I had read the message in his eyes. My hand was on the automatic. I shot from the hip at the second guard. His hand flew up to his breast and he toppled.
At the instant of the report, Barker hurled himself at the legs of the challenging slave. His feet flew from beneath him, and down he crashed. Before he could arise I had put a bullet through his head.
I felt no compunction about killing him. The kehft drinkers had never seemed to me to be human. But whether human or not, I had killed far better men for much less reason during the war. Barker dropped upon the guard he had tripped, and began to search him. He arose with a bunch of small keys and ran to the steel door. It could not have been more than a minute before he had the bars down and the door open. The tunnel lay before us, long, cased with stone and dimly lighted.
“We’ve got to tyke it on the double,” Barker jammed the heavy valve shut. “I didn’t like what ’e said about ’im an’ Satan goin’ awye together quick. I think ’e fixed it to blow up the lab’ratory. An’ there’s enough stuff there to move the northeast corner of ’Ell.”
We set off at a run down the tunnel. After we had gone about a thousand feet we came to another wall. It closed the way, making of the passage apparently a blind alley.
Barker worked feverishly at it, going over it inch by inch with nimble fingers. A block dropped suddenly, sliding downward as though in grooves. We passed through the opening. And ran on.
The lights blinked out. We halted, in darkness. The ground quivered under our feet. The quivering was followed by a deep-toned roar like the bellow of a volcano. I threw an arm around Eve. The floor of the tunnel heaved and rocked. I heard the crash of stones falling from its roof and sides.
“Gord! There goes Satan!” Barker’s voice was hysterically shrill.
I knew it must be so. Satan had—gone. And Cobham. And all those, dead and alive, in the chateau—they, too, were gone. And all the treasures of Satan, all the beauty that he had gathered about him—gone. Blasted and shattered in that terrific explosion. Things of beauty irreplaceable, things of beauty for which the world must be poorer forever—destroyed for all time. Wiped out!
I had a sensation of sick emptiness. My very bones felt hollow. I felt a remorse and horror as though I had been party to some supreme sacrilege.
Eve’s arms were around my neck, tightly. I heard her sobbing. I thrust away the weakening thoughts, and held her to me close, comforting her.
The stones ceased falling. We went on, picking our way over them by the gleam of Barker’s flashlight. The tunnel had been badly damaged. If ever I prayed, I prayed then that no fall of stone or slip of earth had blocked it against us. If so, we were probably due to die like penned-in rats.
But the damage lessened as we drew further away from the center of the explosion, although now and again we heard the crashing of loosened stones behind us. We came at last to a breast of rocks, rough hewn, a formidable barrier that closed the tunnel, and must be, we knew, its further end.
Barker worked long at that, and I, too, and both of us at times despairingly, before we found the key to its opening. At last, when the flash was dying, a boulder sank. We breathed cool, fresh air. Close to us we heard the ripple of waves. Another minute and we stood upon that pile of rocks where I had seen Satan looking out over the waters of the Sound.
We saw the lights of the Cherub. She had come closer to shore. Her searchlight was playing upon the landing, sweeping from it along the road that led through the woods to the great house.
We crept down the rocks, and began to skirt the shore to the landing. At our right, the sky was glowing, pulsing. The tops of the trees stood out against the glow like the silhouettes of trees in a Japanese print.
Satan’s funeral pyre.
We reached the pier. The searchlight picked us up. We went forward boldly. Barker dropped into a likely-looking launch that was fastened to the landing. Those on the yacht must have thought we were making ready to come to them. They held the light steady upon us.
The engines of the launch started to hum. I lowered Eve into it, and jumped after her. Barker threw the propeller into first speed, and then into direct drive. The launch shot forward.
There was no moon. A mist was on the waters. The glow of Satan’s pyre cast a red film on the sluggish waves.
Barker steered for the yacht. Suddenly he swung sharply to port, and away from her. We heard shouts from her decks. The mists thickened as we sped on. They dimmed the beam. And then it lost us and swept back to the pier.
