Hadlow recalled another matter after Francine had spoken. He expressed his recollection.
'The night we landed on Timour Isle,' he said, slowly, 'I fired blindly with my rifle; and I am sure that Jalway did the same. We were confused; yet we seemed to get results. The reason was that the professor fired also. I remember that his three shots punched in between ours with peculiar precision.'
'Do you mean,' questioned Francine, 'that the professor - or whoever he was - saved us that night?'
'I do,' affirmed Hadlow, soberly. 'His shots were timed to perfection. He dropped the thug who attacked Dashler. He smashed the bull's-eye lantern. He clipped another enemy, by the fellow's gunfire, which served as a target. In addition, he saved some cartridges while we wasted all of ours.'
The power boat was turning. Looking from the side, Hadlow and Francine saw that Dashler was guiding the craft into an inlet. The sailor pointed.
'There's the Maldah,' informed Dashler. 'Dead ahead. It looks like they're maneuvering her off the bar. We'll be aboard soon.'
Coming to their feet, Hadlow and Francine looked over the little cabin. They saw the yacht, white smoke pouring from its funnel.
'There's your uncle on the deck,' declared Hadlow. 'He has seen us.'
'He looks happy,' laughed Francine. 'And he'll be happier when he learns how fortunate we have been.'
'And finds out what he was saved from,' added Hadlow. 'Those villains on Timour Isle would have made short work of the Maldah.'
'But they never got their start,' chimed in Dashler, from the stern.
The cabin boat pulled up beside the yacht. Soon the castaways were pouring out their story to Kingdon Feldworth and the captain. The owner turned to the skipper.
'The radio working?' he inquired.
'Just repaired,' informed the captain. 'And we'll be off this bar in half an hour.'
'Send word to the coast guards,' ordered Feldworth. 'When we're clear, head for Timour Isle. We'll meet the cutters there.'
WHILE the reunion and its aftermath were taking place aboard the Maldah, another group of voyagers was faring north from Timour Isle. Their vessel was the small motor boat in which Tully and Chunk had come from the mainland. But their course was not outside the string of islands that fringed the Georgia coast.
The little boat was chugging through an inner channel. Clear of the marshes, it was traveling beneath the shelter of an inner shore. The tiny craft was almost shrouded in a setting that dawn had not yet reached.
Gliding beneath huge overhanging boughs that streamed with beards of Spanish moss, the voyagers were nearing the end of their trip to the mainland. In the center of the boat were Harry Vincent and Cliff Marsland; between them, Hawkeye, chipper despite his wound.
Shrouded at the rear of the boat sat a black-cloaked figure, a silent pilot who guided the craft with unerring skill. Picking channels that he did not know, The Shadow had weaved a remarkable course in from Timour Isle.
Far from that isolated spot where he had waged war against crime, The Shadow was bringing his agents to security. From the mainland they could transfer Hawkeye and take him north by train.
The boat had entered the channel of a sluggish creek. Moss hung almost to the surface of the water as The Shadow swung the tiller. The prow dug deep into thick soil. The shrouded pilot had found a landing place.
The motor ceased its throbs. Solemn silence hovered as strange aftermath to the events that had gone before. The howl of the hurricane; the thunder of avenging guns - those sounds seemed part of a far, distant past.
Yet as the boat lingered, with its occupants motionless, there came a manifestation that woke echoes of the past. It was the first utterance from that weird pilot at the stern; the first sound that The Shadow had given since the departure from Timour Isle.
A laugh that quivered from hidden lips. A burst of mockery that rose through the thick air of the sylvan glade. A haunting cry that rose to a fierce crescendo, then broke into a shuddering tone that faded with uncanny suddenness.
Chilling echoes answered The Shadow's triumphant laugh. Phantom tongues gave weird but mirthless reply; then they, too, dwindled into nothingness.
Silence, strange and unfathomable, again clung to this lonely landing place upon the Georgia shore. Crime had been conquered by The Shadow and his aids. New day had led them forth on further quests.
THE END
