“You love her, do you?” she screamed. “You love her? I’m glad. The Blind One has taken her. I saw MacArthur grip her white arms. They will hold her as hostage for our safety.”
The scene had the quality of a nightmare. I swayed slightly, but I said nothing in reply to the vixenish outburst. The voice of Inspector McKinven cut into my thoughts like a heavy knife.
“Five of my men have gone round by the front gate to endeavour to cut off those who have escaped,” he said carefully. This for him must have been a great occasion, and not one to be spoiled by use of the Highland speech. “But they may be too late; and Lady O’Brian may have a secret exit from the house.”
“Lawson,” I said steadily, “I should like you and Gray and Peter to come with me to the Noblesse. The Blind One will have a boat at the slip on the other side of the island. If she gets clear away we could follow her in Williamson’s skiff.”
I saw the Secret Service men look at me queerly. Peter put his hand in mine.
“Come on!” he said.
Lawson turned to Inspector McKinven.
“There is a fast fishing skiff lying in the Smuggler’s Cove,” he said. “It is probably much speedier than the police boats. We are going to it now. If your men do not secure the Blind One and — er — the others, signal to us in half an hour. Fire two shots if their boat goes east and three shots if it goes westwards. They won’t, I think, be so far ahead of you that you will be unable to see the direction in which they go.”
“Very well, sir,” agreed the inspector. “Two shots if Lady O’Brian’s boat goes east; three if it goes in the opposite direction. I shall fire four shots if they get away without us seeing them. I hope, however, that my men will overtake them and that no signal will be required at all.”
He barked orders to the sergeants and constables in charge of the prisoners. Then he dashed out through the great front door of the house. I remember wondering vaguely how a man of his huge bulk could move so swiftly.
Lawson and Gray fell in on either side of Peter and me, and my three friends guided me out of the grounds and on to the rough track which led to the other side of the island. We could neither see nor hear the fugitives and their hostage.
*
I cannot very well recollect the details of our wild dash across the island. I gave my companions no help in finding the direction of the Smuggler’s Cove; but Lawson must have struck the true path by some instinct. We panted up the long hill behind the Blind One’s house, and Peter kept up a ceaseless muttering.
“Stick it, faither!” he said. “Stick it! We’ll find her a’ richt. Dinna look sae terrible. Stick it, faither!”
Lawson and Gray did not speak. The latter had a torch which he used on occasion to light a way in front of us; and on the summit of the slope the beam flashed on something white lying among the loose stones. I dashed forward and picked it up.
“Maureen’s pearls!” I said.
Gray nodded.
“They’ve gone this way.”
We left the road shortly afterwards and struck across the damp heather. I stumbled and almost fell in more than one instance; but there was always Peter to grip my arm and steady me and to mutter encouragement in my ear.
Again we encountered the running sheep, and this time we saw their ghostly white forms flitting through the dark. I almost screamed at the sudden sound of their pattering feet and at the sight of their leaping bodies. Peter felt the tremor go through me.
“Sheep!” he exclaimed. “Faither, dinna be scared o’ sheep! Dinna be droll!”
The mass of shifting cloud which had blotted out a great part of the sky earlier in the night had now been dissipated. The thin moon shone down wanly, allowing us to see a short distance ahead. The opposite ridge of the Ringan plateau rose to our right, clear-cut against the starry sky.
Lawson encouraged us to run. The wind was still high, but on this occasion we had it behind us. The strong gusts lifted us forward in our wild race. We dashed across the heather, leaping and floundering among the tufts. I thought we should never reach the end of our journey. The stars were whirling round my head in a mad rout. But my senses must have been abnormally acute. I shouted suddenly:
“D’you hear! A motorboat engine starting!”
Lawson and Peter shook their heads.
“I hear nothing,” said Gray.
We had reached at last the top of the shelving bank which led down to the Slate Rock in the Smuggler’s Cove.
“Take care, Bill!” muttered Lawson.
Slithering and sliding we climbed down the perilous slope. Peter still stuck by my side, and I was aroused a little from the strange mental lethargy which possessed me to assist him and keep him from falling. As we neared the foot of the bank we glimpsed the lights of the Noblesse.
