The Air Pirate

"What new devilry is this?" the girl said, as her eyes fell upon me, trussed up there behind the table. "Do you suppose that I want any further evidence to tell me from where you come and whom you serve?"

"Look at this gentleman; look at him well."

"Another of your unhappy prisoners! So you add torture to your crimes. And you dare to make me witness it!"

She turned in a fury of disgust and loathing, and made a step towards the door. But before she moved further – God bless her! – she said: "You have fallen into the hands of a very horrid scoundrel, sir, but …"

At that I managed to cry out: "Connie, dearest, don't you know me?"

I ought not to have been so sudden. I cursed myself for it. It was just as if I had struck her down, for she reeled, and fell into the chair in a swoon.

I myself was near to it. There was a rush as of cataracts, a sensation of drowning. When I recovered, the maid, Wilson, was ministering to her mistress; there was a sound of pouring liquid, though I could see nothing, for Helzephron stood directly in front of me, watching what went on.

"Look here, Helzephron," I said hoarsely. "This can't go on. For God's sake stop it! Get her away before she recovers and do what you like to me." I thought desperately for something that would move him.

He turned round slowly. "Too late now," he said slowly. "You've got to go through with it, both of you."

The malice had faded out of his eyes. He spoke dreamily: "There is no other way…"

He moved away and leant against the wall at the side, looking down moodily at Constance, who was coming to herself. Her eyes opened, and Helzephron made an impatient gesture with his arm. The maid, Wilson, vanished like a ghost. I could see that she, poor thing, went in terrible fear.

I spoke out directly I thought Connie could understand. I was desperately determined to have my say. It might be the last chance. To my surprise, though I soon understood the reason, Helzephron did not interrupt.

"Yes, it is I, Constance. I'm disguised; that is why you didn't know me. Darling, it's going to be all right. Be brave a little longer!"

I saw comprehension dawn in her eyes, and then they blazed out into love. "John! You've come at last. It's been weary waiting. But you are tied up." Her voice changed. "You're in the power of this man, too!"

"For this moment I may be; but that is nothing. He is tracked down and his hour has come. He knows it. I made a mistake and he captured me, but outside the forces are converging, and for him the whole world is now no wider than this little room."

Helzephron made no sign. From his great height he stared down at us like a stone figure. I doubt if he either saw or heard.

"Tell me quickly – he has not ill-used you, he has not laid hands on you, hurt you…"

A bitter laugh burst from her. "He has stolen me away from life and kept me here a prisoner. But there has been food to eat, and the cage is gilded with the proceeds of his thefts. He knows well enough that if he dared to touch me I should kill myself. No power on earth and none of his cunning precautions could prevent it, and that also he knows. Thank God his time has come."

"Tell me everything, quickly. A lot depends on it." How could I explain that he was going to kill me, that he could and would do so long before there was any chance of help arriving?

"He has dared," she said, and I never knew that a woman's voice could be so hard, "dared to offer me what he calls love. The word is hideous in such a mouth. He has raved, threatened and implored me to – to marry him – to fly away with him and be his wife."

She shuddered terribly and sank back in the chair, as if exhausted. I racked my brains for words. What could I say or do? That she would kill herself rather than yield an inch I was certain. But he could still prolong her torture. The chances were that he would get away in his marvellous ship for a time. On the other hand, it might well be that the searching airships were in such force by now that even the Pirate Ship could not escape. There would be a battle in the air. She would be shot to pieces by our cruisers' heavy guns. And Connie would be on board…

What could I say?

Helzephron stood up from the wall. With slow movements he lit a cigarette, but his hand was trembling as if in a palsy. He spoke to Constance.

"You have already told me that you love Sir John Custance," he said. "I heard that from your own lips two days ago. But 'love' means many things. And you may well have said it to keep me at arm's length. Sir John Custance is here now, and in my power. What of him and you?"

Connie looked at him for a moment without a word. There was not a trace of fear in her eyes. "I will tell you," she said at length. "That man is my man, and I am his woman from now until the end of time and for all eternity. You cannot understand, I know. But if words have meaning, mine are plain enough."

Helzephron suddenly threw away his cigarette and gave what seemed to be a sigh of relief. The sound, the gesture, were startling. I could not understand…

"Well," he said, "that is another, and the last, illusion gone. My life has been a succession of lost illusions, I think. I loved you, and I love you still, with all the force and power of a nature which, whatever else it may be, is stronger than that of most men in this feeble world. I would have given you a love so rich, abundant and wonderful that you would have forgotten your passion for this man. Mine would have consumed it utterly. And you would have responded. You think not, but I know better. It would have been flame and flame, LOVE. Now I see that it is indeed too late."

His tones were not raised; there was nothing particularly eloquent in the actual words he spoke. But to me they tolled like a great bell – a bell that tolls while the iron gates of hell are opening slowly…

"Yes, too late!" Connie said quickly. "And you see it now! It could never have been. And now you will let us go! Oh, be quick! Untie John, please do; it must be hurting him so!"

For the first and last time that night two tears rolled down my cheeks.

I suppose that for a brief space there had been some lingering nobility in Helzephron's mind, some flicker of life in that dark soul. The man had not always been under the dominion of evil.

But now I saw, without possibility of mistake, the final eclipse of good. It was a visible thing, the last awful act in the terrible drama of his life, and it took place before one's eyes like crystals dissolving in a glass.

He looked steadfastly at Constance.

"Sir John can go," he said, "for all the debt of ill-will I owe him, he can go from here unharmed. My dear girl, it rests entirely with you!"

She did not understand.

"Oh, then let him go now, at once."

"That man," he answered, "lives, or dies a peculiarly unpleasant death; goes free, or is nothing but a heap of clothes in half an hour, as you shall decide, Constance."

By the slow dilation of her eyes, I think she knew what he would say.

"It is like this," he went on. "If I cannot have Love, the real thing, at least Fate has put it in my power to demand – and have! – the second best, the semblance of it. The moment that you give me your solemn promise to marry me, Sir John walks out on to the moor."

I gave Constance one swift, warning look. Would the man believe that another was as base as he himself? Everything depended on that.

"You cannot do it, Constance," I said, with a careful tremor in my voice, trying to suggest a slight dawn of hope, and again I sent her a signal of caution.

Helzephron gave an almost imperceptible start, and a faint smile began to play about his cruel lips.

The fish was rising.

"It would be a martyrdom," I went on. "What is my life worth – even to the State" – I thought that was a clever touch – "in exchange for such a sacrifice?"

Praise God for her quick wits! She saw that I was acting, and fell into her part with supreme naturalness. A wail of pain came from her, and she covered her face with her hands. "I cannot let you die," she cried. "Do I not love you? Is not your life of supreme value?"

I spoke in a tone of hardly veiled eagerness: "But your own happiness, what of that?"

Connie made a passionate gesture of renunciation. She turned to our torturer. "Sir," she said, "have you no mercy, no compassion?"

"I have nothing but one overmastering need."

"Then leave us. Let me be alone with Sir John for a few minutes." She beckoned to him and he came, leaning his head low.

"Go," she whispered. "I cannot persuade him while you are here. Leave us alone and I will do my best."