by Sax Rohmer
He had slipped his hand inside Rama Dass’s vest, and now he looked up, his face very grim.
“Good enough!” said Brinn, coolly. “He asked for it; he’s got it. Take this.” He thrust the Colt automatic into Harley’s hand as the latter stood up again.
“What do we do now?” asked Harley.
“Search the house,” was the reply. “Everything coloured you see, shoot, unless I say no.”
“Miss Abingdon?”
“She’s safe. Follow me.”
Straight up two flights of stairs led Nicol Brinn, taking three steps at a stride. Palpably enough the place was deserted. Ormuz Khan’s plans for departure were complete.
Into two rooms on the first floor they burst, to find them stripped and bare. On the threshold of the third Brinn stopped dead, and his gaunt face grew ashen. Then he tottered across the room, arms outstretched.
“Naida,” he whispered. “My love, my love!”
Paul Harley withdrew quietly. He had begun to walk along the corridor when the sound of a motor brought him up sharply. A limousine was being driven away from the side entrance! Not alone had he heard that sound. His face deathly, and the lack-lustre eyes dully on fire, Nicol Brinn burst out of the room and, not heeding the presence of Harley, hurled himself down the stairs. He was as a man demented, an avenging angel.
“There he is!” cried Harley— “heading for the Dover Road!”
Nicol Brinn, at the wheel of the racer — the same in which Harley had made his fateful journey and which had afterward been concealed in the garage at Hillside — scarcely nodded.
Nearer they drew to the quarry, and nearer. Once — twice — and again, the face of Ormuz Khan peered out of the window at the rear of the limousine.
They drew abreast; the road was deserted. And they passed slightly ahead.
Paul Harley glanced at the granite face of his companion with an apprehension he was unable to conceal. This was a cool madman who drove. What did he intend to do?
Inch by inch, Nicol Brinn edged the torpedo body nearer to the wheels of the racing limousine. The Oriental chauffeur drew in ever closer to the ditch bordering the roadside. He shouted hoarsely and was about to apply the brakes when the two cars touched!
A rending crash came — a hoarse scream — and the big limousine toppled over into the ditch.
Harley felt himself hurled through space.
“Shall I follow on to Lower Claybury, sir?” asked Inspector Wessex, excitedly.
Phil Abingdon’s message had come through nearly an hour before, and a party had been despatched in accordance with Brinn’s instructions. Wessex had returned to New Scotland Yard too late to take charge, and now, before the Assistant Commissioner had time to reply, a ‘phone buzzed.
“Yes?” said the Assistant Commissioner, taking up one of the several instruments: “What!”
Even this great man, so justly celebrated for his placid demeanour, was unable to conceal his amazement.
“Yes,” he added. “Let him come up!” He replaced the receiver and turning to Wessex: “Mr. Nicol Brinn is here!” he informed him.
“What’s that!” cried the inspector, quite startled out of his usual deferential manner.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Came a rap at the door.
“Come in,” said the Assistant Commissioner.
The door was thrown open and Nicol Brinn entered. One who knew him well would have said that he had aged ten years. Even to the eye of Wessex he looked an older man. He wore a shoddy suit and a rough tweed cap and his left arm was bandaged.
“Gentlemen,” he said, without other greeting, “I’m here to make a statement. I desire that a shorthand-writer attend to take it down.”
He dropped weakly into a chair which Wessex placed for him. The Assistant Commissioner, doubtless stimulated by the manner of his extraordinary visitor, who now extracted a cigar from the breast pocket of his ill-fitting jacket and nonchalantly lighted it, successfully resumed his well-known tired manner, and, pressing a bell:
“One shall attend, Mr. Brinn,” he said.
A knock came at the door and a sergeant entered.
“Send Ferris,” directed the Assistant Commissioner. “Quickly.”
Two minutes later a man came in carrying a note book and fountain pen. The Assistant Commissioner motioned him to a chair, and:
“Pray proceed, Mr. Brinn,” he said.