“We’re back!” shouted Lawson, to arouse the crew. “Get your engine running.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” It was Williamson himself, I think, who answered the hail. His voice came floating up to us, strangely disembodied in the sheltered cove.
We reached the flat black rock, and as we thankfully felt the solid stone beneath us the crude oil engine of the Noblesse spluttered and roared.
“Round to the slip!” Lawson was panting. “Round to the slip! Three criminals have escaped. They’re carrying off an innocent girl. The Noblesse is faster than the police boats.”
We leapt to the deck of the fishing skiff. I went up to the bows and helped to cast off the ropes. I heard behind me the skipper issuing orders, while Lawson and Gray explained to him the details of the situation. His passionate shout came to my ears:
“The damned ould witch! If me an’ Jimmy an’ the Noblesse can dae it, we’ll ha’e her in the gaol afore ye can blink.”
Then the bows swung out slowly into the quiet waters, and by degrees we gathered speed.
Just before the skiff put her nose to the rollers outside the cove I heard in the distance the sound of two revolver shots. It came from the direction of Ringan harbour.
The Blind One’s boat had gone east.
Chapter 17
I shall never forget that wild race through the night and over the stormy sea. My whole life was at stake. Were Maureen to be killed I should have had no more interest in living.
I confess that at the time the fact of Scotland — and Britain — having been saved from immediate chaos scarcely made an impression upon my mind. Vaguely I was aware that some serious calamity had been averted, owing chiefly to the bravery and skill of Maureen and her friends; but the one recurring, knife-like thought that twisted in my head was of the terrible danger into which Maureen had now been precipitated.
As the Noblesse swung round the long point separating the Smuggler’s Cove from Ringan harbour I was overcome by a frenzy of fear and anger. I could only stand in the bows and wait: that was what angered me.
Lawson, snatching at the side rails, came staggering along the deck towards me. He reached my side and laid his hand on my arm.
“Bill!” he cried. “I’m terribly sorry!”
“I know… Where are Peter and Gray?”
“With Williamson and Jimmy in the wheelhouse.”
The wind howled about us. The skiff plunged and thundered among the waves as if she were aware of her mission and had become impatient of the storm hindering her passage. On she went through the grey darkness.
“The Blind One won’t — hurt Maureen?” I said after a while.
“Of course she won’t! It’s in her interests to keep her safe. As long as she holds Miss MacLaren she knows they she may be able to barter her for the safety of her chief accomplices.”
I knew definitely that he lied to comfort me. I knew that though every effort might be made to save her, the police would allow Maureen to be sacrificed before the captive members of ‘The Screaming Gull’ were released. The lives of millions of persons, which would be in danger were the leaders of the Society allowed to go free, would be more important in the eyes of the law than the life of on
e… even though that one life happened to be more precious to me than any other thing.
The Noblesse shook herself free of the side-waves when at last she came in sight of the harbour. With the sky now clear above and the moon little past its zenith we could see about a quarter of a mile ahead. And as the Hoodie’s skiff churned madly outside the harbour-bar both Lawson and I glimpsed the little fourteen foot motorboat, a single light at its masthead, moving parallel to the shore on our right. It had almost four hundred yards’ start of the Noblesse.
Gray and the skipper, within the unlit wheelhouse, must also have spotted the escaping craft. The course of the skiff was suddenly altered and we bore away to starboard. I imagined dully that the Hoodie’s intention was to cut off the motorboat when it emerged from the shelter of Ringan at the eastern extremity of the island.
We passed quite near the slip from which the Blind One and her companions had embarked. As we crashed onward we saw another motor-vessel sweep out from the long concrete slab.
“There are half a dozen policemen in that boat,” said Lawson. “They will follow us.”
“Where is the Blind One going?” I asked, and I almost laughed outright at the coolness and steadiness of my voice. “She’s not heading for the Blaan shore at any rate.”
Lawson answered with explicit brevity.
