and restaurant traffic, purely mechanically and without
conscious thought about it.
The predominant sensation was one of immense overwhelming relief at the
prospect of action. Mere office activities, the planning of guard and patrol
ships, conferences with pilots and officials, had been quite powerless to
calm the terrible fever of unrest within me. It was commanding other people
to do things, not doing them myself. I knew all the time that I should have
been happier piloting one of the war-planes over the Atlantic. Now, at any
rate, I was doing something real. I was actually setting out, in my own
person, upon a definite quest. It might be all moonshine. I was well aware
that many hard-headed people would have laughed at this expedition,
considering the slender evidence I had. They would have talked about
"circumstantial evidence," the folly of pure assumption, and so forth.
"Behold this dreamer cometh!" would have been their attitude.
And although I was driving the big car up Park Lane for Oxford Street and
the road to the West, I did feel as if I were in a dream. My whole life had
been altered by the events of the past few days, ruined for ever it might be.
To-night its stream was violently diverted from its course. Everything with
which I was familiar had flashed away, and I was on the brink of the
fantastic and unknown. There was not a man in London setting out upon so
strange an errand, under circumstances so unprecedented, as I was this
night. We slid by a huge white house, set back from the railings, and with
all its windows looking out over the Park. It was the London palace that Mr.

Van Adams had built for himself during the last five years, and the
strangeness of my affair was intensified at the sight.
Only a few hours ago the great man had been sitting in my chambers, and
introducing the enigmatic figure that sat behind me in the car. Here was a
dream figure indeed! It was impossible to think of Danjuro as a human
being. He was just a brain, a specialized force, devoted to one object, and
probably, as Van Adams had hinted, the supreme force of its kind in
existence. Already I had placed myself in his hands, and not only my
personal interests, dear as those were to me, but my responsibilities to the
State as well, and that was no small thing for him to have achieved in so
short a space of time. The unique detachment and concentration that was
sitting behind me had an almost magical effect upon one's mind and will.
With such help, surely, I could not fail?
I fell to thinking of what the Japanese had already achieved, the quiet and
masterly skill of his analysis, the cold audacity of his plot to keep
Helzephron in London, the neatness and finish of his operations as
witnessed by the periscope upon the dinner-table at the "Mille Colonnes."
Surely, Helzephron, or whoever was the master-criminal, was a doomed
man with Danjuro on his track?
We were running out of Ealing now, and traffic was almost gone in the
long, straight westward road among the acres of market gardens and glass-
houses that fringe the western approach to the metropolis. I let out the
powerful engines, and as the car leapt like a spurred horse, my heart leapt
up into anger at the name Helzephron.
Connie—poor, lost Connie—had told me herself how the man had pestered
her, and I had seen him at Paddington with my own eyes. The investigations
at the Parthenon Theatre by Thumbwood and Danjuro had put the details in
the picture, and an ugly one it was. The man, V.C. as he was, had a bad
reputation enough. I had watched him that very evening, marked every line
upon the hawk-like, cruel face, and thrilled when the vulgar pugilist
attacked him. It was the next best thing to thrashing him myself! Yet—I
record this as an interesting point of my psychology at the beginning of the
enterprise—I was disgusted with and loathed the man only. I did not hate

him, for I found it, even now, impossible to believe that he was the abductor
of my girl.
Understand me if you can. Danjuro had convinced my intellect, but not my
heart. My state was the reverse of the ordinary state in such a situation.
Plenty of people believe in anything—a religion for example—by faith, and
cannot justify their faith intellectually. Their belief is always confident and
strong. I believed intellectually, but had no faith, which was why this quest
seemed shadow-like and a thing in a dream. No doubt, the long night drive
and my curious companion—I was always conscious of him—intensified
the impression of unreality.
About three in the morning Danjuro spoke through the tube and insisted on
relieving me. I stopped the huge car in a dark, tree-bordered road, where the
moonlight lay in pools and patches of silver, and exchanged seats with the
little man. As I stood on the road and stamped with my feet to restore the
circulation, the night-breeze rustled in the leaves, and far away I heard the
nightjar spinning. Never was such a still and solitary place. Danjuro's face
in the moonlight seemed as immobile and lifeless as one of those Japanese
masks of wax with eyes of opalescent glass that you can buy in the Oriental
shops.
I got inside and, suddenly weary, sank back in the luxuriously cushioned
seat. The car started again, and Thumbwood switched on a light in the roof.
He produced a Thermos flask of hot soup, which I found delicious and
refreshing.
"How have you been getting on with Mr. Danjuro?" I inquired.
"Very well, thank you, Sir John. He knows everything, I do believe. If
there's one thing where I should detect a man who was talking through 'is
'at, it's 'osses. Stands to reason. But this gentleman knows 'osses like a
blooming trainer, sir. And as for the games of the crooks in the ring and on
the course, he's wide to every one of 'em. I generally carries a pack of cards
in my pocket, sir, and I've got one with me now. The things 'e showed me
passes belief. I've seen a good deal of that sort of work, but Mr. Danjuro's
an easy winner. I wouldn't play poker with 'im, no, nor 'alfpenny nap, for a
fistful o' thick 'uns!"

We breakfasted at Exeter, and I had the opportunity of a shave and a bath. I
remember that when I was half-way up the hotel stairs a horrid thought
struck me, and I hurried down again to consult Danjuro.
How would the stuff he had put on my skin stand hot water and soap?
He reassured me, however. Nothing would remove the beastly stuff but a
preparation he carried with him, and I bathed in peace.
It was a beautiful morning when we started again, and for many miles our
route lay close to the smiling Devon sea. The waves were sapphire blue,
framed in the red sandstone rocks, and the sky resembled a great hollow
turquoise. It was a bright morning, and one side of me rejoiced in it; but the
thought of my girl was always there, a constant sullen pain, for which the
morning held no anodyne.
Thumbwood drove on this stretch of the journey, and Danjuro sat inside
studying innumerable maps, and now and then making notes in a pocket-
book. I wondered what thoughts were seething and bubbling behind that
massive dome of skull.
Apart from the scenery, there was plenty to interest a Commissioner of Air
Police. The sky was speckled with small private planes, converging upon
Plymouth or Exeter from many a pleasant country residence. There was no
longer any need for the professional man or the prosperous tradesman to
live within a very few miles of his place of business. Men flew to their day's
work, and from considerable distances, and as a matter of course. A mile or
two out at sea one distinguished the large steady-going passenger airships
by which England was now ringed, and occasionally the Royal Mail boats
cut the sky like javelins. More than once I spotted one of my police patrols.
It was curious to remember that I, who sat here with a stained face and
shaven lip, bowling along the Devon roads at a miserable forty miles an
hour, had supreme control of all those aerial argosies.
There were few cars upon the roads at this early hour. Contrary to general
opinion fifteen years ago, the popularity of flying had by no means killed
the automobile. It had lessened their numbers in an appreciable degree, and
made the roads more pleasant. I should, of course, have preferred to reach
our destination, or, at any rate, to have travelled the greater part of the way

towards it by airship. The system of registration and the police regulations
—framed by myself—would have given too much away. My actual identity
and purpose might not have been discovered, but we should have been
easily traced, and Helzephron—if he was what we suspected—would be the
first to hear of a private aeroplane making its appearance in the solitudes
where he lived.
Towards midday we were approaching Plymouth, when I began to feel
uneasy. The agony I had endured there a day or two ago, when Thumbwood
burst into my bedroom with news of the Atlantis disaster, clouded my
memory. I felt that I never wished to see the pride of Devon again. This,
though, was merely weakness which I crushed down. More practical
considerations occurred to me. I made Charles stop the car and got inside
with Danjuro.
"Look here," I said, "hadn't we better run straight through the town and get
on into Cornwall? We can lunch at St. Germans or somewhere."
"You have some special reason for avoiding Plymouth, Sir John?" Danjuro
asked politely.
"Well, it's the air-port for America. One of my largest stations is there.
Dozens and dozens of people know me. I've always been a familiar figure
in Plymouth, and never more so than lately, of course."
The Japanese gave his little weary smile. "I do not think you realize the
alteration in your appearance," he said. "I assure you, and I am an expert in
these matters, that no one at all would ever recognize you. I had proposed to
stop in Plymouth for at least a couple of hours."
"Why, exactly?"
"For several reasons. One is that I shall be able to purchase some local
Cornish maps and a directory or two, which I need, and found no
opportunity of procuring in London. But that is not all. Here we are in the
very centre of air matters, as far as the Atlantic is concerned. The place is
still seething with excitement. Nothing else but the piracies is spoken of.
The town is packed with correspondents of the principal European
newspapers. It is in a ferment. I much wish to go about with my ears open
for an hour or two. I do think, Sir John, that it would be unwise to neglect

this opportunity, for you as well as myself. There is no knowing what we
may pick up."
"You're certain about my disguise?"
"Perfectly certain. You will not, of course, enter into long conversations
with anyone who knows you well, as your voice would betray you.
Otherwise you may rest secure."
"Yes, that's the weak point," I replied. "I've always heard that, however
perfectly a man may be disguised, you cannot disguise his voice."
He rolled a cigarette with the quick snatching movement of his fingers that
always struck me as a miracle of dexterity.
"It is not true," he remarked. "I have invented five methods, three
mechanical and two medical or chemical, whichever you like to call them.
When we have leisure I will show you. But there is no need for anything of
the sort in your case. It will give you confidence, Sir John, to test the
completeness of your new appearance. If you will go to the Royal Hotel and
lunch there—keeping awake to hear the general talk—I will join you about
three."
"Very well," I replied, though with some reluctance, "and the car?"
"Mr. Thumbwood has been with you at the 'Royal,' and he is not disguised.
It would be better that he should not approach the hotel. We will put you
down a short distance away. I will remain in the car and direct Thumbwood
where to go."
Nothing escaped this little man! He seemed to foresee and provide for
everything, and when I alighted five minutes afterwards, some two hundred
yards from the hotel, I felt fairly secure in my new character as Mr. Johns,
the don of Christ Church, Oxford.
Immediately I was in the street I became aware—you know how one does?
—that the Japanese was right, and Plymouth was in a ferment. London is
too vast for anything but a national calamity to make any alteration in the
outward appearance of things, and even then it takes a sharp eye and a man

well versed in the psychology of crowds to detect anything unusual. Not so
a big provincial town.
As I walked along the classic façade of the theatre and turned the corner to
the main entrance of the hotel, I saw one thought on every face and heard
one single topic of discussion. The streets, always so gay and cheerful with
military and naval uniforms, seemed more crowded than their wont, and
there was a definite electricity in the air. I know that I felt stimulated,
encouraged to persist, and as I ascended the massive steps of the hotel, my
clean-shaven lips smiled to think with what interest I should be regarded if
anyone had but an inkling of whom I was and upon what mission.
And then I had a shock.
Standing in the big lounge-hall, and talking to a man in a black morning-
coat and a silk hat, was my second in command—Muir Lockhart, Assistant
Commissioner of Air Police! He was in uniform, a special uniform that we
both wore upon ceremonial occasions only.
"Yes," he was saying, "I'm down here representing the Chief."
I dared not stay to listen, but I walked towards them as slowly as I could.
Muir Lockhart has a somewhat high, penetrating voice.
"When did you come down?" asked the other man.
"Arrived half an hour ago, flew down from Whitehall this morning," said
Muir Lockhart.
"Then Sir John Custance isn't coming?"
My assistant shook his head. "Utterly impossible," he said. "Sir John cannot
leave town just now. He must be at the head of things; can't possibly be
spared. I saw him this morning before I left; he had been working all night
and was nearly dead. 'Explain my position to them,' he said; 'nothing but
strict duty would keep me away from Plymouth to-day.' So, you see how it
is, Mr. Mayor?"
"Oh, quite, quite! Well, I must be getting round to the Guildhall. You will
march up your men at half-past one? Thank you."

The man in the silk hat, who I realized must be the Mayor of Plymouth,
hurried away. I was left face to face with Muir Lockhart.
He stared at me, not offensively, but in such a way that he could not have
missed a detail of my appearance; he always was an observant beggar. Then
he passed by without a sign of recognition. Good! I reflected, if my own
colleague, who saw me for several hours each day, did not know me, no one
else would. It seemed a good omen, and I blessed Danjuro in my heart.
And what a splendid liar Muir Lockhart was! He knew that I had gone away
on my own, and he hadn't the least idea in the world where I was! It was a
temptation to discover myself, but I refrained.
I was very puzzled. What on earth was he doing here in uniform, and
talking to the Mayor about? I hadn't a suspicion of the truth even then, and I
had a curious sense of being out of things, forgotten and on the scrap-heap!
The long drive had made me hungry and I thought about lunch. Before
going into the coffee-room I wished to remove the stains of travel, so I went
down the corridor to the lavatory.
When I entered a man in his shirt-sleeves was bending over one of the
basins and sluicing himself with many splashes. As I was washing my own
swarthy hands he emerged from a towel and gave me a casual glance.
It was Mr. Van Adams!
I could not repress a violent start, the thing was so sudden. What did this
gathering of the clans mean? He noticed my movement at once, and looked
at me with inquiry in his eyes. The lavatory was quite empty save for our
two selves, and my decision was taken at once.
"Mr. Van Adams?" I asked.
"Sure!" he replied. "You have the floor—shoot!"
"You don't know me?"
"Not from the great Lum-tum, though your voice is kind of homey."
"I'm Sir John Custance. Danjuro's been faking me up. He's down here with
me."

"Gee!" said Mr. Van Adams. "Aren't you the fresh thing now, Sir John? So
you're down for the obsequies incog.? That's what I've come for—matter of
respect. Flew down from Park Lane after breakfast."
"I'm on my way west. We only stopped here for an hour or two, as Danjuro
had some business."
"I've ordered lunch in a private room overlooking the square. Come right
up, Sir John, you'll be able to see everything from there."
"Thank you. But I'm still in the dark. I'm right away from the office now, as
you know. I saw Commander Muir Lockhart here just now, but I couldn't
speak to him...."
He took me by the arm and led me along the corridor to the lift. "Captain
Lashmar, of your force and the five men of the patrol boat are being buried
to-day," he said; "also Captain Swainson, of the Atlantis, and the boys
murdered on his ship."
I flushed under my dye. I had never heard a word of it. I felt an absolute
beast as we entered the private room, and I tried to explain to the
millionaire.
"Think you callous and unfeeling?" he said in answer. "Guess I know better
than that, my friend. You're out to prevent just such a spectacle as we're
going to witness from ever happening again. You're playing a better game
than prancing along at the head of a procession. You're getting busy at the
heart of things. Now sit down and share the pork bosom and beans, or
whatever they've given us. And tell me all about it."
We sat down to lunch, and after a glass of Burgundy, I told Van Adams of
all that had occurred, and also expressed my complete confidence in
Danjuro.
"You're right," he said. "There isn't an investigator on the globe that'd carry
a tune to him. He has his orders to stick to you right through and he'll carry
them out. That little man's got a brain like the Mammoth Cave, and he's
without human passions, save only one—he'd go to hell in a paper suit for
me! See here——" and the millionaire told me a string of anecdotes about
the uncanny little Jap that would make the fortunes of a writer of Romance.

He was still on the same subject when he stopped in the middle of a
sentence.
The noise in the square outside was suddenly hushed, and we heard a
muffled chord of music. Rising from our chairs we went to the windows.
Everywhere, as far as eye could reach, was a black sea of heads, from
among which the slender clocktower on its island in the centre rose like a
sentinel.
The pavements were lined by troops, soldiers and sailors in equal
proportions, and there was a flutter as of falling leaves as every head was
bared and the piercing sweetness of Chopin's "Funeral March" filled all the
air.
Then they came, following the band: thirteen coffins covered with flowers,
thirteen brave heroes, who would never slant down the long reaches of the
upper air again.
After the hearses walked Paget and Fowles, the two heroic airmen who had
called the rescuing ship by wireless, and then came the chaplains and Muir
Lockhart.
For my part I saw the whole procession in a dream. The head of the
Transatlantic Air Line, the Mayor and Corporation in their robes—the
stately funereal pomp of it all seemed unsubstantial and unreal.
Mr. Van Adams was kneeling a yard or two away from the window. His
head was bent, he had a crucifix and a string of golden beads in his hands,
and was saying prayers. Who would have thought it of this master of
millions with the pike-like jaw? I suppose he was a Catholic.
But my mind was far away, above the heaving wastes of the Atlantic, and I
saw an unnamed, unknown ship rushing through the air, at a speed
undreamed of hitherto in the history of flight. And in the pilot's seat I had a
vision of a hawk-faced man with cruel eyes and a smile upon his hard, thin
lips....
I stood there for so long that the very tail of the procession was passing by,
and Mr. Van Adams rose from his prayers with the sign of the Cross, and
touched me on the arm.

"Look!" he said, pointing down into the street.
I followed his finger and saw Danjuro standing on the opposite kerb. He
was looking after the cortège, and his face, with the expression on it, was
quite clear to see....
In an instant I came out of my dream.

CHAPTER IX
THE MAN WITH THE WICKED FACE
On the morning after our arrival I stepped out of my bedroom window at
Penzance and stood upon the balcony.
Many times had I flown over Cornwall; never had I set foot in the Duchy
until now. Plymouth had always been my furthest west.
The sea was blue as the Mediterranean, the sky a huge hollow turquoise, the
air all Arabia. Away in the bay St. Michael's Mount, crowned with towers,
gleamed like a vision of the New Jerusalem in some old monkish missal—
and the heart within me was so hard, stern, and full of deadly purpose that
no summer seas nor balmy western winds could touch the rigour of my
mood.
For we were on the battlefield now. There was no more vagueness nor
speculation. I, in the place I occupied, owed a debt to society, and to myself
a personal and bitter revenge. And those debts should be paid.
Danjuro knocked and entered the bedroom. Yesterday afternoon, within half
an hour of our arrival at Penzance, he had disappeared, telling me not to
wait up for him, as he could not say what time he would return. I
accordingly went to bed early, for I was tired out, and had not seen him
until now.
"I have been very busy, Sir John," he said. "In the characters of a mining
engineer at one place and agent for a foreign shipping firm at another, I
have been making some very necessary inquiries. I engaged a local motor—
our own would hardly have suited the part—and I have covered a great deal
of country."
"And your exact object?"
"I have two. One is to discover any private engineering works where special
engines could have been made in secret. You will remember that we both

came to the conclusion that the Air Pirate could have obtained silent
engines in no other way. The other is—petrol."
"Petrol! I never thought of that! I see what you mean."
"Precisely, Sir John. An airship such as the one we are after must have a
constant supply of petrol, and, of course, consumes enormous quantities.
When I can connect a certain private individual with the receipt of such
quantities, we are another step forward."
"How have you got on?" I asked eagerly.
"I have nothing definite. But there are certain indications—slight, oh, very
slight!—which I am following up. I will go into everything with you this
evening. Meanwhile you have your own day mapped out."
"Yes. I have studied the local maps and asked a good many questions. After
breakfast I shall walk over the moors to this little lonely village of Zerran. It
is about eight miles away from here, and, I understand, not more than one
and a half from Tregeraint Sea House, which is the home of Major
Helzephron. There is a fair-sized old-fashioned inn on the cliffs where we
shall probably be able to get rooms."
"And settle down to our reading party," he replied, with a sudden gleam in
his narrow eyes. "I have the Greek texts of Plato's 'Republic' and the 'Meno'
in my portmanteau; it is wise to pay attention to details! We shall, then,
meet at dinner this evening, and I expect that your news will be of great
importance. With your permission, I shall take honourable Thumbwood
with me. He will be useful."
After breakfast, with some sandwiches and a flask, I set out, passing down
the main street of the far western town, and by the last station in England,
till I found myself mounting a winding road which led upwards through a
suburb towards the moorlands.
The air was heavy with the perfume of innumerable flowers. Tall palm-trees
grew in the gardens of old granite houses, a sub-tropical flora flourished
everywhere, and it was difficult to believe that one was in England. The
hedges were luxuriant with ferns that grow in hot-houses elsewhere, Royal
Osmunda and Maidenhair, and every moment the road grew steeper.

