The Emperor
During the next few seconds we put in the hottest bit of work of the
entire evening.
They came very close to rushing us at the start. I have a confused
recollection of a mass of murderous-looking ruffians bearing down on
us, firing as they came, while the table behind which we were
sheltered cracked incessantly with the smack of their bullets.
My own revolver was full again fortunately, and the Chief’s seemed to
be also, for we shot into the crowd of them again and again, bringing
a man down with almost every shot.
But they kept on, and when they reached the table my revolver was
empty. I jumped to my feet and dashed the butt of it between the eyes
of a big Russian. His face streamed blood at the blow and he leapt
back with a yell of pain, bearing back the men behind him. At the same
moment the Chief got his second gun into action and fired past me as
fast as he could work the trigger, his shots seeming to follow one
another in a steady stream.
For a moment they fell back and I crouched down behind the table
again, fumbling in my pocket for fresh cartridges and cursing my
clumsy fingers. Then there was a yell from behind me as the two guards
from the banquet room rushed up, and four revolvers began to stream
death over our shoulders into the huddled mass of men ahead of us. A
moment later other revolvers began to crack from the different
doorways, as the Chief’s forces came running back to the hall in
response to his whistle.
And suddenly the men ahead of us broke and dashed, yelling, from the
open doorway into the corridor which led to the room of the voices,
leaving eight or ten of their numbers silent and motionless, or still
convulsed with agony, on the floor in front of us.
Revolvers were still cracking near at hand, however, and I looked
beyond our fallen foes and realized suddenly that I was gazing out
into the night. The two sections of the wall that had opened inward
like folding doors disclosed a short wide hallway beyond them. And
beyond that was what looked like the original wide front door of the
house. Two or three of the enemy were still sheltering behind the
edges of this doorway, and firing, not at us but out into the night.
Beyond them I could see the dark outlines of trees. And in among these
trees I could make out the occasional spitting flash of a revolver.
Evidently our reënforcements had arrived, had met with resistance and
had driven the Emperor’s forces in upon us.
This time the Chief was mad clear through. “Get back to that room, you
two, and guard those girls,” he shouted. Then he raised his revolvers,
which he had managed to reload somehow, and began calmly picking off
the men in the doorway.
At the same moment our fellows outside, who had heard the Chief’s
whistle, decided to rush the place. For there came a crescendo of
shots from closer at hand, and suddenly the last of the defenders of
the doorway pitched forward on his face and the little hallway was
full of our men.
“Come on, you men, clean this place up!” yelled the Chief. “Shoot them
down and shoot to kill. We’ve lost enough men over this business!” He
pointed into the corridor. “After them!” he shouted.
As I remarked once before, I think, the Chief was a good man to have
on one’s side, but a bad opponent. He certainly looked dangerous
enough at this moment, for his gray hair was streaked with blood from
a scalp wound, his coat was torn and bloody in two places on the
shoulders, where bullets had grazed him above the edge of the table,
and his eyes blazed with energy and anger, while his mouth was a mere
slit in a grim and formidable jaw.
I stepped over to him. “The gas!” I shouted. “Don’t let our men——”
Instantly he jumped for the corridor, blowing his whistle as he went.
I followed at his heels.
But there was little need. We met the Chief’s forces returning, awe
writ large on their faces. And down the hall beyond them, the open
door into the room of the voices disclosed a number of our late
enemies lying huddled on the floor of that deadly room in the same
attitudes in which they had fallen as the gas overcame them. It seemed
that the first one of our men who had followed them into the room to
investigate, had been overcome by the gas himself and had been hauled
out again by a couple of venturesome companions, holding their noses
by way of a safeguard. By the time we reached him he had fully
recovered again. For once the Emperor had played into our hands, it
seemed.
As soon as the Chief had assured himself that the men in the room of
the voices were not playing ’possum, he directed six or eight of his
now numerous forces to dash into the room, haul out the enemy one by
one and tie them up. That done he turned back to me again.
“Come on, Clayton, we’ll tackle that staircase now—and we’ll take a
couple of others with us, while the rest of them finish cleaning up
the place.”
