lutching a stanchion and
peering ahead against the rush of wind and spray. "He must be making for
whatever spot it is in England that is the center of the Brotherhood of
the Door--but he'll never reach it."

"He said that within a few hours Ruth would go with the others through
the Door!" cried Ennis, clinging beside him. "Campbell, we mustn't let
them get away now!"

Pursuers and pursued flashed on down the dark, broadening river, through
mazes of shipping, the cutter hanging doggedly to the motor-boat's
trail. The lights of London had dropped behind and those of Tilbury now
gleamed away on their left.

Bigger, stronger waves now tossed and pounded the cutter as it raced out
of the river mouth toward the heaving black expanse of the sea. The Kent
coast was a black blur on their right; the gray motor-boat followed it
closely, grazing almost beneath the Sheerness lights.

"He's heading to round North Foreland and follow the coast south to
Ramsgate or Dover," the cutter captain cried to Campbell. "But we'll
catch him before he passes Margate."

The quarry was now but a quarter-mile ahead. Steadily as they roared
onward the gap narrowed, until in the glare of the searchlight they
could make out every detail of the powerful gray motor-boat plunging
through the tossing black waves.

They saw Chandra Dass' dark face turn and look back at them, and the
cutter captain raised his speaking-trumpet to his lips and shouted over
the roar of motors and dash of waves.

"Stand by or we'll fire at you!"

"He won't obey," muttered Campbell between his teeth. "He knows we
daren't fire with the girl in the boat."

"Yes, blast him!" exclaimed the captain. "But we'll have him in a few
minutes, anyway."

The thundering chase had brought them into sight of the lights of
Margate on the dark coast to their right. Now only a few hundred feet of
black water separated them from the fleeing craft.

Ennis and the inspector, gripping the stanchions of the rushing cutter,
saw a white figure suddenly stand erect in the boat ahead and wave its
arms to them. The gray motor-boat slowed.

"It's Chandra Dass and he's signaling that he's giving up!" Ennis cried.
"He's stopping!"

"By heavens, he is!" Campbell explained. "Drive alongside him, and we'll
soon have the irons on him."

The cutter, its own motors hastily throttled down, shot through the
water toward the slowing gray craft. Ennis saw Chandra Dass standing
erect, awaiting their com