If you look at the map of Cornwall you will see that the extremity of the
county forms a sort of peninsula. Penzance is on the south, and faces the
English Channel on the south. My back was now turned to this, and I was
walking due north, towards my objective, the vast and little known
"Hinterland" of mountainous moor and savage coast which lies between the
Channel and the Atlantic.
As I went, the warmth and colour, the riot of Nature all round, seemed as
unreal as a dream. It brought no ease or healing to my soul. Deep, deep
down, though controlled and prisoned by the will, an unending agony was
lying. I'm not going to insist upon this, or often obtrude it in my story. But
you must not think that, until the very end, I knew a moment's peace. My
dear love and her awful fate were ever before me, and all the sights and
sounds of Nature in this western paradise breathed nothing but her name.
... At last the habitations of man grew fewer. Gardens gave place to sloping
fields enclosed by "hedges" of stone, and at length a long, level sky-line
above and in front showed me that the moors were close.
I reached the top at last, and took in a great breath of the sweetest, most
exhilarating air that I have ever known. The unfenced road stretched away
ahead of me for miles, a long, white ribbon laid upon the heath and yellow
gorse. I was on a vast plateau of gold and brown and purple. To the left
great hills crowned with rock granite tors cut into the sky, and to the right
was the jagged summit of Carne Zerran, three miles away as the crow flies.
At its foot, on the edge of mighty cliffs that fell away a sheer three hundred
feet to the ocean, I knew lay the little village that I sought.
I looked at my map for a moment, took out my pocket compass, and then
plunged into the heather. Already I had a good idea of the lie of the country
—it is an instinct with your flying man—and I realized that an accurate
knowledge of it would prove invaluable in the task before me.
I met no living soul during that first walk over the moor. Larks were singing
high above in the blue; a pair of the rare Cornish choughs, with their scarlet
bills, flew screeching from the summit of a lichen-covered rock as big as a
house; but until I got to Carne Zerran, and looked down to the narrow strip
of pasture lands and cornfields that lie along the cliffs, there was no sign of
human habitation.

Far down below I saw a church tower and a little cluster of grey houses.
Beyond was the coast-line, with a creamy froth of breakers at the foot of the
jagged cliffs, and the Atlantic, "Mother of Oceans," beyond. There was no
land between me and New York! I suppose that in all the glory of sun and
colour, superb spaces of sea and sky, I stood alone, and looked upon a scene
as fair as any on this earth. But as I focussed my binoculars, and swept the
coast, my only thought was that here—if anywhere at all—was the heart of
the mystery I had come to solve.
Well! It was a fitting setting, in its lonely vastness. Anything might happen
here among these Druid-haunted hills. A crafty fiend, a man with a great
intellect and Satan in his soul, might well find this his proper theatre!
About a mile from the village, and just below me, I saw the cliffs bent
inwards between two projecting headlands. This must be the Zerran Cove of
the map, and—yes, seemingly upon the very edge of the precipice was a
long, grey building, which could be none other than "The Miners' Arms."
I began the descent, leaping from rock to rock, where the adders lay basking
in the sun. After a few hundred yards, I struck a gorge, through which a
stream fell towards the sea. Here I found a well-defined path, which looped
downwards to the ruins of a deserted tin-mine. I saw, as I passed it, the
windowless engine-house, and the gaunt timbers of the winding gear still in
place. The gibbet-like erection and the dumps of useless stuff covered with
rank dock leaves made a forlorn and ugly picture in that narrow gorge
where the sun hardly penetrated.
I passed it soon, and came out upon the main coach road from St. Ives to
Land's End, and, crossing this, found a side lane, which took me direct to
the remote hostelry I had seen from the heights above.
It was a large place, covered with ivy, and no doubt did a considerable trade
eighty years before, when the innumerable tin-mines on the moor were all
at work. Now it seemed forgotten by the world, and all asleep in the sun.
"An ideal base for our operations!" I thought, as I strode through an open
door into a long, low room, with a stone floor and heavily timbered roof.
It was cool, and so dark after the blazing sunshine that, for a moment, I
could see nothing, though I heard a sound of stertorous breathing. When my

eyes became accustomed to the gloom I saw that there was a man asleep by
the little counter. He sat on a bench which ran along the wall, and his head
was buried in his arms, which rested on a beer-stained table. By his side
stood a bottle half full of whisky.
Supposing him to be the landlord—and no engaging figure at that—I
touched him on the shoulder. It was like springing a trap! Instantly he
snatched away his arms and sat up. For a second sleep held him. Then it
passed away like a breath on glass, and if ever I saw fear on a man's face I
saw it then.
He was dressed in a blue jersey and an alpaca coat, oil-stained and dirty.
His hands were the hands of a mechanic, with grimy nails. But it was his
face that held me. It was sleek and cunning. There was a curious mixture of
refinement and wickedness. He seemed like a naturally sensitive man,
whom circumstances, indulgence, or some special temptation, had led very
deeply astray.
I noted all this while he stared at me with a drooping jaw and bloodshot
eyes. His skin had turned dead-white, like the belly of a fish, and whatever
he was thinking I felt that I would not have that man's conscience for a
million.
"I want you," I said—they were the first words that came.
He made an inarticulate noise.
"You are the landlord, aren't you?"
At that he gave a long breath and his rigidity relaxed. He snatched at the
whisky bottle, poured some into a glass and drank it off neat.
"Lord, how you startled me!" he said glibly. "I was far away—dreaming—
and you frightened me out of my life!"
It was my turn to be amazed, though I showed nothing. The fellow spoke
with a cultivated voice and accent which were impossible to mistake. He
was not what I had thought him.
"I am very sorry," I said; "you must please excuse me. But I naturally
thought ..."

"Of course you did!" he said, and a civil but ugly smile came on his clever,
unpleasant face. "As a matter of fact, Trewhella, the landlord, has just gone
to the village for a few minutes. He asked me to keep house for him. He's
almost due back now."
Thanking him urbanely, I sat down, my mind working very quickly. He
offered me some whisky, and though it was the last thing I wanted, I
accepted after a show of reluctance. He was watching me out of the corners
of his eyes the whole time.
"Can you tell me," I said, with great openness of manner, "if I can get
rooms here, or in Zerran village?"
He became alert at once. "Rooms, to stay in, do you mean?"
"Yes. I am an Oxford tutor, and I have a young foreign gentleman in my
charge whom I am coaching. I want a quiet place for three or four weeks,
and this seems ideal for the purpose."
His face cleared. "I should imagine so," he replied. "I know Trewhella does
let sometimes."
"You live here?" I remarked, with polite indifference.
"I have been here for a year," he answered. "I am, as a matter of fact, a
mining engineer—hence these clothes! I belong to a little private syndicate
of friends who are opening up a disused tin-mine, on the moor not far away.
Ah, here is the landlord! Trewhella, this gentleman wishes to speak to you."
And then to me: "Good-morning, sir. No doubt, if you come here, I and my
friends will see something of you. We are mostly public-school and
University men ourselves, and we often look in here of an evening after our
day's work."
He waved his hand and went out into the sunshine.

CHAPTER X
SIR JOHN CUSTANCE COMES UPON THE
HOUSE OF HELZEPHRON
Mr. Trewhella was an elderly Cornishman, with welcoming manners, the
native shrewdness of his race, but without guile. We got on famously from
the word "go." He had three bedrooms and a large sitting-room to let. His
wife, who had driven into St. Ives, was, he asserted, a good cook. As for
Thumbwood, he could wait on us and live with the landlord and his wife.
Finally, there was an empty barn which would hold our car very
comfortably.
"And what would you be thinking of paying, zur?" asked Mr. Trewhella.
"I shall leave that to you. I may tell you that the gentleman I am preparing
for his Oxford examination is wealthy. He is a Japanese nobleman, and as
long as you make us comfortable ..."
This had the desired effect. The landlord became expansive in his slow way,
and showed me all over the premises of his quaint and rambling dwelling. It
was a wild and fantastic spot, an ancient haunt of smugglers and wreckers, I
learnt. The back-yard opened straight into the short pneumatic turf above
the cliffs, the brink of which was not more than two hundred yards away.
Here the stream, which flowed past the inn, descended in a series of
miniature cataracts to a tiny cove of deep-green water, almost enclosed by
two towering precipices, crowned with jagged spires and pinnacles of rock.
There was a little scimitar of golden sand far down at the water's edge, and
the scene was one of savage grandeur that I have rarely known surpassed in
all my travels.
As he stood on the height and looked down, I saw something which seemed
strangely out of place. A line of street rails, with wooden rollers at intervals
between them, fell at a dizzy angle from a spot some ten yards away on the
turf, ending abruptly on the level, and in front of a smallish hut of
corrugated iron.

"What is the rail for?" I asked. "Surely you don't haul the boats"—there
were two of them lying on the beach—"right up to the top of the cliff! It
must be two hundred and fifty feet!"
"Nigher three hundred, zur. No. Them rails belong to bring up machinery
and stores for Tregeraint Mine by Carne Zerran. They do come by sea in a
lil' steamboat. 'Tes more convenient so. There be a lil' oil engine in that shed
to haul 'em up in trucks. I let the land, for 'tes all mine down-along, and
they do pay me ten pound a year."
We strolled back to the house, Mr. Trewhella proposing a Cornish pasty and
beer for lunch.
"Now you mention it, that gentleman who was keeping house for you just
now said that he was a mining engineer."
The landlord's big, weather-beaten face wrinkled like a stained window. He
began to heave and chuckle, finally exploding in a bellow of laughter.
"Mr. Vargus!" he spluttered, "Mr. Vargus! He thinks he be a mining
engineer, but a knows no more about it than my pig! He be a clever
gentleman, sure 'nuf. He do have some braäve knowledge to machinery, I'll
allow. But mining, and tin-mining!"
Mr. Trewhella could find no further words to express his contempt for the
mining attainments of my friend with the refined and evil face.
"You see," the landlord continued, as we ate our pasties, "I'm an old mine-
captain myself, bred and born to it. 'Tedn't likely as I could be deceived.
When I heered that a gentleman had come into Tregeraint Manor and the
old mine, and proposed to work it, I laughed, I did. I know every inch of
Wheal Tregeraint, and fifty years ago it was a fine property. To-day them
amatoors up along'll never get enough tin out to oxidize, let alone smelt."
"Who are they, then, Mr. Trewhella?"
"That's what lots of folk asked when they first come here in twos and
threes. They're gentlemen, zur, like yourself, that's what they are. Never was
such a thing known in these parts, though folk are used to 'em now. There's
Mr. Helzephron, a Cornishman himself, and should know better, Mr.

Vargus, you seed, Mr. Gascoigne, a mad young devil if you like, and near a
dozen more. They all live together in the greät house on the cliff and work
the mine theyselves. Never no one else allowed. They cooks and does for
themselves, just as if they was in a mining camp in California."
"No women, servants or anything?"
"Never an apron. My missus belong to say they lives like Popish monks,
which she see when travelling with a lady among the Eyetalians. 'Not so,
my tender dear,' says I. 'I never heered that Popish monks spent most of
their evenings in the village inn with a bottle of Scotch whisky afore each
man, and precious little left by closing time!'"
"A hard-drinking lot then?"
"Wonderful at their liquor. I tell you, zur, it's good for me! Now I've got
used to them and their funny ways, I wish they'd stay for ever. Speaking
from a strictly business point of view, that is. But soon they'll find out
they've lost their money and they'll jack it up. 'Tes not in reason as they can
go on, though they do seem so full of hope and certainty, as you mind to up!
But I know."
He was obviously pleased with my interest in his talk. I wondered what he
would have said if he had known who I was and why I was there? Under a
calm exterior, a professor munching potato pasty! I was filled with a furious
excitement. The man's gossip was worth a sovereign a word. Here was,
moment by moment, what looked like complete confirmation of our
suspicions. And yet, even as I realized this, I realized also how infernally
clever the scheme was. Without the clue which Danjuro and myself alone
possessed, there was nothing in the world to connect Helzephron and
Tregeraint with the business that was ruffling the calm of two continents.
It was not my game to ask more direct questions than I could help. It was
better to let the racy stream flow on, with a word of comment now and then.
I ventured a calculated one now.
"Fools and their money are soon parted," said I.
"You may say that, zur! And they've poured out money like water. Electric
light, oal sorts o' cases full of new-fangled machinery, and that mystery

made about the silly old mine you'd think it was a seam of diamonds."
"It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, Mr. Trewhella!" I rose from
the table as I spoke. "But what you say about a dozen or more gentlemen
drinking nearly a bottle of whisky each rather surprises me. I'm no foe to
honest enjoyment, but ..."
I put on a slight primness of manner, as became the character I sustained.
The landlord nodded vigorously. "'Tes so!" he agreed, "and most onusual.
They be gentlefolk, sure 'nuff, but shall I tell 'ee what I think?"
"What's that?"
"I think as most of 'em's dropped out, so to speak. I shouldn't be frightened
if as their families didn't have anything to say to 'em, and they've nowhere
much else to go. Mr. Helzephron knows what he's about, he do. I judge by a
kind o' reckless way they have, 'specially the younger gentlemen. They
don't seem to mind about ordinary things same as most. Well, I suppose this
fool tin-mining keeps 'em out of mischief."
I wondered.

When I set out upon the return journey I took another route. I found from
the landlord that by skirting the coast for a mile in the direction of St. Ives I
could come upon a moorland path that would take me to the little railway-
station of St. Erth. I could then catch a train for Penzance. My ostensible
reason was to vary my walk, my real one that by this change of plan I
should pass by and have a view of Tregeraint Mine and the Manor House.
"Not that you'll see much or get close," said Mr. Trewhella.
"How is that?" I asked.
"I told you that Mr. Helzephron"—apparently the hawk-faced man had
dropped his military title in Cornwall—"do make a mystery of his peddling
mine. He goes further than that. The mine buildings and the house are
surrounded by two fences of barbed-wire and the Manor by a high wall.

'Trespassers,' notice boards belong to say, 'will be prosecuted with the
utmost rigour of the law'!"
"Well, I shan't attempt to trespass, Mr. Trewhella!"
The landlord laughed. "Mine prospectin's not in the way of a larned
gentleman like yourself. Maybe it's as well. Mr. Helzephron has got two
dogs he turns out at night, and terrible ugly customers they be. Mr. Vargus
do tell me that they be Tibetan mastiffs, which am the largest dogs in the
world. They look like a sour-faced Newfoundland with heavy ears, only
bigger."
I tramped away from "The Miners' Arms." Although I recognized the fact
that we were only at the fringe of discovery, my mind was made up. Thick
darkness surrounded me, but I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt
that Major Helzephron, and no other, was the man for whom the whole
world was hunting.
And as I thought of him and the crew of lost and reckless men who did his
will, the fair landscape seemed to darken, the sweet airs to be tainted....
The path I traversed was the coastguard's path, as I could see by the white-
washed boulders to serve as a guide by night. It was never more than two or
three yards away from the brink of the savage precipices that fell for two
hundred and fifty feet sheer to the water. The ocean was on my left; on the
right the great hill, known as Carne Zerran, towered up, and the edge of the
high moors cut the sky. On that side it was as though one were walking at
the bottom of a cup.
After about half a mile of the path, it suddenly left the cliff edge, and turned
inland. For several hundred yards the brink was guarded by a semicircle of
barbed-wire fence, which made it impossible to approach. A notice board
informed the wayfarer that here, owing to old mining operations, the cliff
was extremely dangerous.
It looked so, indeed. The edge was broken and irregular. I saw that it ran out
in a curious headland for a considerable way, a mere wall of rock with a
razor-back path on the top, which curved round again and ran parallel to the
cliff on which I was, making a mighty chasm from which rose the cries of
innumerable sea-birds. There was a narrow mouth seawards, and another

headland jutted out to make a cove like the one at the inn, though that, of
course, had no winding cañon at the end.
I crept up to the brink, where the wire fence began, and, lying down, with
one arm round the first post, peered over.
It was a terrible place. The rock overhung so for hundreds of yards that I
could not see the bottom. But the other side of the cañon was clear to view,
a great wall of black rock, where sea-hawks nested, and inaccessible to the
boldest climber. To the right the cove seemed to be of fair size from horn to
horn, but it was no tranquil spot like the one at the back of the inn. Even on
a calm day like the present, the Atlantic ground swell poured in with
tremendous force, and was broken with ferocious whirlpools and spray-
fountains by toothed rock-ledges a foot or two below the surface. The
smallest boat could not have entered Tregeraint Cove and lived there for a
moment.
For some reason or other the place affected me most unpleasantly, and it
was with a little shudder that I retreated and skirted the fence which
guarded the dangerous part of the cliff. When I had passed by this, the path
turned at right angles and went inland.
As I turned I saw, perhaps a furlong away, the house of Helzephron.
It lay upon the eastern slope of Carne Zerran, an ancient, grim-looking
house of granite, long, low, and of considerable size. A few stunted trees
grew round about, and a fairly extensive domain of gardens, as I supposed,
surrounded by a high wall. Using my prism glasses, I could see that this
wall was topped by iron spikes. Of course, I was considerably below
Tregeraint as on the sloping hill-side, and it lay quite open to view. Higher
up, and beyond the house, was the derrick, engine-house and sheds of the
mine, with here and there dumps of débris and various sheds.
Although the wire fences, which I soon made out, went round the whole
property, it lay quite open to the view. And when I had passed it, and
climbed to the table-land of the moor beyond, I saw that it would be even
more open to the eyes—spread out like a map, in short.
One thing was already certain. There was nothing whatever in the nature of
a hangar, no building that could possibly shelter even an ordinary four or

five seater biplane, to say nothing of an air cruiser.
I was not disappointed, because I had hardly expected to meet with
anything of the kind. The pirate ship, you will remember, was—like all the
big long-distance airships—a cross between what used to be known in the
old days as the "seaplane" and the "flying-boat." True, some of our war
aeroplanes of quite large size were fitted with floats that could be raised,
and wheels for land work in addition.
This might be the case with the pirate. But it was not to be thought of for a
moment that a man of Helzephron's intelligence would dare to house his
extraordinary ship where any one of my police could have investigated
simply by showing his badge of office. The land policeman and the
coastguards of the whole English coastline had already reported on every
hangar and aerodrome in the kingdom. If Helzephron was the man I
believed him, I was well aware that we were only at the beginning of the
duel.
I mounted up past the wire fences and the mine. I did not dare to use my
glasses in passing, for I saw in the distance one or two figures of men
strolling about by the engine-house and derrick. But when I was at last
among the heather at the top, I lay down, and took a long survey of the
buildings, drawing a careful map in my pocket-book, which might prove of
great use later on.
I waited half an hour at the little station of St. Erth, and then caught a train
to Penzance, arriving at the hotel about tea-time. As I came into the lounge,
after a wash and brush up, I saw Danjuro sitting in one corner. He had a pile
of newspapers round him, and I saw that the London journals had arrived.
He handed me one of them as I sat down. A paragraph among the police
news was marked in pencil.
Major Helzephron had been taken to Vine Street Police Station, and locked
up for the night, charged with an aggravated assault on Mr. Wag Ashton at
the Mille Colonnes Restaurant, on the evidence of M. Nicholas and the
head-waiter.
A medical man had attended the Court on behalf of the prosecutor, to say
that Mr. Ashton was too unwell to appear until the morrow. Upon his

promising to attend the Court the next day, Major Helzephron was admitted
to bail.
"That gives us nearly two clear days," said Danjuro. "When Ashton does
appear, he will not press the case, and will own that he gave provocation;
Helzephron will be fined, perhaps let off. I see that Honourable Ashton
battered him a good deal! And now, your news, Sir John, if you please."

