THE BATTLE ON THE JUNK
LING SOO paced the broad deck of the Pung-Shoon. He looked upward at the towering turrets of the old-fashioned Chinese ship. There, in the gloom, he could distinguish the forms of sailors. They were waiting for Ling Soo’s signal.
The insidious Chinaman was gloating. He and four members of the Wu-Fan were aboard the junk. It had been Ling Soo’s plan to go below and slay the false Foy himself. Then he had realized that a better scheme of death would do.
He had dispatched two of his men to do the work. Both were ones whom he knew that he could trust. One traitor — like Foy — did not mean a flock. For the secret methods of the Wu-Fan were too insidious to permit of plotting.
Other traitors had been discovered before — traitors like Stephen Laird — when they had begun to suggest their schemes to men whom they thought would work with them.
Ling Soo was near the door to the oddly furnished cabin. His keen ears were set to hear a dull shot from below. That shot would mean the death of the traitor, Foy. Then Ling Soo would give the signal. No time would be lost while the two men were coming from the hold.
It had been difficult for Ling Soo to waddle up those stairs from the hold. That reason, as much as any, was why the leader of the Wu-Fan had delegated his appointed work to his trusted subordinates.
By the high-railed side of the ship, Ling Soo could see the forms of the other two Wu-Fan men. They were ready at the ladder.
As soon as the signal was given, pandemonium would break loose. Then Ling Soo would join his companions, and they would escape, by the little boat, accompanied by the men who came from the hold.
All the crew of this ship were Chinamen — members of a chapter of the Wu-Fan, which existed in China itself. They were sworn to secrecy. They had done good work before; they would do good work tonight!
Ling Soo grinned as he bethought himself of what would be happening elsewhere, when others of the Wu-Fan took advantage of the furor on the junk to do a work that would mean great profit for Ling Soo. Profit for Ling Soo — and for Green Eyes! Millions of dollars in good American money!
The muffled report of a gun shot came to Ling Soo’s ears. Then came a second. Good!
The smile spread over Ling Soo’s face, and he cackled softly. Both men had done their work. Each had sent a bullet through the black heart of Foy, the traitor!
That made death sure; now there would be no more trouble.
Ling Soo stared about him in the dark; toward the high decks; toward the tall, square-rigged masts. The time had come, yet he was careful and deliberate.
From beneath his robe, Ling Soo produced a gleaming revolver. He pointed it off toward the bay. He pressed the trigger. The gun barked.
It was the signal for action!
Shots cracked from spots about the ship. Loud cries sounded. Ling Soo stood waiting, watching the stairs at the other side of the cabin. His two men would be here in a moment.
A head and shoulders appeared from the stairs; then the body of a man — a crouching, sinister form.
Ling Soo stood petrified.
Foy!
THE SLAYER had come to life! Somehow, he had escaped the terrible torture rack!
Had the others aided him? No — there would have been but one shot, if they had been traitors also. They would be coming, now, with Foy.
Ling Soo knew the truth in an instant. Those two muffled pistol shots had been from the hand of Foy. The traitor had killed the trusted henchmen!
A flare went up from a high deck. Its lurid glare showed the form of Ling Soo, on the deck beside the cabin door.
The leader of the Wu-Fan had pointed his revolver toward the hated form of the approaching Foy. But before he could fire, a flash came from the cabin.
The revolver fell from Ling Soo’s grasp. He tottered toward the side of the ship. He sprawled upon the deck. As the flare died away, the two men by the rail came dashing to their leader’s rescue.
Another flare revealed the form of Foy, now on the deck. The Shadow, still in the guise of the crouching slayer, was brandishing two automatics as the light revealed his figure.
Ling Soo, lying back against supporting arms, saw his enemy. He raised a long, hideous cry that rose above the shouts of the sailors.
It was the battle cry of the Wu-Fan — the cry that meant death when uttered by the leader! The pointing hand of Ling Soo was directed toward that figure at the cabin!
As the flare sizzled away, shouts came from everywhere. Ling Soo’s two companions drew revolvers and tried to fire.
Bursts of flame from the cabin door stretched them, motionless upon the deck. The sailors — whose shots had been wild and meaningless — were firing again. The bullets from their revolvers smashed against the sides of the cabin.
Then came another flare. It showed a new sight. The Shadow was in the center of the deck. Swinging rapidly, to and fro, his automatics were discharging leaden messengers of death.
