UNEXPECTED VENGEANCE.
While he worked, Grail hurriedly plied him with questions. “Have you any
idea,” he asked, “where Rezonoff was planning to take the colonel when
they left here last night?”
Simmons shook his head. “I don’t know for sure,” he said. “They didn’t
take me into their confidence any more than they had to. But I have a
suspicion from something I heard dropped that they were planning somehow
to ring the colonel’s daughter into the game.”
“The colonel’s daughter!” Grail gulped the words out, his face grown
gray and tense.
“Yes. Just before they started off, I heard him say to Vance that it
would be quite a family reunion to have father and daughter under----”
The sentence was destined never to be finished. Just then a pistol shot
rang out from the back of the hut, and Simmons, with a shrill cry,
sprang to his feet, clutching at his left hand, from which the little
finger had been shot away.
A second later he was out of the hut and dashing for the cover of the
horse weeds at a speed which only terror could have lent to his feet.
Grail and Cato, owing to their cramped limbs and the necessity of
jerking off the last of their trammeling cords, made slower progress;
and by the time they reached the door their late companion had
disappeared, the only sign of him being the rustling and swaying of the
thicket as he passed through. Just entering the weeds, however, and in
close pursuit, they could discern the forms of half a dozen lithe,
brown-skinned little men.
Grail drew a long breath as comprehension came to him. He had not
dreamed before but that the pistol shot had been aimed at Simmons by one
of the returning Russians.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “The danger that he did not count is the one to
overtake him--the vengeance of the Japs for the murder of their
countryman. As he himself said, they are deep--deep and crafty--those
little people; and no doubt they have been seeking him ever since they
learned that he was the murderer of Sasaku. Also, unquestionably, they
would shadow the men with whom he was associated; and thus, through
Minowsky’s coming here this afternoon, they learned of his hiding place.
“But come,” he urged, laying a hand on Cato’s arm. “Let us hurry after
them. We still may be in time to prevent bloodshed. They will certainly
desist if we tell them that Simmons has decided to give himself up to
the authorities.”
Indeed, considering that they had been trussed up for over fifteen
hours, it was really remarkable how quickly they made their way to the
shore. Through the tall weeds they plunged breathlessly, never thinking
of the danger they ran in possibly being mistaken for the fugitive.
As a matter of fact, though, they were led astray from the actual chase
by a chance pig, which, stirred up from its comfortable wallow at their
approach, drew them considerably to the north under the delusion that
they were following the footsteps of Simmons, or one of his pursuers.
So, when they finally came out on the river bank, it was to see Simmons
emerge from the bushes fully four hundred yards below them, and, in
frenzied flight, dash down to the water’s edge.
There he hesitated a second, glancing back over his shoulder; but
evidently seeing the avengers hard upon his heels, threw aside his coat,
and splashed into the shallows with the manifest intention of trying to
escape by swimming.
A dozen steps he took, the water rising above his waist; then, just as
he was about to throw himself forward and strike out, he stopped
suddenly with a peculiar gesture, seemed to struggle unavailingly, and,
half turning toward shore, threw up his arms with a wild scream for
help.
“Great heavens!” exclaimed Grail. “He’s struck quicksand!” And
immediately he and Cato started to run down the shore. But before they
had covered half the distance they saw that they would be too late. With
fearful rapidity the victim was being drawn down. Already the water was
up to his chin.
A little knot of the pursuers stood on the bank, but they stirred
neither hand nor foot to tender aid. In absolutely stolid silence they
watched the tragedy being enacted before them. Grail tried to call to
them, to explain; but they either failed to hear or declined to heed
him.
So the end came. There was one last awful, gurgling cry; then silence.
By the time that Cato and Grail came panting to the spot, the Japanese
had disappeared, departed as quickly and silently as though they had
evaporated into air. Only a few bubbles floating on the surface of the
muddy river remained to give a sign of what had happened.