Barker headed the launch straight for the Connecticut shore. He gave me the wheel, and went back to nurse the engines. Eve pressed close to me. I put my arm around her and drew her closer. Her head dropped upon my shoulder.
My thoughts went back to the burning chateau. What was happening there? Had the great explosion and the glare of the flames brought outsiders to it as yet, volunteer firefighters from the neighboring villages, police? It was not likely. The place was so isolated, so difficult of access. But on the morrow, surely they would come. What would they find? What would be their reception? How many had escaped from the chateau?
And those who had been trapped in Satan’s house? Those who had fallen before his slaves and Cobham’s bombs? Among them had been men and women of high place. What an aftermath their disappearance would have! The newspapers would be busy for a long time about that.
And Satan! In the last analysis—a crooked gambler. Betrayed at the end by the dice he himself had loaded. Had he but played his game of the seven footprints straight he would have been unconquerable. But he had not—and all his power had rested on a lie. And his power could be no stronger than that which upheld it.
It was Satan’s lie that had betrayed him.
Crooked gambler—yes, but more, much more than that—
Would his vengeance follow us, though he was gone?
Well, we would have to take our chances.
I shook off the oppression creeping over me, turned resolutely from the past to the future.
“Eve,” I whispered, “all I’ve got is what’s left of sixty-six dollars and ninety-five cents that was my sole capital when I met you.”
“Well, what of it?” asked Eve, and snuggled in my arm.
“It’s not much for a honeymoon trip,” I said. “Of course, there’s the ten thousand I got for the museum job. I can’t keep that. It’ll have to go back to the museum. Marked ‘Anonymous Donor.’”
“Of course,” said Eve, indifferently. “Oh, Jim, darling, isn’t it good to be free!”
Barker moved forward, and took the wheel from me. I put both arms around Eve. Far ahead of us the lights of some Connecticut town sparkled. They evoked a painful memory. I sighed.
“All those treasures—gone!” I groaned. “Why didn’t I have the sense to snatch that crown or scepter off the gold throne when I had the chance?”
“’Ere’s the crown, Cap’n,” said Barker.
He fished down into a pocket. He drew out the crown and dropped it into Eve’s lap. Its jewels blazed up at us. We stared at them, and from them to Barker, and from Barker back to them—unbelievingly.
“Crown’s a bit crumpled,” remarked Barker, easily. “’Ad to bend it to stow it awye. Grabbed the scepter, but it slipped. ’Adn’t time to pick it up. Picked up a few other tysty bits, though.”
He poured a double handful of rings and necklaces and uncut gems over the glittering crown. We stared at him, still speechless.
“Split ’em two wyes,” said Harry, “so long as you an’ Miss Eve’s goin’ to be one. I only ’opes they’re real.”
“Harry!” whispered Eve, breathlessly. She leaned over and kissed him.
He blinked, and turned back to the wheel.
“Reminds me o’ Maggie!” muttered Harry, forlornly.
I felt something round and hard in my pocket. Cobham’s bomb! With a little prickling of the scalp, I dropped it gingerly over the side.
The shore lights had crept nearer. I scooped the jewe
ls from Eve’s lap and thrust them into Barker’s pocket.
I clasped Eve close, and turned her face up to mine.
“Just like me an’ Maggie!” whispered Harry, huskily.
I put my lips to hers, and felt hers cling. Life was very sweet just then.
Eve’s lips were sweeter.
THE FACE IN THE ABYSS (1931) [Part 1]
CHAPTER I
Suarra
Nicholas Graydon ran into Starrett in Quito. Rather, Starrett sought him out there. Graydon had often heard of the big West Coast adventurer, but their trails had never crossed. It was with lively curiosity that he opened his door to his visitor.
Starrett came to the point at once. Graydon had heard the legend of the treasure train bringing to Pizarro the ransom of the Inca Atahualpa? And that its leaders, learning of the murder of their monarch by the butcher-boy Conquistador, had turned aside and hidden the treasure somewhere in the Andean wilderness?