He blew his whistle then, and the men, some of whom had scattered
again, gathered around him. “Now, you men, finish the job and capture
every one else you find alive, unless they put up a fight. We’ve
broken the back of this business and there’s no need for any more
bloodshed. Keep an eye out for prisoners too. They may have some of
our friends still locked up here. I want a couple of you to join those
fellows in the dining-room there and take those men into custody. Tie
them up if necessary. And tell the girls that they can go and get
dressed if they want to. Burke and Tallman, I want you to follow me.
That’s all. The rest of you go to it.”
With that we started back across the hall again, followed by two of
the Chief’s men, and made our way to the foot of the little staircase
leading to the floor above. Looking up that little staircase, there
was nothing but a velvety blackness to be seen, and I confess that the
effect was not inviting.
However, we did not stop to talk about it, but, with the Chief and me
in the lead, started up the stairs into the silence and darkness
above. The men with us had torches, and they took these out and
flashed them ahead of us, showing up the walls of a narrow corridor at
the top of the staircase. As we mounted higher we could see that many
closed doors led off this corridor, doors heavily built and with a
certain forbidding quality, although the latter may have been only my
imagination.
At any rate we passed into the corridor without incident, and the
Chief set the two men with us to breaking down the doors as we came to
them.
On this floor too, rooms, intersecting passages and unexpected
entrances formed a positive maze, leading a man sometimes far afield
and sometimes back to his starting-place, none the wiser. However, if
one of the men with us was away exploring for more than a moment or
two, the Chief blew his whistle and guided him back again. But for the
first few moments it seemed as though we were the only living things
on that floor.
However, we had a stroke of luck at last. One of the Chief’s men was
struggling with a small, heavy and heavily secured door a little way
along a side passage, when I heard a commotion in that direction which
set my blood racing. For there was no mistaking the rich brogue of
that bitterly denunciatory voice.
“Do but let me out av ut, ye divils,” I heard in tones almost tearful
with rage, “and I’ll tache ye. Do but lave me get my hands on ye——”
I jumped forward and joined the man at the door. “Larry,” I called,
“is that you?”
There came a distinctly audible gasp from behind the door. “Shur, sor,
is that yersilf? I thought it was thim dirty knav—— But did they get
ye, too, sor? Can ye let me out to ye and we’ll go after thim
together.”
“Hold on, Larry,” I answered, stifling a strong desire to burst out
laughing, partly with relief to find him alive and partly at his
simple philosophy, “hold on and we’ll get you out of it in a minute.
We’ve taken the place and all’s well.”
A moment or two later the lock snapped and the door swung open, and a
wild-eyed, wildly disheveled and almost naked Larry burst out upon us.
In a rushing spate of words he told us that they had as good as
tortured him to glean the facts about myself and my connection with
the Secret Service. But there was little that he did know and he had
not told that. However, he had been locked up ever since they took
him, and he had seen no one of our friends in the place. He was
painfully apologetic about Natalie, but I deferred that explanation
until our work was over. And with Larry in our wake we took up our
search again. I had a warm glow in my heart, though, to find that
nothing had happened to the beggar, for I was fonder of Larry than I
had realized until after his capture.
At the end of the original corridor we found a heavy door, and beneath
the edge of it a steady light was shining. We came upon it suddenly,
as the corridor took a sharp turn at this point.
When the Chief saw the light he held us back by putting out his arms.
One of the men flashed his torch on to the lock, and we saw that the
key was in the door and on our side. But the sight of the light made
us hesitate for a moment.
Then, suddenly, I leaned over to the Chief and whispered in his ear.
“Chief, this must be just about over the room of the voices. We turned
to the left once, you know, and then to the right again. And we’ve
gone just about that far.”
“By Jove, you’re right,” the Chief whispered back. “Well, here goes,
anyway!” And he stepped forward, tried the handle gently and then
abruptly flung open the door.
Our eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and the bright light
revealed by the open door blinded us for a moment. But as we grew
accustomed to the glare we realized that we were staring into a
regular laboratory. Glass jars, retorts, burners, queer-looking glass
vessels and huge metal tanks something like those used for compressed
air lined the walls on all four sides. And there were other types of
apparatus with which I was totally unfamiliar.