“Gray tells me,” he said, “that the Dunalbin, the vessel carrying the guns and ammunition, was due to leave Dublin at five o’clock this evening. Her destination, according to Sir David MacLaren’s last telephone message to Merriman, is Greenock. The Blind One, I think, will endeavour to board her in mid-passage, probably near Ailsa Craig.”
“And have no steps been taken to cut off the Dunalbin?” I demanded irritably.
“Sir David MacLaren,” continued Lawson, “got into touch with the Admiralty this afternoon. The destroyer Iron Mask, on a visit to Oban, has been sent out.”
*
The pursuit seemed endless. I was scarcely conscious of the Noblesse heaving beneath my feet or of the wild singing of the wind in the mast-stays. It appeared to me that I was being borne along with extreme slowness by a light eddy of air. I gazed steadily in front, watching keenly the progress of Lady O’Brian’s boat. I heard none of the stormy turmoil around us.
Lawson, Gray and Peter told me afterwards that they were deafened by the sounds of the sea and wind. Each time the Noblesse dashed against a wave there was a report like that of a cannon, so greatly above the usual was her speed. Each time she was hit on the counter by an irregular roller she groaned like a living thing. And all the while, like the basic melody in an organ piece, there sounded the rain and rattle of spray on the deck and against the wheelhouse.
Old Williamson, I was told, refused to spare his craft; and months later I experienced the greatest pleasure in attending a special banquet in his honour at Campbeltown, where, in recognition of his valuable services to the Government, he was presented with a handsome silver cup and a still handsomer cheque. He stood in the wheelhouse, I believe, constantly spitting and smoking and exhorting Jimmy to do his ‘darndest’ at the wheel. Every few minutes he would leave the shelter to inquire of the engineer amidships if he were asleep or if he were actually getting the most out of his Kelvin motors. After the lapse of a second or two he would return to the wheelhouse to waste another half-dozen matches in trying to get his pipe lit once more. To Peter and Gray, who stood by his side, he talked frequently in monosyllables, the refrain of his conversation being:
“Gi’e the Noblesse a chance. We’ll get the damned ould wumman yet! Dae ye no’ think sae, Jimmy?”
And Jimmy would nod sagely, his red-rimmed eyes never wavering from the leaping bow of the fishing boat.
“We’ll get her, boss!”
On and on we went. We appeared to be gaining little on our quarry, but it was obvious that with every mile we covered the police boat behind us was steadily falling farther and farther back.
Quite near Lawson and me, the five men constituting the crew of the Noblesse were lying on their bellies on the deck, smoking and peering ahead. I could hear them whispering to one another with excitement.
One of them muttered to the rest:
“That puir duvvil up there! She’s his lass!”
“He’s as white as a sail,” came the reply. “It maun be hellish for him!”
I turned my face to the wind and I heard nothing more of their talk.
By now the Blind One’s boat had gone round the eastern point of Ringan and was facing the open sea outside the Firth of Clyde. I could see her leaping and curvetting over the big waves. Once when a white-topped roller clutched at her and pitched her high I thought all was over with the occupants. It was desperate agony to know that Maureen was there, surrounded by her enemies, and supported only by the frail shell of the craft.
But as the sea grew rougher it was evident that the Noblesse was to have the advantage of the smaller boat. We were sailing straight forward on the port beam of our quarry, and suddenly I knew that we were gaining with considerable speed. There were scarcely more than a hundred yards between us when Lawson yelled in my ear:
“Bill! Look there!”
I turned and looked in the direction of his sweeping arm. On our port bow the stabbing beam of a searchlight flashed over the turbulent water. Round it swept in a circle. It picked us out, touched the Blind One’s boat, and then, as if pointing a terrible accusing finger, it came to rest at last. Illuminated as clearly as if under the sun lay a long black ship, wallowing heavily in the run of the tides.
“The Dunalbin!” shouted Lawson in my ear, “The Iron Mask has found her. That’s the destroyer’s searchlight.”
“To hell with the Dunalbin!” I raved. “I want Maureen!”
