They turned my chair so that I was facing the mouth of the cave, about thirty yards away.
The moon had gone down. The short summer night was ending, and the first gray light of dawn was beginning to show—a dawn I never expected to see.
Helzephron sat on a stool a few yards away, with his back to the cave entrance. He said something to Vargus, who quietly disappeared behind me.
“Why are we waiting?” I asked.
“Because you had the misfortune to hear my friend Vargus pouring his heart out at the piano, Sir John.”
“I’m still rather confused.”
“I have no objection to satisfying your curiosity. I had intended to put a pistol to your head and throw you into the cove. But Mr. Vargus has some rather unusual tastes, and you have offended him. He asked me for a favor. Since I owe him a great deal, I could hardly refuse.”
He paused.
“But I see he is coming back. You shall have a more practical explanation.”
From somewhere behind me came the soft sound of footsteps.
Then I heard something else—a strange scraping sound, followed by heavy breathing.
Helzephron gave a short, cruel laugh.
Vargus came around my chair.
Then I understood.
He was holding two enormous dogs on leather leashes.
Each animal was as large as a newborn calf. They looked something like Newfoundlands, but their huge bulldog-like heads made them far more terrifying.
“My Tibetan mastiffs,” Helzephron said.
He smiled.
“Death by dogs—for a dog!”
Vargus brought the beasts to within a few yards of me.
Their teeth were exposed. The hair along their backs stood stiffly on end, and their eyes had a dull red glow.
Yet neither dog made a sound.
Both men stared at me, waiting for fear.
They were disappointed.
The bitterness of death had already passed.
That was all.
I could no longer feel fear. Being torn apart by those monstrous dogs seemed no different from any other form of death.
At that moment, I finally understood how religious martyrs, and others who die for causes they truly believe in, can face death so calmly.
Helzephron swore under his breath.
“Get it over with,” he ordered. “Take the dogs to the far end of the cave. When I blow this whistle, let them loose.”
He gave a mad little laugh.
“You’ll hear them coming up behind you, Sir John.”
Vargus disappeared with the dogs.
I stared at the cave entrance.
The darkness was slowly turning gray.
For one brief moment, I thought how much I would have liked to see one more summer sunrise.
Then Helzephron raised his whistle.
The cave entrance seemed to grow smaller and smaller until it looked no bigger than a window.
A window.
I found myself staring at a fat spider slowly lowering itself on a thread.
For some strange reason, I suddenly felt like a child again, sitting beside the nursery window.
Then the whistle shrieked.
My mind snapped back to reality.
I prepared myself to die without making a sound.
The cave entrance suddenly returned to its normal size.
And then I saw something else.
Halfway down a thick rope, hanging by one arm and one leg, was a short, heavily built figure.
The dogs were coming.
Their paws thundered against the stone floor.
The figure’s right arm suddenly rose.
Bang! Crash! Bang! Crash!
The dogs screamed.
Their howls echoed through the cavern.
Helzephron jumped to his feet.
At that exact moment, something came flying toward him like a rubber ball.
I knew who it was.
For an instant I saw a terrible, grinning face as Danjuro hurled himself at the hawk-faced criminal.
There was a strangled scream.
Then came a long, sickening crack.
The two men crashed to the floor together.
Everything happened so quickly that my mind could barely follow it.
Before I could understand what I had seen, another figure raced past me, shouting like a madman.
Then Danjuro stood up.
Alone.
My ropes were being cut.
My stiff arms and legs were being rubbed to restore circulation.
And Danjuro’s calm, triumphant voice said:
“Exit Honourable Helzephron.”
I began to laugh weakly.
“You arrived just in time, Danjuro. Did you kill him?”
He was about to answer when something else happened.
Charles Thumbwood appeared.
He had Vargus by the collar and was kicking him forward while cursing him with a vocabulary I shall not repeat.
“Caught ‘im at the telephone,” Charles gasped.
He gave Vargus another furious kick.
“Gr-r-r, you little swine!”
Another kick.
“Gr-r-r, you slime-lapping leper!”
He dragged Vargus forward again.
“’E was telephoning to ‘is friends, Sir John. Thank Gawd we got here in time!”
Another kick sent Vargus stumbling.
“There’s one thing you’ll remember in a hurry!”
With one final kick, Charles lifted Vargus several inches off the ground and threw him aside.