The forms of maddened sailors were visible in the light; but their hasty shots could not seem to strike that strange target — the crouching form that bore the semblance of Foy. From the decks, the range was too great for ordinary revolver aim.
But The Shadow’s automatics mocked the distance. Bullets, coming from those tongue-flamed muzzles found the marks toward which they were directed. Sailors with upraised revolvers fell before they could fire.
In that brief interval, The Shadow loosed his entire load of deadly missiles. The automatics were empty. But when another flare came from an upper deck, it revealed two gleaming revolvers in those mighty hands — weapons which The Shadow had taken from the men whom he had conquered below!
NOW the aim of both those guns was directed toward a single spot. While bullets sank into the deck beside his weaving body, The Shadow had seen a group of faces peering from a rail upon a high-pitched deck. There, another flare was being lighted.
The Shadow’s revolvers spoke their message. Two men, rising, toppled from the rail of the high deck. One, clutching an object on the rail, fell crashing to the deck below. Beside him came a hissing, burning flare. It scattered upon the deck. Its flaming portions were scattered about in all directions.
Another flare was starting from that same high rail. The man who had lighted it, dropped suddenly, as The Shadow spotted him for death. The second flare fell like a sudden meteor. Its fragments scattered also — some bounding through the door of an open cabin.
Unable to withstand those inhuman shots, startled sailors sprang from their hiding places. Stumbling over the bodies of their fallen comrades, they leaped for the places which were farthest from the deadly bullets.
Like monkeys, they scrambled up the masts of the towering junk, and pressed themselves upon sail-furled rigging. A mocking laugh came from the lone man on the deck. The laugh of The Shadow, it reached the ears of those cringing men whose only refuge had been flight.
A weird glow had replaced the flares. Smoke was pouring from a cabin.
The junk was on fire!
Other wreaths curled upward from spots of the deck as the dried wood of the old Pung-Shoon blazed like tinder.
Amidst the rising holocaust, the terrible man on the deck swept back toward the cabin from which he had come. Not a single shot defied him.
The Shadow’s revolvers were empty. He tossed them away, and stooped to pick up the revolver which Ling Soo had let fall.
Something gleamed through the air. A knife was whistling from the rigging, its sharp point driving straight for the back of the stooping man.
Was it instinct that told The Shadow? Or did his keen ears sense the approach of that murderous blade, delivered from the mast, high above?
With his hand upon Ling Soo’s gun, The Shadow dived suddenly away. The shimmering blade passed within an inch of his twisting body. It struck the deck at the exact spot where Ling Soo’s gun had lain.
With point buried deep in the wood, the blade quivered. It had missed its mark!
But The Shadow did not let the thrust remain unanswered. Swinging upward, the muzzle of his revolver seemed to follow the path along which the knife had come. No one was visible, behind the sail where lay the cowering wretch whose skillful hand had sent the blade along its way.
A burst of flame from the revolver. A cry from high above. The form of a man tumbled from the darkness, clawing helplessly, until it reached the deck, forty feet below!
That master stroke ended all resistance. Yellow faces ducked behind the sails. Knives, already in hand, were thrust back in the belts from which they had been drawn. Not a single gun spoke.
The Shadow, backing toward the rail, had stifled all opposition. Wherever that revolver might point, there would it find a mark — and every cringing enemy knew it!
With another peal of taunting mirth, The Shadow passed the huddled forms of Ling Soo and his two bodyguards. Over the rail and down the ladder; yet from the side of the junk, these gibing peals of laughter still told their terrible threat.
A muffled motor chugged. The little boat brought by Ling Soo had left the side of the big ship. In it was a lone, crouching figure, stooping at the wheel — so low that he was almost invisible.
Whistles were sounding. Boats were putting out from everywhere to reach the junk, which was now a mass of smoke, tinged with spurts of rising flame. Forms were leaping from the rigging, seeking the safety of the bay.
A police boat, swinging by the burning Pung-Shoon, was capturing these miserable survivors.
All remaining on the junk were doomed. Some had missed when they had leaped for safety. Others had fallen wounded and helpless from The Shadow’s bullets.
Among these, The Shadow knew, was Ling Soo. The insidious leader of the Wu-Fan had gone to a deserved fate. But there was another yet to be accounted for.
The little motor boat was speeding swiftly through the bay, lost against the blackened waves, far from the glare of the blazing junk.
Within that craft, a crouching man was carefully placing his fingers to his face. Two tiny spots of color glowed beneath his finger tips as they pressed beneath the eyebrows.
From the jet-black center of the tiny craft came the laugh of The Shadow!