I held my breath in terror lest the old man should speak. But he stood motionless as a statue beside the dark airplane; he seemed wrapt in a reverie. The hope arose of saving him. That was Hancock’s airplane; his fate, then, lay with Hancock, and Lembken had told me that the Air-Admiral was a Christian. Surely he would take pity on the old, childish man. He knew me. I might appeal to him....
The twisting track, which had hidden him from my eyes, brought him into view once more, clear against the low moon that made the moving figure a silhouette against its circle. I crept up, until suddenly I reeled and nearly fell, overcome by the magnitude of my discovery. For this was not Air-Admiral Hancock, but Hugo Sanson, the madman who ruled the Federation!
For a few moments I was powerless to stir. A raiding beast of night went rustling through the trees behind me. I heard an owl hoot. I lurked like some savage in the underbrush, and everything went from my memory, save Esther in peril, and Sanson, the evil genius of humanity, powerless in my hands if I could spring on him and strangle him before he had time to draw his Ray rod.
Then the tracking instinct awoke in me. I began stalking him as stealthily as any moccasined redskin followed his quarry. He was now only twenty paces away, and his walk showed that he suspected no danger.
It was a trail unknown to me, and I could only follow in patience. It wound to right and then to left, until at last it blended in a wider trail. And then I knew where I was. We were on the road that led to the cellar.
The scattered bricks became the heaping piles. I crouched low. Almost upon this site Sir Spofforth’s house had stood. There, where the beeches waved their leafless arms had been Esther’s tea-roses. And here were briers, sprung, perhaps, from those. It did not need these remembrances to make my resolution firm.
Sanson was going down. If he had gone there an hour earlier he would have walked alone into the presence of men who had a thousand deaths laid up against him. But Fate had saved him for me!
For an instant the thought occurred to me that possibly Sanson, acquainted with the details of the popular conspiracy, had come to offer terms against Lembken. But I dismissed that thought as impossible. Sanson would hardly have come there for such a purpose; at least, he would have come with the Guard.
The short ladder had been removed and hidden among the trees, but Sanson seemed to know the way intimately. Lying upon my face among the bricks, I saw Sanson enter the cellar, holding in one hand a little solar light. He passed through the gap in the wall into the vault.
I made my own descent with infinite care, taking pains to dislodge no stone that might betray my presence. Now I was in the cellar on hands and knees, watching Sanson as he moved to and fro inside the inner chamber. My brain was working like a mill—and yet I did not know wholly what I should do. If I killed Sanson, could I be sure that his death would set Esther free? Could I seize him and exact terms from him? Then there was a certain difficulty in springing upon the man quickly enough to prevent him from drawing his Ray rod; and there was the innate revulsion against choking a man to death.