The Cruise of the Jasper B.

by Don Marquis

  CHAPTER XXVI

  A DOG DIES GAME

  Clambering out of the hold, the three detectives and Cleggett brieflymade their followers acquainted with the extraordinary turn of events.The Rev. Mr. Calthrop, Miss Pringle's Jefferson, and WashingtonArtillery Lamb were detailed to guard the Jasper B. end of the tunnel.The others, seizing their rifles, raced across the sands towardsMorris's.

  In a few moments the place was invested, with riflemen on every sideexcept the south, which fronted on the bay. The steel-jacketed bulletsfrom the high-power guns tore through and through the flimsy walls.Nevertheless the defenders replied pluckily, and the siege might havedragged on for hours had it not been for the courage and resource ofKuroki. Gaining the stable, Kuroki found an old pushcart there. Hepiled three bales of hay upon it, and then set fire to the hay.Pushing the cart before him, and crouching behind the bales to protecthimself from revolver shots, he worked his way to the east verandah ofthe building and left the hay blazing against the planks. Then he ranas if the devil were after him, and was almost out of pistol shotbefore he got a bullet in the calf of his leg.

  The blaze caught the wood and spread. In two minutes the east verandahwas in flames. Loge and his men attempted to pour water on the blazefrom above. But Cleggett's party directed so hot a fire upon thewindows that the defenders were forced to retire.

  The main building caught. The road house was old, and was of verylight construction; the fire spread with rapidity. Loge was in a trap.

  But that evil and indomitable spirit refused to yield. Even when hisremaining ruffians came out and gave themselves up Loge still fought onalone in a sullen fury of despair.

  Reckless of bullets, he leaned from an open window, a figure notwithout its grandeur against the background of smoke and flame, andshouted a savage and obscene insult at Cleggett.

  "Give yourself up," cried Wilton Barnstable.

  "Damn it, man, anything's better than roasting to death!"

  Loge raised his hand and sped a last bullet at the detective, grazingBarnstable's temple.

  "Come in and get me!" he shouted.

  Barnstable fired, just as a whirl of smoke blew in front of Loge.

  Cleggett thought the outlaw staggered, but he was not certain.

  A moment later a portion of the roof fell; then the east wall crashedin. Morris's was a blazing ruin.

  "He has perished in the flames," said Wilton Barnstable. "So endsLogan Black!"

  "More like he's blowed his head off," said Cap'n Abernethy. "If youwas to ask me, that's what I'd do."

  "He has done neither!" cried Cleggett. "He has taken to the tunnel.That man will fight to the last breath."

  And without waiting to see whether the others followed him or notCleggett set off at top speed for the Jasper B.

  With a dagger between his teeth, his pistol in its holster, and hiselectric, watchman's lantern in his pocket he entered the tunnel andcrawled forward on his hands and knees. If Loge were in there indeedhe had the fire at one end and Cleggett at the other. But even atthat, escape was possible, for all Cleggett knew. What ramificationsthis peculiar passageway might have he could not guess.

  The place was narrow, and in spots so low that it was necessary for aman to crouch almost to the ground. Cleggett, because he did not wishto reveal his presence, did not flash his lantern; there were stretcheswhere he might have stood almost erect and made quicker progress, if hehad found them with the light. The earth beneath him was beaten hardand smooth.

  Cleggett thought possibly that the tunnel had originally led fromMorris's basement to the smuggler's cave which Wilton Barnstable hadspoken of, and that it had been extended later to the ship. He learnedafterwards that this was true from the men who had surrendered. TheJasper B. had been abandoned for so long, and was so completelyabandoned except for the visits of Cap'n Abernethy, who fished from itnow and then, that Loge had conceived the idea of making it theback-door, so to speak, of Morris's. In the event of a raid uponMorris's his "get-away" through the hulk was provided for. He hadintended buying the ship himself; but Cleggett had forestalled him.

  From the prisoners Cleggett also learned later that two men had beenconcerned in the explosion which had broken the big rocks on the plain.One of them had won the Claiborne signet ring at poker after ReginaldMaltravers had been stripped of his valuables, and had worn it. Theyhad been dispatched with a bomb each, which they were to introduce intothe hold of the Jasper B., retiring through the tunnel after they hadstarted the clockwork mechanism going. It was known that one of themowed the other money; they had been quarreling about it as they enteredthe tunnel from the cellar of Morris's. It was conjectured that thequarrel had progressed and that the debtor had endeavored, by the lightof his pocket lantern in the tunnel, to palm off a counterfeit bill insettlement of the debt. This may have led to a blow, or more likelyonly to an argument during which a bomb was dropped and exploded,followed quickly by the other explosion. Dead hand, counterfeit billand ring were flung whimsically to the surface of the earth together,and the leaning rocks had been astonishingly broken from beneaththrough this trivial quarrel. Had it not been for this squabble theJasper B. and all on board must have been destroyed. Verily, the mindsof wicked men compass their own downfall, and retribution can sometimesbe an artist.

