The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond Hamilton
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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.
There was no impact. And as he heard a hoarse cry from Inspector Campbell, he opened his eyes.
The cutter was flying in through the mighty opening, snatched into it by powerful currents. They were whirled irresistibly forward under the huge rock arch, which loomed forty feet over their heads. Before them stretched a winding water-tunnel inside the cliff.
And now they were out of the wild uproar of the storming waters outside, and in an almost stupefying silence. Smoothly, resistlessly, the current bore them on in the tunnel, whose winding turns ahead were lit up by their searchlight.
“God, that was close!” exclaimed Inspector Campbell.
His eyes flashed. “Ennis, I believe that we have found the gathering-place of the Brotherhood. That boat we sighted is somewhere ahead in here, and so must be Chandra Dass, and your wife.”
Ennis’ hand tightened on his gun-butt. “If that’s so—if we can just find them—”
“Blind action won’t help if we do,” said the inspector swiftly. “There must be all the number of the Brotherhood’s members assembled here, and we can’t fight them all.”
His eyes suddenly lit and he took the blazing jeweled stars from his pocket. “These badges! With them we can pose as members of the Brotherhood, perhaps long enough to find your wife.”
“But Chandra Dass will be there, and if he sees us—”
Campbell shrugged. “We’ll have to take that chance. It’s the only course open to us.”
The current of the inflowing tide was still bearing them smoothly onward through the winding water-tunnel, around bends and angles where they scraped the rock, down long straight stretches. Sturt used the motors to guide them around the turns. Meanwhile, Inspector Campbell and Ennis quickly ripped from the cutter its police-insignia and covered all evidences of its being a police craft.
Sturt suddenly snicked off the searchlight. “Light ahead there!” he exclaimed.
Around the next turn of the water-tunnel showed a gleam of strange, soft light.
“Careful, now!” cautioned the inspector. “Sturt, whatever we do, you stay in the cutter. And try to have it ready for a quick getaway, if we leave it.”
Sturt nodded silently. The helmsman’s stolid face had become a little pale, but he showed no sign of losing his courage.
* * * *
The cutter sped around the next turn of the tunnel and emerged into a huge, softly lit cavern.