CHAPTER XXX. NICOL BRINN’S STORY OF THE CITY OF FIRE
“The statement which I have to make, gentlemen, will almost certainly appear incredible to you. However, when it has been transcribed I will sign it. And I am going to say here and now that there are points in the narrative which I am in a position to substantiate. What I can’t prove you must take my word for. But I warn you that the story is tough.
“I have a certain reputation for recklessness. I don’t say it may not be inherent; but if you care to look the matter up, you will find that the craziest phase of my life is that covering the last seven years. The reason why I have courted death during that period I am now about to explain.
“Although my father was no traveller, I think I was born with the wanderlust. I started to explore the world in my Harvard vacations, and when college days were over I set about the business whole-heartedly. Where I went and what I did, up to the time that my travels led me to India, is of no interest to you or to anybody else, because in India I found heaven and hell — a discovery enough to satisfy the most adventurous man alive.
“At this present time, gentlemen, I am not going to load you with geographical details. The exact spot at which my life ended, in a sense which I presently hope to make clear, can be located at leisure by the proper authorities, to whom I will supply a detailed map which I have in my possession. I am even prepared to guide the expedition, if the Indian Government considers an expedition necessary and cares to accept my services. It’s good enough for you to know that pig-sticking and tiger-hunting having begun to pall upon me somewhat, I broke away from Anglo-Indian hospitality, and headed up country, where the Himalayas beckoned. I had figured on crossing at a point where no man has crossed yet, but that project was interrupted, and I’m here to tell you why.
“Up there in the northwest provinces they told me I was crazy when I outlined, one night in a mess, of which I was a guest at the time, my scheme for heading northeast toward a tributary of the Ganges which would bring me to the neighbourhood of Khatmandu, right under the shadow of Everest.
“‘Once you leave Khatmandu,’ said the mess president, ‘you are outside the pale as far as British influence is concerned. I suppose you understand that?’
“I told him I quite understood it.
“‘You can’t reach Tibet that way,’ he said.
“‘Never mind, sir,’ I answered. ‘I can try, if I feel like it.’
“Three days later I set out. I am not superstitious, and if I take a long time to make a plan, once I’ve made it I generally stick to it. But right at the very beginning of my expedition I had a warning, if ever a man had one. The country through which my route lay is of very curious formation. If you can imagine a section of your own west country viewed through a giant magnifying glass, you have some sort of picture of the territory in which I found myself.
“Gigantic rocks stand up like monstrous tors, or towers, sometimes offering sheer precipices of many hundreds of feet in height. On those sides of these giant tors, however, which are less precipitous, miniature forests are sometimes found, and absolutely impassable jungles.
“Bordering an independent state, this territory is not at all well known, but I had secured as a guide a man named Vadi — or that was the name he gave me whom I knew to be a high-caste Brahmin of good family. He had been with me for some time, and I thought I could trust him. Therefore, once clear of British territory, I took him into my confidence respecting the real object of my journey.
“This was not primarily to scale a peak of the Himalayas, nor even to visit Khatmandu, but to endeavour to obtain
a glimpse of the Temple of Fire!
“That has excited your curiosity, gentlemen. I don’t suppose any one here has ever heard of the Temple of Fire.
“By some it is regarded as a sort of native legend but it is more than a legend. It is a fact. For seven years I have known it to be a fact, but my tongue has been tied. Listen. Even down in Bombay, the coming of the next great Master is awaited by certain of the natives; and for more than ten years now it has been whispered from end to end of India that he was about to proclaim himself, that disciples moved secretly among the people of every province, and that the unknown teacher in person awaited his hour in a secret temple up near the Tibetan frontier.
“A golden key opens many doors, gentlemen, and at the time of which I am speaking I had obtained more information respecting this secret religion or cult than any other member of the white races had ever collected, or so I thought at the time. I had definite evidence to show that the existence of this man, or demi-god — for by some he was said to possess superhuman powers — was no myth, but an actual fact.