  But Cleggett, as he crawled forward through the darkness and the damp,thought little of these things that had so mystified him at the time.He was alert for what the immediate future might hold, not doubtingthat Loge had retreated to the tunnel. He had too strong a sense ofthe man's powerful and iniquitous personality to suppose that Logewould kill himself while one chance remained, however remote, ofinjuring his enemies. Loge was the kind of dog that dies biting.

  Suddenly, after pressing forward for several minutes, he ran against anobstruction. The tunnel seemed to come to an end. He did not dareshow his light. But he felt with his hands. It was rock that blockedhis way. Cleggett understood that this barrier was the result of theexplosion. Groping and exploring with his hands, he found that thepassage turned sharply to the left. It was more narrow and curving,for the distance of a few yards, and the earth beneath was fresher.When the tunnel had been blocked by the explosion, Loge and his men hadburrowed around the obstruction.

  Cleggett judged that he must be at about the middle of the tunnel. Hefelt the more solid earth beneath his hands again, and knew that he hadpassed the rock. The passage now descended deeper into the ground,slanting steeply downward. This incline was twenty feet in length;then the floor became horizontal again on the lower level. At the sametime the passage widened. Cleggett stretched one arm out, then theother; he could not touch the wall on either hand. He stood erect andheld his hand up; the roof was six inches above his head. He was in aroom of some sort. Wishing, if possible, to learn the extent of thissubterranean chamber, which he did not doubt had at one time been usedas a cave and storehouse of smugglers, Cleggett began to sidle aroundwalls, feeling his way with his hands.

  He dislodged a pebble. It rolled to the ground with what was really aslight sound.

  But to Cleggett, who had been getting more and more excited, it wasloud as an avalanche. He stopped and held his breath; he fancied thathe had heard another noise besides the one which his pebble made. Buthe could not be sure.

  The sensation that he was not alone suddenly gripped him withoverwhelming force. His heart began to beat more quickly; the blooddrummed in his ears. Nevertheless, he kept his head. He took hispocket lantern in his left hand, and his pistol in his right, andleaned with his back against the wall. He listened. He heard nothing.

  But the eerie feeling that he was watched grew upon him. Presently hefancied that the darkness began to vibrate, as if an electrical currentof some sort were being passed through it, and it might forthwith burstinto light. Cleggett, as we know, was not easily frightened. But nowhe was possessed of a strange feeling, akin to terror, but which was atthe same time not any terror of physical injury.
He did not fear Loge;in dark or daylight he was ready to grapple with him and fight it out;nevertheless he feared. That he could not say what he feared onlyincreased his fear.

  Children say they are "afraid of the dark." It is not the dark whichthey are afraid of. It is the bodiless presences which they imagine inthe dark. It was so with Cleggett now. He was not daunted by anythingthat could strike a blow. But the sense of a personality began toencompass him. It pressed in upon him, played upon him, embraced him;his flesh tingled as if he were being brushed; he felt his hair stir.One recognizes a flower by its odor. So a soul flings off, in someinexplicable way, the sense of itself. This force that laid itselfupon Cleggett and flowed around him had an individuality without abody. Not through his senses, but psychically, he recognized it; itwas the hateful and sinister individuality of Loge.

  With choking throat and dry lips Cleggett stood and suffered beneaththe smothering presence of this terror while the slow seconds mountedto an intolerable minute; then there burst from him an uncontrollableshout.

  "Loge!" he roared, and the cavern rang.

  And with the word he pressed the button of his electric pocket lamp andshot a beam of light straight in front of him. It fell upon theyellowish brow and the wide, unwinking eyes of Loge. The eyes staredstraight at Cleggett's own from across the cave, thirty feet away.Loge's teeth were bared in his malevolent grimace; his head was bentforward; he sat upon a rock. Cleggett, unable to withdraw his eyes,waited for Loge's first movement. The man made no sign. Cleggettslowly raised his pistol....

  But he did not fire. The open, staring eyes, unchanging at the menaceof the lifted pistol, told the story. Loge was dead. Cleggett crossedover and examined him. Clutched on his knees was a bomb. He had beenwounded by Barnstable's last shot, but he had crawled through thetunnel with a bomb for a final attempt on the Jasper B. His strengthhad failed; he had rested upon the rock and bled to death.

  As for his last thought, Cleggett had felt it. Loge had died hating andlusting for his blood.