CHAPTER XI
"THE AIR WOLVES ARE HUNTING TO-
NIGHT!"
He made no comment, and did not interrupt me until I had completely
finished, nor did his inscrutable face give any indication of what he thought.
"My own investigations," he said, "can be told in a few words. The small
steamship which brings supplies to the cove behind the inn is the private
property of Helzephron, and she is a great deal faster and much better
engined than most people are aware. She lies at the little port of Hayle,
which is on the main line from Plymouth to Penzance, in St. Ives Bay. At
certain times large quantities of petrol arrive in separate consignments from
different parts of the country. The Sea Gull is loaded to her capacity, and
then makes the short voyage to Zerran Cove."
"That's the last link!" I said. "No one could doubt now!"
"There is another, still more interesting fact. Hayle was once a place of
much greater importance than it is at present. There were large foundries
and engineering works there in the past. These have been abandoned, owing
to the silting up of the harbour, for many years, as only vessels of small
draught can enter easily to-day. But the foundry buildings remain. From
time to time a portion of them has been let for this or that small enterprise.
Three years ago Helzephron rented a part of the works and installed
machinery. He had about twenty labourers, but the real work, whatever it
was, took place in a large experimental shed, to which no one was admitted
but he and his friends. They were already at Zerran, and used to drive over
in motors every day. It was locally known that some new machinery for
Wheal Tregeraint was being made. Many shippings took place from Hayle
to Zerran Cove."
"But the ship, the Pirate Ship itself?"

"Who can tell? We go step by step in the dark. Many theories have crossed
my mind. I have dismissed them all. I want to approach this, the most
sinister problem of all, with a blank mind. We can do nothing till we are on
the spot. Our preliminary work is over, but the real labour begins."
"A sinister problem enough," I answered bitterly. "But not the most trouble
to me. I tell you, Danjuro, that as I lay among the heather and looked down
upon that lonely house, as I thought of the devilish crew that live there, for
a moment my heart turned to water, and the agony was more than I could
endure. She may be there, at this moment, defenceless and in the power ..."
I could not go on. I covered my face with my hands, and was nearer
breaking down than ever before. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. "It has
never left my mind, either. Do not give way, for the moment of action has
come. We go to the inn at Zerran to-night—within the hour."
"To-night!"
"Yes. We cannot afford to waste a moment. Helzephron is kept in London.
One great danger is removed from our path. We shall never have a better
opportunity than now. In dealing with enemies such as ours, we must strike
quickly and strongly when they think themselves most secure. Before dawn
we must have penetrated the inmost secrets of Tregeraint."
I had by now grown accustomed to regard Danjuro as the leader of our
enterprise. His decision was like cool water to a man dying of thirst in a
desert. I stood up, absolutely myself. "There is, of course, no reason why
we should not install ourselves at Zerran to-night instead of to-morrow
morning. Trewhella won't mind," I said.
"I will order the car in an hour. Meanwhile, I have one or two things to do.
Perhaps you will settle the hotel bill, Sir John, and tell the people that we
are leaving?..."
It was a stiflingly hot night as the car climbed up to the moors, and in the
glare of our headlights the gorse and heather by the roadside streamed
swiftly like some golden cinema, leaving a more sable dark before and
behind them. Danjuro, by my side, was lost in thought. The massive head
hung upon his chest. About half-way on our journey he said a curious thing.

"This would be an ideal night for another raid in the air-lanes of the
Atlantic."
I did not answer, for I, also, was thinking deeply. So it was for to-night! We
crossed swords, fired the first shot, what you will, with our cunning enemy
in a few hours. What would they bring forth?
I felt no fear, only a deep resolution not to fail in rescue and the execution
of Justice. I was happier than I had been for days, for it is thought that turns
the bones to pith and thins the blood, not action. And, as we flashed down
the dark moor road to where the lights of the solitary inn showed yellow, I
sent a wordless prayer to the Throne of Justice and Mercy. And, as if an
answer was truly and instantly vouchsafed, there came into my mind these
words from the ninety-first Psalm: "I will deliver thee from the snare of the
hunter."
And after that I put mere abstract thought away from me.
As we rolled up silently to the inn, we heard a great noise of singing from
the long room. A tall woman came out of a side door, and I explained that
we had decided to come earlier than we had planned. She was a comely,
good-humoured dame, who made no trouble about our arrival. Both
bedrooms and sitting-rooms were prepared, and when Thumbwood had
taken the car round to the barn, he went upstairs to unpack the baggage. Mr.
Trewhella appeared from the bar. I introduced Danjuro, and we arranged to
have some supper at half-past ten.
Meanwhile the singing continued in great volume, mingled with the
twanging chords of a banjo.
"Your guests are merry to-night," said Danjuro.
"It's the gentlemen from the mine, sir," said the landlord. "It's one of their
nights off, so to speak. Would you like to join 'em for half an hour?"
"I think not on our first night. But they sing very well. As a foreigner I am
interested in all English customs; may I take a peep?..."
He had gone to the communicating door as he spoke, and pulling aside a red
curtain which covered the upper half of glass, he looked through. I did the

same.
The long room was full of people and tobacco smoke. With a single
exception, that of Mr. Vargus, they were all quite young men, ranging, I
should say, from three-and-twenty to thirty. Most of them were dressed in
old tweed suits, but the material and cut told their own tale, and spoke of
the "right" kind of tailor. At first glance they might have been a collection
of naval officers or senior undergraduates, but only at first glance. My eyes
roved from face to face, and on each I saw the loss of innocence and
honour. Some were cunning; others had a brutality in ill accord with their
youth, and there was a hard bravado in the eyes of all. It was sickening. One
felt that one had suddenly looked upon something that should remain
hidden. In that haze of smoke lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that
was monstrous and evil in the universe.
I almost wanted to spit upon the floor, in an uncontrollable gesture of
repudiation. As I turned, I saw the landlord looking at me.
"A promising lot of young devils," said I.
"You do see it too, zur?" he replied, and then Danjuro touched my arm, and
I turned to look again. A man, without a hat, had just entered the room from
the outside. He sat in a chair which he had obviously occupied before, for
he was in naval uniform, and his cap was lying there. He was a big, foolish-
looking fellow, far gone in drink, but despite that his face was the only
wholesome one there.
"Who is that?" I whispered to Trewhella, as Mr. Vargus poured a generous
allowance of rum into the new-comer's glass.
"That's Billy Pengelly, our coastguard. The gentlemen do make a lot of him,
and he's none the better for't, for Billy's one as likes his drop. Still, he goes
and sleeps it off, and he belong to be strong as a bull. And in these lone
parts there's not often anyone to see if he's on the watch or not."
A tall boy with a banjo took up his instrument and twanged the chords.
"Now, gentlemen!" he shouted in a clear fresh tenor, "a chorus!" And
without further preliminary he dashed into nothing less than the "Pirate's
Chanty" from "Treasure Island":

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest!
Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"

The inn rocked with the volume of sound. I stood there fascinated, with a
sort of horror. The thing—knowing what I knew—was so daring and grim
that, more than anything else, it showed me with whom we had to deal.
The application was lost upon Danjuro, but I told him what it meant in
French, and he nodded with contracted eyes.

"Drink, and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo, ho! and a bottle of rum!"

One would have thought that the room could not contain the noise, and that
the very windows must be shattered, and in the very middle of it I heard
something else—the urgent, throbbing sound of an engine.
Danjuro heard it as soon as I did. "Motor-bicycle," he whispered.
The sound grew insistent. Whoever was coming rode hell for leather and
with the exhaust open. Then there was a succession of reports, a grinding
noise, and the door of the bar was flung suddenly open.
A tall man in goggles and overalls covered with dust walked in. As he did
so, the pirate chant stopped with dramatic suddenness, and the singers
jumped to their feet. Then he removed his glasses and his cap.
It was Major Helzephron.
They clustered round him thickly, and to each one he said a quiet word. In
every case, when this happened, the man spoken to nodded and vanished
into the night. I could hear them running outside the inn. Lastly, Helzephron
took Vargus by the arm, and they also passed out. I could see the man more
plainly than ever before. There was a great bruise round about the left eye,
and the face was pale. But it blazed with will and purpose, and the cruel
mouth was set in a malicious and abominable smile.
"The wolves are hunting to-night!" Danjuro said to me two minutes later in
my bedroom, and once again his face was like a demon of Old Japan.
"Helzephron will not appear at the police court to-morrow. He has arranged

it somehow, and, after all, it is a trivial affair. He has ridden down from
London during the day."
"You mean that there is going to be a raid to-night?"
"I feel sure of it. Why else should Helzephron rush from London? And you
observed the manner of his confederates. Don't you see this—with all his
cunning precautions the pirate is far too clever not to know that his career
must be a short one. He cannot hope to remain concealed for any great
length of time. His object is to obtain an immense fortune quickly. Already I
calculate he has stolen jewels and money to the value of two hundred
thousand pounds. A few more such coups and he can disband his crew and
disappear for ever. Speed is the essence of his plan."
"But we must do something, we must stop it...."
"Our opportunity for action is improved, Sir John. In the first place, you
must take steps to concentrate a fleet of patrol ships in this neighbourhood."
"The car is here. I can write official telegrams in code to Plymouth and
London. Within an hour the hinterland and the sea from here to Scilly can
be covered with a swarm of ships. St. Ives is only six miles away."
"Write the dispatches at once. I will call Thumbwood, who must take them
in, together with an official note from you to the postmaster."
I unlocked my portfolio and wrote the wires. There should be such an
invasion of the air to-night as Far West Cornwall had never known!
Thumbwood appeared, I gave him full instructions, and heard the Rolls-
Royce start below.
"And now, our part!" I said to Danjuro.
"If we are right in our conjecture, the pirates will shortly leave Tregeraint
on their expedition. How they will join the airship or where we don't know.
But we may safely assume that the house will be left in charge of one or at
most two men. The others will all be wanted to man the ship; it is a simple
calculation. Here is your chance. You must get inside Tregeraint, obtain
conclusive evidence, and if the poor lady is there alive, bring her away in
safety. Perhaps to-night the Pirate Ship will make its last cruise! Our

presence here, our identity, is quite unsuspected. A concentration of hostile
airships in this neighbourhood is the last thing Helzephron will expect to-
night."
"And you, my friend?"
"I would that I could come with you, for you go in danger of your life, but,
as I see it, my work should be different. Someone, in view of its escape,
must solve the mystery of the Pirate Ship itself. I have a theory already; I
must put it to proof. There are boats in the cove below—I see that the moon
is rising, I know what I must do. But, even so, I will come with you, Sir
John, if you say so."
I shook my head. "No, I will go alone. It is my job."
Then Danjuro did a strange thing. He took my hand, bowed over it and
kissed it! "You also are of the Samurai!" he said.
In a minute more he carried in a heavy bag from his own bedroom, and
produced from it a miscellany of objects.
"Here is a twelve-shot automatic, with a dozen cartridge clips," he said.
"You know all about the working of it? I thought so. This pair of wire-
cutters you will need for the barbed fence. These two keys with adjustable
wards—you turn the milled screw at the end to adjust them—will open any
ordinary lock. Here also is an extremely powerful steel lever, with a wedge
end. In the hands of a strong man like yourself it will wrench open most
windows or doors."
God knows there was no lightness in my heart, but in the usual English way
at serious moments, I laughed.
"The Complete Burglar!" I said.
Danjuro looked at me with a glance as cold as ice.
"I am in most deadly earnest, Sir John. You know what my experience has
been. Well, I say deliberately that I have never been in such peril as you are
going into."

"I meant nothing. And what is this?" I had taken up a little leather tube with
a lens at one end.
"A powerful electric torch. But it is more than that. You can instantly
reverse it in your hand, and if you press this stud, the plated bottom flies
open, and by means of a spring an ounce of cayenne pepper is projected for
several yards. It will stop anyone and operates instantaneously. A little thing
I invented and have found most useful. These handcuffs are of papier
mâché and weigh practically nothing. They are from Japan and tough as the
hardest steel. You may require them. And I never go on an expedition
without this tiny bottle of chloroform and pad. You can stow everything
about you with ease, and the combined weight is as nothing."
I did so, and it was as he said. Then a thought struck me.
"Armed and prepared like this, I feel certain that I shall get in. But there are
two Tibetan mastiffs let loose in the grounds at night. I can shoot them, but
the noise of the report ..."
"That is provided for, Sir John. You see this gun?"
"It looks like a short-barrelled rook-rifle, except for the great thickness at
the breech."
"It holds ten conical bullets. They are hollow-nosed and expand on impact.
The point is that the gun is perfectly noiseless. Powder is not used at all.
The propelling power is liquefied carbonic-acid gas, and all that is heard at
the moment of firing is a sharp snap. With this you can stalk the dogs and
kill them easily enough. Do not forget your hunting flask and brandy and
water. And for concentrated food, should you be detained in hiding, though
I and Thumbwood will be coming to look after you if you don't appear by
morning, these solid chocolate cakes are invaluable."
All this was done quickly, and with the most business-like precision.
Although my sense of humour told me that I was like the White Knight in
"Alice in Wonderland," I did realize that I should be a terribly nasty
customer to tackle, and I was grateful.
While we had been talking there came sounds from below of the closing of
the inn, and shortly after we were called to supper.

"Don't you stay up any longer, Mr. Trewhella," I said. "You must want your
rest. As for us, we are late birds. Both I and my friend sometimes take a five
minutes' stroll last thing before we turn in. That won't inconvenience you?"
"Bless your life, no, zur. You do as you're a mind here. 'Tesn't like a town.
The key of the front door hangs on a nail by the side. And if you should be
going out later, Billy Pengelly's in the empty pigsty, a sleeping off what he's
had, and there's a bucket of cold water on the wall. In half an hour's time or
so I know as he'd be grateful for having it poured over 'en!"
We promised to perform what was evidently one of the amenities of this
primitive place and Mr. Trewhella withdrew.
"That coastguard may be useful to me," Danjuro said. "And now, Sir John, I
don't want to hurry you, but my advice is that you start. I don't suppose that
the band has left Tregeraint yet. But there are a hundred hiding-places on
the moor all round the domain, and you may be able to see which way they
go before you make your own attempt. I shall be on the trail in a very few
minutes after you."
"And Charles? He will be back shortly."
"I shall need him. I know he would wish to be with you, Sir John, but I
believe your chances are better alone. I shall not leave until he returns,
provided he is not unduly detained."
He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain. "A waning moon," he
said, "which will be at full power about midnight, when there may be such a
battle in the air as the world will hear with wonder!"
I saw to my gear. It fitted about me very comfortably.
"Well, good-night," I said, and without further words I went quietly out of
the house.
When I got a hundred yards away I turned and looked at it, all silvered in
the moon. The air was sweet with the perfume of shy moorland flowers that
give up all their treasure to the night. The Atlantic, far below, made a sound
like fairy dreams, and on the distant slopes of Carne Zerran an owl sounded
his melancholy oboe note.

A lovely night, gentlemen!

CHAPTER XII
THE KILLING OF MICHAEL FEDDON
The moon was in its last quarter, and shed a faint spectral light over the
moor as I came quietly up to the first of the barbed-wire fences that
surrounded Tregeraint. I lay down in the heath, certain that I was quite
invisible, and waited.
An hour had hardly elapsed since the band had left "The Miners' Arms."
Were they still here, or had they set out for their unknown destination? I
could not hear a sound of any kind. From where I lay the high wall hid the
house, and among the mine buildings higher up there was neither light nor
movement. Tregeraint might have been deserted for a hundred years, and
the roaring company of the inn had vanished into thin air. And strain my
eyes as I would, there was no sign of the great Tibetan dogs.
I remained motionless for a quarter of an hour by the illuminated dial of my
watch. Then, as nothing happened, I began operations. The wire was tough
and intricate, but ten minutes' work with Danjuro's powerful cutters
disposed of it sufficiently for me to crawl through both the first and second
fence without a scratch. I stood now in the lower portion of a large, oblong
paddock of short grass, all grey in the moon. The surrounding wall of the
Manor was about a hundred yards up the slope, and with the gas rifle on my
arm I glided over the intervening space like a ghost. My boots were soled
with india-rubber and I made no sound at all.
I found the wall to be ten or eleven feet high. It was crowned with a cheval
de frise of iron spikes, and, owing to its height and smooth surface, quite
insurmountable. But I knew there must be an entrance somewhere, and
never expected to climb the barrier, and I began a cautious circuit. About
half-way round the extent I came to a wooden door set in the wall. It was a
mere postern, not more than five feet high, and had a barred grille in the
centre of about a foot square. I reflected that this must be a side or garden
exit, and that the main gate was probably on the other side, facing the mine-

head. But it was all the better for my purpose if this was so, and I took out
my steel "jemmy" and prepared to tackle it.
My intention was to prise it open with my tool, for I am a very powerful
man, but suddenly another idea occurred to me. The bars of the grille were
old and rusted. As there was no key-hole in the door, it was obviously
secured by bolts. I inserted my lever, and without putting out my full
strength, and with little more sound than is made by the striking of a match,
soon had three of the bars out of the wood and lying on the grass.
My arms are long. I pushed my right through and my fingers, after a little
groping, caught the handle of the bolt, which slid back easily enough. It had
been oiled and showed that the door, which swung back at once, was in
constant use.
I stepped within, treading like a cat, and closed the door behind me. I stood
in a large and neglected garden, where shrubs and flowers grew as they
would and formed a miniature jungle, through which I could see the dark
façade of the house, now quite close. Everything was as still as death, and I
listened with strained attention for several minutes. So far the work had
been ridiculously easy, but as I crept up a moss-grown path towards the
building every nerve was on the alert. I was not afraid, I think I can truly
say so, but there was a chill on my soul. This old house, with its atmosphere
of robbery and murder, its singular and formidable inhabitants, the
unknown dangers of the approach, and, above all, the thought that Connie
might be within it, all combined to wrap me in a terrible gloom of the spirit.
Yet, looking back, I see that this was well. It hardened all my resolution and
made me terrible.
I had no thought of it then, but now I can see the grim horror of such a
being as I had become approaching the house step by step....
All the lower windows were shuttered. There was not a gleam of light
anywhere as I followed the path and came to the front, where there was a
grass-grown gravel sweep and iron gates in the wall. This part of the house
was plain and unadorned, save for a pillared porch and steps leading down
to the drive. A thick growth of ivy covered it from the ground to the first-
floor windows, and after I had gently tried the heavy front door, which, as I
expected, was locked, this suggested a mode of entrance. If I could climb

