"Only a scratch, but I nearly broke my shoulder when I fell," answered
the man.
"Then head on around North Foreland!" Campbell cried. "We may still be
able to catch up to them."
"But Captain Wilson and the others are killed," protested the helmsman.
"I've got to report----"
"You can report later," rasped the inspector. "Do as I say--I'll be
responsible."
"Very well, sir," said the helmsman, and jumped back to the wheel.
In a minute the big cutter was roaring ahead over the heaving black
waves, its searchlight clawing the darkness ahead. There was no sign now
of the craft of Chandra Dass ahead. They raced abreast of the lights of
Margate, started rounding the North Foreland, pounded by bigger seas.
Inspector Campbell had dragged the bodies of the dead policemen and
their two slayers down into the cabin of the cutter. He came up and
crouched down with Ennis beside Sturt, the helmsman.
"I found these on the two Malays," Campbell shouted to the American,
holding out two little objects in his spray-wet hand.
Each was a flat star of gray metal in which was set a large oval,
cabochon-cut jewel. The jewels flashed and dazzled with deep color, but
it was a color wholly unfamiliar and alien to their eyes.
"They're not any color we know on earth," Campbell shouted. "I believe
these jewels came from somewhere beyond the Door, and that these are
badges of the Brotherhood of the Door."
Sturt, the helmsman, leaned toward the inspector. "We've rounded North
Foreland, sir," he cried. "Head straight south along the coast,"
Campbell ordered. "Chandra Dass must have gone this way. No doubt he
thinks he's shaken us off, and is making for the gathering-place of the
Brotherhood, wherever that may be."
"The cutter isn't built for seas like this," Sturt said, shaking his
head. "But I'll do it."
They were now following the coast southward, the lights of Ramsgate
dropping back on their right. The waters out here in the Channel were
wilder, great black waves tossing the cutter to the sky one moment, and
then dropping it sickeningly the next. Frequently its screws raced
loudly as they encountered no resistance but air.
Ennis, clinging precariously on the foredeck, turned the searchlight's
stabbing white beam back and forth on the heaving dark sea ahead, but
without any sign of their quarry disclosed.
White foam of breaking waves began to show around them like bared teeth,
and there was a humming in the air.
"Storm coming up the Channel," Sturt exclaimed. "It'll do for us if it
catches us out here."
"We've got to keep on," Ennis told him desperately. "We must come up
with them soon!"
The coast on their right was now one of black, rocky cliffs, towering
all along the shore in a jagged, frowning wall against which the waves
dashed foamy white. The cutter crept southward over the wild waters,
tossed like a chip upon the great waves. Sturt was having a hard time
holding the craft out from the rocks, and had its prow pointed obliquely
away from them.
The humming in the air changed to a shrill whistling as the outrider
winds of the storm came upon them. The cutter tossed still more wildly
and black masses of water smashed in upon them from the darkness, dazing
and drenching them.
Suddenly Ennis yelled, "There's the lights of a boat ahead! There,
moving in toward the cliffs!"
He pointed ahead, and Campbell and the helmsman peered through the
blinding spray and darkness. A pair of low lights were moving at high
speed on the waters there, straight toward the towering black cliffs.
Then they vanished suddenly from sight.
"There must be a hidden opening or harbor of some kind in the cliffs!"
Inspector Campbell exclaimed. "But that can't be Chandra Dass' boat, for
it carried no lights."
"It might be others of the Brotherhood going to the meeting-place!"
Ennis exclaimed. "We can follow and see."
* * * * *
Sturt thrust his head through the flying spray and shouted, "There are
openings and water-caverns in plenty along these cliffs, but there's
nothing in any of them."
"We'll find out," Campbell said. "Head straight toward the cliffs in
there where that boat vanished."
"If we can't find the opening we'll be smashed to flinders on those
cliffs," Sturt warned.
"I'm gambling that we'll find the opening," Campbell told him. "Go
ahead."