“The collecting of this data was extremely perilous, and one of my informants, with whom I had come in contact while passing through the central provinces, died mysteriously the night before I left Nagpur. I wondered very much on my way north why I was not molested, for I did not fail to see that the death of the man in Nagpur was connected with the fact that he had divulged to me some of the secrets of the religion of Fire-Tongue. Indeed, it was from him that I first learned the name of the high priest of the cult of Fire. Why I was not molested I learned later.
“But to return to Vadi, my Brahmin guide. We had camped for the night in the shadow of one of those giant tors which I have mentioned. The bearers were seated around their fire at some little distance from us, and Vadi and I were consulting respecting our route in the morning, when I decided to take him into my confidence. Accordingly:
“‘Vadi,’ I said, ‘I know for a positive fact that we are within ten miles of the secret Temple of Fire.’
“I shall never forget the look in his eyes, with the reflection of the firelight dancing in them; but he never moved a muscle.
“‘The sahib is wise,’ he replied.
“‘So is Vadi,’ said I. ‘Therefore he knows how happy a thousand pounds of English money would make him. It is his in return for a sight of the Temple.’
“Still as a carven image, he squatted there watching me, unmoving, expressionless. Then:
“‘A man may die for nothing,’ he returned, softly. ‘Why should the sahib pay a thousand pounds?’
“‘Why should the sahib die?’ said I.
“‘It is forbidden for any to see the Temple, even from a distance.’
“‘But if no one ever knows that I have seen it?’
“‘Fire-Tongue knows everything,’ he replied, and as he pronounced the name, he performed a curious salutation, touching his forefinger with the tip of his tongue, and then laying his hand upon his brow, upon his lips, and upon his breast, at the same time bowing deeply. ‘His vengeance is swift and terrible. He wills a man to die, and the man is dead. None save those who have passed through the tests may set eyes upon his temple, nor even speak his name.’
“This conversation took place, as I have already mentioned, in the shadow of one of those strange stone hillocks which abounded here, and it was at this point that I received a warning which might have deterred many men, since it was inexplicable and strangely awesome.
“My attention was drawn to the phenomenon by a sudden cessation of chatter amongst the bearers seated around their fire. I became aware that an absolute stillness had fallen, and in the eyes of the Brahmin who sat facing me I saw a look of exaltation, of wild fanaticism.
“I jerked my head around, looking back over my shoulder, and what I saw I shall never forget, nor to this day have I been able to explain the means by which the illusion was produced.
“Moving downward toward me through the jungle darkness, slowly, evenly, but at a height above the ground of what I judged to be about fifteen feet, was a sort of torch or flambeau, visible because it was faintly luminous; and surmounting it was a darting tongue of blue flame!
“At the moment that I set eyes upon this apparently supernatural spectacle the bearers, crying some word in Hindustani which I did not understand, rose and fled in a body.
“I may say here that I never saw any of them again; although, considering that they took nothing with them, how they regained the nearest village is a mystery which I have never solved.
“Gentlemen, I know the East as few of my fellow-citizens know it. I know something of the powers which are latent in some Orientals and active in others. That my Brahmin guide was a hypnotist and an illusionist, I have since thought.
“For, even as the pattering footsteps of the bearers grew faint in the distance, the fiery torch disappeared as if by magic, and a silken cord was about my throat!
“As I began a desperate fight for life, I realized that, whatever else Vadi might be, he was certainly an expert thug. The jungle, the rocks, seemed to swim around me as I crashed to the ground and felt the Brahmin’s knee in the small of my back.”
CHAPTER XXXI. STORY OF THE CITY OF FIRE (CONTINUED)
“How I managed to think of any defense against such an attack, and especially in the circumstances, is a matter I have often wondered about since. How, having thought of it, I succeeded in putting it into execution, is probably more wonderful still. But I will just state what happened.
