Fire Mountain Part 7

said Carew. "I hope you have discovered nothing about my appearance that displeases you."

The cavalier tone brought Martin to himself with a start. He had been taken aback by the appearance of Captain Carew, the man so different from his preconceived picture. This was no rough bully of the seas; Carew's bearing and dandified apparel bespoke gentility. Martin had just observed one of the captain's hands, a slender, white, aristocratic hand, small for the man's size. On the back of the hand was a star, tattooed in red.

The tattooing recalled Smatt and Smatt's words; recalled to Martin his reason for being in that room; banished for the moment his knight-errant mood. He thrust his hand into his inside overcoat pocket and felt of the envelope. Smatt's formula came to his lips.

"I wish to see you on the Hakodate business," he said.

"It is time that business was settled. Did the Chief send you?" Carew responded promptly.

"That is correct," said Martin.

He half withdrew the envelope from his pocket and then hesitated. This Carew was a severe and superior person. The packet delivered, Martin foresaw instant dismissal. And that poor girl! Yet, Carew was a white man.

"But, Captain Carew, you could not have understood me aright!" he appealed. "I tell you, these j.a.panese have a young white woman----"

"Enough!" barked Carew. His tone made Martin jump. "Young man, you were sent here to deliver certain papers to me. Do so."

Silently, Martin handed over the envelope. He was baffled. He was angry.

"Now--get out!" commanded Carew, waving him toward the hall.

Martin turned toward the exit. Hot, edged words were on his tongue's tip, and he could not trust himself to further urge this cold-blooded wretch. He took a step toward the door and then stopped short, staring into the corner of the room. He saw a man's gray overcoat lying on the floor in the corner.

He wheeled upon Carew again and found the latter's eyes upon him in a threatening glare. "You--you--that coat!" stammered Martin.

"Enough!" exclaimed Carew. "You have finished your business with me, young man. You will find your guide in the hall; he will conduct you to the street. And a word of advice, my good fellow: If you value your skin and your employment, you will promptly forget everything and anything you may have seen in this house!"

Martin choked upon his rage. Within him surged a hot hatred of this insolent sailor; this captain of yellow bravos; this abductor of girls; this man who dared not face the daylight. He was a worm beneath the Captain's feet. He was--well, the worm could turn.

He moved toward the door. Yes, he would go, and quickly.

"If you value your skin and your employment!" So that was it--a threat! He would show this high-handed captain that Martin Blake would risk his skin as readily as the next man; and as for his employment--a fig for Smatt, and Dr. Ichi, and all their ilk! They were crooks; this Carew was a crook. They held that girl against her will. It was all a piece of some dirty, crooked work. Well, the police....

"G.o.d, what treachery is this!"

The booming sentence arrested Martin at the door. He lifted his hand from the k.n.o.b and turned to the voice. Carew, his face convulsed with pa.s.sion, was regarding him.

"What does this mean?" cried Carew. He shook a handful of papers at Martin. "Come back here, you! Explain this beastly trick!"

Martin went back. He noticed, as he drew close to the other, that the envelope he had given the captain lay empty and torn on the table.

"Well, what is it? What trick?" he demanded shortly.

"What trick!" mimicked Carew. "Look here. Is this what you were to deliver to me?"

He thrust the sheaf of papers beneath Martin's nose. They were sheets of blank, white paper, and they had been creased by folding.

"This is what that precious envelope contained," continued Carew.

"Tell me, what ---- foolery is this? Where is that code translation?

Where are my instructions? Where are my clearance papers? Hey--you staring fool!"

"Stop that!" flared Martin. "You moderate your tone when you speak to me! If you have any complaint to make about the contents of that envelope, make them to Josiah Smatt, and that Dr. Ichi. I know nothing about the contents. The envelope was given to me sealed, and I delivered it to you sealed."

"It has been tampered with," declared Carew.

"It has not," a.s.serted Martin. "I have had it in my pocket, on my person, since Smatt gave it to me. I delivered it to you with the contents intact. If you found those blank sheets within, they were placed there before I received the envelope."

Carew favored Martin with a steely and searching stare; and Martin, ablaze with resentment, stared boldly back. Martin's bearing, and his positive statements, evidently impressed the captain.

"You had better take the matter up with the men who sent me here," said Martin. "I have finished with my part of the affair. I wish to go."

"You are jolly well right I'll take the matter up with the men who sent you here!" exclaimed Carew. "And I'll take the matter up at once.

Meanwhile, you will remain here. I'll not lose track of you until I get to the bottom of this affair."

"Do you mean you intend to detain me here? Whether I will or no?"

demanded the thoroughly angered Martin.

"I do," stated Carew.

He barked an order in a foreign tongue. The two gargoyles at the other end of the room sprang to life and started swiftly toward Martin.

Martin wheeled about and darted for the door to the hallway. He reached it, and was jerking it open, when the two j.a.ps flung themselves upon him. He lifted one from his feet with a well-placed swing. The other flung his arms about Martin's neck and clung there.

Martin staggered into the hall, wrestling with that leech-like hug. He tore free from the fellow; and as he did he caught a glimpse of Captain Carew through the open door. The man had not moved from his station behind the table.

Then a mountain seemed to drop upon Martin's back. He was crushed face downward upon the floor, enveloped and smothered by a vast and sour-smelling bulk.

He struggled desperately and succeeded in partly rolling over on his back. He flailed his arm twice, and felt his fist strike against soft flesh. He saw hanging over him the unwholesome face of the saloonkeeper, Spulvedo.

Then a heavy blow smote his jaw-bone, and he went a-dancing through a world of bright, shooting stars, into darkness.

CHAPTER VI

PRISONER

The results of a forceful tap on the human jaw are various. One man lies inert, dead of body, blank of mind; a second writhes about and babbles; a third retains a modic.u.m of control over locomotion, but the mind journeys afar into a phantasmagoric world.

Martin was the third man during this, his first, reaction to a knockout blow. He was not completely unconscious, but that terrific jolt seemed to divorce body and mind. So far as further resistance was concerned, he was helpless. He swam about in an opaque mist. There, afar off, on the floor, was stretched another Martin Blake, a shadow of Martin Blake; and he saw monstrous things surrounding this adumbration of himself, headless bodies, and bodiless heads, and detached arms and legs.

He saw these parts of men haul the unreal Martin Blake to his feet and bundle him through the door, back into the big, lighted room. He saw this other self, body sagging, head hanging, stand again before the paper-littered table and sway to and fro upon tottering legs. He heard, from a great distance, the deep rumble of Captain Carew's voice--but all he could see of Carew was a foot and a section of leg.

He saw a wide expanse of bare floor, and the floor was moving.

He hung suspended before a door. Came Carew's voice--

"Not there--fools--next room."