The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK ®. Edmond HamiltonЧитать онлайн книгу.
large and small.
All of them were capable of breasting storm and wind, and some were so large they could barely have entered. There were small yachts, big motor-cruisers, sea-going launches, cutters larger than their own, and among them the gray motor-launch of Chandra Dass.
They were massed together here, those with masts having lowered them to enter, floating and rubbing sides, quite unoccupied. Around the edges of the water-cavern ran a wide rock ledge. But no living person was visible and there was no visible source for the soft, strange white light that filled the astounding place.
“These craft must have come here from all over earth!” Campbell muttered. “The Brotherhood of the Door has assembled here—we’ve found their gathering-place all right.”
“But where are they?” exclaimed Ennis. “I don’t see anyone.”
“We’ll soon find out,” the inspector said. “Sturt, run close to the ledge there and we’ll get out on it.”
Sturt obeyed, and as the cutter bumped the ledge, Campbell and Ennis leaped out onto it. They looked this way and that along it, but no one was in sight. The weirdness of it was unnerving, the strangely lit, mighty cavern, the assembled boats, the utter silence.
“Follow me,” Campbell said in a low voice. “They must all be somewhere near.”
He and Ennis walked a few steps along the ledge, when the American stopped. “Campbell, listen!” he whispered.
Dimly there whispered to them, as though from a distance and through great walls, a swelling sound of chanting. As they listened, hearts beating rapidly, a square of the rock wall of the cavern abruptly flew open beside them, as though hinged like a door. Inside it was the mouth of a soft-lit, man-high tunnel, and in its opening stood two men. They wore over their clothing shroud-like, loose-hanging robes of gray, asbestos-like material. They wore hoods of the same gray stuff over their heads, pierced with slits at the eyes and mouth. And each wore on his breast the blazing star-badge.
Through the eye-slits the eyes of the two surveyed Campbell and Ennis as they halted, transfixed by the sudden apparition. Then one of the hooded men spoke measuredly in a hissing, Mongolian voice.
“Are you who come here of the Brotherhood of the Door?” he asked, apparently repeating a customary challenge.
Campbell answered, his flat voice tremorless. “We are of the Brotherhood.”
“Why do you not wear the badge of the Brotherhood, then?”
For answer, the inspector reached in his pocket for the strange emblem and fastened it to his lapel. Ennis did the same.
“Enter, brothers,” said the hissing, hooded shape, standing aside to let them pass.
As they stepped into the tunnel, the hooded guard added in slightly more natural tones, “Brothers, you two are late. You must hurry to get your protective robes, for the ceremony soon begins.”
Campbell inclined his head without speaking, and he and Ennis started along the tunnel. Its light, as sourceless as that of the great water-cavern, revealed that it was chiseled from solid rock and that it wound downward.
When they were out of sight of the two hooded guards, Ennis clutched the detective’s arm convulsively.
“Campbell,” he said, “the ceremony begins soon! We’ve got to find Ruth first!”
“We’ll try,” the inspector answered swiftly. “Those hooded robes are apparently issued to all the members to be worn during the ceremony as protection, for some reason, and once we get robes and get them on, Chandra Dass won’t be able to spot us.
“Look out!” he added an instant later. “Here’s the place where the robes are issued!”
The tunnel had debouched suddenly into a wider space in which were a group of men. Several were wearing the concealing hoods and robes, and one of these hooded figures was handing out, from a large rack of the robes, three of the garments to three dark Easterners who had apparently entered in the boat just ahead of the cutter.
The three dark Orientals, their faces gleaming with strange fanaticism, quickly donned the robes and hoods and passed hurriedly on down the tunnel. At once Campbell and Ennis stepped calmly up to the hooded custodians of the robes, and extended their hands.
One of the hooded figures took down two robes and handed them to them. But suddenly one of the other hooded men spoke sharply.
Instantly all the hooded men but the one who had spoken, with loud cries, threw themselves forward on Campbell and Paul Ennis.
Taken utterly by surprize, the two had no chance to draw their guns. They were smothered by gray-robed men, held helpless before they could move, a half-dozen pistols jammed into their bodies.
Stupefied by the sudden dashing of their hopes, the detective and the young American saw the hooded man who had spoken slowly lift the concealing gray cowl from his face. It was the dark, coldly contemptuous face of Chandra Dass.
CHAPTER 4
The Cavern of the Door
Chandra Dass spoke, and his strong, vibrant voice held a scorn that was almost pitying.
“It occurred to me that your enterprise might enable you to escape the daggers of my followers, and that you might trail us here,” he said. “That is why I waited here to see if you came.
“Search them,” he told the other hooded figures. “Take anything that looks like a weapon from them.”
Ennis stared, stupefied, as the gray-hooded men obeyed. He was unable to believe entirely in the abrupt reversal of all their hopes, of their desperate attempt.
The hooded men took their pistols from Ennis and Campbell, and even the small gold knife attached to the chain of the inspector’s big, old-fashioned gold watch. Then they stepped back, the pistols of two of them leveled at the hearts of the captives.
Chandra Dass had watched impassively. Ennis, staring dazedly, noted that the Hindoo wore on his breast a different jewel-emblem from the others, a double star instead of a single one.
Ennis’ dazed eyes lifted from the blazing badge to the Hindoo’s dark face. “Where’s Ruth?” he asked a little shrilly, and then his voice cracked and he cried, “You damned fiend, where’s my wife?”
“Be comforted, Mr. Ennis,” came Chandra Dass’ chill voice. “You are going now to join your wife, and to share her fate. You two are going with her and the other sacrifices through the Door when it opens. It is not usual,” he added in cold mockery, “for our sacrificial victims to walk directly into our hands. We ordinarily have a more difficult time securing them.”
He made a gesture to the two hooded men with pistols, and they ranged themselves close behind Campbell and Ennis.
“We are going to the Cavern of the Door,” said the Hindoo. “Inspector Campbell, I know and respect your resourcefulness. Be warned that your slightest attempt to escape means a bullet in your back. You two will march ahead of us,” he said, and added mockingly, “Remember, while you live you can cling to the shadow of hope, but if these guns speak, it ends even that shadow.”
Ennis and Inspector Campbell, keeping their hands elevated, started at the Hindoo’s command down the softly lit rock tunnel. Chandra Dass and the two hooded men with pistols followed.
Ennis saw that the inspector’s sagging face was expressionless, and knew that behind that colorless mask, Campbell’s brain was racing in an attempt to find a method of escape. For himself, the young American had almost forgotten all else in his eagerness to reach his wife. Whatever happened to Ruth, whatever mysterious horror lay in wait for her and the other victims, he would be there beside her, sharing it!
The tunnel wound a little further downward, then straightened out and ran straight for a considerable length. In this straight section of the rock passage, Ennis and Campbell for the first time perceived that the walls of the tunnel