CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Falling! Falling through deep waters, with a horrible sickening sense of utter helplessness and desolation; nerves, heart, mind--very being itself--awaited the crash of extinction. A slight jolt, a roaring of great waters in the air, and a voice, dim, thin and far away!

... In some mysterious way, the sense of sight was joined to that of sound and hearing. I was surrounded by blackness shot with gleams of baleful fire, shifting and changing until the black grew gray in furious eddies, the gray changed into the light of day, and a far-off voice became loud and insistent.

It was thus that I came to myself after the horror on the edge of the dizzy void.

The first thing I saw was the face of Juanita. There were tears in her eyes and her cheeks were brilliant. Then I heard, and even then with a start, a voice that I had never thought to hear again--the gentle, tripping accents of Pu-Yi.

"He will do now, Senorita. The doctor said that he would awake from his sleep with very little the matter except the shock--"

"Juanita!" I cried, and her cool hand came down upon my forehead.

"You are not to excite yourself, dearest," she said.

For a moment or two I lay there in a waking swoon of puzzled but entire bliss. Then I tried to move my position slightly upon the bed, for I was lying upon a bed in a large and airy room, and groaned aloud. Every muscle in my body seemed stretched as if upon the rack, and there was a pain like a red-hot iron in one ankle.

"It will hurt for a few hours," said Pu-Yi, "but you will shortly be ma.s.saged, Sir Thomas, and then--"

"You!" I cried, "but you are dead! Zorilla got you on the tower before--before--"

My mind leapt up into full activity. I was once more swaying upon the edge of infinity with my fingers locked in the bull neck of the a.s.sa.s.sin, and my voice died away into a whisper of horror.

"He stunned me, that was all, Sir Thomas. His bullet glanced away from my head. I came to myself just in time to see you struggling with him and gripped you just as you were falling off into s.p.a.ce. The spirits of my ancestors were with me."

"And he--Zorilla?"

"Will never trouble us more. But you are not well enough yet to talk.

You are in my hands for the present."

"Do exactly as Pu-Yi says, dear, and remember that all is well."

"Your father?" I gasped--why hadn"t I thought of Morse before?

"All is well," she repeated in her low, musical voice, and as I lay back, trembling once more upon the edge of unconsciousness, her face left the circle of my vision.

Two deft Chinese _ma.s.seurs_ came. I was placed in a hot bath impregnated with some strong salts. I was kneaded and pummeled until I could hardly repress cries of pain. I drank a cup of hot soup in which there must have been some soporific, and sank into a deep, refreshing sleep.

It had been late afternoon when I first came to myself. When I woke for the second time, it was night. The room was brilliantly lit. Pu-Yi was sitting by my bedside, quietly smoking a long, Chinese pipe, and, for my part, though I was very stiff, I was in full possession of all my faculties and knew that I had suffered no harm.

I sat up in bed and held out my hand to the Chinaman.

"Pu-Yi, I"m all right now. I owe my life to you!" And as I realized my extraordinary deliverance in the very article of death, a sob burst from me and I am not ashamed to say that my eyes filled with tears. My hand is as strong as most men"s, but I almost winced at the grip of those fragile-looking, artistic fingers.

"You did the same for me, my honorable friend," he said quietly, "and now--"

Before I knew what he would be at, he was feeling my pulse and listening to my heart with his ear against my chest.

At length he gave a sigh of relief. "We had a doctor to you," he said, "and he told us that, in his opinion, you would be little the worse. I am rejoiced that his opinion is confirmed."

"Oh, I am all right now, and ready for anything."

"You are sure, Sir Thomas? What you have been through may have given you a shock which--"

For answer, I held out my hand. It was as firm as a rock and did not tremble. I heaved myself off the bed, took a cigarette from a box upon a table, and began to smoke.

"Now then, Pu-Yi, I am just as I was before. First of all, where am I?"

"You are in the Palacete," he replied. "You were brought here at once."