Then he rushed over to me.
His hands trembled as he felt my arms and shoulders, checking that I was really alive.
Suddenly, the little man burst into tears.
But I had caught what he said.
The telephone.
The whole gang could be on us within two minutes.
They would come desperate and ready to fight for their lives.
“Quick!” I shouted. “Follow me. We have to get Miss Shepherd to safety. We haven’t a second to waste.”
I have no idea how I managed to move.
For the first few yards, every step felt like walking across red-hot iron.
But somehow I forced myself forward.
I ran down the great cavern, past the Pirate Ship, toward the door at the far end.
As I ran, I noticed another door on the left.
It was the door through which I had first entered the cave. Beyond it was the passage leading to the lift.
“Block that passage!” I shouted to Thumbwood. “Anything you can find. It might hold them back for a minute or two. Shoot anyone who gets through!”
He understood immediately.
He stopped and began dragging boxes into position.
I saw him building a makeshift barricade and lying down behind it as I turned toward the door leading to the anteroom outside Helzephron’s private quarters.
We found Constance on her knees in a richly furnished room.
Her maid, Wilson, was huddled in a corner, crying and trembling.
When we burst in, she screamed.
Constance fainted.
I grabbed the unfortunate woman by the shoulders and shook her until she regained control of herself.
There was no time for anything else.
I was so excited that everything seemed perfectly natural and obvious.
As soon as Wilson could think clearly again, I ordered her to look after Constance.
“When she wakes up,” I told her, “tell her we’re all safe. Tell her Helzephron can no longer hurt us.”
Then I hurried back into the cave.
Danjuro and Thumbwood were working like demons.
They had built two strong barricades from boxes and other equipment, each one covering the approaches to the door.
Behind each barricade were several automatic rifles and piles of ammunition.
As I arrived, Danjuro went to the door and opened it wide.
I immediately understood what he had in mind.
The passage was nothing more than a narrow crack in the rock.
Only one man could pass through it at a time.
Anyone coming around the corner would be exposed to gunfire immediately.
Even a child who could shoot straight could defend that passage.
And from behind our barricade, we would be quite safe.
“I trust honorable lady quite safe?” Danjuro asked in his soft, calm voice.
“Yes. Her maid is looking after her. Thank God that terrible scoundrel didn’t hurt her.”
Then I noticed something that struck me.
Danjuro’s face was completely calm.
The terrifying expression he had worn while attacking Helzephron had vanished as though it had never existed.
To look at him now, nobody would have guessed what he had just done.
He looked like an ordinary, peaceful little Japanese student, the sort of man one might see around the Law Courts in London.
As he listened to me, he casually rolled a cigarette between his fingers.
Yet only moments earlier, those delicate-looking hands had broken the neck of the most notorious criminal in Europe.
“Look here, old fellow,” I said. “I haven’t even had time to thank you. You and Charles arrived at exactly the right moment. A few seconds later and I would have been dead.”
I stopped.
“And Miss Shepherd—”
I could not finish.
I simply held out my hand.
The cold-blooded little fellow didn’t take it.
He merely bowed politely.
“I am glad to have been of any help,” he murmured.
Then his expression brightened.
“I think, Sir John, that we may consider ourselves quite safe from intrusion now.”
He waved toward the open passage.
“Let ’em all come!” Thumbwood said.
Then, without warning, the floor seemed to rise beneath my feet.
The whole cavern appeared to heave up and down.
The enormous arc lights spun around like fireworks.
Then everything went black.
I had fainted for the second time.
When I came round, I was lying in Helzephron’s private room.
Something cold rested against my forehead, while something cool and scented trickled down my face.
I opened my eyes.
Constance was kneeling beside me.
“My love,” she whispered. “My dear love. I never thought I would see you alive again.”
She pressed her hands against me.
“Oh, thank God! Thank God!”
Then she threw her arms around me.
For a long time neither of us spoke.
I think I understood, in some small way, what a man brought back from death must have felt like.
Constance gave me food and wine.
Little by little, my strength returned.
My body was still weak and shaken, but my mind was working again.
Eventually I stood up.
We were alone, and there was no sound from outside.
For the moment, at least, everything seemed safe.
“A little Japanese man carried you in here,” Constance said. “He carried you as easily as if you were a child.”
She looked at me anxiously.
