Chapter XXV: Unexpected Vengeance

While he worked, Grail hurriedly plied him with questions. “Have you any idea,” he asked, “where Rezonoff was planning to take the colonel when they left here last night?”

Simmons shook his head. “I don’t know for sure,” he said. “They didn’t take me into their confidence any more than they had to. But I have a suspicion from something I heard dropped that they were planning somehow to ring the colonel’s daughter into the game.”

“The colonel’s daughter!” Grail gulped the words out, his face grown gray and tense.

“Yes. Just before they started off, I heard him say to Vance that it would be quite a family reunion to have father and daughter under----”

The sentence was destined never to be finished. Just then a pistol shot rang out from the back of the hut, and Simmons, with a shrill cry, sprang to his feet, clutching at his left hand, from which the little finger had been shot away.

A second later he was out of the hut and dashing for the cover of the horse weeds at a speed which only terror could have lent to his feet.

Grail and Cato, owing to their cramped limbs and the necessity of jerking off the last of their trammeling cords, made slower progress; and by the time they reached the door their late companion had disappeared, the only sign of him being the rustling and swaying of the thicket as he passed through. Just entering the weeds, however, and in close pursuit, they could discern the forms of half a dozen lithe, brown-skinned little men.

Grail drew a long breath as comprehension came to him. He had not dreamed before but that the pistol shot had been aimed at Simmons by one of the returning Russians.

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “The danger that he did not count is the one to overtake him--the vengeance of the Japs for the murder of their countryman. As he himself said, they are deep--deep and crafty--those little people; and no doubt they have been seeking him ever since they learned that he was the murderer of Sasaku. Also, unquestionably, they would shadow the men with whom he was associated; and thus, through Minowsky’s coming here this afternoon, they learned of his hiding place.

“But come,” he urged, laying a hand on Cato’s arm. “Let us hurry after them. We still may be in time to prevent bloodshed. They will certainly desist if we tell them that Simmons has decided to give himself up to the authorities.”

Indeed, considering that they had been trussed up for over fifteen hours, it was really remarkable how quickly they made their way to the shore. Through the tall weeds they plunged breathlessly, never thinking of the danger they ran in possibly being mistaken for the fugitive.

As a matter of fact, though, they were led astray from the actual chase by a chance pig, which, stirred up from its comfortable wallow at their approach, drew them considerably to the north under the delusion that they were following the footsteps of Simmons, or one of his pursuers.

So, when they finally came out on the river bank, it was to see Simmons emerge from the bushes fully four hundred yards below them, and, in frenzied flight, dash down to the water’s edge.

There he hesitated a second, glancing back over his shoulder; but evidently seeing the avengers hard upon his heels, threw aside his coat, and splashed into the shallows with the manifest intention of trying to escape by swimming.

A dozen steps he took, the water rising above his waist; then, just as he was about to throw himself forward and strike out, he stopped suddenly with a peculiar gesture, seemed to struggle unavailingly, and, half turning toward shore, threw up his arms with a wild scream for help.

“Great heavens!” exclaimed Grail. “He’s struck quicksand!” And immediately he and Cato started to run down the shore. But before they had covered half the distance they saw that they would be too late. With fearful rapidity the victim was being drawn down. Already the water was up to his chin.

A little knot of the pursuers stood on the bank, but they stirred neither hand nor foot to tender aid. In absolutely stolid silence they watched the tragedy being enacted before them. Grail tried to call to them, to explain; but they either failed to hear or declined to heed him.

So the end came. There was one last awful, gurgling cry; then silence. By the time that Cato and Grail came panting to the spot, the Japanese had disappeared, departed as quickly and silently as though they had evaporated into air. Only a few bubbles floating on the surface of the muddy river remained to give a sign of what had happened.