The Edmond Hamilton Megapack: 16 Classic Science Fiction Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyes, he still strove to drive the dagger home into the American’s throat. But a hand jerked him back and he lay prostrate and still.
    Ennis scrambled up to find Inspector Campbell, pale and determined, over him. The detective had shot the attacker from behind.
    The captain of the cutter and two of his men lay dead in the cockpit beside the two Malays. The remaining seaman, the helmsman, held his shoulder and groaned.
    Ennis whirled. The motor-boat of Chandra Dass was no longer beside the cutter, and there was no sight of it anywhere on the black sea ahead. The Hindoo had taken advantage of the fight to make good his escape with his two other servants and their prisoners.
    “Campbell, he’s gone!” cried the young American frantically. “He’s got away!”
    The inspector’s eyes were bright with cold flame of anger. “Yes, Chandra Dass sacrificed these two Malays to hold us up long enough for him to escape.”
    Campbell whirled to the helmsman. “You’re not badly hurt?”
    “Only a scratch, but I nearly broke my shoulder when I fell,” answered the man.
    “Then head on around North Foreland!” Campbell cried. “We may still be able to catch up to them.”
    “But Captain Wilson and the others are killed,” protested the helmsman. “I’ve got to report—”
    “You can report later,” rasped the inspector. “Do as I say—I’ll be responsible.”
    “Very well, sir,” said the helmsman, and jumped back to the wheel.
    In a minute the big cutter was roaring ahead over the heaving black waves, its searchlight clawing the darkness ahead. There was no sign now of the craft of Chandra Dass ahead. They raced abreast of the lights of Margate, started rounding the North Foreland, pounded by bigger seas.
    Inspector Campbell had dragged the bodies of the dead policemen and their two slayers down into the cabin of the cutter. He came up and crouched down with Ennis beside Sturt, the helmsman.
    “I found these on the two Malays,” Campbell shouted to the American, holding out two little objects in his spray-wet hand.
    Each was a flat star of gray metal in which was set a large oval, cabochon-cut jewel. The jewels flashed and dazzled with deep color, but it was a color wholly unfamiliar and alien to their eyes.
    “They’re not any color we know on earth,” Campbell shouted. “I believe these jewels came from somewhere beyond the Door, and that these are badges of the Brotherhood of the Door.”
    Sturt, the helmsman, leaned toward the inspector. “We’ve rounded North Foreland, sir,” he cried. “Head straight south along the coast,” Campbell ordered. “Chandra Dass must have gone this way. No doubt he thinks he’s shaken us off, and is making for the gathering-place of the Brotherhood, wherever that may be.”
    “The cutter isn’t built for seas like this,” Sturt said, shaking his head. “But I’ll do it.”
    They were now following the coast southward, the lights of Ramsgate dropping back on their right. The waters out here in the Channel were wilder, great black waves tossing the cutter to the sky one moment, and then dropping it sickeningly the next. Frequently its screws raced loudly as they encountered no resistance but air.
    Ennis, clinging precariously on the foredeck, turned the searchlight’s stabbing white beam back and forth on the heaving dark sea ahead, but without any sign of their quarry disclosed.
    White foam of breaking waves began to show around them like bared teeth, and there was a humming in the air.
    “Storm coming up the Channel,” Sturt exclaimed. “It’ll do for us if it catches us out here.”
    “We’ve got to keep on,” Ennis told him desperately. “We must come up with them soon!”
    The coast on their right was now one of black, rocky cliffs, towering all along the shore in a jagged, frowning wall against which the waves dashed foamy white. The cutter crept southward over the wild waters, tossed like a chip upon the great waves. Sturt was having a hard time