“I had just regained consciousness, and I thought you had been killed. And then I thought he was one of those terrible men.”
“But he immediately told me Wilson was right and that we were saved.”
She paused.
“I believed him, even though his appearance frightened me at first.”
“He put you gently into that chair and hurried away.”
She looked into my eyes.
“John, who is he? And how did he save us?”
“We owe him everything,” I said seriously. “He killed Helzephron with his own hands.”
I decided not to tell her about the dogs yet.
“And within a few hours, we should be back in the outside world. We could never repay what we owe Danjuro.”
I then told her everything.
I explained how I had first learned she had been captured, everything that had happened afterward, and finally how Danjuro had rescued me.
As I talked, I walked around the room.
The movement gradually brought life back into my cramped limbs.
After smoking a cigarette, I felt almost normal.
“Now, dear,” I said when I had finished, “we aren’t completely out of danger yet, although there’s no reason to be frightened.”
“Go into your room and collect whatever you want to take with you.”
“Stay there with Wilson until I return.”
“I may be gone for some time. There are still quite a few things that need to be dealt with.”
She embraced me once more.
Then I left her, still crying with happiness.
I passed through the anteroom and returned to the great cavern.
My first glance went toward the rock passage leading to the lift.
The door was still open.
Thumbwood was sitting on the barricade about twelve yards away.
A rifle rested across his knees, and he was calmly smoking his pipe.
“All right?” I called.
“All O.K., Sir John,” he replied, standing up.
“Not a sign of anybody. Mr. Danjuro and me found out that this ‘ere dog-fancier hadn’t had time to get through to his friends upstairs.”
“I caught ‘im just as he was climbing over the fence.”
I followed his gaze.
Vargus lay on the floor nearby, tied up like a chicken.
I had completely forgotten about him.
I stared at him.
He looked miserable—dirty, bloody and filthy.
His pale, wicked face turned toward me.
He said nothing.
I shuddered.
Strangely, I felt more disgust looking at Vargus than I had felt toward Helzephron.
“Where’s Mr. Danjuro?” I asked.
“Up at the cave entrance, Sir John. He told me to send you to him as soon as you came out.”
I nodded and started walking up the cavern.
The Pirate Airship stood there, gleaming beneath the powerful blue arc lights.
A narrow steel ladder ran up the side into the fuselage.
As I passed it, I had to fight the temptation to climb aboard and examine the extraordinary machinery I knew was inside.
But I resisted.
The farther I walked toward the entrance, the dimmer the lights became.
Fresh sea air reached me.
“It must be full daylight outside,” I thought.
I rounded the bend.
There stood Danjuro.
His short, dark figure was silhouetted against the rosy glow of sunrise.
He stood perfectly still.
He was looking down at several strange, hunched shapes lying on the ground.
The rope hanging above him swayed gently in the breeze.
Apart from the distant murmur of the sea, everything was silent.
“I’m all right now,” I said.
Danjuro turned toward me without surprise, although he could not possibly have heard me approach.
His face was calm, but deeply wrinkled.
He suddenly looked like a man of tremendous age.
His narrow eyes were filled with a dark, thoughtful light.
At his feet lay Helzephron.
The body had been arranged with some dignity, the hands resting across the chest.
The morning light fell across his bronzed, hawk-like face and open eyes.
There was no cruelty in them now.
The dead man looked almost noble.
There was something dignified about his features.
He no longer looked like a criminal.
As I stared at him, all my hatred and resentment disappeared.
Then I looked toward the dogs.
One had been shot through the brain.
The other had been shot in the chest, the bullet passing through the heart as it leaped.
They were horrible things to look at.
When I turned back to Danjuro, the wrinkles had disappeared from his face.
The dark expression had vanished from his eyes.
It was an astonishing transformation.
But by then I had learned not to be surprised by anything about him.
“We will have those dogs skinned,” he said in his ordinary voice. “They will make an excellent rug for your house, Sir John.”
“No doubt they will.”
I looked back toward the cavern.
“But first we’ve got to get out of here. Remember, there are a dozen desperate criminals somewhere nearby.”
“And I don’t see how Miss Shepherd or I are going to get back into the world by climbing up that rope.”
I paused.
“By the way, how did you manage to arrive here in time?”
Danjuro told me the story briefly.
There wasn’t a wasted word or unnecessary detail.