up and get on to the roof of the porch, it might be possible to force the
central bedroom window, which I could see was unshuttered.
The ivy was of ancient growth, the stems thick and tough. Any schoolboy
could have mounted to the top of the porch. And any boy could have pushed
back the catch of the window with the blade of his pocket-knife, opened it
and stepped inside.
I stood in a bedroom, dark, except for a little pool of moonlight by the
window. I felt curtains, and I drew them before I switched on my torch. It
was an ordinary bedroom, very untidy, furnished with a suite of painted
deal. There was, however, a great saucer-bath full of water, and a pair of
Indian clubs. The wall was hung with photographs of football teams, and in
an open drawer of the little dressing-table was a pile of gold and notes.
Commonplace enough, like an undergraduate's room at Oxford, but,
nevertheless, it affected me unpleasantly. It was like a sudden intimacy with
something abominable, as I opened the door inch by inch, and felt for the
powerful pistol in my pocket. My heart hung poised for an instant as I
stepped out into a dark corridor, and then I gave a gasp, and my heart
almost stopped beating.
I stood at the head of broad, shallow stairs. Below was a large hall, dimly
lit, and pouring up to me in a volume of sound came the melodious thunder
of a piano played by a master hand!
At first my knees grew weak, and I clutched the shadowy banisters to save
me from falling. Constance! Who could be playing in this evil house but
she! I can never forget the agonized pang of mingled joy and horror that I
felt. But as I crouched and listened, the fierce emotion passed away.
Whoever was playing, it was not my girl. A lost soul made that music.
I glided down the stairs. Certainly the wolves had left their lair, though in
what manner I could not divine. The house was inhabited by but one or two
people at most. All the doors along the corridor stood open, as if the rooms
had been left in a hurry. The building felt deserted, empty of its usual
inhabitants....
A dim light came from an open door at the right of the hall. I peeped in and
saw a long shadowy room of great size. The walls were panelled and hung

here and there with pictures, the floor carpeted. Two immense oak tables,
with their complement of chairs, went up and down the centre, and it hardly
needed a butler's hatch in the wall, doubtless communicating with the
kitchen, to tell me that this was the dining-room of Helzephron and his
buccaneers.
At the far end, and opposite the entrance door, was a wide and lofty
archway, half covered by a curtain. It led to another room beyond, and it
was from this that a bright light streamed, and the sound of music came.
I placed my gas rifle on the floor by the wall, took out my automatic,
unlocking the safety catch, and went to the curtain on tiptoe. There was an
alcove at the side, where some shelves had been, and this was perfectly
dark. I marked it as a possible hiding-place, and then pulled the curtain
aside for half an inch. Just as I did so there was a clash of prelude, and the
pianist began the enchanted Third Ballade of Chopin.
It was the man known to me as Vargus, the man with the smooth voice, the
face that was evil and refined. He sat at a magnificent grand piano, swaying
a little on his stool....
Do you know that marvellous composition of Chopin's? Most people have
heard it at least once or twice in their lives, played by some maestro. I have
heard the renderings of the great pianists of the world, but none played as
this man played.
A terrible remorse informed the unearthly music. It was as though the
player strained with every power of his being to recapture something
irrevocably lost. When he came to that strange passage which has been so
often compared to the soft cantering of a horse, the pain in the lovely chords
was unbearable. The artist, Aubrey Beardsley, made a wonderful drawing of
this passage—a spectral white charger ambling through a dark wood of
pines, bearing a lady in a cloak of black velvet. The picture rose before my
eyes as I stood, but it flashed away, and words of awful significance took its
place in my mind and fitted themselves to the closing chords....

"Night and day he was among the tombs, and on the hills, crying out
and beating himself with stones."

As you may know, the piece ends in a furious welter of sound. It had just
concluded, and the player sat motionless as a wax doll, when another figure
heaved itself into my line of vision, a burly giant, with red hair and a heavy,
sullen face.
"Now you've finished that —— row," he growled, "we'd better be moving.
We may get signals coming through soon. And I suppose I must feed the
canaries!"
I knew the man at once. There was no possibility of mistake. It was Michael
Feddon, the famous Rugby international, and six years ago the idol of the
public. It was said that he was the finest back that England had ever seen. In
the height of his career he had been mixed up in a horrible, criminal
scandal, and received five years' penal servitude.
I swallowed in my throat with loathing, but the next words drove all
thought of Feddon's career from my mind.
"Everything is ready on a tray in the kitchen, and the soup is on the electric
stove. It will be hot by now," said Vargus, in his soft, creamy voice.
"I'll get it, and I wish the damned business was over. I said from the first
that when the Chief brought those two women here we ran more risk than
ever before. It'll turn out badly yet. Mark my words, Vargus."
Vargus took up a bottle which stood on a table by the piano. It was brandy,
and he poured out two glasses half full, adding soda from a siphon.
"Here's luck; not a bit of it," he said. "If all goes well to-night, a couple
more expeditions will see us finished, with a hundred thousand each, and
scattered all over the globe. We all have our fancies. The Chief's is this
Shepherd girl. Well, in another fortnight he'll disappear with her. Every man
to his taste."
Feddon swallowed his brandy at a gulp. "She'll lead him a dance yet!" he
said. "I never saw such a spitfire. I hate going near her, and I wish it wasn't
my turn to stay at home. I'd tame her, though, if she were mine. I wouldn't
stand her pretty ways and the things she says, like the Chief does. He's mad
about the girl."

"And what would you do, my beefy friend?" said Vargus, with his
abominable smile.
Feddon touched his middle. He was wearing a leather belt. "Take this to
her," he said, "and beat her black and blue."
Vargus rose, grinning. "Well, get the food," he said. "I'll go down at once.
You'll find me in the wireless cabin."
Feddon lurched forward. I had just time to press myself into the alcove,
when he came through the curtain and strode heavily through the room into
the hall.
Vargus went to a tall mirror by the piano, as I watched him breathlessly. He
did something that I could not see, and it swung open like a door. There was
the snap of an electric switch, and I saw him step into a lift, pull a rope, and
sink out of sight, leaving the door open.
He could not have sunk ten feet when I was in the room. It was large and
square, furnished with something like luxury, and brilliantly lit with electric
globes.
There was an arm-chair in full view of the archway. I sat down, and it was
still warm from its last occupant. That seemed to me amusing, and I smiled.
Something clanked, a soft swishing noise changed to a distant rumble, and
the lift came into sight. I had it covered, but it was empty—waiting for the
man who was going to "feed the canaries."
I waited for him, too. There was a box of cigarettes close by. I lit one and
smoked quietly. Then I heard him coming through the dining-room, his
footsteps and the rattle of a tray.
The half-drawn curtain bellied out and was pushed aside. Feddon stood
there with the tray in his hands and the light shining on his ugly red hair.
He saw me. His mouth opened and his eyes started out. He seemed
unutterably foolish, like a great cod, and I laughed aloud.
But he was quick, oh, quick and clever! Like the famous footballer that he
was! In a second he had ducked, and the loaded tray was skimming across

the room straight at my head, as he hurled himself after it, quick as a snake
strikes.
I was ready, though. He was not. My first shot broke his shoulder and
stopped him for an instant. Then, with a roar of pain and fury, he came on
again, and I shot him through the heart when he was three feet away.
Mr. Feddon would feed no more canaries.

CHAPTER XIII
THE SECRET THAT PUZZLED TWO
CONTINENTS
I stood looking down at Michael Feddon's body. I was stunned. For the man
I had just killed I cared nothing, felt no emotion. I had saved him from the
drop; that was all. But, though I had been convinced that Danjuro's and my
own suspicions were absolute fact, the full realization had come so
suddenly that it clouded the mind.
Constance was here, and she was unharmed!
I had, indeed, penetrated into the very centre of this lair of the air-wolves,
and already had enough evidence to hang the lot. For a minute the mingled
joy and relief was so great that I could not grasp them.
The brandy bottle of Mr. Vargus was still on the side table. I stepped over
the body—the leather belt which he had proposed as an instrument of
correction for Constance was in full view—and helped myself sparingly.
Almost immediately my brain cleared.
I listened intently. The two shots from my automatic had alarmed no one.
The sinister house was as silent as before. It seemed quite certain that
Feddon and Vargus alone remained to guard it. Even the two Tibetan
mastiffs of which I had heard so much had disappeared.
To my right, the tall mirror swung on its hinges, and the lift beyond was lit
by a globe in the roof. To what it led I did not know, probably some cellar
where poor Constance and her maid were imprisoned, though a lift seemed
superfluous. At any rate, Vargus—the next person to tackle—was down
there, and it was long odds that I could not get the better of him. Moreover,
and this was in my favour, he was expecting Feddon, and the arrival of the
lift would not startle him at first, if he were close by.

I examined the lift. It was electrically operated, and of a type perfectly
familiar to me, fitted with an automatic magnetic brake. I saw that it
travelled from its secret recess behind the mirror to one other spot only,
stopping nowhere on the way. A touch of the rope started it, and it would
stop itself when its journey was done.
Well, there was no use waiting. Again I must plunge into the unknown.
Connie was waiting! I wondered how honourable Danjuro was getting on,
and laid myself long odds that he wasn't having such an exciting time as I
was! How he would stare if he came back to "The Miners' Arms" in a few
hours and found me there with Connie, and the artistic Mr. Vargus cooling
down in the patent papier mâché handcuffs from Japan! Mr. Trewhella of
the inn had shown me a large pig, which he called "Gladys," and of which
he was fond. There was a vacant and stoutly-built sty next door, which
would be an excellent place of confinement for the interpreter of Chopin!
... Yes, I thought these thoughts, even at that moment. I was madly
exhilarated. Everything had gone so easily and well. I stepped into the lift
humming a song. It was the old chanty that the pirates had roared in the inn
two short hours ago:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest."

There was a looking-glass on one side of the lift—probably the thing had
been bought entire at some sale—and I saw myself in it. The song died
away. Whose was this grim and terrible face, gashed with deep lines, with
eyes that smouldered with a red light? Mine? I have told you how Danjuro
looked when the bloodhound that he was emerged for an instant from
behind the bland Oriental mask. There was not a pin to choose between us.
The lift sank slowly. Every second I expected the soft jerk of its stopping.
But the seconds went on. Down and down, what cellar was it that lay so
low? Were we dropping to the centre of the earth? It seemed an age before
the motion slowed, and I had already obtained an inkling of the truth when
a dim archway rose up before me, and the machine came to rest.
This was no cellar. I was deep down in Tregeraint Mine, which must run
under the house itself! In the necessity for fox-like caution, I did not follow

out the thought—not yet. But I believe that the subconscious brain had
already seen far into the mystery....
I stepped out into a mine cutting. The walls were cut in the rock, and the
roof here and there shored up with heavy timber props. It was wide enough
for two men to walk abreast, and quite eight feet high. Every fifteen yards
or so hung a roughly-wired electric lamp, and the floor was beaten hard by
the passage of many feet. The air was hot and stagnant.
I prowled down this passage without a sound, my pistol in my hand, ready
to shoot at sight, but for what seemed an interminable time I met no one,
and saw nothing but the damp walls, here and there sparkling with yellow
pyrites and the green of copper.
There came at length a rough wooden door, which swung easily open, and
beyond a much narrower and higher passage than before, a more natural
cleft in the immemorial rock, it seemed, owing nothing to the agency of
human hands. It dripped with water. Hitherto I had been walking on a level,
now I trod a fairly steep descent, while the path was no longer straight, but
full of fantastic twistings. Each moment the air grew cooler, and each
moment a deep, murmurous noise, like very faint and muffled drums, grew
louder.
The lights, now suspended from a thick and tarry cable, were less frequent
than at first, and the place was full of shadows. But as for the noise, that
could only be one thing, the Atlantic ground-swell. I was approaching the
sea, doubtless by one of the old mine "adits," made for ventilation many
years ago and long before the invention of the electric fan.
The narrow way ended in a door. It was latched but not locked, and I
pushed it slowly open. Immediately there was a sense of vast and gloomy
space. I say "gloomy," for it was not absolutely dark. Here and there hung
dim, yellow lights....
Advancing a step or two upon a floor of hard earth on sand, I found myself
in a vast cavern. It seemed as large as the shell of a cathedral, and for organ
there was the plangent, echoing sound of sea waves. The sound came from
my right, and was carried on a current of sweet, brine-laden air. Peering

through the darkness, I seemed to be aware of a faint, ghostly radiance, a
considerable distance away.
I had lost the capacity for amazement, but not of quick thinking. In a
lightning flash of realization I knew that I had penetrated to the heart of
Helzephron's secret, even before my thoughts arranged themselves in
sequence. And then, as near as possible coincident with my stepping
through the door, I heard a shout.
Someone had seen me....
The shout came from the other side of the long, aisle-shaped cave.
Simultaneously, half-way up the side, at a height of thirty feet from the
floor, there was a sudden illumination. I saw a broad ledge in the wall,
railed round, with a ladder staircase descending from it. A little black figure
was leaning over the rail, and it was from this that the shouting came. It did
not need his words to tell me that here was a wireless station. I could see the
drum and the battery shelf quite distinctly.
"A signal!" he shouted, and I knew that he took me for the dead man above.
"They're coming back! The sky swarms with armed patrols and warships.
They've had to run for it, but the Chief thinks he's shaken them off. I must
switch on the guides!"
I gave an answering shout, keying my voice down to something like
Feddon's bass growl.
"It's C.Q.D.!—C.Q.D.!" came in a shrill voice of alarm, and Mr. Vargus ran
down the ladder like an ape.
C.Q.D.! The signal of "extreme danger." Well, I rather thought it was!
Where I stood I was in deep shadow, and my face could not possibly be
seen. I was much the same height and build as the dead man, and Vargus
ran down the cave without the least suspicion. He had gone to his left, my
right, to where I had already seen a pale light, and I followed him, more
slowly, at a distance of some ten yards. It was a natural instinct enough. My
only idea was to silence him, find Constance, and fly from the horrible
place. I could not know that I was making a fatal mistake.

I was running forward into complete understanding. The great cave turned a
little to the right. It opened out every second until at length I saw the mouth,
wide as that of the largest-sized hangar on an aerodrome, flooded with
moonlight!
Opposite, sixty yards away, was a precipitous wall of black rock; between it
and the mouth of the cave a terrible chasm, which fell sheer to the water. It
was all clear now. Far above, on the top of the cliffs, was that fenced-in part
with the "dangerous" notice boards. You will remember that I had lain down
by the side of this fence and peered downwards. I had looked into the same
gulf that I was now looking into from a much lower altitude. And the rock
there overhung so greatly that there was no possible indication of the cave
mouth where I now stood.
Moreover, the cave itself turned inward from the sea, running parallel to the
cliff. From the sea, as from the land, the opening of the cave was entirely
hidden.
Vargus was fumbling at a switch-board. He pulled down a vulcanite handle;
there was a green spark, and lights at the top, bottom and sides of the
entrance glowed out brightly.
Imagine an illuminated rabbit-hole in the side of a railway embankment,
and you have an exact miniature of what this vast secret cave had now
become. Go a little further and think of a bat whose lair was in this hole,
and was guided to it by the lights....
Vargus snapped another and smaller switch. I watched him with a sense of
complete detachment. I knew, as well as if I had been told, that he was
lighting guiding lamps somewhere on the two headlands that guarded the
entrance to the cave outside. No thought of danger came to me; I think joy
at this complete discovery, and wonder at the stupendous cunning and
achievement of it all were my only emotions.
"They may be here at any moment, Feddon. I tell you I don't like it at all. I
told the Chief that it was madness not to lie low for a bit. But you know
what he is. The Government has got the tip somehow, the Cornish seas are
humming with enemies. That fellow, Custance, is smart as they make
them...."

He was moving towards me as these words came from him in a nervous,
disjointed stream of words. Then he saw me, and stopped bang in the
middle of a sentence.
It was my moment.
"How do you do, Mr. Vargus," I said. "You mentioned my name. Indeed,
you paid me a compliment for which I thank you. I thought I'd drop in for a
chat. Sorry to find Major Helzephron out."
I never saw a man in such deadly fear. His face went the colour of cheese,
and a horrible choking noise began in his throat. He staggered to within a
yard of the brink; another step and he would have plunged into the abyss.
"You, you, you!" he said, the last word in a dreadful whisper.
"The Oxford professor—yes. Mr. Vargus, I am a lover of music, and you
have entertained me royally to-night. But you have played Chopin for the
last time in this world."
I lifted the pistol and covered his heart. His yellow mask quivered and was
still. "Quickly, please," he said, and there was even a faint smile of relief
about his pallid lips.
He could face death gladly, and I knew why. To have shot him there and
cast his body to the void would have been a mercy. I had other uses for Mr.
Vargus.
My pistol hand was steady as a rock. With the left I took out Danjuro's
handcuffs and walked up to him.
"Not yet," I said, when I was within a foot.
He saw what I meant. As comprehension leapt into his eyes he tried to step
back. He nearly did it, but I was just too quick for him. I caught his ankle
with the crook of my right foot, and he crashed on his back with his head
and shoulders actually over the chasm. Before he could move again I had
jerked him backwards by the legs, and had him handcuffed.
I pulled him to his feet by his collar, and half marched, half carried him
back into the cave. He was nothing more than a bundle of clothes in my

hands.
"Now," I said, "take me at once to the place where Miss Shepherd is
confined, and, though I make no promises, it may go less hardly with you
than the rest."
He twisted his head and tried to look me in the face. "If I do, will you shoot
me?" he whispered, fawning on me like a beaten dog. "For God's sake shoot
me, or give me an opportunity to shoot myself."
"The hangman will save you the trouble," I answered brutally. "Now then,
march!" He gave a great wail of despair.
"Ah, you don't know what I was once!" he cried, and there was such a
horror of remorse, a damnation so profound in that cry of agony, that a
fiend would have been moved.
"I heard you play the Third Ballade," I answered, and my voice was no
longer firm.
"Death, please, Death."
"Take me quickly to Miss Shepherd. Then perhaps—I can't kill you myself,
but ..."
It was as though my words poured a new life into his veins. His knees still
knocked together in a loathsome paralysis, but he made effort to shamble
forward.

CHAPTER XIV
THE AIR PIRATE AT LAST
Vargus was silent now. Our feet made no noise upon the sandy floor of the
cave. It was then that I heard something like a cat purring.
Unconsciously I stopped to listen. No, it wasn't a cat, it was the faint drone
of some night beetle; it was ...
On the right wall of the cavern, remember that my back was turned to its
mouth and the sea—there was a sudden flash of white light.
The rest happened in five seconds.
The light leapt out from the wall, and instantaneously the vast vaulted place
was brilliantly illuminated. I had a fleeting vision of wooden galleries, a
workshop and smithy, piles of stores, and then I wheeled round with a shout
of terror. The drone had leapt up to a deep, menacing note, like the E string
of a double bass. A circular furnace of white light in the centre of a gigantic
shadow rushed at me with incredible speed.
A blast of wind struck me like the shell from a six-inch gun; the drone rose
to the echoing shout of an army as the Pirate Airship entered the cave that
was its home.
I had just the millionth part of a second in which to realize the truth before
my head struck; the wind seemed to tear out my very vitals, and I knew
nothing more.
* * * * * *
Once, when I was a boy at the seaside in Wales, I dived into a deep rock
pool, and, deceived by the clearness of the water, hit my head against a
submerged ledge, and for several seconds was stunned. There was no one
with me, but, fortunately, I recovered in time, and with bursting lungs
regained the surface.

