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Show ..... By SAX ROHMER Copyr'sht by Sax Robmer, -' I There were several women in the garden, gar-den, but Eileen was nut among them. The balcony upon which lie had seen Eileen was not visible from this point. Pressing on, he cautiously mounted another flight of steps. . . he saw something at which his heart seemed to miss a beat. One of the black eunuchs eu-nuchs was coming down a side path, carrying a woman's body thrown sack-wise sack-wise over his right shoulder. One glance was sullicient. lie was carrying Eileen Kearney alive or dead Ilalg could not tell! A tall and vicious looking Arab, white-robed and tm'b.'ined, followed. Automatic in hand, Ilaig craned over the parapet as the gigantic negro swung suddenly left, descended a flight of stone steps, and disappeared under an archway, followed by the Arab. Where did that tunnel lead to? Ilaig heard the bang of a heavy door In the sunken archway. As lie stood plainly in view now to anyone in the garden, he heard a cry ! It came from the balcony upon which he had seen Eileen! "Cherie! cherie! my baby, where are you?" This was the big woman he had seen on the previous day. She had looked French. Haig sprang right up on the parapet, waving his arms. Swiftly Celeste Indicated Indi-cated that he should conceal himself and wait. Ilaig drew back and presently pres-ently she came running down the stone steps and along the garden. "You, up there! you can hear me?" she gasped. "Yes, yes, I am . . ." "I know who you are! She told me. Listen, only listen: This is the work of the Chinese hell-cat. It Is Said from Keneh who has taken the little one. They have drugged me again, I think. The poor baby. They will take her to Koseir, and from there to the house of Hassan es-Suk at Keneh. This house ..." "I know it, I know it I" Haig Interrupted Inter-rupted Impatiently. "Go on I Go on !" "There are two motor boats In the harbor. In one of them she will be taken. For G d's sake, save her ! Here It Is bad enough but there! Stop them you must stop them !" "But tell me : where Is my best chance " "There Is only one way," she said ; "It Is through the gate. But, If you "Chief !" the man gasped "Chief . . It is Joseph ... be is gone!" "Gone!" "He is nowhere! He does not come to relieve me at. four o'clock. He Is nowhere he Is gone !" There was a moment of silence. "Go back to your duty," said the Egyptian. Egyp-tian. He walked out along the corridor, up a short flight of stairs, and entered en-tered that oflice exotically furnished, with its voluptuous paintings and statuettes. Dropping down upon a divan, he sank his bandaged face in his hands. He. was already a very wealthy man. His share in this last coup would make him a millionaire. It was as well, since, henceforward, whatever of pleasure pleas-ure he could secure he must buy. He would always be hideous. Men would shun his company. Women would fly from him. He struggled to regain mastery of himself to remember what he had planned before they had set out on this expedition against the Wallaroo. What did the absence of Joseph mean? Certainly old Mohammed was to be trusted ; and he had had word, of the fellow's excellent quality. But yet. . . . The girl! The rose-girl whom the Marquis Yu'an Hee See loved, whom he had taken such Insane risks to secure se-cure ! Was there any connection between his compact with Orange Blossom and the absence of Joseph? He must find out. Aswami Pasha unlocked a heavy, iron-studded door, and entered a covered cov-ered courtyard. Yu'an Hee See, a blue tinge showing under his lemon-colored skin, fixed his eyes upon him. "The woman has gone the American Ameri-can woman I had chosen. Do you realize what this means?" A cold terror clutched Aswami Pasha's heart. Well enough he knew his danger. But he rested gratefully upon the cunning of Orange Blossom "Celeste, the French woman?" he suggested. sug-gested. Yu'an Hee See reflected. "There is deep treachery here. You vwill take the French plane, Aswami. with Anton as pilot I am thinking now not of my pleasure, hut of our safety. It Is too late to establish contact with Hess, in Koseir. He will have left for Cairo. Hassan we cannot reach. Go, my friend, You have much to do." Aswami Pasha choked down an exclamation ex-clamation of relief, and went out. The disappearance of Joseph he decided de-cided not to report. It might be part of Orange Blossom's plan. Perhaps it had been necessary to kill the guard. , . In a car specially