Thorne Guy
The Air Pirate

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."