The experience was repeated now, or so it seemed, with a curious
subconscious memory. I thought that I was rushing violently upwards
towards the light out of a well of darkness. Each moment the radiance
increased and my speed grew greater. There was a sound as of many waters
in my ears.
I opened my eyes. The light was brilliant, painful. Also, it moved and
flashed, and so it was not the sun of twenty years before beating down....
Someone spoke: "Yes, it's the man himself. He's shaved off his moustache,
and his hair and skin are dyed. He's a fair chap really. Look at his lower
neck and chest. It's Sir John Custance right enough!"
I lay and listened. Although I heard every word, and perceived that an
electric torch was dancing about, the conversation hardly seemed to concern
me.
There was another voice: "Vargus said he admitted it, but Vargus has fainted
again."
Hands felt me all over. Things were taken from my pockets, and there were
sharp exclamations of surprise. Somebody gave a long, low whistle.
"No bones broken. His eyes are opening. Give me that flash, Gascoigne."
Someone poured brandy down my throat—I knew it was brandy—and I
moved my limbs and groaned.
Then I heard a shout as a door that I could not see was burst open.
"Feddon's killed!" came in a high, excited voice. "Poor old Feddy's shot
through the heart."
I think it was at this precise moment that I regained full consciousness, and
realized that I was not badly hurt. My whole body felt as if it had been
severely beaten, but instinct told me that there was no real damage. As for
the shock, it was not until several hours afterwards that I felt its effect,
though then it meant collapse.
I lay perfectly still, this time by design, and closed my eyes. Everything had
come back to me; I remembered every incident from the moment I had cut

the barbed wire to that when I had escaped, by a miracle, death from the
returning Pirate Ship.
My first thought was one of bitter disappointment. So they had run the
gauntlet, after all! The mystery ship had escaped the swarm of cruisers and
patrol boats that were looking for her. I believe I ground my teeth with rage.
A second afterwards I groaned out loud. The sound was wrung from my
very heart. I was too late to rescue Constance now....
All round me there was a buzz of low-pitched voices. Without any trouble
at all, I could detect the note of fear and consternation. And it was tonic. My
plight seemed desperate enough, but there was a chance yet. They had taken
my weapons from me, but others might prove as valuable. The pirates were
disorganized, alarmed. Well, craft should meet craft! Surely, the moment
was favourable?
I was in a dimly-lit place, surrounded by dark figures. How long I lay thus I
do not know, probably for no great space of time. At any rate, I had not
been in full possession of my faculties for many minutes when a door
opened, and a voice spoke in accents of authority.
It was a voice that I had never heard before, but I knew whose it was.
"I have made a careful examination of the house," came in clear, well-bred
tones, "and there is no one there. It is the same outside and all round the
fence. I let the dogs loose and they discovered nothing."
"How did this"—I was kicked brutally in the side—"get in, Chief?" asked a
voice.
"Cut the fence wire, and managed to open the door in the east wall. Then
climbed the porch and entered through Feddon's bedroom. The dogs
followed the scent and showed. That doesn't matter much now. The point is
that he's here."
"And we know what to deduce from that!" I heard, and pricked up my ears.
My friend Mr. Vargus had revived then! There was a soft malignancy in his
voice that made me shudder.

"Vargus is right. It is fairly certain that the game's up as far as this place is
concerned. They've marked us down, sure enough. In a few minutes I shall
take steps to find out exactly how much they do know. Meanwhile we
appear to have some time before us, and we must carry out the emergency
plan that we've so often rehearsed. Gascoigne, Jones and Sutton, Pointz, fill
all the petrol tanks to full capacity, load emergency stores, examine and
reverse ship. When finished, report to me in my room."
The men hurried away.
"Philips and Minver get on to the moor and report any man or body of men
advancing on the house. You will take rifles and act as outposts. At any sign
of approach, don't hesitate to fire. Then fall back on the house."
"Shall we take the dogs, Chief? They would be useful."
"No, I shall need them. The rest of you will hold the house till the last
moment. Then get into the lift and come down. It will take them some time
to find out the way and follow, while one man can hold the passages for any
length of time. We shall all be fifty miles out at sea before anyone can break
in down here, and all the swag is packed ready to go on board. Vargus, you
will stay down here and help me in what I've got to do."
Several other men left the room.
In a lower voice, though I heard every word, Helzephron went on talking to
his lieutenant.
"... Mind you, I don't actually expect an attack in force, but we must be
prepared. For all we know, there may be a hundred men waiting on the
moor. One thing is certain. They know where, or whereabouts we are, or
that gentleman on the floor would not have got in, nor all those ships be
cruising about outside. So we must be off with all we can take to our
emergency base in the Hebrides. Once outside, nothing can touch us, of
course, and we'd get up to sixteen thousand feet at once. Barometer
readings make it pretty certain that it will be cloudy at dawn, and it's a
million chances to one against our even being seen."
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.
He whistled, and Vargus came in through the other door. The movements of
both men were detached and business-like. I had the odd fancy that this was
exactly how the paid executioner goes about his work in the prisons.
Once more the cloth was tied over my head, the chair was lifted, and I was
carried away. The swinging motion lasted a long time. I must have been
taken a considerable distance from the room of my agony when the chair
was finally set down. I heard the plangent beating of waves and felt cool
airs. I was in the central cavern once more, and near to the mouth of it. So
that was it! They were going to throw me to the whirlpools and the rocks
below!...
I felt strong and slender fingers about my neck—Vargus the pianist!—and
shuddered at the contact. The cloth was removed. It was as I thought: all
round was the cathedral-like cave, but now dozens of lights were turned on,
including a great blue arc-lamp suspended from the roof, and all the
shadows and mystery were gone.
Not far away, resting upon rubber-covered wheels, which were dropped
below the floats by an adaptation of the Raynor-Wallis patent, was the great
Pirate Ship, towering up under the domed roof, spreading her great planes
from side to side, lovely in her lines, an awful instrument of power. Even at
that supreme moment I longed to examine her, to go aboard and make
acquaintance with the wonders she held.
The ruling passion of a man's life dies hard!

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.
I was looking at the twin propellers, which had a curve that was new to me,
and even material that I could not immediately define, when Danjuro hailed
me from the pilot's room.

I tumbled down to find the little man bending over the various controls
ranged in front of the pilot's seat.
"It seems to me, Sir John," he said, "pray correct me if I am wrong, that
there is something wanting here. I know little about airships, but something
of electricity, and can quite understand this system. But it seems to me that
a key-part of the mechanism has been removed."
He pulled over a lever a few inches long. Its movement should have been
registered upon a dial above, but the needle never moved.
"Do that again!" I cried, and, mounting a step, put my head into the little
dome of glass in the cabin roof which commanded the whole length of the
ship. One of the tilting planes by the rudder should have moved when the
lever was pulled over.
It remained motionless.
"One of the honourable gentlemen upstairs has got a small but very
essential piece of linking apparatus in his pocket," said Danjuro.
It was only too true. A moment's reflection satisfied me of that, and I stared
blankly at my companion.
My gorgeous, if somewhat vainglorious, plan was knocked on the head.

CHAPTER XVII
THE MOMENT OF TRIUMPH
I descended from the airship in silence. Danjuro followed me. Thumbwood
was still on guard. The bundle that was Mr. Vargus lay upon the ground, and
a face like a white wedge of venom stared up at us. There was no sign of the
enemy, but I felt that we should not be left in peace much longer, and my
disappointment at the discovery on board the pirate was keen.
"There is still a chance," Danjuro whispered in my ear. "And with your
permission, Sir John, I am going to try it."
I nodded, and he stepped up to Vargus and pulled him up into a sitting
posture, propping him against the barrier.
"There is a part of the control mechanism of the airship missing," Danjuro
said, with silky politeness.
Vargus grinned suddenly, a momentary rictus that came and went, utterly
horrible.
"And we want that piece of the machine," the Japanese went on.
Vargus spoke, in his peculiar oily voice. "Then you may go on wanting, you
putty-faced little spawn of a monkey."
I cannot hope to describe the depth of poisonous hate the man put into the
words. His accent was cultured and refined; the great dome of the blood-
stained forehead spoke loudly of intellect, yet the voice somehow reeked of
the pit. I know that it struck me cold, and I saw the rifle in Thumbwood's
hands was shaking. Although this was the man who had devised an
abominable death for me, I can honestly say that I felt no personal
resentment. I can't account for it, but it was so.
I should have welcomed that, rather than the inward loathing, like a shudder
of the soul, at something inhuman and unclean.

What Danjuro felt I don't know, but he didn't turn a hair.
"I think you will assist us," he said.
For answer the thing below spat in his face.
I expected to see Danjuro leap upon him and strangle him where he sat. I
shouldn't have raised a finger to stop it. But it was not so. The little man
stepped aside and carefully wiped his face with a silk handkerchief that
seemed to come from nowhere. Then he went behind Mr. Vargus and began
to feel his head all over, with quick, delicate movements of his fingers.
"How can you touch him?" I cried, hardly knowing what I said, for the
thing was ugly and uncanny beyond belief. Danjuro was like some sinister
phrenologist in a nightmare, feeling the bumps of a devil.
"I know now what I wanted to know about him," Danjuro purred after a
moment. "I never doubted the intelligence, Sir John. It is very marked. And
there is great energy and courage of a sort. But our friend who spits has one
little failing. He is afraid of physical pain."
"You're not going to ...?"
Danjuro looked me full in the eyes, and in his I saw a stony resolution that I
was in no state to combat.
"I will go and see Miss Shepherd," I said, and turning on my heel, walked
quickly to the inner end of the cavern. As I went I heard Danjuro ask
Thumbwood for a box of matches....
I am quite aware that there are lots of softhearted people who will say I
ought never to have allowed Danjuro to do what he did. Well, they must
have their own opinion, that's all. I believe it was nothing like so bad as the
cat-o'-nine-tails which is constantly administered in our prisons, and under
the circumstances I think it was justifiable. Call me what names you like as
you read this—you have not seen Mr. Vargus and his dogs, nor spent a
small eternity in the pirates' cave.
... Constance was wonderfully recovered. I spent a minute or two with her,
and then returned to the scene of action.

Mr. Vargus was speaking in a quick, panting voice, and these were the
words I heard:
"Gascoigne, Mr. Gascoigne; he has it. He was our second pilot. It was
always in his charge."
Danjuro gave his little weary smile. Then he put his hand gently upon my
arm and drew me away to the other side of the cave.
"We will now summon honourable Gascoigne," he said. "He is the young
gentleman we saw with late honourable Helzephron at the 'Mille Colonnes.'
The little necessary piece of the mechanism in his possession is, I have just
learnt, generally referred to as 'the link.'"
"But how ...?" I was beginning, when he pointed to a telephone instrument
upon a screen of tongue-and-groove boarding. "This communicates with the
house," he whispered. "Mr. Vargus nearly got through recently, you will
remember, just before the good Thumbwood caught him."
He raised the instrument to his mouth and ear.
In a second or two a bell rang and Danjuro began to speak. I nearly jumped
out of my boots. The words were simple enough, but the voice with its oily
refinement was the voice of Mr. Vargus!
"Is that you, Gascoigne? Yes, Vargus speaking. The Chief says you are to
come down at once and bring the control link with you. What? No, the
others are to wait till they're sent for. What? Oh, yes, quite dead. I wish you
could have seen it!"
It was a triumph of mimicry that I shall never forget, the more so as it was
the only occasion on which I heard this marvellous man attempt anything of
the sort. Heaven knows what other talents he must have possessed!
"The young gentleman was asking about you, Sir John. He seemed quite
curious about your end!"
I smiled grimly. "What are you going to do?" I asked.
In answer he hurried back to the open door and crouched down in the
shadow by its side. I motioned to Thumbwood to lie down behind the

barrier which was exactly facing the passage, and drawing my automatic
pistol, which I had regained from Helzephron's room, I retired to the
opposite side of the door and outside the line of direct vision.
There was silence for a minute or so, and then, far away in the rock, I heard
a hollow rumble and the clank of a gate. The lift had descended and
Gascoigne was on his way. A few seconds afterwards I heard a merry
whistle, fresh and sweet, as if the performer had not a care in the world. He
was whistling the lilting tune of a popular song which all the street boys
were singing at that time:

"Merry Maudie met her fate at Margate!"

Callous young dog! In a moment he would not be so cheerful....
I had left it to that concentrated muscle, Danjuro, though I stood ready to
help if necessary. But I knew that he was a supreme exponent of jiu-jitsu—
teste the hideous death Helzephron died—and I had little fear. Indeed, I
found myself looking on with a detached and interested curiosity as one
might at a prize-fight. I wondered if Danjuro would kill him or not. And if
you had supped so full of horrors as I had in that awful cave, you'd have felt
like that, too!
... For a second I saw Gascoigne in the full light from the roof and framed
by the archway, like a picture. It was the same young fellow, with the
dissipated face, that I had seen at the restaurant, though he had not been
among the singing pirates at the inn. He was extremely handsome still, with
the face of a lost angel. As a boy at school he must have been beautiful.
Then the squat shadow that crouched by the lintel of the door, like a
monstrous toad, expanded swiftly. Danjuro caught Gascoigne by the right
hand with the speed of lightning, and pulled the arm out straight with a jerk.
Then, as the young man was falling forward, the left arm of the Japanese
shot out under his captive's rigid right and the hand seized the lapel of
Gascoigne's coat. He was powerless. If he made the slightest movement
Danjuro would have broken his arm like a pipe-stem. He could not swing
round and hit with his left, and I saw his mouth open with foolish
amazement like the mouth of a fish, as his legs were kicked from under
him, and he fell back with his assailant on the top of him.

I tied his ankles together with neatness and dispatch, while I listened to a
sickening flood of blasphemous profanity that flowed from the clear-cut lips
of this ci-devant gentleman in a ceaseless stream. More and more I realized
what a crew of utter devils Helzephron had got round him.
At last he was bound, and Danjuro took from him a leather box, which he
wore suspended round his shoulders by a strap. He handed it to me, and,
opening it, I found it was the control link that we sought.
"You can fit that in all right, Sir John?"
"Oh, yes, I don't think it presents any difficulty."
"Very well, then, in a few minutes we will start; that is, if you think you can
take the ship out of this place?"
I had already considered that and decided that I could. It was a ticklish job
enough, and would require the most delicate care, especially with an untried
ship. But in the past I had landed on the deck of a moving battleship, and
there were few stunts that were not familiar to me. I felt I could do it.
"I don't think I shall let you down," I said, and hurried to the ship.
Five minutes showed me that I had got the hang of the apparatus and that
electrical connection was restored, and I spent a further ten in thoroughly
examining and getting accustomed to the controls. Moreover, I made one
new and startling discovery.
There was no need, in this marvellous ship, for mechanics to swing the
propeller at the start. Again electricity from the ship's dynamo was
employed, and the starting device was a miracle of ingenuity, worked from
the pilot's cabin.
Mr. Vargus, though I offered to loosen his bonds at the feet, absolutely
refused to walk, and Danjuro carried him up the ladder and threw him upon
the floor of the cabin like a sack of corn. Gascoigne, now very white and
silent, was more amenable. It seems that Vargus had acquainted him with
everything that had passed as they lay together on the ground.
"I'll go all right, sir," he said to me, as I helped him to his feet.

As I had the muzzle of my pistol in the small of his back, he couldn't well
do anything else, but he lost nothing by being civil.
"I can't believe that the Chief's dead and everything's finished," he said,
with a curious sort of sob. I realized that all sense of right and wrong had
left this youth early. He was the true stuff of which criminals are made,
incapable of putting himself in the place of his victims, and while bitterly
conscious of defeat and punishment to come, incapable of remorse.
Without a trace of pose this man behaved just as if he were an officer
captured by the enemy in war-time, and I dare swear he felt just like that.
There is only one thing to do with these abnormals that get themselves born
now and then—destroy them.
Morally I felt sure that Gascoigne was not a hundredth part so responsible
as Vargus. But one was born a criminal, and, from that point of view,
insane. The other had had the capabilities of sainthood, but had opened his
soul to the Dweller on the Threshold and was doubly lost.
We went slowly towards the ship. "Good old bird!" he said, as any public
schoolboy might have said it. "I expect this'll be the last cruise I ever take in
her."
"Or in any ship at all," I answered. "I suppose you've no illusions as to
what's in store for you?"
"No, I suppose it's a hanging job," he replied, and I assented, though, as you
will learn, both his anticipations were to prove wrong.
Danjuro and I shifted Vargus out of the main cabin into the small one where
the tools and spare parts were stored. We didn't want Constance to see him,
and he was so well secured that he couldn't possibly do any harm.
Gascoigne we left for the present on one of the seats, and I hurried to fetch
the two women, passing Thumbwood, still at his post.
"Everything is arranged," I called out, as I ran through Helzephron's room.
"We are going to fly to Plymouth at once in the Pirate Ship."
The maid Wilson shrieked.