equipped for the desert journey, and belonging to the manager of the Italian mines near Koseir, Dawson Haig was headed for the Nile valley. He had done everything every-thing that It was possible to do at the seaport. Jack Rattray, the Wallaroo's first officer, whom he had picked up at sea, had stayed behind at the wireless station, busily sending messages. The motor boat, with her crew of two, had been detained. He had left the establishing es-tablishing of contact with the police, Keneh and Cairo, to Jack. Hour after hour the dusty journey continued. He was burning to reach Keneh. He gloated over the Idea of taking the wizened throat of Hassan es-Suk between his two hands. CHAPTER XII Eileen, for the second time since she had set out on that Ill-fated voyage voy-age from London, found herself groping grop-ing in the dark, trying to remember what had happened. ... it Wlls something to do with drinking a cup of coffee. And Celeste, poor Celeste, had not been there. "The risk Is too great," a man's voice had said. "It's madness! This may ruin us. . . ." She had been 111, perhaps. It was all part of delirium . . . those gardens gar-dens with the orange trees In which monkeys played . . . the sickly anesthetic smell. And there were voices again. . , "Yes, hut it is dangerous very dangerous. dan-gerous. How can I ever hope to cam her so far? ..." "The price. Is low, my friend for such. ..." "Her legs are too thin for. the taste of His Serene Highness. It was this last remark which had finally aroused Eileen. S,e ,., her eyes, looked down at her own hare body-and. galvanized Into life, HrilI1 upright. She was ,,, n , with a matting-covered door and close-y close-y shuttered windows. She had been lying on a divan covered with faded apestry above which I,,,,,,. ' ' ' , lamp. Before her, one , , , 'V 7!-d to his hairless P J?' 1 n'S slderatlon. was a stt, Rri,.1KV.I(, ' person wearing European cloti,,,, side him stood a very dlrty ohlAr b (TO BE CONTINUFD) 1 1 . - CHAPTER XI Continued 13 The boat pulled off to the dhow. Yu'an Hee See spoke again down the tube: "Ail Is to take both boats In tow without transshipping the last load." This order was transmitted to a man forward on the deck of the submarine sub-marine and shouted to Aswami Pasha. Captain Peterson, hare-headed, gray-i gray-i faced, stood on the bridge of the Wal-llaroo. Wal-llaroo. It all seemed unreal, utterly impossible. im-possible. Even now It was dilllcult to believe that the pirates had been actually on board his ship without It blow struck, had remove! that precious pre-cious cargo under his eyes. . . . Yet, had there been any alternative? alterna-tive? Even If the Wallaroo had cur-irled cur-irled a gun, the fate of all those women iand children below must have rested 'upon the success of one shot. lie stood listening to the pulsing of I the auxiliary engine on. board the dhow watching the negroes scrambling onto her stern. Then the boats swung out on two lines, and the dlio'v headed In for the head of that rocky Island near to which they lay. Her deck waj black with negroes. Suddenly, all sign of life .anished from the submarine. Came the faint Bound of a bell on the Wallaroo's bridge; the ship began to vibrate, but: "Stand by all boat stations!" the capital", cap-ital", roared. The order was truns-imitted, truns-imitted, In dying echoes, from point to ipolnt of the ship: "Stand by all boat (stations . . . stand by . . . boat sta-Itlons sta-Itlons . . . boat stations. . . ." Peterson sprang to the telegraph and Jammed It "Full speed ahead" then leaped to the side of the bridge and looked over again. He was too la'.e ' Yu'an Hee See sat In the control (room of the submarine. Seen through ithe periscope, the towering hull of the (Wallaroo seemed nlmost to overhang the vicious little warship. Yu'an Hee See spoke softly. "First tube," be said. And the first torpedo was launched (against the helpless liner. Frightened faces of stewards and other members of the crew, some of Ithem with war experience, peered out lof portholes. Men were running Ithere was tumult desperation. Yu'an Hee See began to laugh.. Thar iwelrd, piping laughter swept around the oily little compartment like a breeze from hell. The torpedo buried its wicked nose Jo Lung was clever! squarely into the engine room. There was a monstrous mons-trous explosion which shook the submarine sub-marine from stem to stern. Smoke and steam dropped a veil between the doomed liner and the watching eyes of , Yu'an Hee See. Yet