_3. Up the Water-Tunnel_
The man at the searchlight sprang for the maddened Malays, tugging athis pistol as he jumped. Before he got the weapon out, a dagger slashedhis jugular and he went down gurgling in death. One of the Malaysmeanwhile had knocked Inspector Campbell from his feet, his knife-handswooping down, his eyes blazing.
Ennis' gun roared and the bullet hit the Malay between the eyes. But ashe slumped limply, the other fanatic was upon Ennis from the side.Before Ennis could whirl to meet him, the attacker's knife grazed downpast his cheek like a brand of living fire. He was borne backward by therush, felt the hot breath of the crazed Malay in his face, thedagger-point at his throat.
Shots roared quickly, one after another, and with each shot the Malaypressing Ennis back jerked convulsively. With the light of murderousmadness fading from his eyes, he still strove to drive the dagger homeinto the American's throat. But a hand jerked him back and he layprostrate and still.
Ennis scrambled up to find Inspector Campbell, pale and determined, overhim. The detective had shot the attacker from behind.
The captain of the cutter and two of his men lay dead in the cockpitbeside the two Malays. The remaining seaman, the helmsman, held hisshoulder and groaned.
Ennis whirled. The motor-boat of Chandra Dass was no longer beside thecutter, and there was no sight of it anywhere on the black sea ahead.The Hindoo had taken advantage of the fight to make good his escape withhis two other servants and their prisoners.
"Campbell, he's gone!" cried the young American frantically. "He's gotaway!"
The inspector's eyes were bright with cold flame of anger. "Yes, ChandraDass sacrificed these two Malays to hold us up long enough for him toescape."
Campbell whirled to the helmsman. "You're not badly hurt?"
"Only a scratch, but I nearly broke my shoulder when I fell," answeredthe man.
"Then head on around North Foreland!" Campbell cried. "We may still beable to catch up to them."
"But Captain Wilson and the others are killed," protested the helmsman."I've got to report----"
"You can report later," rasped the inspector. "Do as I say--I'll beresponsible."
"Very well, sir," said the helmsman, and jumped back to the wheel.
In a minute the big cutter was roaring ahead over the heaving blackwaves, its searchlight clawing the darkness ahead. There was no sign nowof the craft of Chandra Dass ahead. They raced abreast of the lights ofMargate, started rounding the North Foreland, pounded by bigger seas.
Inspector Campbell had dragged the bodies of the dead policemen andtheir two slayers down into the cabin of the cutter. He came up andcrouched down with Ennis beside Sturt, the helmsman.
"I found these on the two Malays," Campbell shouted to the American,holding out two little objects in his spray-wet hand.
Each was a flat star of gray metal in which was set a large oval,cabochon-cut jewel. The jewels flashed and dazzled with deep color, butit was a color wholly unfamiliar and alien to their eyes.
"They're not any color we know on earth," Campbell shouted. "I believethese jewels came from somewhere beyond the Door, and that these arebadges of the Brotherhood of the Door."
Sturt, the helmsman, leaned toward the inspector. "We've rounded NorthForeland, sir," he cried. "Head straight south along the coast,"Campbell ordered. "Chandra Dass must have gone this way. No doubt hethinks he's shaken us off, and is making for the gathering-place of theBrotherhood, wherever that may be."
"The cutter isn't built for seas like this," Sturt said, shaking hishead. "But I'll do it."
They were now following the coast southward, the lights of Ramsgatedropping back on their right. The waters out here in the Channel werewilder, great black waves tossing the cutter to the sky one moment, andthen dropping it sickeningly the next. Frequently its screws racedloudly as they encountered no resistance but air.
Ennis, clinging precariously on the foredeck, turned the searchlight'sstabbing white beam back and forth on the heaving dark sea ahead, butwithout any sign of their quarry disclosed.
White foam of breaking waves began to show around them like bared teeth,and there was a humming in the air.
"Storm coming up the Channel," Sturt exclaimed. "It'll do for us if itcatches us out here."
"We've got to keep on," Ennis told him desperately. "We must come upwith them soon!"
The coast on their right was now one of black, rocky cliffs, toweringall along the shore in a jagged, frowning wall against which the wavesdashed foamy white. The cutter crept southward over the wild waters,tossed like a chip upon the great waves. Sturt was having a hard timeholding the craft out from the rocks, and had its prow pointed obliquelyaway from them.
The humming in the air changed to a shrill whistling as the outriderwinds of the storm came upon them. The cutter tossed still more wildlyand black masses of water smashed in upon them from the darkness, dazingand drenching them.
