IN THE STORM
It was beginning to rain when we left the hotel, with occasional
peals of thunder; but we welcomed the change in the weather as a
factor aiding the surprise attack we had intended. At the Galata end
of the Lower Bridge, which was deserted as usual after dark, we
dismissed our taxi, and held a final brief council of war in a patch
of shadows next the bridge abutment. King, Hugh, Watkins and I were
to embark on the _Curlew_, while Nikka and Wasso Mikali tramped to
the Khan of the Georgians and rallied Mikali's six young men. Then
they were to go to Sokaki Masyeri, and wait for a pistol-shot, which
would be the signal that we had passed through the drain and were at
grips with the enemy. Hugh and Nikka compared watches and agreed
that we should be in Tokalji's house not later than half-past ten.
The rain let up as we shook hands and wished each other luck, but by
the time the _Curlew_ was chugging down the Golden Horn it had set in
again with tripled violence, lashed on by a northeast gale. At
intervals broad splotches of lightning bathed the city to our right
in a ghastly greenish glow. And when we emerged into the Bosphorus
we found a fairly high sea running, but the launch sturdily thrust
her bow into the waves and rode buoyantly over them. We cautiously
felt our way along, lights out, motor running at half-speed, taking
bearings whenever the jagged lightning streaks illuminated the waters.
I was worried by the frequency of the lightning displays, but
fortunately, as we sighted the round tower on the walls, which was
our first landmark for Tokalji's house, there was a lull in the
storm. We were also favored in having the old sea-walls act as a lee
for us as we worked in closer to shore. The waves moderated, and the
fish-hook curve of the ruined jetty broke their remaining force.
When Watkins had made fast bow and stern lines to a couple of masses
of battered masonry the _Curlew_ floated almost as easily as at her
moorings by the Man-o-war Dock. But the difficulties of navigation
in the darkness and the necessity for extreme care had slowed our
progress, and we were some minutes behind our schedule.
The rocks of the jetty, too, were awash, and it was as much as your
life was worth to slip, for a fall might mean a broken head or limb.
At one point, indeed, several of us lost the jetty altogether and
were obliged to swim half-a-dozen strokes to the beach. Watkins, who
insisted on arming himself with a crowbar, would have drowned if Hugh
had not hauled him in by the scuff of the neck. It was impossible to
see anything, except once when a lightning flash streaked the sky and
struck with a stunning report in Scutari across the Straits. And
then we were so afraid of being discovered that we froze stiff as
close to the rocks as possible.
The beach, like the jetty, was under water. The waves lapped up to
the foot of the walls, and we stumbled desperately over submerged
rocks and bowlders. Watkins, just ahead of me in line, tripped, and
very nearly knocked my brains out with his infernal crowbar. I
begged him to drop it, but he doggedly refused.
"I'm no knife-fighter, Mister Jack, sir," he said, "and I'm intending
to give the persons that 'it me a taste of their own stew like."
We identified the opening of the sewer by the hollow, booming sound
with which, every now and then, an unusually high wave would roll
over its lip. It sounded like the beating of a watery bass-drum.
The rain was driving down again, and the wind blew overhead with a
shrill vehemence that was deafening.
"We'll never be able to get through that 'ell-'ole tonight, Mister
Jack, sir," screamed Watkins in my ear. "We'll be drowned along with
the rats."
I was somewhat of Watty's opinion, myself, but managed to placate
him. Hugh, without any hesitation, yelled: "One at a time!" and
slipped into the sewer mouth between two waves. King followed him,
and Watty and I brought up the rear. We were cheered to find the
place less terrifying than we had imagined it. The water was
thigh-deep, instead of knee-deep, as it had been when we escaped from
the dungeon, but once you had fumbled your way by torch-light over
the jagged moraine that blocked the first thirty feet, the footing
became safer and the water shallowed.
Just the same, I never think of the place without shuddering. It was
deathly silent, except for the ceaseless seepage of moisture, the
occasional muffled boom of a wave spattering over its mouth and the
squeaking of the gigantic black rats that swam ahead of us or
wriggled into cracks in the serried courses of the masonry. Our
electric torches shone feebly on the mossy walls, with their
sickening fungus growths, their bright green, pendent weeds.
Amorphous plants hung from the roof. The atmosphere was slimy,
noisome, unclean. And always there was the "drip-drip-drip" of water.