he trusted the I Wasp, his chief torpedo operator. "Second tube," he directed. If the first explosion had been an enormous one, the second was such as seemed to rend the very heavens. ,The second torpedo had registered in Number Two Hold, where twenty cases 'of potted Stilton for Colombo were i6tored. They had come aboard In 'Marseilles Just before Doctor Oestler went ashore. They contained enough high explosive to destroy a small town. . . . Yu'an Hee See rubbed his plump bands together and began to laugh again. Although they had drawn away from the Wallaroo, a veritable tidal wave swept them, but Yu'an laughed on. At last, recovering himself: "Order All to cast the boats off and head the dhow back," came his high-pitched high-pitched instructions. He glanced up to find Len Chow at his elbow. He took the message which his second in command had brought, adjusted his spectacles, and, still chuckling, read : "NEWS OF EXPLOSION DELAYED DE-LAYED POUT SUDAN HXIS PANTHER PAN-THER HEADED FOR YOU." Yu'an Hee See nodded, read the message mes-sage a second time, and began very softly to hiss. . Jack Rattray, chief officer, who had seen the torpedo, was racing for the bridge. He had Just reached the ladder when It crashed Into the engine room. One of the boilers went, and he was heaved off his feet, lost his hold of the rail, and pitched into the scuppers. Dazed, temporarily confused, he 6taggered up. Somewhere behind and below there was a shambles shrieks which he was never to forget to his dying day. He tottered again for the ladder and was halfway up when the second torpedo found Its billet In the secret cargo. . . . The whole of the Wallaroo, forward of the bridge, burst upward like a volcano. The deck planking bellied upward and shot him Into the sea as If he had been propelled by a catapult. Always, in such catastrophes, seeming seem-ing miracles occur. The case of Jack Itattray was one of them. Physically, he was unhurt. Mental confusion was cleared by his plunge Into cool depths. He came to the surface Immediately beside a floating deck chair. Upon this he rested his hands, for the moment mo-ment content to be alive. But he would have gambled a year of the chance of life that remained to him to have been spared the spectacle he was now compelled to witness. . . . The Wallaroo was sinking fast Pushing I lie timely piece of wreckage before him, he ducked his head and kicked off wildly. Then, resting on the fragile raft, he watched. Heartrending cries reached him. Figures were leaping leap-ing from her decks. He saw a man spring from the rail with a woman in ills arms. The forward part of the ship broke free of the hull. The bowels of the Wallaroo dropped out of her through the gaping hole below her bridge and the big ship dived. . . . Itattray, clutching his little raft, threw one arm across the folded wooden wood-en struts. Shaken though he was, he knew its presence alone spelled salvation. salva-tion. And pushing it before him, he began to swim slowly yet further out to sea, towards where, a hundred and forty-live miles . due southwest, Port Sudan nestled on the African const, and II. M. S Panther, Captain Ilar-wood, Ilar-wood, raced towards him. The mass of wreckage was spread over a great surface oC the sea. A pall of smoke and steam was rising, slowdy rising. The two machine guns in tlie submarine's conning towers crackled Into activity, sweeping that area where survivors struggled in the flotsam of the wrecked liner. From the deck of the dhow, men armed with rifles picked out more distant swimmers. swim-mers. And now darting actively about amongst that marine shambles now came the fins of the sharks. . . . Yu'an Hee See, from the deck of the submarine, watched thoughtfully. "I had counted on the sharks," he said, "but nevertheless, we must take no chances." From the deck of the dhow black marksmen were making good practice. Kid Brown, his face very white, fired once or twice, but wildly, and never at a living target. In his capacity as Aswami Pasha's bodyguard, he knew that he served a soulless villain, but his own record was far from unblemished, unblem-ished, and somehow he had made terms with his elastic conscience. He knew that the German freighter had been sunk with all hands nearly two years before, but he had not been present at her actual sinking. He had been on the submarine when the American Amer-ican yacht was held up. Explosives Explo-sives had been smuggled Into her hold in some way, and he had seen her go up like a