“No. Fu Manchu made a slip. Having inspected
“With what result?”
“one at all.One thing he had not seen—most important thing of all.”
“Why had he not seen it, since he had seen the chart?”
“Because it was written on the
“Astounding bit of luck!”
“Plus Barton’s genius for secrecy. Went to work like galley slaves. Had to work under cover. Posted hidden sentries all round area. Providence with us. Explosion had left altar practically intact; gave us our bearings . . . Granite cross long since vanished. Took Barton two days to find tiny cave, no more than crevice in rock—but only way down to great cavern known to Christophe!”
“The other entrance, that from the sisal works, was discovered by accident some years ago . . .”
I saw a peep of daylight, and a voice hailed us. It was a loud, unmistakable voice—the voice of Sir Lionel Barton!
“All’s well. Barton!” cried Smith. “I have a surprise for you.”
Two armed men were guarding the entrance, which indeed was no more than eighteen inches wide and which opened on to a ledge some ten feet below the crest of a jagged and jungle-choked ravine.
As I stepped out behind Smith: “My God!” cried Barton. “Kerrigan! Heaven be praised!”
He shook my hand so hard that my fingers became limp, and then, pointing west: “Look at that,” he said. “We have just time to get back to camp. There’s a hell of a storm brewing.”
And as we set out I looked into the west and saw that the sky was becoming veiled by a sort of purple haze.
The camp was an army tent with a smaller one set up behind it near a grove of trees. I observed a quantity of kit, a number of rifles; and here another Marine was on duty. Barton was so happy to see me that he kept throwing his arm around my shoulders and giving me bear-like hugs.
I suppose the boom of his great voice reached her from afar; for, as we approached, the flap of the smaller tent opened—and Ardatha ran out!
CHAPTER XL
THE SAN DAMIEN SISAL CORPORATION
When I had in some measure recovered from a shock of joy which I confess left me trembling, when I had fully appreciated the fact that this was the real Ardatha, the Ardatha who had so mysteriously disappeared in Paris, and not her shadow whom I had met again in London, I had time for wonder and time for questions.
“But how did it happen?” I asked breathlessly. “Even now I find it hard to believe.”
“It happened, Bart dear, because even the genius of the Doctor nods—sometimes. You remember that he gave me over to the charge of Hassan. Hassan has served my family ever since I can remember, except that he was black, then, and not white. He came with me when I Joined the Si-Fan, but when I left to come to you, in Paris—you remember—”
“Remember? I remember every hour we spent together, every minute.”
“Well—” there was a haunting inflection in the way she pronounced the word, “he becomes like all the others, except for one thing: he can never refuse to obey any order which
“I think I understand.”
“The work which I have done in the past for them has been away from their headquarters, you see. Those here in Haiti, where I have been only once before, who do not know me, know Hassan. I ordered him to come with me to the gate, and no one stopped us. I ordered him to get into one of the staff cars, of which there are always five or six waiting there, and to sit beside me, like a groom. He obeyed. I drove away. The Doctor had made a mistake. You see, I was myself again, and I
“On the way,” snapped a familiar voice, and I saw that Smith had joined us, “pardon my interruption ?Ardatha met myself and a party of Marines going to join Barton.”
“And, oh! how glad I was to see you—how glad!”
“As a result of this meeting,” Smith added, “certain steps were taken in regard to the activities of the San Damien Sisal Corporation. But Ardatha I rarely let out of my sight again.”
So utterly happy was I in our reunion that ominous claps of thunder, a growing darkness, that present danger to the United States which I knew to lurk in the Caribbean, were forgotten. Smith brought me sharply to my senses.
“At last,” he said, “we have the game in our hands, if we play our cards carefully. The great brains which support Dr. Fu Manchu, the machinery which his genius and that of his dupes has brought into being, all are here. I have failed before, but this time I do not mean to fail. In the next twenty-four hours either we win our long battle or hand what is left of the civilized world over to Dr. Fu Manchu.”
Darkness increased: thunder growled ominously over the mountains . . .
* * *
“There’s the signal. Barton! Since you are determined—good luck. But you’re in for a rough passage.”
Smith, Barton and I stood on a jetty at Cap Haitien. The night was completely black, except when bursts of tropical lightning created an eerie, blinding illumination. A signal had been arranged; and a moment before, we had seen a rocket burst against the inky curtain of the storm. A naval cutter was dancing deliriously at our feet.
“I worked out the bearings and I’m going to check them with the officer in charge,” said Barton. “If Christophers chart is wrong in this respect, why, then we fail! Cheerio!”
He went to the head of the ladder, waited until the cutter rose within two feet of the Jetty and jumped. In more respects than one Sir Lionel Barton was a remarkable man. I strained forward and saw him scrambling forward to the bows. As the cutter pulled out: “Barton has earned his reputation,” said Nayland Smith. “He fears neither men nor gods. If I know anything about him, he will stop at least one of Dr. Fu Manchu’s rat holes tonight.”
An old freighter of three thousand tons sunk well below her load-line with a cargo of concrete blocks, was lying off there in the storm, escorted by a United States destroyer. In the interval which had elapsed since I had been swallowed up by the organization of the Si-Fan, Smith and Barton had worked like beavers. The freighter was destined to be scuttled at the spot indicated in the ancient chart as the submarine entrance to Christophe’s Cavern. Inquiries from local fishermen had revealed that a shelf of rock, or submerged ridge, jutted out there. This ledge must be the lintel of Fu Manchu’s underwater-gate.
An American skipper who knew the Haitian coast was in command, and the destroyer was standing by to take off the officers and crew. It would be necessary practically to pile up the ship on the gaunt rocks below which the opening lay—on such a night as this, with a heavy sea running, a feat of seamanship merely to think about which turned me cold.
I stood there beside Smith, watching. The thunder was so shattering when it came that it seemed to rock the quay, the lightning so vivid in its tropical brilliance as to be blinding. In those awesome flashes I could see both ships lying close off shore; I could see the cutter breasting a white-capped swell as she made for the freighter, riding lumpishly, overladen as she was. How clearly I remember that night, that occasion: for it was the prelude to what I believed and prayed would be the end of Dr. Fu Manchu and all his works.
We waited there through blaze after blaze of lightning, until we saw the cutter brought alongside the freighter. By this time a tremendous sea was running, and I trembled for Barton, a heavy man and by no means a young one. I had visions of a Jumping ladder, of the smaller craft shattered like an eggshell.
Then, during a moment of utter blackness, thunder booming hellishly among the mountains, a second rocket split the night.
“Thank God!” whispered Smith. He stood close beside me. “He’s mad, but he bears a charmed life. He’s on board.” It was the agreed signal. “Now—to our job.”
Through that satanic night we set out for the San Damien works. It was a wild drive, a ride of the Valkyries.