Thumbwood later added the more colorful parts.
But even from Danjuro’s simple account, I could see how much intelligence and courage had been required to save us.
When Danjuro first arrived at Zerran, he had already suspected that there might be a cave nearby, either natural or disguised as an old mining operation.
As soon as I left the inn to begin my investigation, Danjuro and Thumbwood borrowed one of Trewhella’s boats and headed east along the coast.
Danjuro had already taken his bearings.
He knew Tregeraint House should lie slightly to the left of the jagged peak of Carne Zerran.
They followed the coastline through the moonlight.
Eventually they found their landmark.
Less than two hundred yards farther on, they discovered the entrance to the strange S-shaped cove.
At that point, Danjuro was certain.
No ordinary boat could survive those waves.
But a man could.
And Danjuro proved it.
He stripped off his clothes and entered the water.
I later learned that he was almost as comfortable in the sea as a seal.
Like many of his countrymen, he possessed an extraordinary amount of lean, powerful muscle.
Within twenty minutes, he had discovered the secret.
Danjuro then rowed back to Zerran Cove as fast as he could.
He hurried up the cliff path to the inn.
There he pulled the coastguard out of the pigsty and woke him up.
They collected ropes and crowbars.
Then they entered the fenced-off area on the cliff that had been marked as dangerous.
Danjuro and Charles descended into the cave just in time.
But Danjuro had also given the coastguard strict instructions.
As soon as the two rescuers disappeared over the cliff edge, the coastguard was to hurry to the watch-house about two miles away toward St. Ives.
From there, the Chief Boatswain would telephone every coastguard station along the coast.
The police at St. Ives, Camborne and Penzance would also be alerted.
“In three or four hours,” Danjuro said, “perhaps sooner, an armed force should be gathering on the moors above the house.”
“The pirates will know they are trapped and will probably fight.”
He paused.
“But the final result is certain.”
“So until then, all we can do is wait?” I asked.
“That is entirely your decision, Sir John,” he replied.
He looked at me strangely.
For a moment, I did not understand.
Then suddenly, the answer came to me.
“The Pirate Ship!” I exclaimed.
Danjuro bowed.
“I have always heard that Sir John Custance is an excellent pilot.”
I saw the whole thing immediately.
There was a magnificent ending waiting for us.
Something so dramatic that the entire world would be talking about it.
The Pirate Ship, I knew, was already loaded with the stolen treasure.
It was not merely packed with loot. It had also been prepared for a long journey.
Helzephron and his men had planned to escape from the cave almost immediately and disappear to another hiding place they had mentioned.
If everything had gone according to their plan, they would probably have left already.
My broken body would have been thrown into the whirlpool below.
Constance would still have been their prisoner.
Helzephron would have climbed to a great altitude and relied on the ship’s enormous speed to escape every other airship in existence.
I had little doubt that his plan would have worked.
But fate had other ideas.
At that moment, I saw no reason why I couldn’t pilot the Pirate Ship myself.
Once airborne, I could fly directly to Plymouth.
If the ship really could reach two hundred and forty miles an hour, we could get there in a little over half an hour.
Imagine it.
Constance beside me.
The Pirate Ship beneath us.
All the stolen treasure recovered.
We would land at the Plymouth air station in triumph.
It would be an adventure few men could ever experience.
My imagination carried me away.
“Let’s have a look at the ship,” I said.
I almost ran back into the cavern.
The Pirate Ship towered above us, throwing deep black shadows across the floor beneath the fierce blue light of the arc lamps.
Danjuro followed me.
I climbed over the side and went down a short ladder.
Inside was a surprisingly spacious main cabin.
I switched on the lights.
At once I saw how brilliantly the ship had been designed.
Below the portholes were long seats made from woven camel-hair cord.
The seats could easily be converted into sleeping bunks for six people.
The windows were made of thick, reinforced glass and had shutters of a design I had never seen before.
There was also a polished aluminum electric stove and an electric heater built around a central support column.
A complete telephone system connected the main cabin with the pilot’s room at the front.
Under the seats were several wooden cases and a strong steel box.
I guessed correctly that they contained the treasure stolen from the Albatros and the Atlantis.
A sliding door at the rear led to a storeroom.
It contained almost everything needed for several days at sea or in the air.