Crystal palace firework display. Although no rescues were attempted, there had been none of this sniping. The sniping was too much for his stomach. He threw his rifle on to the deck of the dhow. "Gor' blimey!" he shouted, clenching his fists, "I can't do iy It's bloody murder! That's what it is bloody murder!" "You are conscience-stricken again, Mr. Brown?" The Kid turned. Aswami Pasha stood pointing a vicious-looking automatic auto-matic straight at the Kid's stomach. "I have watched you with interest for some time," the Egyptian went on; "in Paris and In Egypt, as well as here. I 'regret it but I can no longer trust yon." Aswami Pasha pressed the trigger. But swiftly as he acted, he nevertheless acted too slowly to check that "Maxim silencer" left of the Kid. As the boxer dropped, coughing, to hang over the side, pumping h!s life's blood into the Red sea, Aswami Pasha temporarily passed into forgetfulness, his once classic nose a mere memory. mem-ory. . . . On the submarine, Yu'an Hee See gave the order to cease firing. "It wdll disturb the sharks," he explained. He rang on the engines to "Dead slow ahead." And old Maclles, raising his eyes to the Indicator as It tinkled! grasped the levers automatically and then sank his debauched face into his hands, sobbing sob-bing as only a drunken man can sob, when, sober, he looks down upon what he has become. In the great gardens of the old palace pal-ace an unusual quiet reigned. The negroes ne-groes seemed to have disappeared, to a man. Even the ' big engine shed adjoining the garages, and its annex with the tall radio masts, were deserted. desert-ed. The big house was still. naig strode along a path close under the wall which marked the southern boundary of his patrol. His brain was racing again, and he knew that he must keep a grip on common sense. He made a detour, so as to pass the window of the hut he shared with the Jackal. The drug-shattered creole sprawled across his bunk, breathing heavily. Haig realized that practically he had the run of the place; a guardian who was himself a prisoner. Foolhardily he had thrust himself Into the place, nnd he knew that It was not the call of duty, but a mad anxiety for Eileen which had driven him. lie had seen the room In which she was Imprisoned apparently under the guardianship of a woman. He wondered won-dered If any of the eunuchs remained on duty inside the harem enclosure. He walked along the path below the wall. Very faintly -at times he bad heard the murmuring of snri far below. be-low. Cautiously lie mourned the steps nl the first of the little watchtowcrs. dot in the blue was rapidly disappearing disappear-ing around the tall of ttie island. lie set out running again, but had not gone fifty yards when a second time he was pulled up sharply. From the north, far over the sea, beyond the rocky headland which embraced the port, beyond the island, came echoing and re-echoing the sound of a mighty explosion. . . . Jack Rattray, chief officer of the Wallaroo, was a powerful swimmer. When that rain of Yu'an's machine-gun bullets had swept the sea he had ducked under the protection of the flouting deck chair. He discovered that by resting his chin upon a crusspiece and swimming steadily, he could propel It without any very great effort. He knew, provided he could escape a bullet, bul-let, that It would be possible t6 Keep afloat for hours. But that ghastly stretch around the wreck was now bristling with sharks' fins! There were fewer sounds from the few poor survivors. But the protecting deck chair, so far, had escaped the attention both of the marksmen and of the sharks. Rattray summoned all bis resources. He meant to survive the tragedy. He must survive it A floating deck chair and one man's undaunted spirit meant the difference between immunity for these ghastly murderers and that day of reckoning which he swore, with clenched teeth, should come to them. A gentle, almost imperceptible current, cur-rent, was bearing him seuwards. He tried to visualize a chart of the Red sea and the approximate positions of steamers. He was many miles off the track, and dusk was near. His proper course, then, was to steal southward on this gentle current, and then edge In towards the tail of the rocky island, since rescue by a passing steamer was almost out of the question. He was now more than a mile from the scene of the disaster. He swung around. The submarine and the dhow, the latter with two boats In tow, was making for the head of the Island. It was a screen