Behind us on the deck came the scraping of unsteady footsteps, and we turned to see Gray and Peter swaying forward and gripping the rails.
“The Iron Mask!” cried Gray, his face triumphant. “‘The Screaming Gull’ is finished. We’ve won!”
“We haven’t won!” I reeled over to him, my fists clenched. “We haven’t won, do you hear! Maureen is still there in that boat with the Blind One.”
Peter came up to me. His little, puckered face was serious and pale and his red hair blew down over his forehead. But his eyes glowed.
“It’s a’ richt, faither. Dinna be feared. We’ll get her.”
Lawson and Gray exchanged glances.
Time passed slowly for me. We seemed to be covering hundreds of miles in pursuit of the Blind One. Ringan and Oa faded behind us and there rose up in front dim ridges of low hills. It took me some time to realize that they were the hills of Ayrshire and Wigtownshire.
Lady O’Brian’s pitching boat was now almost beneath our bows. We could see four persons aboard… The lean shadow at the tiller was MacArthur, and huddled at the quarter were three other dim figures. There was a blue gleam from the centre figure when the swaying mast-head light struck it. That would be Maureen, coat less and still wearing the dress given her by Professor Campbell.
About half a mile ahead the searchlight still picked out the black cargo vessel. And rushing up on our port bow was the destroyer itself. We could see the long low mass of her hull, blacker still than the black night. We could hear the roar and thud of her engines, and see the high twinkling lights at her mast-head and at the extremities of her bridge. We could see dimly the raked funnel, from which poured a dense cloud of smoke and a shower of fiery sparks. As she drew within half a mile of our position we could see dark dots flitting about along her deck and hear the thin blowing of a Bo’sun’s whistle.
And still, as the destroyer held on her course, the great wavering beam of her searchlight stabbed the night ahead of her and bathed the Dunalbin in a huge circle of radiance. The low, black cargo boat seemed to be moving slowly and with difficulty, as if blinded by the glare and able only to grope her way. We could see sometimes a wave curl up and break over her forepeak.
I was wondering if the climax
of this strange sea drama would ever come, when Lawson suddenly gripped my arm.
“The Iron Mask is signalling!” he shouted. “See the flickering lights! She’s telling the Dunalbin to heave-to.”
But the Dunalbin, we saw, still kept on her way. She sent out no answering signal.
About twenty yards separated the Noblesse from the Blind One’s craft. Across the waves I roared:
“Lady O’Brian! Lady O’Brian! Stop your boat!”
We were so close that we could see the faces of the occupants of the little vessel. MacArthur, clutching the tiller, half-turned in his seat to look up at us. His gaunt face glistened with a ghastly fear. The silvery hair of Bailie Grant, who sat hunched and shivering beside Maureen, blew raggedly about his head in the wild gale. Maureen herself did not move, but I saw that she recognized me. Her eyes stared up at me as if in disbelief.
The Blind One rose. Steadying herself, she faced us, and the tartan shawl that she wore streamed out in front of her. For a long while she stood swaying to the movement of the little boat. Her golden curls escaped in tendrils from beneath the folds of her shawl. Her round, smooth face seemed lovely in the dim light. Imperious and proud it was turned towards us.
Then above the roar of the wind there came to our ears the boom of a gun. The Iron Mask was warning the Dunalbin of its purpose. And with the sound the Blind One’s face changed, slowly and terribly.
It was as if a mask had been torn from her. The imperiousness departed from her mien. Her cheeks, so smooth before, became pitted and lined. Her blind eyes blazed in madness. She crouched forward. She tore the tartan shawl from her head and shoulders and sent it flying far out into the sea. And disturbed by the whirl of the shawl her golden curls fell from her head. The wig struck the side of the boat and fell back into the bottom. Thin, patchy grey hairs streamed about her temples.
She screamed and cursed and raised her bony arms, and in the dark there was no flashing of her rings. This person, who claimed to be a descendant of a noble house, shouted vile things at us in the language of the Paris gutters. The voice which once had seemed to me so melodious, now cut through the sound of the wind like a rasping blade.
The Screaming Gull Page 19