There were expensive cigars, whisky, liqueurs, tins of oysters, larks and asparagus—the sort of supplies wealthy yacht owners took on long trips.
The dogs had certainly been well provided for.
Beyond that was another small cabin.
This one was filled with tools.
There was also a rack of automatic rifles and pistols, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition.
A padded door led to a tiny compartment for the wireless operator.
I could easily imagine one of Helzephron’s men sitting there, listening to messages from passing airships and laughing as he prepared to rob them.
Danjuro followed me through the ship.
He examined everything quickly, without showing any emotion.
“So far, so good,” I said.
“All this equipment is impressive, but it isn’t what matters most.”
“What we really need to examine is the pilot’s cabin, the engines, the controls, the fuel system and everything connected with flying.”
“Let’s go forward.”
I looked at him.
“Do you know anything about airships?”
“Very little, Sir John.”
For once, I felt a small thrill of satisfaction.
At last, I had found something this remarkable man didn’t know much about.
“Never had the opportunity to study them?”
“I watched the pilot aboard Honourable Van Adams’ yacht, the May Flower. That is all.”
I barely heard him.
I had finally reached the pilot’s cabin.
At a glance, I could see that several things here were completely new.
They would have been new to every pilot in the world.
I won’t burden you with technical details.
This story is for ordinary readers, and I have published my professional conclusions elsewhere.
It is enough to say that the ship contained some astonishing mechanical inventions.
Its designer had solved one of the greatest problems in aviation: making the controls easy to operate.
Until then, pilots had needed considerable physical effort to control their ships—the planes, rudders and other moving surfaces.
Recent inventions had made things easier.
Ball bearings, gears and improved control systems had reduced the effort needed compared with the machines of the early flying days.
But flying still demanded considerable physical strength.
On a long journey, that physical strain reduced a pilot’s efficiency.
There was another problem.
When a pilot had only a fraction of a second to react, even a slight delay in the controls could mean the difference between survival and disaster.
The Pirate Ship had eliminated that problem.
Just as a huge ocean liner could be steered with a small wheel because steam-powered steering multiplied the helmsman’s strength, this airship used a similar principle.
The controls consisted of a series of small leather-covered wheels and levers.
They looked almost like toys.
Electricity provided the power.
A light touch from the pilot could instantly produce enough force to move an enormous lifting plane or rudder.
The fuel capacity was equally astonishing.
Huge, cleverly designed tanks beneath the fuselage held almost as much petrol as the great airliners of the day.
Yet this ship was less than a fifth their size.
It was obvious that she could remain in the air for days.
I examined the cockpit.
Two rapid-fire guns were mounted there.
Both were the latest models, fitted to swiveling mounts far more advanced than anything I had previously seen.
Only the most powerful military aircraft could carry weapons like these.
And the Pirate Ship could circle around them while remaining at full speed.
But the engines were the real masterpiece.
I climbed onto the small upper deck and examined the two enormous six-cylinder engines.
My admiration grew with every moment.
The greatest achievement was the silencing system.
Ordinary aircraft engines produced an enormous roar.
These engines made little more than the quiet hum of a dynamo.
I couldn’t immediately understand how the system worked.
To discover everything, the engines would have had to be taken apart.
But by examining the exhausts, I began to understand what the designer had done.
It was the work of a true mechanical genius.
I was examining the twin propellers when Danjuro called to me from the pilot’s cabin.
Their shape was unlike anything I had seen.
Even the material seemed unfamiliar.
I hurried back down.
Danjuro was bending over the controls in front of the pilot’s seat.
“It seems to me, Sir John,” he said, “that something is missing here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know little about airships, but I understand something about electricity. I can follow this system.”
He pointed toward the controls.
“But it appears that an important part of the mechanism has been removed.”
He pulled a short lever toward him.
A dial above it should have moved.
It didn’t.
“Do that again!” I exclaimed.
I climbed onto a step and looked through the small glass dome in the roof.
From there I could see almost the entire length of the ship.
One of the control planes near the rudder should have moved when Danjuro operated the lever.
It remained completely still.
“One of the honorable gentlemen upstairs,” Danjuro said calmly, “has a small but extremely important piece of connecting equipment in his pocket.”
He was right.
I thought about it for only a moment before I understood.
I stared at him in disbelief.
My grand, somewhat boastful plan had just been destroyed.