Chapter 3: Up the Water-Tunnel

The man at the searchlight sprang for the maddened Malays, tugging at his pistol as he jumped. Before he got the weapon out, a dagger slashed his jugular and he went down gurgling in death. One of the Malays meanwhile had knocked Inspector Campbell from his feet, his knife-hand swooping down, his eyes blazing.

Ennis’ gun roared and the bullet hit the Malay between the eyes. But as he slumped limply, the other fanatic was upon Ennis from the side. Before Ennis could whirl to meet him, the attacker’s knife grazed down past his cheek like a brand of living fire. He was borne backward by the rush, felt the hot breath of the crazed Malay in his face, the dagger-point at his throat.

Shots roared quickly, one after another, and with each shot the Malay pressing Ennis back jerked convulsively. With the light of murderous madness fading from his eyes, he still strove to drive the dagger home into the American’s throat. But a hand jerked him back and he lay prostrate and still.

Ennis scrambled up to find Inspector Campbell, pale and determined, over him. The detective had shot the attacker from behind.

The captain of the cutter and two of his men lay dead in the cockpit beside the two Malays. The remaining seaman, the helmsman, held his shoulder and groaned.

Ennis whirled. The motor-boat of Chandra Dass was no longer beside the cutter, and there was no sight of it anywhere on the black sea ahead. The Hindoo had taken advantage of the fight to make good his escape with his two other servants and their prisoners.

“Campbell, he’s gone!” cried the young American frantically. “He’s got away!”

The inspector’s eyes were bright with cold flame of anger. “Yes, Chandra Dass sacrificed these two Malays to hold us up long enough for him to escape.”

Campbell whirled to the helmsman. “You’re not badly hurt?”

“Only a scratch, but I nearly broke my shoulder when I fell,” answered the man.

“Then head on around North Foreland!” Campbell cried. “We may still be able to catch up to them.”

“But Captain Wilson and the others are killed,” protested the helmsman. “I’ve got to report--”

“You can report later,” rasped the inspector. “Do as I say--I’ll be responsible.”

“Very well, sir,” said the helmsman, and jumped back to the wheel.

In a minute the big cutter was roaring ahead over the heaving black waves, its searchlight clawing the darkness ahead. There was no sign now of the craft of Chandra Dass ahead. They raced abreast of the lights of Margate, started rounding the North Foreland, pounded by bigger seas.

Inspector Campbell had dragged the bodies of the dead policemen and their two slayers down into the cabin of the cutter. He came up and crouched down with Ennis beside Sturt, the helmsman.

“I found these on the two Malays,” Campbell shouted to the American, holding out two little objects in his spray-wet hand.

Each was a flat star of gray metal in which was set a large oval, cabochon-cut jewel. The jewels flashed and dazzled with deep color, but it was a color wholly unfamiliar and alien to their eyes.

“They’re not any color we know on earth,” Campbell shouted. “I believe these jewels came from somewhere beyond the Door, and that these are badges of the Brotherhood of the Door.”

Sturt, the helmsman, leaned toward the inspector. “We’ve rounded North Foreland, sir,” he cried. “Head straight south along the coast,” Campbell ordered. “Chandra Dass must have gone this way. No doubt he thinks he’s shaken us off, and is making for the gathering-place of the Brotherhood, wherever that may be.”

“The cutter isn’t built for seas like this,” Sturt said, shaking his head. “But I’ll do it.”

They were now following the coast southward, the lights of Ramsgate dropping back on their right. The waters out here in the Channel were wilder, great black waves tossing the cutter to the sky one moment, and then dropping it sickeningly the next. Frequently its screws raced loudly as they encountered no resistance but air.

Ennis, clinging precariously on the foredeck, turned the searchlight’s stabbing white beam back and forth on the heaving dark sea ahead, but without any sign of their quarry disclosed.

White foam of breaking waves began to show around them like bared teeth, and there was a humming in the air.

“Storm coming up the Channel,” Sturt exclaimed. “It’ll do for us if it catches us out here.”

“We’ve got to keep on,” Ennis told him desperately. “We must come up with them soon!”

The coast on their right was now one of black, rocky cliffs, towering all along the shore in a jagged, frowning wall against which the waves dashed foamy white. The cutter crept southward over the wild waters, tossed like a chip upon the great waves. Sturt was having a hard time holding the craft out from the rocks, and had its prow pointed obliquely away from them.

The humming in the air changed to a shrill whistling as the outrider winds of the storm came upon them. The cutter tossed still more wildly and black masses of water smashed in upon them from the darkness, dazing and drenching them.

Suddenly Ennis yelled, “There’s the lights of a boat ahead! There, moving in toward the cliffs!”

He pointed ahead, and Campbell and the helmsman peered through the blinding spray and darkness. A pair of low lights were moving at high speed on the waters there, straight toward the towering black cliffs. Then they vanished suddenly from sight.

“There must be a hidden opening or harbor of some kind in the cliffs!” Inspector Campbell exclaimed. “But that can’t be Chandra Dass’ boat, for it carried no lights.”

“It might be others of the Brotherhood going to the meeting-place!” Ennis exclaimed. “We can follow and see.”

Sturt thrust his head through the flying spray and shouted, “There are openings and water-caverns in plenty along these cliffs, but there’s nothing in any of them.”

“We’ll find out,” Campbell said. “Head straight toward the cliffs in there where that boat vanished.”

“If we can’t find the opening we’ll be smashed to flinders on those cliffs,” Sturt warned.

“I’m gambling that we’ll find the opening,” Campbell told him. “Go ahead.”

Sturt’s face set stolidly and he said, “Yes, sir.”

He turned the prow of the cutter toward the cliffs. Instantly they dashed forward toward the rock walls with greatly increased speed, wild waves bearing them onward like charging stallions of the sea.

Hunched beside the helmsman, the searchlight stabbing the dark wildly as the cutter was flung forward by the waves, Ennis and the inspector watched as the cliffs loomed closer ahead. The brilliant white beam struck across the rushing, mountainous waves and showed only the towering barriers of rock, battered and smitten by the raving waters that frothed white. They could hear the booming thunder of the raging ocean striking the rock.

Like a projectile hurled by a giant hand, the cutter fairly flew now toward the cliffs. They now could see even the little streams that ran off the rough rock wall as each giant wave broke against it. They were almost upon it.

Sturt’s face was deathly. “I don’t see any opening!” he yelled. “And we’re going to hit in a moment!”

“To your left!” screamed Inspector Campbell over the booming thunder. “There’s an arched opening there.”

Now Ennis saw it also, a huge arch-like opening in the cliff that had been concealed by an angle of the wall. Sturt tried frantically to head the cutter toward it, but the wheel was useless as the great waves bore the craft along. Ennis saw they would strike a little to the side of the opening. The cliff loomed ahead, and he closed his eyes to the impact.