Jalway was covering Hadlow, Dashler and Francine, holding his fire only because he thought the struggle in the hall would be short-lived and in favor of the crooks. But Elger, who had seen The Shadow come from Professor Marcolm's room, was ready in reserve to meet that avenging foe.
As Tully and Chunk sprawled to the floor, Elger gave a maddened shout. Leaping toward the front end of the room, he cried to Jalway for aid. The two were directly in front of the amazed prisoners. Should The Shadow fire wild, his shots would strike the persons whom he had come to aid.
Jalway swung at Elger's cry. Together, they aimed for the elusive, blackened figure that came whirling from the hall. A chilling, sardonic laugh resounded through the room as The Shadow swung the muzzles of his automatics toward these two fiendish foes.
That laugh was calculated. It made Elger and Jalway forget all but The Shadow. It inspired two other men to prompt and efficient action. Hadlow and Dashler leaped from Francine's side. Hadlow took Elger; Dashler bore down on Jalway.
Gripped by formidable antagonists, the two crooks writhed. The Shadow, seeing the instant success of his ruse, wheeled toward the outer door, ready for the attack of Hexler's mob.
OUTSIDE, waiting attackers had been startled by the suddenness of the conflict in the house. Hexler's henchmen, lulled by the interval that had followed their leader's entrance, were totally bewildered by the unexpected outburst.
Shots were the emergency signal. Yet the mob had remained latent during the opening moments of the fray. It was not until Hexler came staggering from the doorway that they decided upon action.
Roaring like a wounded bull, Hexler had swung about the moment that he was in the clearing. Free from The Shadow's fire, he turned and began to pump hot lead back into the empty hall.
As he blazed with his revolver, using his good left hand, the lieutenant shouted for the charge.
Jake and Curry sprang from their positions beside the door, ready to join with their leader when he drove to the new attack. At the same instant, seven men from the edge of the clearing came leaping into view.
Shots burst from ready guns; Cliff, Harry and Hawkeye were firing toward the house. A bullet sizzed by Hexler's ear. Wheeling, the lieutenant saw Hawkeye pausing to take aim. Hexler roared a command.
Curry, too, had barely escaped a long-range shot. He swung about, with a cry to Jake. The three men coming from the other side of the clearing stopped short to aim at The Shadow's agents.
Cliff shouted to his companions. The three dropped flat upon the edge of the clearing. Cliff swung his gun across to deal with the reserves. Harry and Hawkeye did likewise. It was a well-timed move.
For Cliff knew that The Shadow would be coming from the beleaguered house. With Hexler, Jake and Curry turned about, the cloaked fighter would get the trio unaware. The danger lay from the four advancers across the clearing. Those men, if unhindered, would come up to find The Shadow as a target, should the black-garbed warrior appear.
It was a reverse of the expected. A clipping of the reserves. A dependence upon The Shadow, to which all his agents were trained. But Hexler, having fled from the formidable foe, understood the move the moment that The Shadow's agents quit their shooting toward the house.
He and the two beside him were at long range from The Shadow's agents. Counting upon that, Hexler snapped a command to Jake and Curry. With his cry, Hexler went hurtling squarely into the open house door, his two men at his heels.
"Get them!" barked Cliff, to Harry and Hawkeye.
THE SHADOW'S agents came to their feet. They forgot the men across the clearing. Two of those reserves had toppled to the ground. A third, wounded, was aiming unsteadily. The fourth, not yet clipped by The Shadow's agents, opened a wild fire. A chance shot dropped Hawkeye. The little man fell wounded, a bullet in the thigh.
Shots from within the house, The Shadow had swung from the living room at the crucial moment. His automatics loosed their thunder straight against the three men who were making a massed attack: Hexler, Jake and Curry.
Hexler uttered a hoarse cry as he sought to fire. Then the big rogue shot forward on the floor, striking squarely on head and shoulders. His revolver went clattering to The Shadow's feet. Jake and Curry stopped short, aiming.
Hexler's plunge had cleared the way. Straight came The Shadow's shots. Tongues of flame, bursting from the blackness of a shifty, wavering figure that bobbed elusively as puny revolver shots barked in return.
Jake tottered. Curry staggered back, wounded, then dived for the door, momentarily protected by Jake's wavering body. The Shadow came sweeping forward. Jake, slumping, snarled and aimed point-blank for the swift shape that was bearing down upon him.
The Shadow's left arm swung. Automatic drove hard against revolver. Jake's weapon clattered from his trigger-squeezing grasp. It cracked against the wall before the man could fire. Weaponless, the dying thug sank to the floor. The Shadow's shots had been mortal ones.
Curry was vicious as he hurtled from the house. In flight, he thought of other foes. Leaping from the door, he aimed straight for two figures that he saw beneath the clearing moonlight - those of Harry and Cliff.