"Oh, Sir John, that awful ship! I couldn't go in 'er again, not for my life.
Let's go in a taxi, Miss, please 'ave a taxi; I couldn't face the ship."
"You'll lose your life quickly enough if you stay," I said to the yelping fool,
though, Heaven knows, the poor soul had gone through enough to turn her
mind entirely. Her mouth grew like a round O, and I was preparing for
another shriek when I suddenly thought of something.
"Miss Connie will be quite safe with me," I said quickly, "and I shall put
you in charge of Charles Thumbwood. You remember him? He'll look after
you all right, Wilson."
It acted like a charm. I had remembered Charles's attention to the pretty
maid in the train.
"Ow!" said Wilson. "Is Mr. Thumbwood here, then, Sir John?"
"Very much so. You will be his especial charge, and the journey won't take
more than three-quarters of an hour."
The girl picked up the dressing-bag, which she had dropped upon the floor.
"Then that will be all right," she said with a flush, and I wondered if she
thought Charles was going to pilot the ship himself. How true it is that Faith
can move mountains! No doubt Constance felt just the same about me as
Mary Wilson did about Charles.
... We had come out into the cave, and had walked a few yards towards the
looming bulk of the ship, when the telephone bell on the cave-side ahead of
us rang furiously. It kept on like an alarm-clock, and telling the girls to
remain still for a moment, I ran up and unhooked the receiver.
A voice was bawling at the other end, so loud that the words rang and
buzzed one into the other, and I could only distinguish one or two. I heard
enough to know what had happened, though.
"Chief ... coastguard police ... rifles ... all round the house on the moor were
coming down ... two of us stay ... hold till last moment...."
So that was it! Billy Pengelly, the coastguard, had made good. The wires
had been at work while we had been about our mole-like warfare

underground. The avengers were among the gorse and heather, and the
remainder of the pirates were doomed....
"Come on," I shouted to Connie, realizing that there was literally not a
moment to lose, and, alarmed by the excitement in my voice, they started to
run.
When they had come up to me, and I started to run with them towards the
ship, there was a sudden thunderous report. Looking to the right, I saw that
Thumbwood had taken cover, and was lying on his stomach behind the
barrier. The open door was but a dim oblong of yellow light at that distance,
and I could not see a yard down the passage in the rocks.
Thumbwood fired again, and the echoing roar had not died away when
something went by my ear with a vicious zipp, and I heard the splash of a
bullet upon the granite.
The pirates were coming down in force, and, finding themselves between
Scylla and Charybdis, had turned at bay.
I knew Thumbwood would keep them where they were for a minute or two,
and I raced to the ship with Connie at my side. Wilson had fainted, and we
had to drag her between us.
Half-way up the light, steep accommodation ladder Danjuro was waiting,
perfectly calm and unconcerned. We handed up the unconscious maid, and
he disappeared with her in a second. Then Connie was helped up the ladder,
while the whole cavern began to thunder with a fusillade of rapid firing.
"The police and coastguards are surrounding the house," I shouted, "and the
rest of the crew have come down, and are trying to fight their way into the
cave."
"It is what I thought, Sir John. Those gentlemen must be considerably
surprised at their reception! We can shoot them all down before they get out
of the passage. Perhaps, now that rescue is at hand, we had better wait and
do so?"
His eyes were glistening; I saw the light of slaughter in them. For an instant
I hesitated. What he said was sane enough. The risk was comparatively

small; it would only be postponing the triumphal flight.
Then I took a decision—it rested with me, and I was alone responsible. "We
mustn't shoot them all down," I shouted through the din, for bullets were
streaming into the cave behind as though they were pumped from a hose.
"Some of them must be brought to justice. We had better be off and leave
the coastguards and police to deal with them."
Thus I spoke. I said what I honestly thought was best at the moment, though
perhaps my mind was a little influenced by the natural and terrible anxiety
to get my girl away from further horrors.
At any rate, I decided, and all my life long I shall never cease to regret it.
"Very good," said Danjuro. "Up into the pilot's cabin, quick, Sir John. You
are indispensable there. Prepare for an instant start. I will run and fetch
Thumbwood. We shall have to fire thirty or forty rounds quickly into the
passage to keep them back. Of course, they are firing automatic pistols
round the bend now, and not exposing themselves any more. After we have
fired we shall run for the ship. You will hear me shout and then start like
lightning!"
He slipped past me, and, crouching almost to the ground, ran back towards
Thumbwood like some great cat.
I flung myself aboard. Constance was attending to Wilson in the main
cabin. Gascoigne was lying bound where he had been thrown, but his eyes
were blazing with excitement.
I put a stop to that at once. "The remainder of your friends are being shot
down," I said curtly. "Lucky for you to be here."
All the animation died out of his face. And, as I didn't want to leave him
alone with Connie—it seemed a desecration that he should be in the same
place with her even for a moment—I whipped out my knife, cut the bonds
at his feet, and pushed him into the pilot's cabin, making him lie upon the
floor at my side as I got into the swivel chair. I could shoot him dead in an
instant if he moved.
Then I sat rigid, with my hand upon the switch which started the engines.

In reality, I know now that the time of waiting was very short, but it seemed
an eternity to me. For the first time my nerves felt upon the point of giving
way. My hand trembled. I began to think of the narrow S-shaped passage
between high walls of rock to the sea, and realized the appalling nature of
the task before me. A mere touch of the planes upon those iron barriers, and
all the long struggle would prove unavailing, the triumph turn to a defeat in
which my girl and I, the superman Danjuro, and faithful Thumbwood would
lose our hard-won lives.
One touch and the ship would crumple up like paper and fall like a stone
into the cruel cauldron of jagged rock and furious waves far below.
There came a voice from the floor. Had the prisoner divined something of
my thoughts?
"... Look here, Sir John, you're up against a nasty job. It's the very devil
getting out of here if you don't know the way and haven't practised it."
Something in the young fellow's voice told me that this was not mockery.
He was, moreover, the second pilot of the Pirate Ship, trained by
Helzephron himself.
"I did not ask you to speak," I answered.
"No, but really it's no end of a stunt. The controls are ten times as sensitive
as in an ordinary machine. If you were the best pilot living, you'd find it
hard to manage in a ship that's quite new to you, and has all sorts of habits
and tricks that no other has."
He spoke truly enough, and I knew it, but it was none the less unpleasant to
hear.
"I suppose you're afraid for your damned skin," I sneered.
"Oh, come, draw it mild," he replied. "I only spoke to try and help you. I
know when I'm beaten, and I don't bear any malice."
"If I do take you safely out, it will only mean the gallows."
"Oh, no, it won't!" he said. "I shall turn King's evidence. There are lots of
things I know that no one else except Vargus knows now. I shall get let off

with fifteen years. Bet you a fiver, if you like. It's to my interest to help you
out."
I can generally tell when a man is sincere, and I realized that this young
scoundrel was, despite—and perhaps because of—the baseness of his
motive.
"Help me?"
"Yes, out of the passage. Once you get in clear air you'll fly her easily
enough—and you'll be astonished, by Jove! But you'd better let me pilot
you. It's the lift and the sharp right bank that are so difficult...."
"Get up," I said.
He scrambled to his feet.
"Stand there!" He leaned against the wall at my side, his hands tied behind
him and his arms tightly bound.
He was about to speak, when suddenly we both started. Something had
happened. For a moment I did not realize what it was. Then I knew. The
continuous thunder of rifle fire had stopped. Everything was dead silent. I'd
hardly become conscious of the fact when there was a loud shout.
"Let her go, Sir John! Let her go!"
Danjuro stumbled into the cabin, panting like a whippet.
I pulled over the switch and then the lever of the starting mechanism.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE GOLDEN DREAM
The strangely-shaped propellers bit the air at once, the walls of the cavern,
flooded with spectral light, slid backwards, and as the ship swerved round
the curve towards the entrance, the day leapt at us.
Wow! but it was touch and go during the next ten seconds. If it had not been
for Gascoigne I am sure that I should never have gone through. The great
ship shot out of its lair like a dart; a touch upon the little steering-wheel and
she was banking in the terrible right-hand turn; the granite walls seemed
rushing to meet and crush her, and only the quick, steady words of
command from the prisoner, which like an automaton I obeyed, got her
finally into the straight....
And then—oh, then—I opened out the marvellous engines; she seemed to
shake herself for an instant like a bird poised for a long flight, and,
humming like a wasp, she shot up and out to sea....
The needle upon the speed indicator quivered round its dial, moving ever
upwards. Eighty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty—and thirty more—we
were doing nearly two hundred miles an hour, straight out over the Atlantic
before I had a thought of our destination, or of anything but the supreme
glory of that rush up the dawn wind.
The whole morning world was blue and gold, new-built and beautiful. Far
below, the Mother of Oceans lay in an unwrinkled sheet of sapphire, "as it
were a sea of glass mingled with fire." A tiny purple cloud upon the horizon
was the Isles of Scilly, sleeping under the sun.
Connie stole in and stood by my side, her hand upon my shoulder, and I
knew that her heart also was full to overflowing, as memory flared up and
down in us like the flame of a lamp in a draught. It was a moment so
exquisite, so full of gratitude to God, that no words of mine can do more
than hint at it. For we had escaped from hell and the snare of devils, and
knew it in one lightning flash of gratitude and joy.

As she stared out at the sea and sky, which glowed like the pavements of
the New Jerusalem, Connie quoted some words from Milton—the song of
the released spirit in his epilogue of "Comus":

"To the Ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes which lie
Where Day never shuts his eye
Up in the broad fields of the sky."

And then, as I glanced at the compass card and made a great sweep round,
so that we faced the jagged coasts of Cornwall once again, she whispered,
with a proud note in her voice:

"For still the Lord is Lord of Might
In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight."

Then, with a tiny pressure of my arm, she went back to the other cabin.
I had not noticed Danjuro for the last few minutes. He had led Gascoigne
behind me as soon as we had made the passage. Now he reappeared.
"Danjuro!" I cried, "this ship is wonderful beyond all imagining! There isn't
her equal in the whole world. She'll revolutionize flying. It's a perfect joy to
pilot her!"
Danjuro nodded calmly; he was not given to enthusiasms, this man with a
panther in his soul. "I have been speaking with the prisoner," he said.
"With Vargus?"
"No, though I have been to look at him, and he is quite safe. With
Gascoigne, and he has suggested something that has not occurred to either
of us, Sir John."
"His help will all tell in his favour when it comes to the trial. What is it
now?"
"Something eminently sensible and pressing! As you see, this ship is quite
unmistakable. Any pilot would recognize her from the descriptions which
have been circulated. We are now approaching the coast again and about to
fly to Plymouth. The air must be full of armed patrol ships, and, whatever
our speed, if we escape being shot down en route, we should certainly be
blown to pieces on approaching the sea-drome!"

I flushed up. I had been an incredible ass never to have thought of that
before. It was only too true. Nobody could possibly know that we had
captured the Pirate Ship....
I reduced our speed to half of what it had been. "What are we to do?" I said.
"There is a complete wireless installation on board the ship. Can you
operate it, Sir John?"
"No. Even if I could leave the controls, that would be impossible. I know
nothing about it, unfortunately."
"Nor I, Sir John. It is a gap in my knowledge that I propose to remedy
shortly. But this Gascoigne is an operator, and offers to send any message."
"I suppose we can trust him? He certainly saved us from disaster coming
out of the cavern."
I shuddered; I did not want to think of that blood-stained hole of horror any
more.
"Yes, I think he can he trusted. He has everything to gain, and can do no
harm that I can see. I cannot operate the keys of the apparatus, but I know
the Morse code, and if I stand by him I can check each letter as he sends it
out."
Then I had an inspiration too. "Good! And now I think I can make it quite
sure. I can remember the private code of the Air Police with hardly a gap.
We will call up Plymouth, and all the police boats now flying, in that
private code. Meanwhile, we had better run out to sea again while you are
taking it down."
Again I turned the ship, and as we spiralled up and out again, I formed the
message in my mind and translated it, word for word, into the letters of the
code, which Danjuro took down in pencil upon a sheet of his pocket-book.
When I had finished, and as the message was necessarily rather a long one
it took some time, Danjuro marched Gascoigne away to the rear cabin,
where Vargus was lying. It was there, you may remember, that the wireless
apparatus was installed.

We were now reaching a great height, far above any of the regular air-lanes,
and I felt quite secure from any attack. Land, sea, every reminder of the
world below, had vanished utterly. With hardly a sound from the magic
engines we floated in a haze of gold chrysophrase. It was like a happy
dream, though never was dream so beautiful.
Connie stole in again. "I thought I would leave Thumbwood and Wilson
alone," she said. "They have been sitting side by side and whispering to
each other ever since we started. Neither of them seems to have the least
curiosity as to where we are or where we're going."
"How thoughtful of you, dearest! Was that the only reason you came in
here!"
The rest of the conversation is not a part of this story. It lasted a long time
as we droned round great five-mile circles of the upper air. And then a
telephone rang at my ear.
Danjuro was speaking. The message had been received at Plymouth, and an
answer had been coming through for the last ten minutes. He was writing it
down, letter by letter, from Gascoigne's dictation. Shortly afterwards he
brought it in to me, and as I read it off the world closed round me again and
fairyland vanished.
Triumph filled my veins and reddened my blood. The message came from
Muir Lockhart, who was at Plymouth again, and was one shout of wonder
and congratulation. "The whole world will thank you," it concluded.
For a little time I was intoxicated by that message. I saw myself a hero,
vindicated a thousand times in the eyes of all men, the Chief of Air Police
whose name would be historical. I think there are few men of my age who
would not have had their moment of vainglory; we are made so. But as I
read the message to the man who had brought it, I realized that I had done
nothing, after all, and that everything was due to his marvellous brilliancy
and courage.
Thank Heaven that I realized it without a pang of envy, and I told him what
I thought of him in no unstinted way.

He heard me to the end with no change of countenance. When I had done,
he said: "You have been very kind, Sir John, and I greatly appreciate what
you have said. If, indeed, you are indebted to me in any way for the help I
have been able to give, you can repay me, if you will."
"To the half of my kingdom!" I said, with a laugh, though I was in dead
earnest all the same.
"That is a promise, Sir John?" He looked down at me with magnetic eyes.
"A promise, Danjuro."
"Then, while I live, I ask you to say nothing whatever of my part in this
affair. I wish it kept as secret as possible; some little part must leak out;
there will be investigations, public trials, and so forth. But much can be
kept secret, and it rests with you and Thumbwood. And as I have your
promise, my mind is at rest."
"But this is madness, Danjuro! You are owed the thanks of two continents.
You ..."
He interrupted me.
"I want nothing of the sort. I have had your thanks, and that is sufficient.
The work itself is enough. My usefulness to Mr. Van Adams, the endeavour
of my whole life, would be destroyed if anything were known."
Reluctantly I promised. "But Mr. Van Adams, I shall tell him everything!" I
said.
Danjuro bowed his head. A faint flush came into his yellow face. "If you
think I have done anything worth it," he replied, with a curious and
touching silence.
And this was the man with the panther in his soul! For the American
millionaire he had supreme love, with devotion—worship—and for no one
and nothing else on earth above or below it.
A man with a single obsession, a man of one idea. Well, most of the great
men in life have been that....

I steered for Plymouth at full speed, coming down to three thousand feet. In
a flash the jagged coast, fringed with a thin line of white, came clear to
view. We sped from the Atlantic, over the narrow peninsula of land which
divides it from the Channel, and then turned east. The Bay, with St.
Michael's Mount looking like a tiny white pebble, gave place to the long,
menacing snout of the Lizard, and, as a few minutes later we neared
Falmouth, a flight of airships rose from the water of that mighty harbour
and came up to join us like a flock of gulls, the big Klaxon electric horns
blaring a welcome. Dead Man's Rock and Gall Island, Looe, Mevagissey,
Fowey—all slipped away astern, and the bluff outlines of Rame Head, from
which the Devon watchers first signalled the Armada, came rushing into
view. I had been speeding far ahead, turning back, flying all round the
escorting patrol boats, which were doing all they knew, letting them see
what a wonder had come into our hands, and rejoicing more and more in the
powers of the ship, as I found them one by one. Now I slowed down, and
signalled by horn to the leading vessel of the flotilla.
As we turned and entered Plymouth Sound, the others spread themselves
out in a great wedge, of which I was leader, like a skein of wild geese upon
the wing. A salute of guns boomed out as we flew high on the Breakwater,
and all the bells of Plymouth were ringing as I swooped down into the sea-
drome.
And all this time, for three-quarters of an hour or more, our two prisoners
had been alone together in the aft cabin, where the tools and spare parts
were stored. Neither I nor Danjuro had given them a further thought, and it
was the one fatal mistake we made upon that morning of triumph.
Thumbwood had, however, been in to look at them once or twice, and had
seen nothing disturbing. Certainly, when some of my men came to take
them to the station, they were lying sullen in their bonds, and not saying a
word to each other of any kind.
But by that time the mischief was doubtless done.
* * * * * *
Space begins to press upon me. There are still two strange and unforgettable
scenes to add to this narrative, further tragedies to set down. The last scene

of all, which I have called "The Epilogue," was not written for a year after
the earlier part of this story, which is now published as a whole for the first
time. Why this is so will become clear as you read on, if you care to follow
me to the very end.
But as I would not weary you, I will only indicate the happenings during the
rest of that day at Plymouth in the briefest possible fashion. I am impatient
to bring the story up to the hour of eleven-thirty of the same night.
Immediately we were at rest on the placid waters of the sea-drome, Muir
Lockhart, with a strong force of Air Police, came aboard. Constance and her
maid were taken in a motor-boat to one of my patrol ships, which started
with them for the Hounslow Aerodrome within half an hour of our arrival.
We both of us thought it best that she should proceed to London
immediately, and going by air in a Government ship, she would escape all
annoyance and publicity.
All approach to the sea-drome was barred, and though the Hoe was
crowded with spectators, none of them could approach anywhere near to us.
When I had given Lockhart an outline of what had occurred, the two
prisoners were taken over the pool with a strong guard, and run up in the
private lift to the A.P. station, where there was a strong cell ready to receive
them. Then I was free to show my colleague, himself an expert airman, the
wonders of our capture.
I was doing this—we were in the pilot's cabin—when one of my men came
in and said that a motor-launch had come alongside from the private air-
yacht May Flower, which was moored not a hundred yards away. I had
noticed, when descending, that a magnificent yacht was close by, but I did
not identify it as Mr. Van Adams' ship. It appeared that he had been sleeping
aboard for the last two or three nights, since he had flown down from
London for the funeral, and was now alongside.
Van Adams, of course, was an exception to all ordinary rules, and in a
minute he was shaking hands in the private saloon and betraying a most
lively curiosity as to our adventures. I put Danjuro to satisfy him, and when
we had discussed a bottle of Helzephron's champagne, I left a couple of
trusted men to guard the ship, and went ashore. Danjuro returned to the May
Flower with his patron.

The rest of the day was a whirl of business and excitement, though I
managed to get three hours much needed sleep in the afternoon.
Wires from the Government, from America, from Royalty, poured in, in a
never-ceasing stream. There were innumerable officials to see, the
correspondents of the great newspapers to satisfy with some sort of story—
a hundred things to do and arrange for. The whole of England was in a
ferment, and the stone building of the Air Police on the Hoe was, for a few
hours, the centre of it all. The air was thick with patrol ships, warning off
aviators of all kinds from approaching the Pirate Ship, which lay at rest and
harmless by the north wall of the pool.
Just before I retired to rest the news of what was called "The Battle of the
Moor" began to come through. The pirates, seeing their ship gone, had
rushed up again into the house, and had held it with the courage of
desperation. Only three of them had survived, and were now locked up in
the police-station at Penzance.
... It would take many pages to detail the events of that crowded day, which
did not end for me until ten o'clock at night, for I was forced to attend a
congratulatory dinner at the "Royal." Previous to that I had found it
necessary to summon Danjuro from the May Flower, where he had
remained quietly with Mr. Van Adams during the day. It was necessary that
I should be restored to something like my former self, and only Danjuro
could make me blond again! My moustache, alas! he could not restore.
I had arranged to sleep at the station, where there were several bedrooms,
and about ten-thirty I passed the sentry and entered the grounds.
Plymouth was now quiet. It was a hot, dark night, with neither moon nor
stars. During the day the weather had changed, and now thunder muttered
far away at sea and amethyst sheet-lightning flickered upon the horizon.
Now and again a drop of hot rain fell.

CHAPTER XIX
LAST FLIGHT OF THE PIRATE AIRSHIP
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 passage, 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 God! 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 Japanese 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 hell.
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 Finistère in
France and the Chief of Police of Quimper, the old cathedral city in
Brittany.
On one of the wild and lonely Breton moors a goat-herd had discovered the
wreckage of a large airship. By it was the body of a young man, but only
one body. The telegrams urgently asked me to come over at once.
I did so, in my fastest patrol boat. Lying in a wild wilderness of gorse and
heather were the remains of the Pirate Ship. It had been destroyed beyond
possibility of reconstruction, and destroyed methodically and deliberately
while at rest upon the ground. There was no doubt about that. The body I
afterwards saw in the Morgue at Quimper was that of Gascoigne. He had
not met his death by any accidental means, but had been stabbed in the
back.

