***
Once, when I was a boy at the seaside in Wales, I dived into a deep rock pool. Deceived by the clearness of the water, I 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 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-skinned 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 this man 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 flask, Gascoigne."
Someone poured brandy down my throat and I moved my limbs and groaned.
Then I heard a shout as a door 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.
I lay perfectly still, this time by design, and closed my eyes. My first thought was one of bitter disappointment. So they had run the gauntlet, after all. The mystery ship had escaped the swarm of flying 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 I might find others that could prove as valuable. The pirates were disorganized, alarmed. Surely, the moment was favourable?
I was in a dimly-lit place, surrounded by dark figures. How long I lay there 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 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 us. 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. There was a soft malignancy in his voice that made me shudder.
"Vargus is right. It's certain the game's up as far as this place is concerned. They've marked us down, sure enough. In a few minutes I'll take steps to find out exactly how much they do know. We must carry out the emergency plan we've so often rehearsed. Gascoigne, Jones and Sutton, Pointz, fill all the petrol tanks to full capacity, load emergency stores, examine and reverse the airship. 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."
"Do we take the dogs, Chief? They would be useful."
"No, I'll need them with me. The rest of you hold the house till the last moment. Then get in 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'll all be fifty miles out at sea before anyone can break in, and all the swag is packed ready to go on board. Vargus, you 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 in the air 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 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 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 cease 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 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 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 in 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, 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 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 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 cannot free you."
Thus I lied brave
ly. 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 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 would have used to an impudent office boy, "please understand that you can't frighten me. I know men 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 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 match boarded all round. The boarding was painted white, and a cluster of electric lamps hung from the ceiling. There was a carpet on the floor, a couple of armchairs, a writing table and a big steel safe. In one corner was a door, 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 would hardly have known you," he said.
"I would 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 centrepiece 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 into 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 taunt him.
He didn't strike. He began to walk up and down the room, swallowing his rage with an almost superhuman effort. 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 it had 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 Victoria Cross 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 called megalomania. But you aren't anything of the sort, you know. You're 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 -- there was a strong odour of brandy as he entered. His eyes were full and liquid, and he was amazingly focused. I knew 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've 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 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 tonight to where all your police flying boats will never find us."
"By force."
"Well, up to the present I admit I've had to take the law into my own hands. I'm 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 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 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's 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'm 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.