We breathed more comfortably when our torches revealed overhead the
bars of the stone grating in the floor of the dungeon.
"All quiet above," whispered Hugh, after listening intently. "Dark
as hell, too. I say, how much farther do you suppose this drain
goes?"
He trained his torch into the thick murk of the immense tube which
extended beyond the grating as far as our eyes could penetrate.
"I'm inclined to believe it continues into the city, ably as far as
the site of the Forum of Theodosius," King replied, his scholar's
interest awake. "That was a region of palaces which would have
required such a work of engineering. It should be well worth
exploring."
"Never mind that now," urged Hugh. "We have another task on hand."
He pried up the grating with Watty's crowbar, the butt of which we
rested on the ledge in which the grating fitted. This secured a
space sufficiently wide for us to squeeze through, and after all of
us had climbed up we eased the grating back into its bed, so that
there was no trace remaining of our entrance.
The dungeon was the same barren cube of dusty stone that we had left
by virtue of Watkins's aid. The ropes that had bound us were still
on the floor where we had cast them. The door we had broken leaned
against the wall. Obviously, Tokalji and his people had never even
suspected how we had escaped, apparently, did not even know of the
existence of the sewer.[1]
[1] Tokalji expressed great surprise when we told him about the
sewer. He refused to enter it, and seemed to regard it as a danger
to his house. Nikka thought that he would try to fill it in, but I
believe Kara, who feared nothing, pointed out to him its usefulness
for illicit purposes, and he changed his mind. J.N.
It is strange, and I fancy the only answer is Nikka's: that the
modern non-Christian inhabitants of Constantinople look with
superstitious fear upon the vast underground structures--baths,
cisterns, conduits and sewers--left by the ancient Roumis, as the
builders are usually called, do not want to see them or hear of them,
never enter it if by chance one is discovered, and cover them up
whenever they can.
It was five minutes to eleven when we gained the dungeon, and we knew
that Nikka must be at a loss to account for our failure to signal
him. He might suppose us to be casualties of the storm, and in
desperation, attack alone on his own account. So we wasted no time,
beyond shaking the water from our clothes.
The lower passage and cellars were deserted, but as we climbed the
stairs leading to the central hall opening on the little atrium
between the Garden of the Cedars and the large chamber which Tokalji
occupied we heard a distant murmur of voices in disagreement.
Investigation proved the hall to be unoccupied, and we were presently
grouped on its uneven floor, with only a curtain separating us from
the drama going on in the atrium. The rain was drumming down
overhead; the wind howled with undiminished force; and at intervals
the thunder boomed like a barrage of 155s.
"No, you are wrong, Toutou, it is everybody's business," said Hilyer
in French.
"You may be chief, but you have no right to risk common property,"
protested Sandra's resonant voice.
Toutou snarled something in his guttural, indistinct, animal speech.
"--like her, and that's enough," it concluded. "I'm tired of the
rest of you. Bunglers, every one."
"Have it your own way," said Serge, "but it's not business. She's
worth so much to us.'
"One might suppose you a green youth," cut in Maude Hilyer's frigid
tones. "Why should you endanger our coup for a colorless chit like--"
"I say there is no risk," snapped Toutou. "What do I care for them?
What does it matter what they--"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Hilyer, "but you Continentals don't
appreciate the Anglo-Saxons' feeling about their women. You--"
"Have done," bellowed Toutou with a sudden flame of temper.
"Urrr-rr-rrhhh! Am I not the master? I want her, and I shall have
her! Go! Go! I say, or you shall behold Toutou's knife."
They evidently went, for we could hear the shuffling of feet, with an
undercurrent of muttered curses and objurgations. Hugh started
forward, pistol in hand, but I checked him. This was no time for
unpremeditated action. There was a moment of silence--and a woman's
cry of hatred.
"Leave me alone, you beast! If you touch me, I'll bite you! You
can't bind my teeth. Ah--"
It was Betty's voice, and Hugh shook me off and was at the curtain
with his hand on the folds before I could reach him. But reach him I
did, and another interruption helped me to restrain him. King, his
face white and his hands shaking, joined us. Watkins lurked behind
us.
"Let me--" gasped Hugh.
"There's plenty of time, you fool," I hissed. "Wait! Somebody--"
I was going to say that somebody might come back, and the somebody
cut my sentence in the middle. A door opened, and the voice of
Hélène de Cespedes spoke.