Then I knew that I was in Morse"s dwelling house, copied exactly, as I have said before, from the Palacete Mendoza at Rio.

"Now tell me exactly what has happened, in as few words as possible."

"I am only too anxious to do so, Sir Thomas. You were brought back here.

Immediately after, Rolston descended by means of the outside stair and summoned the staff. They are all here now. The electric cables have been repaired. Lifts, telephones, electric light, and all the other machinery is in working order. The body of Zorilla has been brought up to the City and placed with that of Mulligan and my own servant. This house is strongly guarded by armed men, and the whole City is patrolled."

"No one else was hurt?"

"No one else at all, Sir Thomas."

His face changed as he said this, and he looked me full in the eyes.

Then, with a start, I understood. Every detail of the past came back in a vivid, instantaneous picture. Again I saw the silver bath descending from the ceiling and heard the loud explosion of Rolston"s pistol. And as that furious noise resounded in my mental ear, once more the grinning, corpse-pale face of Mark Antony Midwinter pa.s.sed close to mine and I felt the very wind of his pa.s.sage as he rushed by and disappeared down the long underground corridor leading to the safety-room.

"Midwinter!" I almost shouted. The face of the Chinaman had gone a dusky gray--he told me afterwards that mine was white as linen.

"Vanished," he said--"disappeared utterly. And he is the master-mind!

While Mark Antony Midwinter is alive, Mr. Morse, none of us, will know a moment of safety or of ease."

I could not quarrel with that. Zorilla was dead--a great gain--but no one who had been through what I had and who knew the whole situation as I knew it, could fail to appreciate the terrible seriousness of this news. To you who read this record in peace and safety, this may seem a wild or exaggerated statement, a product of over-strained nerves. But, believe me, it was not so. I knew too much! The securest fortress in the whole world had been already stormed. All the precautions that enormous wealth and some of the subtlest brains alive could take had already proved useless against the superhuman cunning, energy and ferocity of this being who seemed, indeed, literally, more fiend than man. No! we were no cowards, most of us, up there in the City of the Clouds, but we might well quail still, to know that this fury was unchained. I know that I sat down suddenly upon the bed with a groan of despair.

"Gone! Vanished! Surely he must be either in the City or has escaped! If he is in the City, I admit the danger is imminent. He must be utterly desperate, and will stick at nothing. If he has managed to get down to the earth, he is dangerous still, but we have a breathing s.p.a.ce. Which is it?"

"We do not know, Sir Thomas. There is no trace of him anywhere, so far.

But, as I have said, we have more than a hundred men, armed and patrolling the City. This house, at any rate, is secure for the moment.

A great search is being organized. The whole area is being mapped out and it will be searched with such thoroughness before to-morrow"s dawn that a rat could not escape. My own theory is, and Mr. Morse agrees with me, that Midwinter is still in the City. The most scrupulous inquiries below seem to prove that he never descended from the tower, and you know how minute and careful our organization is. And now that you are yourself again, it is Mr. Morse"s wish that we hold a conference and settle exactly what is to be done. Do you think you are equal to it?"

"Perfectly," I replied, and without another word Pu-Yi led the way out of the room.

I found Mr. Morse sitting in his library. He was pale, and seemed much shaken. There were red rims round the keen, masterful eyes, but his voice was strong and resolute, and I could see that, whatever his opinion of his chances, he would fight till the end.

I need not go into details of the private conversation we had for a minute or two. His grat.i.tude was pathetic, and I felt more drawn to him than ever before. When at length Juanita, followed by little Rolston, entered the room, all trace of his emotion had gone and we settled down round the table as calm and business-like as a board of directors in a bank. And yet, you know, no group of people in Europe stood in such peril as we did then. Behind the long, silken curtains, the shutters were of bullet-proof steel. The corridor outside, the gardens of the house, swarmed with men armed to the teeth. It was dark in the sky, but the City in the Clouds blazed everywhere with an artificial sunlight from the great electric lamps.