A flare went up from a high deck. Its lurid glare showed the form of Ling Soo, on the deck beside the cabin door.
The leader of the Wu-Fan had pointed his revolver toward the hated form of the approaching Foy. But before he could fire, a flash came from the cabin.
The revolver fell from Ling Soo’s grasp. He tottered toward the side of the ship. He sprawled upon the deck. As the flare died away, the two men by the rail came dashing to their leader’s rescue.
Another flare revealed the form of Foy, now on the deck. The Shadow, still in the guise of the crouching slayer, was brandishing two automatics as the light revealed his figure.
Ling Soo, lying back against supporting arms, saw his enemy. He raised a long, hideous cry that rose above the shouts of the sailors.
It was the battle cry of the Wu-Fan — the cry that meant death when uttered by the leader! The pointing hand of Ling Soo was directed toward that figure at the cabin!
As the flare sizzled away, shouts came from everywhere. Ling Soo’s two companions drew revolvers and tried to fire.
Bursts of flame from the cabin door stretched them, motionless upon the deck. The sailors — whose shots had been wild and meaningless — were firing again. The bullets from their revolvers smashed against the sides of the cabin.
Then came another flare. It showed a new sight. The Shadow was in the center of the deck. Swinging rapidly, to and fro, his automatics were discharging leaden messengers of death.
The forms of maddened sailors were visible in the light; but their hasty shots could not seem to strike that strange target — the crouching form that bore the semblance of Foy. From the decks, the range was too great for ordinary revolver aim.
But The Shadow’s automatics mocked the distance. Bullets, coming from those tongue-flamed muzzles found the marks toward which they were directed. Sailors with upraised revolvers fell before they could fire.
In that brief interval, The Shadow loosed his entire load of deadly missiles. The automatics were empty. But when another flare came from an upper deck, it revealed two gleaming revolvers in those mighty hands — weapons which The Shadow had taken from the men whom he had conquered below!
NOW the aim of both those guns was directed toward a single spot. While bullets sank into the deck beside his weaving body, The Shadow had seen a group of faces peering from a rail upon a high-pitched deck. There, another flare was being lighted.
The Shadow’s revolvers spoke their message. Two men, rising, toppled from the rail of the high deck. One, clutching an object on the rail, fell crashing to the deck below. Beside him came a hissing, burning flare. It scattered upon the deck. Its flaming portions were scattered about in all directions.
Another flare was starting from that same high rail. The man who had lighted it, dropped suddenly, as The Shadow spotted him for death. The second flare fell like a sudden meteor. Its fragments scattered also — some bounding through the door of an open cabin.
Unable to withstand those inhuman shots, startled sailors sprang from their hiding places. Stumbling over the bodies of their fallen comrades, they leaped for the places which were farthest from the deadly bullets.
Like monkeys, they scrambled up the masts of the towering junk, and pressed themselves upon sail-furled rigging. A mocking laugh came from the lone man on the deck. The laugh of The Shadow, it reached the ears of those cringing men whose only refuge had been flight.
A weird glow had replaced the flares. Smoke was pouring from a cabin.
The junk was on fire!
Other wreaths curled upward from spots of the deck as the dried wood of the old Pung-Shoon blazed like tinder.
Amidst the rising holocaust, the terrible man on the deck swept back toward the cabin from which he had come. Not a single shot defied him.
The Shadow’s revolvers were empty. He tossed them away, and stooped to pick up the revolver which Ling Soo had let fall.
Something gleamed through the air. A knife was whistling from the rigging, its sharp point driving straight for the back of the stooping man.
Was it instinct that told The Shadow? Or did his keen ears sense the approach of that murderous blade, delivered from the mast, high above?
With his hand upon Ling Soo’s gun, The Shadow dived suddenly away. The shimmering blade passed within an inch of his twisting body. It struck the deck at the exact spot where Ling Soo’s gun had lain.
With point buried deep in the wood, the blade quivered. It had missed its mark!
But The Shadow did not let the thrust remain unanswered. Swinging upward, the muzzle of his revolver seemed to follow the path along which the knife had come. No one was visible, behind the sail where lay the cowering wretch whose skillful hand had sent the blade along its way.
A burst of flame from the revolver. A cry from high above. The form of a man tumbled from the darkness, clawing helplessly, until it reached the deck, forty feet below!
That master stroke ended all resistance. Yellow faces ducked behind the sails. Knives, already in hand, were thrust back in the belts from which they had been drawn. Not a single gun spoke.
The Shadow, backing toward the rail, had stifled all opposition. Wherever that revolver might point, there would it find a mark — and every cringing enemy knew it!
With another peal of taunting mirth, The Shadow passed the huddled forms of Ling Soo and his two bodyguards. Over the rail and down the ladder; yet from the side of the junk, these gibing peals of laughter still told their terrible threat.
A muffled motor chugged. The little boat brought by Ling Soo had left the side of the big ship. In it was a lone, crouching figure, stooping at the wheel — so low that he was almost invisible.
Whistles were sounding. Boats were putting out from everywhere to reach the junk, which was now a mass of smoke, tinged with spurts of rising flame. Forms were leaping from the rigging, seeking the safety of the bay.
A police boat, swinging by the burning Pung-Shoon, was capturing these miserable survivors.
All remaining on the junk were doomed. Some had missed when they had leaped for safety. Others had fallen wounded and helpless from The Shadow’s bullets.
Among these, The Shadow knew, was Ling Soo. The insidious leader of the Wu-Fan had gone to a deserved fate. But there was another yet to be accounted for.
The little motor boat was speeding swiftly through the bay, lost against the blackened waves, far from the glare of the blazing junk.
Within that craft, a crouching man was carefully placing his fingers to his face. Two tiny spots of color glowed beneath his finger tips as they pressed beneath the eyebrows.
From the jet-black center of the tiny craft came the laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XXII
GREEN EYES MEETS THE SHADOW
THE trim yacht Sepia was anchored in the bay, close to the Oakland side. A man was standing by the window of a lighted cabin.
It was Joseph Darley. He had come here after he had left the Pung-Shoon.
Darley was smiling as he looked across the bay and saw the miniature blaze that indicated the burning Pung-Shoon. Let the old junk go up in smoke, he thought. So much the better.
The burning might have been an accident, through excitement of the crew; or it might have been by new design of Ling Soo, the crafty Chinaman.
That did not matter. The junk was burning. All police boats, all other craft, would be at the side of the flaming ship, upon which the fire had become a holocaust. Here, in the silence of the bay, the work would soon be over.
The Sepia was a seaworthy craft; but its crew was small. They were trusted men, who obeyed Darley’s commands as implicitly as the followers of Ling Soo obeyed the leader of the Wu-Fan. Darley could rely on them tonight.