"What is this I hear, mon ami?" she asked. "Are you mad? This girl
is the spoil of the band. She belongs to all of us. We are holding
her for a bigger stake. Shall we let you have her for your own
satisfaction? You take too--"
"You are jealous," snarled Toutou. "I say I want her, and I am going
to have her. I am tired of women like you."
Hugh, his nerves under control, gently parted the folds of the
curtain with his pistol-muzzle. The atrium was brilliantly lighted.
He and I could see perfectly. On a divan heaped with cushions lay
Betty. Her hands were bound behind her, and her feet were tied
loosely. Her hair was rumpled, and her blouse ripped off at the
shoulder. But her eyes sparked fire as she stared fearlessly at the
monster who stood beside her.
Toutou was in a different mood from any I knew, or, rather, I should
say, from the one I knew. His sinisterly beautiful face revealed the
latent ferocity that was the salient feature of his character, but
with it there was something else, something difficult to define. The
tigerish glare in his eyes was replaced by a softer light; the pupils
were expanded. His mouth was slack. His movements were uncertain.
He hovered over Betty, looking almost fearfully at Hélène.
She stood just inside the door that communicated with the large outer
chamber. She was dressed in a sport suit and high boots. Her hat
was off, and her face showed pinched and wan. There were shadows
under her eyes.
"Say I am jealous," she answered steadily. "I have a right to be.
You have never had a woman who did more for you than I. Do you think
Miss Innocence here would do what I have done?"
"That is why I want her," returned Toutou, his voice singularly
hoarse. "I am tired of you. I am tired of all of you. I hunger for
innocence. I wish to forget crime and evil. When we finish this job
I am going to take this petite and go away where Toutou will be
unknown."
"Toutou LaFitte a reformed character!" Hélène laughed sarcastically.
"You don't know what you are talking about. You have nothing in
common with innocence."
"Who knows?"
"I know, mon ami. The girl would kill herself first. Sooner than
see you do this, I will kill you."
Toutou frowned at her.
"Stand back!" he warned. "If you touch her--"
Hélène stepped forward boldly, one hand inside her jacket.
"There are many things you can do, Toutou," she said. "And you are
chief. Nobody questions that. But remember that if the others are
afraid of you, I am not. And I say that you shall not do this.
Something you owe to the band. More, still, you owe to me. You know
me well enough to appreciate that I intend to secure what I consider
due me."
Toutou growled in his throat, and his pupils began to contract. The
slack look left his mouth.
"It is time you feared me," he snarled. "Go away, I am through with
you. I never wish to see you again. You shall have your share of
this coup, then you shall leave the band."
"But I thought there was to be no more band," sneered Hélène. "I
thought Toutou was to become an honest bourgeois, with a dove-cot--"
"You shall feel my knife," he barked at her.
"Why should I fear your knife?" she retorted. "The last time a woman
threatened you, you fled from her knife."
Her face was white with rage, and Toutou's whole frame seemed to draw
together as an animal does when it prepares to spring. His long arms
curved before him, his right hand at the level of his belt.
"You do not know when a man tires of you, it seems," he exclaimed.
"Can you not see we wish to be by ourselves?"
She made a violent effort to regain her self-control.
"For the last time," she said quietly, "will you heed the opinion of
your colleagues and leave this girl alone?"
"No," he growled savagely. "Go, you--"
"Look out," cried Betty, who alone of us all could see clearly what
Toutou was doing with his right hand. "His knife!"
Hélène snatched a pistol from her blouse; but he was too quick for
her. As the flame spurted from the barrel he leaped aside, and his
immensely long arm curled out and slashed down. The blood frothed
over the hilt of his knife as it clicked on her collar-bone, and she
dropped, choking, to the floor.
In the same instant Hugh fired, but one of us jostled him and the
bullet missed. Toutou turned, saw the curtain swaying as we charged,
and ran for the door. I fired once, and the bullet chipped between
his arm and side, but he was out before we could shoot again.
From the courtyard came a crash and a ripple of shots that vied with
the thunder. A chorus of yells pierced thinly the howling of the
gale.
Nikka, hearing Hélène's pistol, had accepted it as the long over-due
signal for his attack.
"Take care of Betty, Professor!" Hugh called to King. "See if you
can help this poor girl. Come on, Jack, Watty!"