But we had no time and no inclination for studying the inert contents
of the room. For in the center of the floor stood a figure,
impassively facing us, that struck a distinct chill to my heart at
least. And by the way the others stopped in their tracks, I imagine
they felt the same.
It was the figure of a man, tightly bandaged from neck to foot in
black silk, so that only the face showed. But such a face!
Without the eyes, the thin, pallid countenance, hairless and deeply
lined, seemed to express an abysmal melancholy, but a melancholy that
held no human warmth. The mouth was thin and wide, the nose high
arched and almost hooked, and the cheekbones unusually high. The face
shadowed forth, to me at least, standing, staring in the doorway,
inhuman composure, inhuman cruelty out of sheer indifference rather
than sensuality, and an inhuman weariness.
But beneath heavy brows looked out eyes that caused the rest of the
strange countenance to pale into insignificance. They were pale blue
eyes, I think, and they had the flat quality of unglazed china. But in
their depths leapt and glowed a strength, a force and a relentless
ambition and conscious power that kept us standing there like a pack
of children.
The pale eyes swept over us slowly, lingering on my face and then
slowly swerving to the Chief. In that moment eye to eye I confess I
felt an absurd desire to find a hole somewhere, crawl into it and pull
it in after me. For the man’s gaze was positively hypnotic. But the
moment his eyes left mine for the Chief, I tore my own eyes away from
his face to his body and so broke the spell.
Each limb was wrapped tightly in spiral turns of soft black silk, and
the same individual material and arrangement swathed his body. But
limbs and body were slight enough and this style of dress enhanced
this smallness. A moment after his eyes left mine he spoke—and we
stood silent like children and listened.
“Ah, ——,” he said slowly, addressing the Chief by name, “so you have
found me. Clayton was a good man for you because he is—fortunate. If
it had not been for his good fortune and the fact that I was—badly
served, the positions would certainly have been reversed—and before
long. However, you have broken into my poor house and—I must leave it.
Have you anything to say to me before I go?”
The Chief took a step forward, and I saw him shake himself roughly as
though to throw off the effect of the man’s personality. “We’ll talk
about that presently,” he said roughly. “Do you surrender?”
A slow smile crept over the face of the man before us, a smile so
utterly mirthless and inhuman that I instinctively drew back at the
sight of it. “Surrender?” he answered slowly. “I shall never do that,
to you or any man. But I have been badly served here, and I am
fatigued with the dense stupidity of man. To-night I am—going
elsewhere—but not with you. Have you anything further to say?”
The Chief drew his revolver and pointed it at the still figure. “Throw
up your hands!” he shouted hoarsely, “or I’ll shoot you down like a
dog!” And it seemed to me that the Chief’s voice shook a little in
spite of him But no words could ever fully describe the inhuman
quality and the amazing sense of power which emanated from this black
figure, standing quietly before us. It was no wonder that Ivanovitch
and Vining, two such dissimilar types, had been willing to serve this
so-called Emperor of theirs. I do not blame the Chief in the least,
for I felt just the same, only probably more so.
The man in black slowly folded his arms, smiling slightly. “Shoot,
then,” he laughed. “It will be amusing!”
The muscles tightened all over my body in anticipation of the coming
shot. But for some reason the Chief stood there, staring at the
figure, and pointing his revolver still, but making no apparent
attempt to pull the trigger.
The Chief told me afterwards that he had hesitated out of sheer
curiosity and a desire to take the man alive and learn more about his
plans. Perhaps that is true, or perhaps this Emperor succeeded in
hypnotizing his enemy and rendering him powerless to shoot. I know
that I would have hesitated to shoot, in his place, out of sheer
respect for power.
But there was one member of our party who had suffered at this man’s
hands and who was actuated by no such scruples. There was a little
pause, as I have said, and then suddenly Larry leapt forward, slipped
the revolver out of the Chief’s hand and sent three shots in quick
succession into the figure before us.
The banging of the revolver echoed in the room, to the accompaniment
of a crash of falling glass, and the figure disappeared as though it
had dissolved into thin air. We had been staring into a rimless,
skillfully arranged mirror. The man with whom we had been talking had
been close beside us in the room on the other side of a screen and had
projected his voice in some way to come from the vicinity of the
mirror.
