He went to the head of the ladder, waited until the cutter rose within two feet of the Jetty and jumped. In more respects than one Sir Lionel Barton was a remarkable man. I strained forward and saw him scrambling forward to the bows. As the cutter pulled out: “Barton has earned his reputation,” said Nayland Smith. “He fears neither men nor gods. If I know anything about him, he will stop at least one of Dr. Fu Manchu’s rat holes tonight.”
An old freighter of three thousand tons sunk well below her load-line with a cargo of concrete blocks, was lying off there in the storm, escorted by a United States destroyer. In the interval which had elapsed since I had been swallowed up by the organization of the Si-Fan, Smith and Barton had worked like beavers. The freighter was destined to be scuttled at the spot indicated in the ancient chart as the submarine entrance to Christophe’s Cavern. Inquiries from local fishermen had revealed that a shelf of rock, or submerged ridge, jutted out there. This ledge must be the lintel of Fu Manchu’s underwater-gate.
An American skipper who knew the Haitian coast was in command, and the destroyer was standing by to take off the officers and crew. It would be necessary practically to pile up the ship on the gaunt rocks below which the opening lay—on such a night as this, with a heavy sea running, a feat of seamanship merely to think about which turned me cold.
I stood there beside Smith, watching. The thunder was so shattering when it came that it seemed to rock the quay, the lightning so vivid in its tropical brilliance as to be blinding. In those awesome flashes I could see both ships lying close off shore; I could see the cutter breasting a white-capped swell as she made for the freighter, riding lumpishly, overladen as she was. How clearly I remember that night, that occasion: for it was the prelude to what I believed and prayed would be the end of Dr. Fu Manchu and all his works.
We waited there through blaze after blaze of lightning, until we saw the cutter brought alongside the freighter. By this time a tremendous sea was running, and I trembled for Barton, a heavy man and by no means a young one. I had visions of a Jumping ladder, of the smaller craft shattered like an eggshell.
Then, during a moment of utter blackness, thunder booming hellishly among the mountains, a second rocket split the night.
“Thank God!” whispered Smith. He stood close beside me. “He’s mad, but he bears a charmed life. He’s on board.” It was the agreed signal. “Now—to our job.”
Through that satanic night we set out for the San Damien works. It was a wild drive, a ride of the Valkyries. Sometimes, as we climbed, white-hot flashes revealed forest valleys below the mountain road which we traversed; sometimes, in complete darkness which followed, the mountain seemed to shiver; our headlights resembled flickering candles. Our lives and more than our lives were in the hands of the driver, but as he had been allotted to us by the American authorities as the one man for the job, I resigned myself.
“I have it in my bones,” said Nayland Smith during a momentary lull, “that tonight we shall finally defeatDr. Fu Manchu. The very elements seem to be enraged.”
But I was silent. I had, in a sense, come closer to Dr. Fu Manchu than Nayland Smith had ever had an opportunity to do. Something of the almost supernatural dread with which the Chinese scientist had inspired me was gone. He was not an evil spirit; he was a physical phenomenon, and his strength resided in the fact that he had perfected a method for enslaving the genius of the world and bending it to his will. At last I understood that Dr. Fu Manchu was something which human ingenuity might hope to outwit. But his armament was formidable.
Of that drive up to the lip of the valley which once had been the crater of a great volcano, I retain strange memories. But memorable above all was that moment when, coming round a hairpin bend on the edge of a sheer precipice, the black curtain of the storm was rent by dazzling light, and there, away beyond a forest-choked valley, an eerie but a wonderful spectacle, I saw for the second time the mighty bulk of The Citadel, upstanding stark, an ogre’s castle, against the blaze.
Indeed, a jagged dagger of lightning seemed to strike directly down upon its towering battlements. Almost I expected to see them crumble. Darkness fell and there came a crash of thunder so deafening that it might well have echoed the collapse of Christophers vast fortress into the depths.
At long last we turned inland from the road skirting the precipice and plunged into a sort of cutting. I heaved a sigh of relief.
“There are two sides to this road,” said Smith. “I confess I prefer it.”
We were now, in fact, very near to our destination; but since I had never seen the outside of the place but only the extensive buildings which surrounded the quadrangle, I was surprised by its modest character. A wide sanded drive opened to the right of the road, and across it was a board on which might be read: “The San Damien Sisal Corporation.” The drive was bordered by tropical shrubbery and palm trees. Some fifty yards along I saw a bungalow which presumably served the purpose of a gate lodge. Smith checked the driver, and we pulled up just beyond.
“There are three possibilities,” he said. “One, that we shall find the place deserted except for legitimate employees of the Corporation, against whom it would be difficult to bring a case. In (his event, the presence of the zoological exhibits and of the experimental laboratory might plausibly be accounted for: hemp cultivation after all is conducted today on scientific lines. The glass coffins you describe might be less easy to explain.
“And the second possibility is—some trap may have been laid for us. I doubt, assuming that the Doctor and his associates have gone below-ground, if it would be possible under any circumstances to obtain access from this point. However, you see, my instructions have been well carried out.”
In a dazzling blaze of lightning he looked round.
“I warrant you can find no evidence of the fact, Kerrigan, (hat a considerable party of Federal agents, supported by two companies of Haitian infantry with machine guns, is covering the area.”
“There is certainly no sign of their presence. But why did they not challenge the car?”
“They have orders to challenge nothing going in, but anything or anybody coming out. Now, let us have a report.”
He flashed a pocket torch, in-out, in-out.
From a darker gulley in the bank of the road. Just above th& sanded drive, two men appeared; one was in the uniform of the Haitian army, his companion wore mufti. As they came up, Smith acknowledged the officer’s salute and turning to the other: “Anything to report, Finlay?” he asked.
“Not a thing, chief—except that Major Lemage, here, has got his men under cover, and my boys all know their jobs. What’s the programme?”
“Are there any lights showing?”
“Sure. There’s one right in the gate-office. Night porter, I guess.”
“Anywhere else?”
“Haven’t seen any.”
“Then we will stick to our original plan. Come on, Kerrigan.”
As we walked past the car and up the sanded drive Finlay dropped back, following at some ten paces.
“What was the third possibility you had in mind. Smith?” I asked.
“That Fu Manchu evidently regards himself as a potential world power. He may still be here. He may attempt to brazen the thing out. Your absence will have puzzled him, but there are numbers of burrows in all volcanic rocks such as those which compose the Cavern, so it seems highly unlikely that he will be able to find out what occurred. But the absence of Ardatha and Hassan is susceptible of only one construction: a major mistake—and Fu Manchu rarely makes major mistakes. However, we must move with care. You say that the lift is at the end of a sort of tunnel in which are the glass coffins?”