“What happened?”
“Nothing. Entire crowd took to the woods. Barton was in the second plane. We posted guards and set out helter-skelter for the stockade. Kerrigan—there wasn’t a soul in the place!”
At this point in our upward climb we passed another Marine.
“Impossible to give you any idea activity of next few days. Haitian police like a pack of wolves. Suspects rounded up; hundreds of people questioned. But Voodoo is a very powerful force, Kerrigan. Air reconnaissance showed no suspicious movements. Naval units inspected every mile of shore. Marines landed at likely spots. Inquiries extended from coast to coast, beyond Dominican border. Had reasoned that secret base must be masked by some big industrial enterprise. San Damien Sisal Corporation seemed to fill bill. Called personally upon Mr. Horton, the manager. Except for certain strangeness of manner which I was disposed to ascribe to drug habit—”
“The man is a Zombie” I interrupted. “He is nearly ninety years old!”
“Ah! this I did not know; his manner quite disarming. Most courteous: good enough to conduct me over the hemp refinery. Even offered to drive me out to largest plantation. This offer I declined. In short, Kerrigan—defeated.”
I pulled up. The atmosphere of the tunnel was telling upon me, for I had passed through an exacting time.
“Have we much farther to go. Smith?Or is this passage unending?”
“No; ends on other side of a ravine immediately facing ruined chapel.”
“Not in the chapel?”
“No. Fu Manchu made a slip. Having inspected original chart, he learned that Barton had tricked him; site of opening faked. Had very little time though to search for it. Therefore blew up chapel?”
“With what result?”
“one at all.One thing he had not seen—most important thing of all.”
“Why had he not seen it, since he had seen the chart?”
“Because it was written on the back It read, roughly, ‘The altar faces the entrance, which is on opposite hillside, marked by granite cross set among trees!’”
“Astounding bit of luck!”
“Plus Barton’s genius for secrecy. Went to work like galley slaves. Had to work under cover. Posted hidden sentries all round area. Providence with us. Explosion had left altar practically intact; gave us our bearings . . . Granite cross long since vanished. Took Barton two days to find tiny cave, no more than crevice in rock—but only way down to great cavern known to Christophe!”
“The other entrance, that from the sisal works, was discovered by accident some years ago . . .”
I saw a peep of daylight, and a voice hailed us. It was a loud, unmistakable voice—the voice of Sir Lionel Barton!
“All’s well. Barton!” cried Smith. “I have a surprise for you.”
Two armed men were guarding the entrance, which indeed was no more than eighteen inches wide and which opened on to a ledge some ten feet below the crest of a jagged and jungle-choked ravine.
As I stepped out behind Smith: “My God!” cried Barton. “Kerrigan! Heaven be praised!”
He shook my hand so hard that my fingers became limp, and then, pointing west: “Look at that,” he said. “We have just time to get back to camp. There’s a hell of a storm brewing.”
And as we set out I looked into the west and saw that the sky was becoming veiled by a sort of purple haze.
The camp was an army tent with a smaller one set up behind it near a grove of trees. I observed a quantity of kit, a number of rifles; and here another Marine was on duty. Barton was so happy to see me that he kept throwing his arm around my shoulders and giving me bear-like hugs.
I suppose the boom of his great voice reached her from afar; for, as we approached, the flap of the smaller tent opened—and Ardatha ran out!
CHAPTER XL
THE SAN DAMIEN SISAL CORPORATION
When I had in some measure recovered from a shock of joy which I confess left me trembling, when I had fully appreciated the fact that this was the real Ardatha, the Ardatha who had so mysteriously disappeared in Paris, and not her shadow whom I had met again in London, I had time for wonder and time for questions.
“But how did it happen?” I asked breathlessly. “Even now I find it hard to believe.”
“It happened, Bart dear, because even the genius of the Doctor nods—sometimes. You remember that he gave me over to the charge of Hassan. Hassan has served my family ever since I can remember, except that he was black, then, and not white. He came with me when I Joined the Si-Fan, but when I left to come to you, in Paris—you remember—”
“Remember? I remember every hour we spent together, every minute.”
“Well—” there was a haunting inflection in the way she pronounced the word, “he becomes like all the others, except for one thing: he can never refuse to obey any order which I may give him.”
“I think I understand.”
“The work which I have done in the past for them has been away from their headquarters, you see. Those here in Haiti, where I have been only once before, who do not know me, know Hassan. I ordered him to come with me to the gate, and no one stopped us. I ordered him to get into one of the staff cars, of which there are always five or six waiting there, and to sit beside me, like a groom. He obeyed. I drove away. The Doctor had made a mistake. You see, I was myself again, and I knew I meant to go to the consul at Cap Haitien, but on the way—”
“On the way,” snapped a familiar voice, and I saw that Smith had joined us, “pardon my interruption ¯Ardatha met myself and a party of Marines going to join Barton.”
“And, oh! how glad I was to see you—how glad!”
“As a result of this meeting,” Smith added, “certain steps were taken in regard to the activities of the San Damien Sisal Corporation. But Ardatha I rarely let out of my sight again.”
So utterly happy was I in our reunion that ominous claps of thunder, a growing darkness, that present danger to the United States which I knew to lurk in the Caribbean, were forgotten. Smith brought me sharply to my senses.
“At last,” he said, “we have the game in our hands, if we play our cards carefully. The great brains which support Dr. Fu Manchu, the machinery which his genius and that of his dupes has brought into being, all are here. I have failed before, but this time I do not mean to fail. In the next twenty-four hours either we win our long battle or hand what is left of the civilized world over to Dr. Fu Manchu.”
Darkness increased: thunder growled ominously over the mountains . . .
* * *
“There’s the signal. Barton! Since you are determined—good luck. But you’re in for a rough passage.”
Smith, Barton and I stood on a jetty at Cap Haitien. The night was completely black, except when bursts of tropical lightning created an eerie, blinding illumination. A signal had been arranged; and a moment before, we had seen a rocket burst against the inky curtain of the storm. A naval cutter was dancing deliriously at our feet.
“I worked out the bearings and I’m going to check them with the officer in charge,” said Barton. “If Christophers chart is wrong in this respect, why, then we fail! Cheerio!”