Harry had swung to the left, because of Hawkeye's fall. But Cliff was aiming for the door. Shots roared through the clearing. Quick, rapid fire, accompanied by sizzling slugs that whistled from flaming gun muzzles.
Cliff and Harry were the focal point of a simultaneous attack that came from separate angles. Curry, like the man across the clearing, was aiming to kill. But these rogues were dealing with capable marksmen.
Curry toppled with a groan, as Cliff clipped him with a timely shot. An instant later - before Cliff could turn to aid - Harry delivered a perfect shot toward the crook across the clearing.
The ruffian twisted about, went rolling crazily upon the sward. Echoes rattled back from the tabby walls of the look-out house. Then came silence. The Shadow, his form grotesque in the moonlight by the front door, had arrived to see his agents triumph.
Cliff and Harry turned to Hawkeye. They raised the wounded man; as they did, Hawkeye's gun came up in his right hand. With a sharp cry, the little fighter aimed across the clearing; steadying himself against Cliff's shoulder.
One crook had been wounded over there. He was the fellow who had faltered in his aim. But now he was steady on one knee, pointing a gun straight for the door of the look-out house. He had seen The Shadow. He was aiming to kill.
SHOTS soared from three spots. From the crouching crook; from Hawkeye's spot; from the doorway where The Shadow stood. Those bursts seemed simultaneous; yet fractions of seconds separated them.
The Shadow's shot was first, straight for the gun hand of the aiming crook. It clipped the fellow's knuckle just as his finger pressed the trigger. Diverted, the crook's bullet plastered itself against the tabby wall beside The Shadow's shoulder.
The crook's altered shot was the second and Hawkeye's burst was almost with it. Seeking to save The Shadow, the wounded agent had delivered quick but perfect aim. The crouching crook toppled forward, a bullet through his heart, while his smoking gun dropped from his broken fingers.
An ominous lull came hard upon fleeting echoes. Then from within the house burst the sound of another gun. Elger and Jalway, arch-crooks of the lot, had found a chance to fight. That shot betokened trouble.
Whirling, The Shadow disappeared into the blackness of the hall. Victor against hordes of crime, the master fighter was heading in to deal with the most dangerous of the lot.
CHAPTER XXII. THE LAST STROKE
THE shot that The Shadow had heard had been a random one. It had come from the revolver gripped by Bram Jalway as the crook still writhed in Dashler's grasp. Gun pointed upward, Jalway had found no other target than the ceiling. Yet his shot turned an overwhelming tide.
Seth Hadlow had already subdued Purvis Elger and was holding the portly crook against the wall. But at the sound of Jalway's shot, Hadlow turned instinctively. Elger wrestled free and dived to the floor.
/> His gun was lying there, where he had dropped it in the struggle. Regaining the weapon, Elger twisted away from Hadlow and made an upward stroke. His gun muzzle delivered a glancing blow to Hadlow's chin. The sportsman went down with a thump.
Dashler, seeing this, made a valiant effort to grab Jalway's gun. It was a mistaken attempt. Jalway, copying Elger's motion in reverse, drove his weapon downward. Dashler's gripping arm partially absorbed the shock; but a glancing stroke struck his skull. The sailor sagged.
Hadlow and Dashler were prey for the crooks. But a spontaneous cry from Francine gave warning to both Elger and Jalway. Staring hopelessly toward the door, the girl had seen a new figure arrive. The Shadow had returned for battle.
Entering, The Shadow had dropped his brace of automatics. He had emptied those weapons in his previous fray. His gloved hands were whipping a new pair of weapons from beneath his cloak.
With Elger and Jalway taking time to fire at the senseless forms of Hadlow and Dashler, The Shadow would have had perfect opportunity to clip the crooks. But Francine's cry had placed him at a disadvantage.
ELGER and Jalway wheeled toward the door as one. Separated by a dozen feet, they offered a dual problem to The Shadow as he yanked his guns to view. Marvelous marksman though he was, the position placed him so that he would have to pick one foe an instant before the other.
Both men were desperate. Both were killers. It might have been an equal choice to an ordinary fighter. But The Shadow, instantaneous in his decision, took immediate preference. His eyes swung to the left, where Elger stood alone. His left-hand automatic flashed its flame.
Elger staggered. He tried to hold his gun; but he failed. The portly crook lost the weapon and went sagging to the floor, clutching his chest, coughing from the mortal wound.
The Shadow's quick gaze had shifted toward Jalway, who had stepped in front of Francine. It was Jalway's position that had made The Shadow allow him the momentary chance to aim. For The Shadow had counted on a break. It came.
Francine, by her cry of gladness, had brought grim menace to The Shadow. But it was that very reaction of the girl that had caused The Shadow to fire first at Elger. He was relying upon Francine's spontaneous promptness. The Shadow had decided well.
As Jalway's finger pressed the trigger for a death shot, Francine was already leaping forward. The girl's frail hands caught at the man's wrist. The effort was sufficient; it diverted Jalway's aim.