Graydon had heard it, hundreds of times; had even considered hunting for it. He said so. Starrett nodded.
“I know where it is,” he said.
Graydon laughed.
In the end Starrett convinced him; convinced him, at least, that he had something worth looking into.
Graydon rather liked the big man. There was a bluff directness that made him overlook the hint of cruelty in eyes and jaw. There were two others with him, Starrett said, both old companions. Graydon asked why they had picked him out. Starrett bluntly told him—because they knew he could afford to pay the expenses of the expedition. They would all share equally in the treasure. If they didn’t find it, Graydon was a first-class mining engineer, and the region they were going into was rich in minerals. He was practically sure of making some valuable discovery on which they could cash in.
Graydon considered. There were no calls upon him. He had just passed his thirty-fourth birthday, and since he had been graduated from the Harvard School of Mines eleven years ago he had never had a real holiday. He could well afford the cost. There would be some excitement, if nothing else.
After he had looked over Starrett’s two comrades—Soames, a lanky, saturnine, hard-bitten Yankee, and Dancret, a cynical, amusing little Frenchman—they had drawn up an agreement and he had signed it.
They went down by rail to Cerro de Pasco for their outfit, that being the town of any size closest to where their trek into the wilderness would begin. A week later with eight burros and six arrieros, or packmen, they were within the welter of peaks through which, Starrett’s map indicated, lay their road.
It had been the map which had persuaded Graydon. It was no parchment, but a sheet of thin gold quite as flexible. Starrett drew it out of a small golden tube of ancient workmanship, and unrolled it. Graydon examined it and was unable to see any map upon it—or anything else. Starrett held it at a peculiar angle—and the markings upon it became plain.
It was a beautiful piece of cartography. It was, in fact, less a map than a picture. Here and there were curious symbols which Starrett said were signs cut upon the rocks along the way; guiding marks for those of the old race who would set forth to recover the treasure when the Spaniards had been swept from the land.
Whether it was clew to Atahualpa’s ransom hoard or to something else—Graydon did not know. Starrett said it was. But Graydon did not believe his story of how the golden sheet had come into his possession. Nevertheless, there had been purpose in the making of the map, and stranger purpose in the cunning with which the markings had been concealed. Something interesting lay at the end of that trail.
They found the signs cut in the rocks exactly as the sheet of gold had indicated. Gay, spirits high with anticipation, three of them spending in advance their share of the booty, they followed the symbols. Steadily they were led into the uncharted wilderness.
At last the arrieros began to murmur. They were approaching, they said, a region that was accursed, the Cordillera de Carabaya, where only demons dwelt. Promises of more money, threats, pleadings, took them along a little further. One morning the four awakened to find the arrieros gone, and with them half the burros and the major portion of their supplies.
They pressed on. Then the signs failed them. Either they had lost the trail, or the map which had led them truthfully so far had lied at the last.
The country into which they had penetrated was a curiously lonely one. There had been no sign of Indians since more than a fortnight before, when they had stopped at a Quicha village and Starrett had gotten mad drunk on the fiery spirit the Quichas distill. Food was hard to find. There were few animals and fewer birds.
Worst of all was the change which had come over Graydon’s companions. As high as they had been lifted by their certitude of success, just so deep were they in depression. Starrett kept himself at steady level of drunkenness, alternately quarrelsome and noisy, or brooding in sullen rage.
Dancret was silent and irritable. Soames seemed to have come to the conclusion that Starrett, Graydon and Dancret had combined against him; that they had either deliberately missed the trail or had erased the signs. Only when the pair of them joined Starrett and drank with him the Quicha brew with which they had laden one of the burros did the three relax. At such times Graydon had the uneasy feeling that all were holding the failure against him, and that his life might be hanging on a thin thread.