Suddenly Ennis yelled, "There's the lights of a boat ahead! There,moving in toward the cliffs!"
He pointed ahead, and Campbell and the helmsman peered through theblinding spray and darkness. A pair of low lights were moving at highspeed on the waters there, straight toward the towering black cliffs.Then they vanished suddenly from sight.
"There must be a hidden opening or harbor of some kind in the cliffs!"Inspector Campbell exclaimed. "But that can't be Chandra Dass' boat, forit carried no lights."
"It might be others of the Brotherhood going to the meeting-place!"Ennis exclaimed. "We can follow and see."
* * * * *
Sturt thrust his head through the flying spray and shouted, "There areopenings and water-caverns in plenty along these cliffs, but there'snothing in any of them."
"We'll find out," Campbell said. "Head straight toward the cliffs inthere where that boat vanished."
"If we can't find the opening we'll be smashed to flinders on thosecliffs," Sturt warned.
"I'm gambling that we'll find the opening," Campbell told him. "Goahead."
Sturt's face set stolidly and he said, "Yes, sir."
He turned the prow of the cutter toward the cliffs. Instantly theydashed forward toward the rock walls with greatly increased speed, wildwaves bearing them onward like charging stallions of the sea.
Hunched beside the helmsman, the searchlight stabbing the dark wildly asthe cutter was flung forward by the waves, Ennis and the inspectorwatched as the cliffs loomed closer ahead. The brilliant white beamstruck across the rushing, mountainous waves and showed only thetowering barriers of rock, battered and smitten by the raving watersthat frothed white. They could hear the booming thunder of the ragingocean striking the rock.
Like a projectile hurled by a giant hand, the cutter fairly flew nowtoward the cliffs. They now could see even the little streams that ranoff the rough rock wall as each giant wave broke against it. They werealmost upon it.
Sturt's face was deathly. "I don't see any opening!" he yelled. "Andwe're going to hit in a moment!"
"To your left!" screamed Inspector Campbell over the booming thunder."There's an arched opening there."
Now Ennis saw it also, a huge arch-like opening in the cliff that hadbeen concealed by an angle of the wall. Sturt tried frantically to headthe cutter toward it, but the wheel was useless as the great waves borethe craft along. Ennis saw they would strike a little to the side of theopening. The cliff loomed ahead, and he closed his eyes to the impact.
There was no impact. And as he heard a hoarse cry from InspectorCampbell, he opened his eyes.
The cutter was flying in through the mighty opening, snatched into it bypowerful currents. They were whirled irresistibly forward under the hugerock arch, which loomed forty feet over their heads. Before themstretched a winding water-tunnel inside the cliff.
And now they were out of the wild uproar of the storming waters outside,and in an almost stupefying silence. Smoothly, resistlessly, the currentbore them on in the tunnel, whose winding turns ahead wer
e lit up bytheir searchlight.
"God, that was close!" exclaimed Inspector Campbell.
His eyes flashed. "Ennis, I believe that we have found thegathering-place of the Brotherhood. That boat we sighted is somewhereahead in here, and so must be Chandra Dass, and your wife."
Ennis' hand tightened on his gun-butt. "If that's so--if we can justfind them----"
"Blind action won't help if we do," said the inspector swiftly. "Theremust be all the number of the Brotherhood's members assembled here, andwe can't fight them all."
His eyes suddenly lit and he took the blazing jeweled stars from hispocket. "These badges! With them we can pose as members of theBrotherhood, perhaps long enough to find your wife."
"But Chandra Dass will be there, and if he sees us----"
Campbell shrugged. "We'll have to take that chance. It's the only courseopen to us."
The current of the inflowing tide was still bearing them smoothly onwardthrough the winding water-tunnel, around bends and angles where theyscraped the rock, down long straight stretches. Sturt used the motors toguide them around the turns. Meanwhile, Inspector Campbell and Ennisquickly ripped from the cutter its police-insignia and covered allevidences of its being a police craft.
Sturt suddenly snicked off the searchlight. "Light ahead there!" heexclaimed.
Around the next turn of the water-tunnel showed a gleam of strange, softlight.
"Careful, now!" cautioned the inspector. "Sturt, whatever we do, youstay in the cutter. And try to have it ready for a quick getaway, if weleave it."
Sturt nodded silently. The helmsman's stolid face had become a littlepale, but he showed no sign of losing his courage.