“You may observe that I have large hands. Their size and strength served me well on this occasion. At the moment that the rope tightened about my throat I reached up and grasped the Brahmin’s left thumb. Desperation gave me additional strength, and I snapped it like a stick of candy.
“Just in the nick of time I felt the cord relax, and, although the veins in my head seemed to be bursting, I managed to get my fingers under that damnable rope. To this very hour I can hear Vadi’s shriek of pain as I broke his thumb, and it brings the whole scene back to me.
“Clutching the rope with my left hand, I groaned and lay still. The Brahmin slightly shifted his position, which was what I wanted him to do. The brief respite had been sufficient. As he moved, I managed to draw my knees up, very slightly, for he was a big, heavy man, but sufficiently to enable me to throw him off and roll over.
“Then, gentlemen, I dealt with him as he had meant to deal with me; only I used my bare hands and made a job of it.
“I stood up, breathing heavily, and looked down at him where he lay in the shadows at my feet. Dusk had come with a million stars, and almost above my head were flowering creepers festooned from bough to bough. The two campfires danced up and cast their red light upon the jagged rocks of the hillock, which started up from the very heart of the thicket, to stand out like some giant pyramid against the newly risen moon.
“There were night things on the wing, and strange whispering sounds came from the forests clothing the hills. Then came a distant, hollow booming like the sound of artillery, which echoed down the mountain gorges and seemed to roll away over the lowland swamps and die, inaudible, by the remote river. Yet I stood still, looking down at the dead man at my feet. For this strange, mysterious artillery was a phenomenon I had already met with on this fateful march — weird enough and inexplicable, but no novelty to me, for I had previously met with it in the Shan Hills of Burma.
“I was thinking rapidly. It was clear enough now why I had hitherto been unmolested. To Vadi the task had been allotted by the mysterious organization of which he was a member, of removing me quietly and decently, under circumstances which would lead to no official inquiry. Although only animals, insects, and reptiles seemed to be awake about me, yet I could not get rid of the idea that I was watched.
“I remembered the phantom light, and that memory was an unpleasant one. For ten minutes or more I stood there watching and listening, but nothing molested me, nothing human approached. With a rifle resting across my knees,
I sat down in the entrance to my tent to await the dawn.
“Later in the night, those phantom guns boomed out again, and again their booming died away in the far valleys. The fires burned lower and lower, but I made no attempt to replenish them; and because I sat there so silent, all kinds of jungle creatures crept furtively out of the shadows and watched me with their glittering eyes. Once a snake crossed almost at my feet, and once some large creature of the cat species, possibly a puma, showed like a silhouette upon the rocky slopes above.
“So the night passed, and dawn found me still sitting there, the dead man huddled on the ground not three paces from me. I am a man who as a rule thinks slowly, but when the light came my mind was fully made up.
“From the man who had died in Nagpur I had learned more about the location of the City of Fire than I had confided to Vadi. In fact, I thought I could undertake to find the way. Upon the most important point of all, however, I had no information: that is to say, I had no idea how to obtain entrance to the place; for I had been given to understand that the way in was a secret known only to the initiated.
“Nevertheless, I had no intention of turning back; and, although I realized that from this point onward I must largely trust to luck, I had no intention of taking unnecessary chances. Accordingly, I dressed myself in Vadi’s clothes, and, being very tanned at this time, I think I made a fairly creditable native.
“Faintly throughout the night, above the other sounds of the jungle, I had heard that of distant falling water. Now, my informant at Nagpur, in speaking of the secret temple, had used the words:
“‘Whoever would see the fire must quit air and pass through water.’
“This mysterious formula he had firmly declined to translate into comprehensible English; but during my journey I had been considering it from every angle, and I had recently come to the conclusion that the entrance to this mysterious place was in some way concealed by water. Recollecting the gallery under Niagara Falls, I wondered if some similar natural formation was to be looked for here.