Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 27/Number 4/Shadows Tremendous/Chapter 15

UDDENLY out of the black void of darkness there rang a cry—high, shrill, and full of horror, yet strangled in its birth with a ghastly suddenness which turned Darrell's blood cold. With a hoarse exclamation of fury, he, tried desperately to rise, but the ropes held him fast. For a moment or two he struggled fiercely to tear his hands loose, but succeeded only in bruising and lacerating his wrists. At last he sank back with a long, sobbing sigh, and lay there, eyes closed and chest heaving.

Slowly the long hours of darkness dragged on. More and more clearly to the helpless man's tortured senses loomed up that ghastly scene in Nagasaki, each tiny detail clear, distinct, and vivid. He saw again the high-backed teakwood chair, pierced with its rows of holes, like a huge cribbage board. He saw the gaunt, impassive executioner slip the ends of a twisted silken cord deftly through two of these holes and draw them back until the loop lay loosely across the throat of the man sitting strained and upright on this throne of death.

But in the picture etched with such dreadful distinctness upon his seething brain the face of the man in the chair was not that of the degenerate criminal he had seen; it was that of Jack Bellamy, his friend.

The first pale streaks of dawn, sifting into the tent, fell upon a face in which the lines of mental and physical pain had been replaced by dogged inflexibility of purpose. Darrell had determined that his captors should have no satisfaction from him. He would play the game to the bitter end; striving to implant in the mind of their leader a carking, nagging doubt as to whether, after all, there might not be some truth in his story.

Thus it happened that when this same leader appeared in the tent, a little later, a field glass in one hand and his eyes gleaming with suppressed anger, he found the secret-service agent as cool and nonchalant as he had been some thirty-six hours before.

“Your warship has not appeared,” stated the Jap icily.

“No?” drawled Darrell. “Then it will surely show up to-day.”

“I differ with you,” was the curt retort. “It will never come. From the first I suspected you were bluffing; I am sure now. Takaro!”

The other Jap was at his side in an instant. A swift interchange of terse sentences passed between the two, followed quickly by the entrance of a dozen more little brown men. As Takaro slit the ropes and pulled Darrell to his feet, the death guard closed round him and swept him out into the clear sunlight, his arms bound at his sides.

The central part of the plateau was bare, save for a single object, which stood out clear and distinct from the half circle of silent men. To the untutored mind it looked like an ordinary chair, hastily improvised, perhaps, and of somewhat odd design. But Darrell's mind was not untutored. He knew, and after that first swift, appraising glance, he did not look that way again.

Instead, his eyes swept coolly around the waiting circle, coming to rest the next instant on a familiar figure, the sight of which sent the blood ebbing from his cheeks, only to flow back in another second, a flaming wave of crimson.

It was Jack Bellamy, his face a little pale, but his shoulders squared, his head high, and his eyes unflinching. On one side stood Carmen; on the other, supported by two imperturbable Japs, was the flaccid, lurching, half-conscious Boote.

For the fraction of a second Darrell's self-control was almost shattered. Jack was still alive! It was some other voice which had been ringing in his ears all night—perhaps Boote's raised in a delirium of terror. Darrell's hands were clenched tightly, his teeth were set in his lower lip. An instant later, his face was again calm and impassive.

Reaching the edge of the cleared space, the guard halted at a word from Takaro, and, pushing through his men, the Japanese leader paused before Darrell.

“Have you anything to say?” he asked curtly. “Are you ready to admit, now, that your warship is a myth?”

Darrell looked him squarely in the eyes. “I admit nothing,” he replied grimly, a certain threatening undercurrent in his voice. “But I tell you that before many hours have passed you will be regretting bitterly the thing you are about to do. One moment!” he went on, as the Jap turned away with an impatient shrug. “These other men have nothing to do with the United States secret service. You can hold them prisoners for any length of time, but at least there is no necessity—”

“They must take their turn,” rasped the Jap harshly.

His eyes were hard and pitiless, and as Darrell stared for a second into them he realized that his effort had been in vain.

“As you will,” he returned quietly.

The guard closed about him again, and moved out into the cleared space. Darrell's face was calm and fearless, his quiet self-possession perfect. On his lips was a faint, bored smile, as if he were performing a necessary but rather tiresome duty. He did not glance at Bellamy; he could not.

When they reached the chair, two men advanced to place him in it, but he took his seat unaided. And, though every muscle was tensed with horror at the touch of the thing, not a tremor showed in his impassive face.

A man stepped forward and thrust the cord through the hole with deft fingers. The silky thing slid loosely across the secret-service agent's throat, feeling to his raw, quivering nerves like the touch of a snake. For a second it dangled there, and then began slowly to tighten. Darrell's eyes were fixed on the smooth water of the bay, rippling in the morning sun. In another moment the whole picture would vanish.

Suddenly a distant shout clashed upon Darrell's senses, like a crashing peal of thunder, followed swiftly by another. There was the sound of stones rattling down a slope. Some one snapped out a sharp order, and the crawling motion of the cord ceased, leaving Darrell dazed and wondering.

An instant later, he was conscious of a vague, uneasy movement in the circle of waiting men. Presently he heard the padding of feet; swift, staccato sentences jerked out in a breathless voice; then a sudden uproar all around him.

What had happened? What could have happened? He ventured to lean forward against the horrid cord, and found there was no opposing hand to hold it back. It slid easily through the hole and dangled upon his breast. Then, as his eyes turned seaward again, his heart almost ceased to beat.

Rounding a bold, jutting promontory a mile or more to the southward, a monstrous gray shape was plowing through the placid waters of the harbor. Smoke in black clouds belched from her stacks. Clouds of spray were flung up on either side of her bow. At her stern the wind whipped and tossed the folds of a flag which meant everything to the bewildered secret-service agent.

For a second he sat there dazed and uncomprehending at this seeming miracle. Then his face took on an expression of suave, smiling satisfaction.

“Another time, my dear captain, or colonel, or whatever your rank may be,” he murmured, “you'll believe what I say.”

There was no answer, and, turning, he saw the Japs scurrying to cover among the rocks, leaving the center of the plateau quite empty save for the tall figure of Jack Bellamy coming toward him with swift, eager strides, his face radiant.