THE BLACK CHAPEL
Of how we achieved that twelve or fifteen yards below the rocky bed of
the stream the Powers that lent us strength and fortitude alone hold
record. Gasping for breath, drenched, almost reconciled to the end
which I thought was come--I found myself standing at the foot of a
steep flight of stairs roughly hewn in the living rock.
Beside me, the extinguished lamp still grasped in his hand, leant
Kennedy, panting wildly and clutching at the uneven wall. Sir Lionel
Barton had sunk exhausted upon the bottom step, and Nayland Smith was
standing near him, looking up the stairs. From an arched doorway at
their head light streamed forth!
Immediately behind me, in the dark place where the waters roared,
opened a fissure in the rock, and into it poured the miniature
cataract; I understood now the phenomenon of minor whirlpools for
which the little river above was famous. Such were my impressions of
that brief breathing-space; then--
"Have your pistols ready!" cried Smith. "Leave the lamp, Kennedy. It
can serve us no further."
Mustering all the reserve that remained to us, we went, pell-mell, a
wild, bedraggled company, up that ancient stair and poured into the
room above....
One glance showed us that this was indeed the chapel of Asmodeus, the
shrine of Satan where the Black Mass had been sung in the Middle Ages.
The stone altar remained, together with certain Latin inscriptions cut
in the wall. Fu-Manchu's last home in England had been within a temple
of his only Master.
Save for nondescript litter, evidencing a hasty departure of the
occupants, and a ship's lantern burning upon the altar, the chapel was
unfurnished. Nothing menaced us, but the thunder hollowly crashed far
above. To cover his retreat, Fu-Manchu had relied upon the noxious
host in the passage and upon the wall of water. Silent, motionless, we
four stood looking down at that which lay upon the floor of the unholy
place.
In a pool of blood was stretched the Eurasian girl, Zarmi. Her
picturesque finery was reft into tatters and her bare throat and arms
were covered with weals and bruises occasioned by ruthless, clutching
fingers. Of her face, which had been notable for a sort of devilish
beauty, I cannot write; it was the awful face of one who had did from
strangulation.
Beside her, with a Malay _krîs_ in his heart--a little, jeweled weapon
that I had often seen in Zarmi's hand--sprawled the obese Greek,
Samarkan, a member of the Si-Fan group and sometime manager of a great
London hotel!
It was ghastly, it was infinitely horrible, that tragedy of which the
story can never be known, never be written; that fiendish fight to the
death in the black chapel of Asmodeus.
"We are too late!" said Nayland Smith. "The stair behind the altar!"
He snatched up the lantern. Directly behind the stone altar was a
narrow, pointed doorway. From the depths with which it communicated
proceeded vague, awesome sounds, as of waves breaking in some vast
cavern....
We were more than half-way down the stair when, above the muffled
roaring of the thunder, I distinctly heard the voice of _Dr. Fu-Manchu!_
"My God!" shouted Smith, "perhaps they are trapped! The cave is only
navigable at low tide and in calm weather!"
We literally fell down the remaining steps ... and were almost
precipitated into the water!
The light of the lantern showed a lofty cavern tapering away to a
point at its remote end, pear-fashion. The throbbing of an engine
and churning of a screw became audible. There was a faint smell of
petrol.
"Shoot! shoot!"--the frenzied voice was that of Sir Lionel--"Look!
they can just get through! ..."
_Crack! Crack! Crack!_
Nayland Smith's Browning spat death across the cave. Then followed the
report of Barton's pistol; then those of mine and Kennedy's.
A small motor-boat was creeping cautiously out under a low, natural
archway which evidently gave access to the sea! Since the tide was
incoming, a few minutes more of delay had rendered the passage of the
cavern impossible....
The boat disappeared.
"We are not beaten!" snapped Nayland Smith. "The _Chanak-Kampo_ will
be seized in the Channel!"
* * * * * * *
"There were formerly steps, in the side of the well from which this
place takes its name," declared Nayland Smith dully. "This was the
means of access to the secret chapel employed by the devil-worshipers."
"The top of the well (alleged to be the deepest in England)," said
Sir Lionel, "is among a tangle of weeds close by the ruined tower."
Smith, ascending three stone steps, swung the lantern out over the
yawning pit below; then he stared long and fixedly upwards.
Both thunder and rain had ceased; but even in those gloomy depths we
could hear the coming of the tempest which followed upon that
memorable storm.
"The steps are here," reported Smith; "but without the aid of a rope
from above, I doubt if they are climbable."
"It's that or the way we came, sir!" said Kennedy. "I was five years
at sea in wind-jammers. Let me swarm up and go for a rope to the Park."
"Can you do it?" demanded Smith. "Come and look!"
Kennedy craned from the opening, staring upward and downward; then--
"I can do it, sir," he said quietly.
Removing his boots and socks, he swung himself out from the opening
into the well and was gone.
* * * * * * *
The story of Fu-Manchu, and of the organization called the Si-Fan which
he employed as a means to further his own vast projects, is almost told.
Kennedy accomplished the perilous climb to the lip of the well, and
sped barefooted to Graywater Park for ropes. By means of these we all
escaped from the strange chapel of the devil-worshipers. Of how we
arranged for the removal of the bodies which lay in the place I need
not write. My record advances twenty-four hours.
The great storm which burst over England in the never-to-be-forgotten
spring when Fu-Manchu fled our shores has become historical. There
were no fewer than twenty shipwrecks during the day and night that it
raged.
Imprisoned by the elements in Graywater Park, we listened to the wind
howling with the voice of a million demons around the ancient manor,
to the creatures of Sir Lionel's collection swelling the unholy
discord. Then came the news that there was a big steamer on the Pinion
Rocks--that the lifeboat could not reach her.
As though it were but yesterday I can see us, Sir Lionel Barton,
Nayland Smith and I, hurrying down into the little cove which
sheltered the fishing-village; fighting our way against the power of
the tempest....
Thrice we saw the rockets split the inky curtain of the storm; thrice
saw the gallant lifeboat crew essay to put their frail craft out to
sea ... thrice the mighty rollers hurled them contemptuously back....
Dawn--a gray, eerie dawn--was creeping ghostly over the iron-bound
shore, when the fragments of wreckage began to drift in. Such are the
currents upon those coasts that bodies are rarely recovered from
wrecks on the cruel Pinion Rocks.
In the dim light I bent over a battered and torn mass of timber--that
once had been the bow of a boat; and in letters of black and gold I
read: "S. Y. _Chanak-Kampo."_