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

holding the craft out from the rocks, and had its prow pointed obliquely away from them.
    The humming in the air changed to a shrill whistling as the outrider winds of the storm came upon them. The cutter tossed still more wildly and black masses of water smashed in upon them from the darkness, dazing and drenching them.
    Suddenly Ennis yelled, “There’s the lights of a boat ahead! There, moving in toward the cliffs!”
    He pointed ahead, and Campbell and the helmsman peered through the blinding spray and darkness. A pair of low lights were moving at high speed on the waters there, straight toward the towering black cliffs. Then they vanished suddenly from sight.
    “There must be a hidden opening or harbor of some kind in the cliffs!” Inspector Campbell exclaimed. “But that can’t be Chandra Dass’ boat, for it carried no lights.”
    “It might be others of the Brotherhood going to the meeting-place!” Ennis exclaimed. “We can follow and see.”

    Sturt thrust his head through the flying spray and shouted, “There are openings and water-caverns in plenty along these cliffs, but there’s nothing in any of them.”
    “We’ll find out,” Campbell said. “Head straight toward the cliffs in there where that boat vanished.”
    “If we can’t find the opening we’ll be smashed to flinders on those cliffs,” Sturt warned.
    “I’m gambling that we’ll find the opening,” Campbell told him. “Go ahead.”
    Sturt’s face set stolidly and he said, “Yes, sir.”
    He turned the prow of the cutter toward the cliffs. Instantly they dashed forward toward the rock walls with greatly increased speed, wild waves bearing them onward like charging stallions of the sea.
    Hunched beside the helmsman, the searchlight stabbing the dark wildly as the cutter was flung forward by the waves, Ennis and the inspector watched as the cliffs loomed closer ahead. The brilliant white beam struck across the rushing, mountainous waves and showed only the towering barriers of rock, battered and smitten by the raving waters that frothed white. They could hear the booming thunder of the raging ocean striking the rock.
    Like a projectile hurled by a giant hand, the cutter fairly flew now toward the cliffs. They now could see even the little streams that ran off the rough rock wall as each giant wave broke against it. They were almost upon it.
    Sturt’s face was deathly. “I don’t see any opening!” he yelled. “And we’re going to hit in a moment!”
    “To your left!” screamed Inspector Campbell over the booming thunder. “There’s an arched opening there.”
    Now Ennis saw it also, a huge arch-like opening in the cliff that had been concealed by an angle of the wall. Sturt tried frantically to head the cutter toward it, but the wheel was useless as the great waves bore the craft along. Ennis saw they would strike a little to the side of the opening. The cliff loomed ahead, and he closed his eyes to the impact.
    There was no impact. And as he heard a hoarse cry from Inspector Campbell, he opened his eyes.
    The cutter was flying in through the mighty opening, snatched into it by powerful currents. They were whirled irresistibly forward under the huge rock arch, which loomed forty feet over their heads. Before them stretched a winding water-tunnel inside the cliff.
    And now they were out of the wild uproar of the storming waters outside, and in an almost stupefying silence. Smoothly, resistlessly, the current bore them on in the tunnel, whose winding turns ahead were lit up by their searchlight.
    “God, that was close!” exclaimed Inspector Campbell.
    His eyes flashed. “Ennis, I believe that we have found the gathering-place of the Brotherhood. That boat we sighted is somewhere ahead in here, and so must be Chandra Dass, and your wife.”
    Ennis’ hand tightened on his gun-butt. “If that’s so—if we can just find them—”
    “Blind action won’t help if we do,” said the inspector swiftly. “There must be all the