The day that Graydon’s great adventure really began, he was on his way back to the camp. He had been hunting since morning. Dancret and Soames had gone off together on another desperate search for the missing marks.
Cut off in mid-flight, the girl’s cry came to him as the answer to all his apprehensions; materialization of the menace toward which his vague fears had been groping since he had left Starrett alone at the camp, hours ago. He had sensed some culminating misfortune close—and here it was! He broke into a run, stumbling up the slope to the group of gray-green algarrobas, where the tent was pitched.
He crashed through the thick undergrowth to the clearing.
Why didn’t the girl cry out again? he wondered. A chuckle reached him, thick, satyr-toned.
Half crouching, Starrett was holding the girl bow fashion over one knee. A thick arm was clenched about her neck, the fingers clutching her mouth brutally, silencing her; his right hand fettered her wrists; her knees were caught in the vise of his bent right leg.
Graydon caught him by the hair, and locked his arm under his chin. He drew his head sharply back.
“Drop her!” he ordered.
Half paralyzed, Starrett relaxed—he writhed, then twisted to his feet.
“What the hell are you butting in for?”
His hand struck down toward his pistol. Graydon’s fist caught him on the point of the jaw. The half-drawn gun slipped to the ground and Starrett toppled over.
The girl leaped up, and away.
Graydon did not look after her. She had gone, no doubt, to bring down upon them her people, some tribe of the fierce Aymara whom even the Incas of old had never quite conquered. And who would avenge her in ways that Graydon did not like to visualize.
He bent over Starrett. Between the blow and the drink he would probably be out for some time. Graydon picked up the pistol. He wished that Dancret and Soames would get back soon to camp. The three of them could put up a good fight at any rate…might even have a chance to escape…but they would have to get back quickly…the girl would soon return with her avengers…was probably at that moment telling them of her wrongs. He turned—
She stood there, looking at him.
Drinking in her loveliness, Graydon forgot the man at his feet—forgot all else.
Her skin was palest ivory. It gleamed through the rents of the soft amber fabric, like thickest silk, which swathed her. Her eyes were oval, a little tilted, Egyptian in the wide midnight of her pupils. Her nose was small and straight; her brows level and black, almost meeting. Her hair was cloudy, jet, misty and shadowed. A narrow fillet of gold bound her low broad forehead. In it was entwined a sable and silver
feather of the caraquenque—that bird whose plumage in lost centuries was sacred to the princesses of the Incas alone.
Above her elbows were golden bracelets, reaching almost to the slender shoulders. Her little high-arched feet were shod with high buskins of deerskin. She was lithe and slender as the Willow Maid who waits on Kwannon when she passes through the World of Trees pouring into them new fire of green life.
She was no Indian…nor daughter of ancient Incas…nor was she Spanish…she was of no race that he knew. There were bruises on her cheeks—the marks of Starrett’s fingers. Her long, slim hands touched them. She spoke—in the Aymara tongue.
“Is he dead?”
“No,” Graydon answered.
In the depths of her eyes a small, hot flame flared; he could have sworn it was of gladness.
“That is well! I would not have him die—” her voice became meditative—“at least—not this way.”
Starrett groaned. The girl again touched the bruises on her cheek.
“He is very strong,” she murmured.
Graydon thought there was admiration in her whisper; wondered whether all her beauty was, after all, only a mask for primitive woman worshiping brute strength. “Who are you?” he asked.
She looked at him for a long, long moment.
“I am—Suarra,” she answered, at last.
“But where do you come from? What are you?” he asked again. She did not choose to answer these questions.
“Is he your enemy?”
“No,” he said. “We travel together.”
“Then why—” she pointed again to the outstretched figure—“why did you do this to him? Why did you not let him have his way with me?”
Graydon flushed. The question, with all its subtle implications, cut.
“What do you think I am?” he answered, hotly. “No man lets a thing like that go on!”
She looked at him, curiously. Her face softened. She took a step closer to him. She touched once more the bruises on her cheek.
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 109