He must have been dead for quite two days before the goat-herd made his
discovery, and of Vargus, living or dead, there was not a trace.
I was back in London again that night, and just as I was going to bed in
Half Moon Street the bell of the flat rang. Thumbwood went to the door and
announced that Mr. Danjuro wished to see me.
He was in evening dress, and quite his old self again to outward
appearances, except that his black hair had turned an iron grey.
For a moment or two we discussed details of the inquest that had been held
in camera upon poor Van Adams, arrangements made for the trial of the
three surviving pirates, and so on. Then I told him what I had seen at
Quimper.
"Mr. Muir Lockhart told me of the telegrams from France," he said. "I
called at Whitehall, but you had already started for Quimper, Sir John. I
must apologize for such a late call, but I was anxious to hear your news.
Now I see my way clear."
"I suppose, after your great loss, you will go back to America, or perhaps
Japan, and settle down?"
He shook his head.
"You know," I continued, "that if you cared for it, there is a highly-paid and
important position open to you with the Air Police? Nothing would give me
greater pleasure, as you know, than to have you as a colleague."
"I thank you, Sir John, but I have other work to do. I am a rich man, but that
only interests me, inasmuch as it is a means to an end. When that end is
reached ..."
He made a curious gesture with his arm, which I did not understand.
"May I ask what your work is?"
He looked at me with surprise.
"Vargus is still alive," he said simply.

"He will be caught soon. The police of the world are looking for him, if he
is alive."
"I think it will be a long pursuit, Sir John. He has got off with the treasure,
and I know one or two things about him which are not generally known. I
do not think that Mr. Vargus will fall into the hands of the police."
"Then you ...?"
"It is my work. I owe the spirit of my patron this man's blood, and I shall
pay the debt. Were he to hide in the depths of the sea, sooner or later I shall
find him. There is no power strong enough in life to keep us two apart."
He had dropped his voice. The words hissed like a knife upon a strop.
"I wish you good luck," I said at length, and was about to say more, to
express my gratitude again, when he cut me short.
"I am leaving for Paris in half an hour," he said, "and must bid you farewell,
Sir John. Convey my humble compliments to Miss Shepherd," and with a
low bow and a frigid handshake he was gone.
Six weeks afterwards, on the day before my wedding, I received a
magnificent Japanese vase of the old Satsuma enamel, but the card enclosed
bore no address.
I did not see this extraordinary being again for nearly two years. Of that
meeting I shall write in the following short epilogue.

EPILOGUE
In the winter of 19— I was at Monte Carlo for three weeks, taking a short
holiday alone, and also looking out for a villa at Roquebrune or Mentone
for my wife, who was to come out with the baby as soon as the house had
been secured.
Now and again I went into the "Rooms" and staked a louis or two upon an
even chance or a transversale at roulette; but, speaking generally, the
Casino bored me. The cosmopolitan crowd of smart people—like
champagne corks floating on a cesspool—the professional gamblers, with
their veil of decorous indifference concealing a fierce greed for money
which they have not earned—a sprinkling of wood-ash over a glowing fire
—presented little interest, and I much preferred long walks and drives in the
earthly paradise of Les Alpes Maritimes.
I stayed at the Métropole Hotel, making it the base of my excursions, and
one evening, after dinner, I paid one of my rare visits to the Casino. I
wandered about the gilded, stuffy saloons, with their illuminations of oil-
lamps—so that no enterprising gentleman may cut the electric wires and
make off with the money on the tables!—the low voices and almost
sanctimonious manner of the players, the over-dressed demi-mondaines
who glide about with their hard, evil eyes. The place was very full. All the
chairs round the roulette tables were occupied, and people were standing
behind the chairs as well. As I am tall, I was able to reach over and place
my stakes, and I did so several times. When I had lost four louis with
monotonous regularity, I decided that it was not worth while, and thought I
would go and smoke, for, contrary to the usual pictures in the magazines,
smoking is not allowed in the roulette or trente-et-quarante rooms.
So I went out into the Atrium, the great pillared entrance hall, which looks
like an important provincial corn exchange, and lit a cigarette. The place
was fairly full of people, walking up and down, or reading the latest
telegrams, which are fixed up upon a green-baize screen, and I was

watching them idly when, coming round the corner from the cloak-room, I
saw—Danjuro!
My heart gave a sudden leap, the sight of him was so utterly unexpected
and recalled so much. To tell the truth, he seemed to belong to a long past
and forgotten dream, for Connie and I, by mutual consent, hardly ever
spoke of the days of the pirates.
Danjuro was about fifteen yards away. I saw his face distinctly, and was
certain that I was not mistaken. Then he looked up, and I could swear that
he saw and recognized me.
Be that as it may, he turned and slipped round the corner like a weasel, and
when I got there he had vanished. I made a search, of course, though I knew
how futile it would be if he wished to avoid me, and the result was as I
expected. There wasn't a trace of him anywhere, and none of the attendants
or door-keepers had seen a Japanese gentleman anywhere.
I went for a walk on the terrace in the moonlight, and then returned to the
hotel and sought my bed. For a long time I could not sleep. The sight of
Danjuro had made me restless. A legion of memories trooped through the
brain, and curiosity marshalled the procession. What was that enigmatic and
sinister being doing here? Was he still upon his ruthless quest, moving
through the panorama of European life like some wandering Jew of
vengeance? Nothing had ever been heard of Vargus again. For my part, I
shared the opinion of the police bureaux of the Continent, that the soft-
voiced and malignant scoundrel was dead.
It was pathetic to think of Danjuro prowling through life to avenge his
patron, wasting his magnificent powers upon a hopeless quest. Pathetic, yes
—so ran my thoughts—but one can't think of Danjuro as an ordinary human
being. He was simply a single idea, clothed in flesh, a marvellous machine
designed for one operation only, a specialist so perfect that he became a
monomaniac.
Poor Van Adams, to protect and serve him had been Danjuro's whole life.
Every faculty of mind and body had been devoted to that one end. And yet
he must have loved the American to have served him so? And if he could
love he was human!

I wrestled with the problem till dawn, and got no nearer a solution. I knew
that, despite our companionship in peril and the extraordinary adventures
we had gone through together, if Van Adams had lived and for any reason
had told Danjuro to put me out of the way, the little man would have
executed the job with neatness, dispatch, and an entire absence of
compunction.
I decided that Danjuro, as a subject of psychological analysis, was quite
beyond me, and did my best to forget the incident. With an effort I managed
to do so, and got a few hours' sleep before Thumbwood called me. I said
nothing to him of having seen Danjuro, for he also is unwilling to talk much
of the days of terror—perhaps because his wife, Wilson, that was, and is
still, Connie's handmaid—so strenuously objects to it.
About half-past eleven I left the hotel and strolled to the foot of the
funicular railway which hauls one up from the narrow ledge of land on
which Monte Carlo stands to the heights of La Turbie. I designed to lunch at
the excellent hotel at the top in the clear mountain air, and then to walk
along the Upper Corniche towards Roquebrune, Eze, and the mountains
above Mentone. There is much to explore in these high regions—ruins of
Roman and medieval forts, built as a defence against the raiding Moors of
the Mediterranean, and here and there delightful villas among pine-woods
and olive groves, far from the haunts of men.
It was a house of this description, a mountain hermitage, that I wished to
find and take for six months. I knew that they were occasionally to be let,
but somewhat difficult to come across upon the books of the agents. In
Monte Carlo I had been assured that personal exploration was the best and
quickest way.
I lunched at La Turbie on a magnificent bouillabaisse and riz-de-veau, and
after an interval set out upon my walk. It was a magnificent afternoon, the
air golden clear. Far away out to sea Corsica lay like a dim cloud. The
mountain side fell in terrace after terrace of olives to groups of painted
houses looking like toys. Away to the right were the red roofs and gleaming
white buildings of the Monte Carlo palaces, and the promontory of the Tête
du Chien was perfectly outlined in the azure of the sea.

"Yes," I thought, "upon this great height is the place to live when one comes
to the Côte d'Azur, and I won't go home to-night until I have found
something...." And I began to climb by a by-path.
The afternoon was hot. After a mile or two I rested in the shade of a great
rock and fell asleep. When I awoke the sun, which sets early in winter, even
on the Riviera, was declining. I was not quite sure of my direction, but
thought that I could make Roquebrune by an oblique path over the spur of
the mountain, and from there easily descend to Cap Martin and get a
carriage, and take the tram which crawls along the cliff to Monte Carlo. So I
set out.
The path, however, did not prove to be the right one, and it was twilight, or
that extremely short interval which does duty for it in the south, before I
came to three or four stone huts fronting a plateau with an enclosure full of
goats. I explained my predicament to a swarthy woman who sat knitting at a
door, and she gave me directions. She also said, in mingled French and
Italian, for the frontier was not five miles away, that there would be a small
empty villa to be let a mile onwards—at least, she believed so.
"Can you tell me the name of the owner, madame?" I asked.
"But, no, m'sieu. It is a new gentleman. He has bought the villa and the
larger one, which is close to it but higher up the hill. He is a scholar of some
sort, and lives quite alone, so he cannot want the smaller house on the road.
It was, moreover, always let in the time of the last owner, M. Visguis, of
Nice."
I thanked the good dame, refused a cup of goats' milk, gave her a five-franc
piece and started on my way again rejoicing. My luck was in. This
mountain châlet would be just the thing, and I made up my mind to
interview the recluse on my way home.
The sun sank, and night came up with a rush out of the Mediterranean.
Everything was dead still. There are no birds in these solitudes, and the hum
of day insects was over. Although the moon rose almost at once and gave
sufficient light to steer by, the place was eerie. Immense rocks threw ashen
shadows. The stone pines stood like silent sentinels, and the huge coronet of

jewels—topaz against black velvet—that was Monte Carlo seemed a
hundred miles away.
Following my directions, I came at length to the garden wall of a fairly
large villa, painted all along the sides, with gigantic and melancholy trees,
and the moonlight shed a ghostly radiance upon it. This, I knew, was the
house in occupation. The one that might be let was lower down the slope
and on the other side of the road—to my right. I could just see the roof of it
as I peered over the parapet.
Pushing open a wooden gate, I went up the garden path towards the Villa
Turquoise—that I had discovered was its name. Tree frogs were croaking
round the house, but as it was winter, there were no friendly fireflies; once
or twice the fans of a palm clicked with a dry, rustling noise.
It was difficult to find the door as I came up to the villa, but after a moment,
I saw a broad band of yellow light coming from the side, and turned
towards it. I walked upon the turf of a little lawn, and threaded my way
between orange and pepper trees, with here and there a bush of Cape
gooseberries.
And up to that moment I never had a suspicion or a qualm. Indeed, I felt at
peace with myself and all the world, washed and purified by the sweet
Alpine air and all the loveliness my eyes had looked upon that day. Then I
heard, clear, strong and sudden, a chord of music on a piano.
I stopped dead still.
Again that crash of sound, and then a smooth and mellow arpeggio, as
masterly fingers ran up and down the keys of a magnificent instrument.
I grew cold, suddenly and horribly cold.
I could see nothing but a long French window glowing orange with light in
the dark side of the house. I had heard nothing but some chords upon a
grand piano.
But in that moment, though subconsciously, I knew.
I moved forward in little automatic jerks, listening with a dreadful fear, a
sick certainty. The second before I came to the window and looked inside, it

began.
Played by a master hand, I heard the opening notes of the Third Ballade of
Chopin....
Another step, and, in the darkness myself, I could see into the room.
The musician was Mr. Vargus.
He had grown a little moustache, which was waxed at the ends, and a small
black imperial on his chin. He was also much fatter than when I had seen
him last, and he wore a smoking jacket of purple velvet. On one finger was
a diamond ring, which flashed in the lamplight as the firm, powerful hands
rose and fell.
There was a soft smile in the sly eyes as he interpreted the beautiful,
fantastic music.
I am going to tell you what happened without comment or any reference
whatever to my own feelings.
The melody progressed to that marvellous passage which Beardsley saw in
line as a white horse ambling through a dark wood of pines, ridden by a
lady in a dress of black velvet.
At the opening chords of the theme a door behind the player opened quietly.
He heard nothing.
An awful and august figure entered.
It was Danjuro, but not the Danjuro I had ever known.
He wore a robe of yellow silk with wide kimono sleeves, and a sash of
purple round his waist. Into the sash was thrust the long scabbard of an
ancient Japanese sword—a scabbard of tortoise-shell and silver. His hair
was differently arranged, his lips compressed into a single line. The eyes,
which seemed curiously elongated, glittered like black lacquer in a high
light.
He crept forward and touched Vargus on the shoulder.

The man in the velvet coat leapt up with a short, sharp cry. Then he
whipped round and came face to face with Danjuro.
They remained, staring into each other's eyes for several seconds.
I saw a ghostly change beginning in the pirate's face. Inch by inch
something crept over it like a veil as life ebbed away. Then he fell in a
crumpled heap upon the carpet.
The Japanese looked down at him without a change in his dreadful stony
glare. Then he bent down and pulled the limp form out straight, turning it
with its face downwards. He drew the sword and lifted it high above his
head.
As it gleamed I shut my eyes....
When I looked again, sick with the sickness of death itself, the figure in the
yellow robe had raised both arms above its head. The sleeves had slipped
away and the coils of muscle stood out upon the brown flesh.
Danjuro's lips were parted. He seemed to be speaking rapidly to something
above him. His whole face was irradiated with joy, and the sword in his
right hand shone like a tall flame.
He remained there for some little time. Then he lowered his arms, and
taking a square of purple silk from his breast, he cleansed the sword, and I
knew what he was going to do.
He placed the jewelled hilt upon the carpet and adjusted the point at his
waist, steadying the blade with his left hand. Then, with a loud cry, as if of
exaltation, he fell heavily forward....
He had gone to his own place in the way appointed to the Heroes of Old
Japan.

THE END

PRINTED AT
THE CHAPEL RIVER PRESS
KINGSTON, SURREY.

ADVERTISEMENTS

Paternoster House,
Paternoster Row,
London, E.C.
July, 1919.

Messrs. HURST &
BLACKETT'S
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OF

NEW BOOKS
FOR THE AUTUMN OF 1919

An Important Book
By HARRY FURNISS

My Bohemian Days
With over 120 illustrations from original
and characteristic drawings by
this famous artist.
In one volume, demy cloth, 16s. net.

As a famous caricaturist and humorous artist
the author has intimate knowledge of the life
of which he writes. He knew Bohemia from
the inside, and was closely associated with
many of the interesting people who are
introduced into his book. He carries his
humour into his writing, and there are
numbers of good stories to help him. The
book not only makes enjoyable reading, but
it also throws a good deal of light on a
number of well-known characters in the
world of Bohemia and the atmosphere in
which they lived. The many drawings by the
author which illustrate the book are a special
feature, and greatly add to its interest.

A New Volume of the famous

Memoirs of William Hickey
Edited by ALFRED SPENCER
In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 15s. net.
This third volume continues the memoirs
from 1782, and will be found as fascinating
as those which have already been published.
It contains much interesting matter
concerning East India in the old Colonial
days, and a number of interesting letters
arising out of the retention of Hickey and his
companion, Charlotte Barry, as prisoners by
the French on their way out to Calcutta. It is
possible that the work may be completed
with this volume, but a fourth volume may

perhaps be necessary. The price of the
present volume has, owing to increased costs
of production, been advanced to 15s. net, and
the price of the first two volumes has also
had to be increased.
Reprints are now ready of Vol. I. (the Third
Edition) and Vol. II. (the Second Edition)
(1749 to 1782), each in demy 8vo, cloth gilt,
15s. net. Vol. II. contains photogravure
portraits.
A few short extracts from scores of
columns of Reviews:
The Athenæum: "One of the most interesting
eighteenth-century documents that have
appeared for some time."
The Times: "Fascinating for its honesty and
vividness; it is difficult to give any idea of
the spontaneous vivacity of the narration; it is
of remarkable interest."
The Spectator: "Deserves, both for its human
and historical interest, to be widely studied."
Daily Telegraph: "A 'find' of really important
interest, likely to take an important place
among eighteenth-century documents."
Manchester Guardian: "For colour and zest
these memoirs would be hard to beat; were
they fiction they would be called
'unmatchable pictures of the time.'"
The Globe: "A glorious book. Its period is a
little later than Tom Jones, but the splendid
rollicking spirit is the same. No lover of

English literature can fail to enjoy to the
utmost the virile jolly picture it represents."
Daily Express: "One of the most absorbingly
interesting books of recent times."

A delightful volume
By LADY CATHERINE MILNES
GASKELL

A Woman's Soul
By the Author of "Friends Round the
Wrekin," "A Shropshire Lass and Lad," etc.
In demy, cloth, 16s. net.
Under a thin guise of fiction Lady Catherine
Milnes Gaskell has written a most
sympathetic and entertaining account of her
experiences during the war, and those of her
friends and neighbours. Like many other
ladies of position she threw herself heart and
soul into the every-day drudgery of hospital
work and the numerous duties of those who
undertook the responsibilities of large
country estates in the absence of their
owners; and she gives us in a most delightful
story a very true insight into the activities,
thoughts and feelings of a class which did a
great deal of war work, and said very little
about it.
Her previous books have already established
her as a close observer of human nature and a

writer with a wide, tolerant outlook and a
style of unusual distinction.
Some Press opinions on the Author's
work:
"The book, fresh and alive, reads as if it were
an actual record of her life."—Times.
"It is the real thing that interests this pleasant
author, the real aspect of nature, the real
romance of the countryside, the real meaning
of life."—Daily Telegraph.
"All those who have read and liked her
previous books will find the same fragrance
the same chatty friendliness, the same easy
niceness."—Observer.
"All that she writes she invests with an air of
delicate distinction."—Spectator.

Just Ready
A TIMELY AND IMPORTANT BOOK

The New Traffic
(Aircraft)
By W. H. BERRY
Editor of The Car and Aviation and Author of
"Aircraft in War and Commerce," "Fighting
Aeroplanes," &c.

In cr. 8vo, bound with frontispiece and a
wrapper in colours, 3s. 6d. net.
One of the greatest problems of the day is to
determine how aircraft can be turned to the
best advantage in the service of the country.
The war is over, but the days for the use of
aircraft in the carrying of passengers, goods,
and mails, and for the convenience and
pleasure of the private user have only just
begun. Mr. Berry's book deals with the last
year or two of aviation, the present position
and what may be expected in the future.
Already passenger and mail services are
being established, and it will probably not be
long before many men will be using
aeroplanes in the way they now use cars,
only they will be able to go where cars
cannot, and at a much quicker pace. Mr.
Berry's book is for the general reader. He
tells him what he will want to know, takes
him through actual flights, explains engines,
controls, construction, cross country and
overseas flying, laws, rules and traffic
regulations, what cost of services will be, and
how mail services already established are
working. Everything that a man wants to
know who expects to fly on his own account
or who hopes to be taken up as a passenger
will be found here. The book is particularly
timely in view of the enormous interest now
being taken by the press in the subject of the
future uses of aircraft.