A bullet boomed from the crook's gun. The shot went wide by half a dozen inches. It missed the turning form of The Shadow. But Jalway, with a furious oath, leaped to another measure.
Twisting, he grabbed the girl's body with his left arm and swung Francine as a barrier against The Shadow's shot. His revolver leveled, he tried to turn it toward the evasive foe at the doorway.
The Shadow swept into the room, ahead of Jalway's swing. Jalway fired one shot - another - but his turning aim, handicapped by Francine's struggle, was too late on both occasions.
Then, suddenly, The Shadow stopped short. He fired one shot as Jalway, swinging his arm wide, gave him a momentary target. The bullet burned Jalway's forearm. With a cry, the crook let Francine fall away. Still holding his gun, he tried to press the trigger. His shot was never fired.
The room roared with a mingled burst that sounded like an artillery barrage. Cliff and Harry had dashed into the house. They fired simultaneously with The Shadow. Three bullets spun Jalway to the floor. The crook was motionless before the echoes ended.
Purvis Elger, crumpled by the bookcase, was staring with glassy eyes. The arch-crook could not reach his gun. He tried to fume incoherent words; his strength ebbed with the gasps.
Half rising with a final effort, Elger buckled and sprawled dead. His hand clutched at the bookcase as he fell; loosened volumes tumbled and thudded the floor beside the master crook's prone form.
COMPANIONS in crime had received just doom. Bram Jalway, whom The Shadow had suspected of criminal intent aboard the Maldah; Purvis Elger, whom The Shadow had identified as an evil rogue, even before he had met the master of Timour Isle. Above the mantel over the fireplace, burnished bronze reflected the room's light. That gryphon shield would no longer be the symbol of a supercriminal.
From beneath his cloak, The Shadow brought forth a sheet of paper; he let it flutter to the floor, where it fell beside Elger's body. The side that came upward showed the same symbol as the bronze above the fireplace.
The Shadow had returned the piece of evidence that he had acquired on the night when George Dalavan had murdered James Tolwig. That scrap of paper had come from Purvis Elger; The Shadow had given it back to its dead owner.
Seth Hadlow was reviving, with Francine beside him. Dashler, after a momentary sway, was regaining his senses. The Shadow turned to his agents. He gave a hissed order. Cliff and Harry turned about and headed for the front door.
The Shadow glided toward the hallway. For a moment he stood there, barely discernible, blackness against a gloomy background. Then he whirled. The crimson lining of his sable cloak swished momentarily in the glow from the living room.
Then The Shadow, too, was gone, the only token of his parting a hissed, sardonic laugh that left strange, ghoulish echoes quivering through this room where men of crime had died.
CHAPTER XXIII. NEW DAWN
THE pink light of a new day was breaking along the Georgia coast. The stretched expanse of rose-tinted ocean was heaving with long, restless swells. The power of the waves had ended. These heavy rises and falls were but a reminder of the storm that had spent its fury.
The glow from the horizon revealed a small power boat chugging northward, past islands where stretches of sand ended in strips of towering, blackened trees. This was the little cabin boat that Ruff Turney had kept hidden in the swamp below Timour Isle.
Dashler was at the tiller; as the sailor nonchalantly guided the boat, two others talked of events that were past. Seth Hadlow was seated beside Francine Feldworth, while they discussed the episode on Timour Isle.
"The professor gets the credit," acknowledged Hadlow, in a solemn tone. "If it hadn't been for him, we'd be boxed up deep beneath the ocean."
"The captain of that tramp steamer was a dupe," said Francine. "He thought that Purvis Elger intended to get rid of useless curios by dropping them at sea."
"But he didn't stay around to wait," added Hadlow. "He must have hauled up anchor and sailed hours ago. Probably he was afraid that coast guard cutters might be off the shore."
A PAUSE followed. Francine, nestling close to Hadlow, sighed pleasantly as she looked toward the brightening sky. This day was dawning with perfection.
"The professor didn't miss a trick," commented Hadlow. "That case in his room - with the tiara, the fifty thousand dollars and the stenographic evidence. It showed that fellow Dalavan for a crook as bad as the others."
"And the note we found," said Francine. "The one that told us to follow the passage to the caverns; then on to the old slave quarters and the spot where this boat was run ashore. It gave us all we needed."
"Full proof of Elger's crimes; and Jalway was working with the rogue."
"It will enable us to inform the law. Those treasures will be reclaimed intact."
"To go back to their true owners."
Another brief pause; then Hadlow spoke speculatively.
"Who was Professor Marcolm?" he inquired. "Where did your uncle meet him?"
"In New York," replied Francine. "The professor had heard that uncle was going on a cruise. He wanted to come along; to check on charts of the Atlantic coast."
"Those were the things he brought ashore? His maps? I wondered what he had with him?"
"He took his belongings after he saved us from death. He must have had his black attire with them, also those huge guns that he carried."
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.
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