All this we realized far quicker than it takes to tell it. And with a
roar of rage the Chief dashed into the room, with us at his heels. At
the same moment there came a hollow, contemptuous laugh from the side
of the room and a door opened and closed again quickly.
Without waiting to call directions to his men this time, the Chief
dashed for this door and attempted to snatch it open. It resisted his
efforts, and I stepped back a little so that he could open it with his
jemmy. But the Chief was too much in earnest to stop even for that. He
too stepped back. And then he flung himself at that door like a
full-back two yards from the goal.
One of the panels gave way with a loud crack and the Chief stuck his
hand through the hole left by the panel and unlocked the door from the
other side.
“Come on,” he shouted, and he jerked open the door and flung himself
through it, with me close behind him. Then he cried out and I heard
the thud of a heavy fall. The next moment I realized that there was no
floor in the darkness beneath my feet.
I began to tumble head over heels down a flight of stairs in the
darkness, bringing up against a door at the bottom with a bang that
shook the breath out of me. And it seemed to me, during that fall,
that every time I touched a step it was either on my head where the
bullet had creased me, or on my wounded shoulder. I know that it was
the shoulder that hit the door at the bottom first.
The Chief had come to a stop just before me. Indeed he partly broke my
fall. He jumped to his feet at once and started fumbling with this
second door, but in spite of his haste I could hear him chuckling to
himself over my few well-chosen remarks about those stairs and that
door.
A moment later there came another crack and this second door flew open
like the first. I rolled out into the open air, beneath the open sky,
and jumped to my feet.
The Chief caught my arm. “There he goes,” he shouted. Then he started
to run into the night.
Sure enough, in the starlight I could make out a figure walking
quickly away from us. At the Chief’s shout it began to run. And taking
a long breath I began to run also.
The man ahead ran on for perhaps a hundred feet or so and then
suddenly darted into the doorway of a low stone building. As the Chief
and I drew closer, I gave a sudden shout, for I remembered that low
building only too well. It was the place in which I had been
imprisoned and in which I had killed Ivanovitch and his satellite.
We had gained rapidly on the figure ahead during that run, and the
latter had had to pause to get the door open, so that we were close
behind him when he finally disappeared into the building. He slammed
the door in our faces, but it did not lock. We got it open almost at
once, and as it swung outward, a dazzling glare sprang up from the
middle of the room beyond. The cylinder there had suddenly flashed
into dazzling fire.
I shaded my eyes as well as I could from the glare, and presently I
realized that a man was crouching in a corner by the big machine which
operated the cylinder. But the glare held us stationary on the
threshold for a moment, and while we hesitated, the man by the machine
darted forward and flung open the side of the cylinder which opened
toward us. In the bright light I could see the swathed black silk
about the slender limbs.
Before the searing heat that sprang out at us the Chief and I shrank
back a step or two. At the same moment the man we pursued sent forth a
wailing shriek that I shall remember as long as I live and suddenly
leapt through the opening into the heart of the cylinder.
For an instant our straining eyes saw him glow suddenly red and almost
transparent, in a bower of leaping, licking flames. Then we turned
hastily away. When we looked back again, only the glowing cylinder and
the searing heat remained.
As the miserable man leapt into the cylinder there had come a rush of
feet from behind us. And I recovered from the shock of such a terrible
death to the consciousness that some one was plucking at my arm.
“Clayton! Clayton! And you, Chief! For God’s sake come away! Come out!
Quick!” It was Moore’s voice.
We turned and stumbled out of the building in response to the urgency
in Moore’s tone. But we had taken hardly three steps from the door
when there came a tremendous flash of light, followed by a roar that
seemed to shake the world. With it, something crashed against my chest
and I fell to the ground.
“Chief,” I called faintly, “get Natalie——” and then darkness swooped
down upon me.
I have a vague recollection of regaining at least partial
consciousness some time later. I seemed to be lying full length on a
couch in a brightly lighted room, and I was struggling in some way
with a racking, searing agony in my chest. It seemed to me, too, that
Natalie was kneeling beside me, her lovely face pressed close to mine.
But it was only a vague impression before I plunged back and down
again into terrible, endless darkness.