The Dark Crusader Read Online Free PDF

pencil torch at two cases that Krishna had carefully placed in a deep puddle of dirty and oily water, picked up the other two cases himself and told me softly to do the same and follow him. There was nothing soft about the confirmatory jab in the ribs from Rabat's twelve-bore. I was getting tired of Rabat and his ideas as to what constituted gentle prods, Fleck probably fed him on a straight diet of American gangster magazines.
    Fleck had either better night eyes than I had or he had a complete mental picture of the whereabouts of every rope, hawser, bollard and loose cobble on that dockside, but we didn't have far to go and I hadn't tripped and fallen more than four or five times when he slowed down, turned to his right and began to descend a flight of stone stairs. He took his tune about it and risked using his flash and I didn't blame him: the steps were green-scummed and greasy and there was no handrail at all on the seaward side. The temptation to drop one of my cases on top of him and then watch gravity taking charge was strong but only momentary; not only Were there still two guns at my back but my eyes were now just sufficiently accustomed to the dark to let me make out the vague shape of some vessel lying alongside the low stone jetty at the foot of the steps. If he fell now, all Fleck would suffer would be considerable bruising and even greater damage to his pride which might well make him pass up his desire for silence and secrecy in favour of immediate revenge. He didn't look like the kind of man who would miss so I tightened my grip on the cases and went down those steps with all the care and delicate precision of a Daniel picking his way through a den of sleeping lions. And there wasn't all that difference here, just that the lions were wide awake. A few seconds later Marie Hopeman and the two Indians were on the jetty behind me.
    We were now only about eight feet above water level and I peered at the vessel to try to get a better idea of her shape and size, but the backdrop of that rain-filled sky was scarcely less dark than that of the land and sea. Broad-beamed, maybe seventy feet long-although I could have been twenty feet out either way-a fairly bulky midships superstructure and masts, whether two or three I couldn't be sure. That was all I had time to see when a door in the superstructure opened and a sudden flood of white light completely destroyed what little night sight I'd been able to acquire. Someone, tall and lean, I thought, passed quickly through the bright rectangle of light and closed the door quickly behind him.
    "Everything O.K., boss?" I'd never been to Australia but I'd met plenty of Australians: this one's accent was unmistakable.
    "O.K. Got 'em. And watch that damned light. We're coming aboard."
    Boarding the ship was no trick at all. The top of the gunwale, amidships where we were, was riding just level with the jetty and all we had to do was jump down the thirty inches to the deck below. A wooden deck, I noticed, not steel. When we were all safely down Captain Fleck said: "We are ready to receive guests, Henry?" He sounded relaxed now, relieved to be back where he was.
    "Stateroom's all ready, boss," Henry announced. His voice was a hoarse and lugubrious drawl. "Shall I show them to their quarters?"
    "Do that. I'll be in my cabin. All right, Bentall, leave your grips here. I'll see you later."
    Henry led the way aft along the deck, with the two Indians close behind. Once clear of the superstructure, he turned right, flicked on a torch and stopped before a small square raised hatch. He bent down, slipped a bolt, heaved the hatch-cover up and back and pointed down with his torch.
    "Get down there, the two of you."
    I went first, ten rungs on a wet, clammy and vertical steel ladder, Marie Hopeman close behind. Her head had hardly cleared the level of the hatch when the cover slammed down and we heard the scraping thud of a bolt sliding home. She climbed down the last two or three steps and