from behind which, doubtless, doubt-less, they operated. And, so carefully does Fate weave those comedies in which willy-nilly we all play a part, that It was almost exactly at this moment that Dawson Haig walked down the' little jetty to .where the motor cruiser was moored. A pockmarked negro, whom he remembered, re-membered, and an Arab boy, were on board. They stood up and stared at him suspiciously as he came hurrying along the stone pavement. "Orders!" he said, sharply. "Koseir!" "Ko-seir!" but as he sprang on board, the crew of two continued to regard him with doubt and hesitation. "Hurry !" he cried, and swung the formidable club he carried. The negro glanced helplessly at the boy and the latter threw off the rope. At last the game was In his hands! By dawn he would be back In Koseir. There was a wireless station, and a small English colony. He was no longer "Joseph," but had become again in spirit ahd in fact Detective Inspector Dawson Haig. He peered anxiously ahead. The leading motor cruiser was not in sight. Even if a car waited at Koseir, which he suspected would be the case, he could have It intercepted. The game was in his hands. The course, as he remembered, lay due northwest from the bay for the first forty or fifty miles. There, out of sight of the mainland, it skirted that long, low island. Thence it bore north along a desolate coast for three hours or more, then westerly again, sweeping out seaward to pass Jeddah, and nor'-northwest nor'-northwest to the petrol station. He might find himself in difficulty, there. Probably they had soma means of communication. com-munication. Exultation, doubt, fear, fought for supremacy in his mind. They were three hours out from the base, and the long, low island was dropping astern. Four more hours before that swing around which would point their bows to the African coast which would seem to bring him nearer to Eileen ! They were drawing in to the main coast again. Suddenly, Haig sprang to his feet, shouting excitedly. Almost under their starboard bow floated a piece of wreckage which looked like a deck chair. . . . Then, beside It, a head bobbed up. . . . Aswami Pasha, swathed in bandages came out of Doctor Oestler's room" on the ground floor of the old palace, Into a tiled corridor. He walked alon" to that little lobby which opened on the courtyard inside the entrance gates. He would be disfigured for life. Kid Brown, in passing, his cunning fighter's brain keyed up by the Imminence of death, had left this Ineffaceable mark of his trade upon the man whose bullet hail sped him. All the piston-rod force of that phenomenal left had been nut into the Job the final Job of pulverizing pulver-izing Aswami's beauty. Certainty that that Grecian nose was smashed flat bad sweetened the Kid's last agonv. Jacques the creole (known as the Jackal), waited in the lobby, his shifty eyes fearful. "Well!" said Aswami Pasha. "What have you to report.?" fo &m pt&P',' J-"'2f giir? Poised Perilously, He Began to Draw the Ladder Up. could only reach it, the blacks would never question you. And all those pigs are away. . . ." Haig raced down the stone steps. As it chanced, a collapsible ladder, used for pruning purposes, was lying on a path where one of the gardeners had left it! It was heavy, but long. A passionate rage gave Dawson Haig additional strength. Fully extending the ladder, he leaned it up against the high wall, mounted, and stood on the top. The road far below was deserted from end to end. Poised perilously, he began to draw the ladder up, an operation opera-tion calling for great muscular effort and a nice sense of equilibrium. A sort of savage exultation lent him the powers of an acrobat. He got the ladder poised like a see-saw on top of the wall. Then, realizing that he could not turn it. he lowered the narrow end" onto the hard-baked mud of the path below. Swiftly, he slid down, jerked the tall ladder from the wall, closed Its three sections, and dropped It amongst rank- undergrowth in n ditch. He reached the outskirts of the little lit-tle terraced town unchallenged indeed, without meeting a living creature. The palm-lined street on the left, which contained what appeared to he the only cafe in the place, was deserted. None of the squat buildings of plastered mud brick an'' woodwork exhibited any sign of life. Tied up to the steps was a digv-lool;im: molorbo.-u the same, or its twin. i:i which lie had crossed 1 roin j , ..i Tl:-:i a ' ' ' - 'it m i ia cr checked ;h w , s,:! ' In- |