* * * * *
The cutter sped around the next turn of the tunnel and emerged into ahuge, softly lit cavern. Sturt's eyes bulged and Campbell uttered anexclamation of amazement. For in this mighty water-cavern there floatedin a great mass, scores of sea-going craft, large and small.
All of them were capable of breasting storm and wind, and some were solarge they could barely have entered. There were small yachts, bigmotor-cruisers, sea-going launches, cutters larger than their own, andamong them the gray motor-launch of Chandra Dass.
They were massed together here, those with masts having lowered them toenter, floating and rubbing sides, quite unoccupied. Around the edges ofthe water-cavern ran a wide rock ledge. But no living person was visibleand there was no visible source for the soft, strange white light thatfilled the astounding place.
"These craft must have come here from all over earth!" Campbellmuttered. "The Brotherhood of the Door has assembled here--we've foundtheir gathering-place all right."
"But where are they?" exclaimed Ennis. "I don't see anyone."
"We'll soon find out," the inspector said. "Sturt, run close to theledge there and we'll get out on it."
Sturt obeyed, and as the cutter bumped the ledge, Campbell and Ennisleaped out onto it. They looked this way and that along it, but no onewas in sight. The weirdness of it was unnerving, the strangely lit,mighty cavern, the assembled boats, the utter silence.
"Follow me," Campbell said in a low voice. "They must all be somewherenear."
He and Ennis walked a few steps along the ledge, when the Americanstopped. "Campbell, listen!" he whispered.
Dimly there whispered to them, as though from a distance and throughgreat walls, a swelling sound of chanting. As they listened, heartsbeating rapidly, a square of the rock wall of the cavern abruptly flewopen beside them, as though hinged like a door. Inside it was the mouthof a soft-lit, man-high tunnel, and in its opening stood two men. Theywore over their clothing shroud-like, loose-hanging robes of gray,asbestos-like material. They wore hoods of the same gray stuff overtheir heads, pierced with slits at the eyes and mouth. And each wore onhis breast the blazing star-badge.
Through the eye-slits the eyes of the two surveyed Campbell and Ennis asthey halted, transfixed by the sudden apparition. Then one of the hoodedmen spoke measuredly in a hissing, Mongolian voice.
"Are you who come here of the Brotherhood of the Door?" he asked,apparently repeating a customary challenge.
Campbell answered, his flat voice tremorless. "We are of theBrotherhood."
"Why do you not wear the badge of the Brotherhood, then?"
For answer, the inspector reached in his pocket for the strange emblemand fastened it to his lapel. Ennis did the same.
"Enter, brothers," said the hissing, hooded shape, standing aside to letthem pass.
As they stepped into the tunnel, the hooded guard added in slightly morenatural tones, "Brothers, you two are late. You must hurry to get yourprotective robes, for the ceremony soon begins."
Campbell inclined his head without speaking, and he and Ennis startedalong the tunnel. Its light, as sourceless as that of the greatwater-cavern, revealed that it was chiseled from solid rock and that itwound downward.
When they were out of sight of the two hooded guards, Ennis clutched thedetective's arm convulsively.
"Campbell," he said, "the ceremony begins soon! We've got to find Ruthfirst!"
"We'll try," the inspector answered swiftly. "Those hooded robes areapparently issued to all the members to be worn during the ceremony asprotection, for some reason, and once we get robes and get them on,Chandra Dass won't be able to spot us.
"Look out!" he added an instant later. "Here's the place where the robesare issued!"
The tunnel had debouched suddenly into a wider space in which were agroup of men. Several were wearing the concealing hoods and robes, andone of these hooded figures was handing out, from a large rack of therobes, three of the garments to three dark Easterners who had apparentlyentered in the boat just ahead of the cutter.
The three dark Orientals, their faces gleaming with strange fanaticism,quickly donned the robes and hoods and passed hurriedly on down thetunnel. At once Campbell and Ennis stepped calmly up to the hoodedcustodians of the robes, and extended their hands.
One of the hooded figures took down two robes and handed them to them.But suddenly one of the other hooded men spoke sharply.
Instantly all the hooded men but the one who had spoken, with loudcries, threw themselves forward on Campbell and Paul Ennis.
Taken utterly by surprize, the two had no chance to draw their guns.They were smothered by gray-robed men, held helpless before they couldmove, a half-dozen pistols jammed into their bodies.
Stupefied by the sudden dashing of their hopes, the detective and theyoung American saw the hooded man who had spoken slowly lift theconcealing gray cowl from his face. It was the dark, coldly contemptuousface of Chandra Dass.