Just Published

Elizabethan Ulster
By LORD ERNEST HAMILTON
Author of "The First Seven Divisions" (21st
Edition), "The Soul of Ulster," etc.
In demy 8vo, cloth, 16s. net.
"A very full and detailed story of the
beginnings of Ulster he has made a history,
very lively and entertaining without
sacrificing anything of the seriousness with
which it deserves to be treated."—
Westminster Gazette.
"A detailed account of the amazingly
complex affairs of Ulster during Elizabeth's
reign.... The book is a just picture of a
quaking bog of seething hatreds."—Morning
Post.
"A picturesque story of lawless chiefs, unruly
clans, ruthless soldiers, and crafty but
bewildered statesmen."—Athenæum.
"This history is studiously impartial ... a
valuable and important contribution to Irish
history."—Scotsman.

NEW NOVELS
For the AUTUMN, 1919.
Each in crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. 9d. net.

Sanity Jane
By COUNTESS BARCYNSKA
Author of "The Honey Pot" (60th Thousand),
"Love Maggy," etc.
This novel is almost certain to be in very
great demand. It is a live book, and Sanity is
a very real girl. The book is distinctive, and a
most intriguing situation is created when the
man Sanity loves believes her to be the
woman—a stranger to him—who is to
provide the compromising circumstances
necessary for his wife to obtain, "by
arrangement," her divorce. The author, in
taking Sanity through her very interesting
career, deals in her characteristic manner
with life and people as one finds them to-day.

The Death Drum
By MARGARET PETERSON
Author of "To Love," "Butterfly Wings,"
"The Lure of the Little Drum," etc.
As in her last novel, "The Sword Points of
Love," Miss Peterson has chosen East Africa
as the background for her new story. It is
based on a native superstition that very few
white people know anything about, but which
may in time cause trouble. It has, at any rate,
provided the author with a fine idea for her
novel, and she has made the best possible use
of it. The book is absorbingly interesting, full

of thrilling incident and adventure, and with
many touches of native life that are
particularly effective, coming as they do
from one who is living among them.

Panther
A Comedy of Morals
By R. A. FOSTER-MELLIAR
Author of "Blindstone," "And Betty Too,"
etc.
A novel of country life, in which there is a
good mixture of love-making, hunting,
intrigue, and almost murder. Two well-
contrasted and charming girls divide the
honours as heroines, and uncertainty as to
what will happen to them is well kept up.
There are some very interesting characters
capitally portrayed, and, above all, there is a
really good story well told in uncommonly
good writing.

The Air Pirate
By C. RANGER-GULL
Author of "The Snare of the Fowler," etc.
The author dates his story forward, when
rapid transit and transport will be carried on
by air. One of the great points about it is that
the author is the first in the field with his

idea. The Air Pirate, a mysterious figure, who
had been a daring airman in the Great War,
has his lair in Cornwall, and raids the
Atlantic with a wonderful airship. There is a
love story, in which a young English baronet
of the Government Air Police is the hero and
a beautiful young actress the heroine. She is
carried off to Cornwall by the pirate, who is
in love with her, in his airship, and then
follow many thrilling adventures in the
efforts of her young lover to discover her.
One sensation follows another rapidly, and
the reader is kept in breathless suspense all
through. It is the best thing the author has yet
done.

Love and the Cardinal
By J. H. SYMONS
Author of "The Supreme Mystery"
A story of the days of Cardinal Wolsey and
the Court of Henry VIII. It will appeal to all
who like a good historical romance. The
hero, a young esquire, finds Wolsey, when he
was but a poor parish priest, in the village
pillory and sets him free. When next they
meet, Wolsey is the powerful Cardinal, and
the hero has been condemned to torture for
trying to save the Duke of Buckingham,
whose daughter he worships. Wolsey helps
the hero and brings him to Court. There are
plottings and jealousies and narrow escapes,
but in the end Love is triumphant.

Spade Work
By Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY
Author of "Candlelight," etc.
Another of the Author's stories of Sussex
Caroline Beech and her mother, with the airs
of a duchess who has had to do the work of a
cook, and Enoch Wood, the musician who
demands fame above all things, and Juniper
Sadgrove, with her glorious voice, are the
characters whose interplay form the plot of
Mrs. Dudeney's latest novel. She has set the
scene in her loved Sussex, and her
description of the old-world village and its
inhabitants is most delightful. Enoch's career
is the rock on which the ship of his love may
be wrecked, but the development of the story
will hold the reader's attention to the last
page.

The Green Shoes of April
By RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA
Author of "Morning Joy," "Lark's Gate," etc.
An Irish love story out of the common, and
with many ups and downs, but with a happy
ending. It is, as one expects from Miss
Macnamara, unusually well written with
excellent character drawing. Jasper Lysaght
made a mistaken marriage with an actress

when he was very young. They hold together
but a little while, when he meets his true
mate, but a maliciously interfering
grandmother and wounded pride separate
them. They come together again and marry,
Jasper believing himself free, but his first
wife reappears. All, however, comes right in
the end.

Shooting Stars
By SOPHIE KERR
An intensely dramatic novel of married life
—the story of Harleth Crossey ("as self-
willed as a shooting star and about as
uncomfortable around the house"), and his
wife Marcia—she made all the concessions,
all the adjustments and all the compromises
until—something happened.
You might have called it a rebellion; it was a
startling, if cruel awakening as well.

The Master Mind
By FERGUS HUME
Author of "The Mystery of A Hansom Cab,"
"Heart of Ice." etc.
In the working out of the plot and the
discovery of the master mind of a gang of
thieves the author keeps the reader's attention
firmly fixed. The book is written carefully;

there are no great improbabilities; the
characters are human, not too good and not
impossibly wicked; the heroine is a charming
natural girl, the hero a nice boy. There is a
mystery surrounding a murder and theft, and
it might all have happened. A good readable
story.

A Whirlwind of Passion
By EDNA WORTHLEY UNDERWOOD
The publishers have pleasure in introducing
the author with this novel. It is perhaps not
too much to say that since "Quo Vadis," no
more powerful historical romance has been
produced. The story is most dramatic, and the
central figure is the great Catherine. The
reader is given a clear insight into the
Russian Court and its intrigues. The time of
the story is the dramatic moment when the
reign of the Empress Elizabeth was drawing
to a close, and the throne was hanging in the
balance. The author has seized on this tense
situation, and told a wonderful story of love,
of passion, of plotting and ruthless power, of
murder and sudden death. It is a brilliant
book, full of life, movement and colour, and
it is of particular interest at the present time.

Green Ladies
By DOUGLAS NEWTON

Author of "The War Caché," etc.
A charming story told in a delightful manner,
recalling the work of Henry Harland. The
scene is in Hampshire, where some mystery
attaches to the lady owner of a house
occupied temporarily by a much-travelled
man, who is recovering his health. How he
becomes interested in the lady, how he
gradually discovers her story, how he labours
to free her from the cloud that oppresses her,
and finally is made happy by her, is so
daintily and beautifully related, that one
wishes to read many of the pages over again.
Mr. Douglas Newton goes a long step
forward with this novel, which reveals him in
a new capacity.

Embers
By JULES DEPREND
A novel that won a $10,000 prize in America.
This story of life among the French
Canadians on the American border is
refreshingly outside the common run of
novels. It is remarkable for its terseness of
expression and as a convincing piece of
realism. It is as strong and virile as Balzac,
and its story so absorbing with its many
dramatic situations, that it holds the attention
from beginning to end. Against his father's
wishes, the hero takes up a course of study
with a view to becoming a priest. During his
holidays he sees much of a neighbour's

daughter, who had been a companion of his
childhood. How he succumbs, then decides
to continue his studies abroad, and eventually
returns to his sweetheart and child is told in
this powerful book, of which it may be said
that it is not only a fine piece of work, but
one of genius.

Firecracker Jane
By ALICE CALHOUN HAINES
A breathless romance of the Mexican border,
with a spirited heroine, a good sportswoman
with a high sense of honour. How she is,
under stress, married by her Mexican cousin
and plunged into the Mexican turmoil,
captured by a brutal revolutionist, and effects
her escape, and how the love tangle is
unravelled, and she is left with her real love
mate, makes thrilling reading. The story is
full of adventure, vivacious and fresh.

The Cabin (La Barraca)
By V. BLASCO IBANEZ
Author of "The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse," etc.
Over a Quarter of a Million copies of this
author's work have already been sold in
English speaking countries.

This may be said to be the masterpiece of a
novelist who has established himself as a
great master. "The Cabin" was the book
which first made Ibanez's reputation outside
Spain, and very large numbers of it have
been sold on the Continent and in America
since its first appearance. It is a vivid
presentation of one side of Spanish life, and
tells how a hard-working farmer and his
family are oppressed and wronged by his
neighbours, who had determined that the
farm should not be tilled. Disaster overtakes
the family at the end of the conflict, and the
elemental theme of a blind communal hatred
is thus worked out to its logical conclusion.
The story seems to write itself, so simply, and
perfectly is it done. It is a remarkable work
of art.

The Terrible Island
By BEATRICE GRIMSHAW
Author of "In the Strange South Seas," "Red
Bob of the Islands," etc.
This story has all the charm and glamour of
the South Seas and a background of grim
mystery, which make a plot full of thrills as
well as of delightful romance. "The Lady of
Sea," who appears in such strange fashion
and so charms the hearts of Flower and
Owen Ireland, is a delicious heroine, whose
romance will appeal to every reader, while
"Rocky Jim" is a remarkable character

creation. A novel that will well support the
author's great reputation.

Messrs. HURST & BLACKETT announce
that they have taken over the publication of
the very popular book—

Honeymoon Dialogues
By JAMES JAMES
of which a large edition (the 10th) is now
ready.
In crown 8vo. cloth, with picture wrapper, 4s.
6d. net.

SOME VERY SUCCESSFUL NOVELS.
Recently Published.

The Holiday Husband
2nd Edition By DOLF
WYLLARDE
"A story of such temptation as must come to
many girls."—Daily Mail.
"Dolf Wyllarde has treated a delicate subject
with firmness and skill. Every girl should
read it."—Ladies' Field.

"The subject is one suggested by the
problems that assail the independent girl of
to-day. In the treatment the authoress
excels."—Evening News.

The Sword Points of Love
2nd Edition By
MARGARET PETERSON
"A very striking book. A sense of the actual
quite out of the common. By far her best
book."—Daily News.
"A clever story set out with a sober reality
which lends additional effectiveness."—
Scotsman.

Who Cares?
3rd Edition By COSMO
HAMILTON
"The hero is a delightful character.... A vivid
and arresting story, assured of wide
popularity."—Lady.
"An entertaining holiday novel ... depicts the
pleasure-loving Joan cleverly and with
agility."—Evening News.

Nurse Benson

2nd Edition By JUSTIN
HUNTLY McCARTHY
"Translated into a novel with neat and
dexterous hand ... the dialogue sparkles and
crackles exhilaratingly."—Sketch.
"As effective in a book as on the stage."—
Yorkshire Post.
"A particularly readable novel ... exactly the
kind for the holiday kit."—Morning Post.

Morning Joy
By RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA
"Desirée is a charming figure of youthful
womanhood."—Scotsman.
"A very readable story that should prove
popular. The characterization is very
clever."—Sheffield Telegraph.

The Devil's Problem
2nd Edition By
MARGARET WESTRUP
"Delicately and skilfully done ... shows a
great deal of cleverness."—Westminster
Gazette.
"Characters well drawn ... we admire the
novel for diction and balance."—Times.

"Every woman reader will delight in this
book. The characters are remarkably well
drawn."—Ladies' Pictorial.

The Stain
By ELEANOR NEPEAN
"An intriguing situation, readable and well
handled, with much good
characterisation."—Times.

Hurst & Blackett's
NEW 3/6 Net SERIES
OF

FAMOUS NOVELS
Each printed on good paper, cloth bound,
with picture wrapper in colours.
The Publishers have pleasure in announcing
the issue of this new series of very successful
novels. They are as well produced as new 6/-
Editions.

By GERTRUDE PAGE
Whose Sales are now in the Second Million

Winding Paths
Some There are—
Where the Strange Roads Go
Down
Follow After
By COSMO HAMILTON
Scandal
5th Edition

By CYNTHIA STOCKLEY
Poppy
177th Thousand

The Claw
128th Thousand
Also specially bound, 3/6 net.
A Gift Edition of Gertrude Page's
famous book

Two Lovers and a Lighthouse
Which has been described as one of the
most beautiful love stories ever written.

STANDARD BOOKS ON THE HORSE.
By Capt. M. HORACE HAYES,
F.R.C.V.S.

POINTS OF THE HORSE
A Treatise on the Conformation, Movements,
Breeds and Evolution of the Horse, with 658
illustrations. Revised and enlarged edition,
and 279 illustrations added. 1 vol., super
royal 8vo, cloth gilt and gilt top, 34s.

VETERINARY NOTES. For
Horse Owners
An Illustrated Manual of Horse Medicine and
Surgery written in simple language. A New
(the 8th) Edition, brought up to date by
various Experts in Veterinary Science. One
vol., demy 8vo, cloth gilt. 15s. net, with over
250 Illustrations. This notable work has
maintained its supremacy for 37 years.

STABLE MANAGEMENT
AND EXERCISE: a Book for
Horse Owners and Students
Revised and Enlarged Edition. Illustrated by
Drawings and numerous
Reproductions of Photographs taken
specially for this work.
In one vol., demy 8vo, cloth gilt. 12s. net.

ILLUSTRATED
HORSEBREAKING
Revised and Enlarged Edition, with 130
Illustrations from Drawings by J. H. Oswald
Brown and from Photographs specially taken
for the work. One vol., demy 8vo, cloth gilt,
12s. net.

RIDING AND HUNTING
Revised and Enlarged Edition. In one vol.,
demy 8vo, cloth, 16s. net, with
upwards of 250 reproductions of
Photographs and Drawings.

FRIEDBERGER &
FROHNER'S
VETERINARY
PATHOLOGY
Translated and Edited
by Captain Hayes.
With notes on Bacteriology by Prof. R.
Tanner Hewlett, M.D., D.P.H. Revised and
Enlarged Edition, re-translated. 2 vols., demy
8vo, cloth gilt, 21s. net.
By MRS. HAYES

THE HORSEWOMAN: A
Practical Guide.

Originally edited by the late Captain M. H.
HAYES. Revised Edition, Enlarged.
In one vol., demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 12s. net,
with 156 illustrations.
By JAMES FILLIS
Ecuyer en chef to the Central Cavalry School
at St. Petersburg.

BREAKING AND RIDING.
With Military Commentaries.
Translated by Captain M. H. HAYES. With 70
illustrations from Photographs and
Sketches taken on the spot. In one vol., demy
8vo, cloth gilt, 16s. net.
"A higher authority there could not be."—
Field.

MODERN POLO
By Capt. E. D. MILLER
In demy, 8 vo, cloth gilt, with about 150
illustrations and diagrams of which over 50
are entirely new to the work, 16s. net.

Hurst & Blackett's 2/- NET
Novels

Each volume bound, and with a most
attractive picture wrapper in colours.

Fate and Drusilla
By Alice and Claude Askew

Love Maggy
By Countess Barcynska

The Golden Triangle
By Maurice Le Blanc

The Crystal Stopper
By Maurice Le Blanc

The Bombshell
By Maurice Le Blanc

To Right the Wrong
By Edna Lyall

In Spite of All
By Edna Lyall

Love's Burden

By Margaret Peterson

Fate and the Watcher
By Margaret Peterson

Love Wins
By Effie Adelaide Rowlands

Bequeathed
By Beatrice Whitby

Hurst & Blackett's 2/- NET
Novels
Already Published.
Each volume bound and with a
most attractive picture wrapper

Drusilla's Point of By
Madame Albanesi
View
A Question of
Madame Albanesi
Quality
Countess
The Honey Pot
Barcynska

The Youngest Miss Mrs. B. M.
Mowbray Croker
Red Bob of the Beatrice
Islands Grimshaw
Behold and See Lilith Hope
Heart of Ice Fergus Hume
The Hardy
Edna Lyall
Norseman
Knight Errant Edna Lyall
We Two Edna Lyall
Won by Waiting Edna Lyall
In the Golden Days Edna Lyall
Donovan Edna Lyall
Two Lovers and a
Gertrude Page
Lighthouse
The Edge O' Beyond Gertrude Page
Paddy the Next Best
Gertrude Page
Thing
Love in the
Gertrude Page
Wilderness
The Silent Rancher Gertrude Page
The Rhodesian Gertrude Page
The Great
Gertrude Page
Splendour
Margaret
To Love
Peterson
Margaret
Butterfly Wings
Peterson
Spies of the Kaiser Wm. Le Queux
Secrets of the
Wm. Le Queux
Foreign Office
The House of the
Wm. Le Queux
Wicked
The Man from
Wm. Le Queux
Downing Street

The Devil's Carnival Wm. Le Queux
Mrs. Baillie
The Ides of March
Reynolds
Worlds End Amelie Rives
(Princess
Troubetzkoy)
Shadows of Flames Amelie Rives
(Princess
Troubetzkoy)
Pan's Mountain Amelie Rives
(Princess
Troubetzkoy)
The Long Lane's Hallie Erminie
Turning Rives
Lavender's Love Effie Adelaide
Story Rowlands
The Man with the Effie Adelaide
Money Rowlands
The Woman Who
Lindsay Russell
Lived Again
The Turnstile of Mrs. C. N.
Night Williamson
Also by WM. LE QUEUX

The Life Story of the Ex-
Crown Princess of Saxony
Told by Herself and related by Wm. Le
Queux.
Rasputin (The amazing true story of the
Rascal Monk)
180th Thousand
And a New Volume

The Secret Shame of the
Kaiser
This Book of startling revelations, which is
probably destined to be as popular as the
Author's "Rasputin," the Rascal Monk
(180th thousand), is now published for the
first time.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AIR PIRATE
***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be
renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law
means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the
Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States
without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a
registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook,
except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying
royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge
anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg
eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do
practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by
U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any
other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you
agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License
available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing
Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work,
you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the
terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright)
agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement,
you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy
of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to
be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on
or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can
do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying
with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a
lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you
follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to
Project Gutenberg electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual
work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are

located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works
based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are
removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing
Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for
keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can
easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you
share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a
constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the
laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before
downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating
derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work.
The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status
of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied
or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with
this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in
the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country
where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from
texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice
indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the
work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without
paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a
work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on
the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs
1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the
permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply
with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed
by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project
Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the
copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License
terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any
other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently
displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or
immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the
official Project Gutenberg website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no
additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of
exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work
in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format
must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph
1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing,
copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply
with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to
or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the
use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the
owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate
royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days
following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to
prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly
marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about
donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does
not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You
must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all
access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in
this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project

Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works
not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and
the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as,
but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription
errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that
damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except
for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to
you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE
THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT
EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE
THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you
discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you
can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund.
If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to

you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work
electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you
may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or
limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable
to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum
disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity
or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause
to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b)
alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg
work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project
Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic
works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including
obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the

efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of
life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance
they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring
that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for
generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for
Project Gutenberg and future generations. To learn more about the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations
can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)
(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of
Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541.
Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s
laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516,
Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment

including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are
particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort,
much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these
requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not
received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have
not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against
accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us
with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the
United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods
and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including
checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg
electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with
anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg
eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions,
all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a

copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in
compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how
to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email
newsletter to hear about new eBooks.