Without further pause he turned to ascertain the nature of the place upon which the stairway had debouched. It was a wide and lofty cavern of Nature's fashioning, except that the walls and the natural obstructions of the flooring had been rendered smooth and clear by the hand of man. It was easy to estimate the purposes of this subterranean abode. There was less imagination in the legends of the old mill than he had supposed. If the books of his childish reading had any foundation in their local color this was certainly the den of some old-time smugglers.

He pa.s.sed rapidly along the declining pa.s.sage, and the end of it came as he expected to find it. It was a cave which opened in the face of the cliff overlooking the cove, but so ingeniously hidden by Nature that its presence could never have been even guessed at by any chance visit from the sea.

He stood at the opening and gazed out upon the already twilit cove. But he could not see the sea from where he stood; only along the face of the cliff to his right, down which, zigzagging and winding, a sort of rough-hewn stairway communicated with the beach below. In front of him a great projection of rock, as though riven from the main cliff at some far-off time by the colossal forces of Nature, hid the entire entrance of the cavern. And so narrow was the s.p.a.ce intervening that he could touch it with an outstretching of his arm. It was a remarkable hiding-place. Nor did he marvel that he had never heard of it before.

But the rapidly deepening twilight of the cove warned him of the approach of the hour of his appointment. So he blew out his lantern and began the descent to the beach nearly fifty feet below.

Within five minutes he was standing in the centre of a patch of golden sand with the still ebbing water of the cove lapping gently at his feet.

A curious change had come over him. All interest inspired by the journey through the cavern was entirely gone. Even, for the time, he had no longer any thought of the purpose for which he was there. His mind was absorbed in the curious weird of the place, and the dreadful feeling of overwhelming might bearing in and down upon him.

The appalling grey barrenness, the height of the frowning ramparts which surrounded him on all sides, except the narrow opening to the sea. The absolute inaccessibility of those frowning walls, and the melancholy scream of the thousands of gulls which haunted the place. It was tremendous. It was terrible. But added to all these things was a discovery which he made almost upon the instant. With the instinct of personal security his eyes sought the high-water mark upon the beach.

There was none. It was high up on the cliff sides at no point less that ten feet above the highest point of the beach. Herein lay the terror of the cove which lived in the minds of the dwellers upon the moors. Here was its real terror. A rising tide, and the secret of the smuggler's cavern undiscovered, and--death! He smiled as he thought of the name given to the entrance to the cove. h.e.l.l's Gate! It was surely----

"Ahoy!"

The cry echoed about the grey walls in haunting fashion. Ruxton was startled out of his reverie. In a moment his repulsion at what he beheld was forgotten. He remembered only his purpose, and his searching eyes gazed out over the water.

"Ahoy!" he replied, when the last echo of the summons had died out.

He could see no boat. He could discover no human being. And--it was a man's voice that had hailed him.

For some moments a profound silence prevailed. Even the gulls ceased their mournful cries at the intrusion of a human voice upon their solitude.

Ruxton searched in every direction. Was this another surprise of this extraordinarily mysterious place? Was this----? Quite suddenly his gaze became riveted upon a spit of low, weed-covered rock, stretching out into the calm water like a breakwater. There was a sound of clambering feet, and as his acute hearing caught it, a sort of instinct thrust his hand into his coat pocket where an automatic pistol lay. Then he laughed at himself and withdrew his hand sharply. The figure of a man scrambled up on to the breakwater.

They stood eyeing each other for several thoughtful moments. Then without attempting to draw nearer the stranger called to him.

"Mr. Farlow, sir. This way, if you please."

Without hesitation Ruxton crossed over to him and scrambled on to the rocks.

"You are from----?" he demanded.

The question was put sharply, but without suspicion.

"The lady's waiting for you out there," replied the man simply. "We haven't much time, sir. You can't come in here on a rising tide, and you can't get out of it either. It's h.e.l.l's own place for small craft, or any craft for that matter on a rising tide." He threw an anxious glance at the water.

Ruxton was gazing down at the little boat lying the other side of the natural breakwater. It was a petrol launch of some kind, but small and light as a c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l. There was another man in the stern, and he observed that both he and the man beside him were in some sort of uniform.

"I didn't see you come in," he went on curiously.

"We've been lying here half an hour, sir. Our orders were to wait till just before the tide turned. We've got about half an hour, sir," the man added significantly.

"Where's the vessel?" enquired Ruxton.

"Just outside, sir."

"I didn't see her."

"She's lying submerged."

"And Miss Vladimir is--aboard?"

"The lady is, sir," replied the man, with a shadow of a smile in his deep-set blue eyes.

The stranger stood aside, a direct invitation to Ruxton to climb down into the boat. But the latter made no move to do so.

Then the man pushed his peaked cap back from his forehead and displayed a shock of sandy grey hair which matched his closely trimmed whiskers.

"You'll excuse me, sir," he said, a trifle urgently, "but we've got to get out smart. Once the tide turns it races in here like an avalanche.

We'll never make h.e.l.l's Gates if we aren't smart, and we don't want to get caught up in h.e.l.l itself."

The man's urgency had the desired effect. Ruxton stooped down and lowered himself into the bow of the boat.

"That's right, sir, it'll trim the boat," the man approved, as he dropped lightly in amidships. In a moment the clutch was let in and the little craft backed out of its narrow harbor.

It was a moment of crisis. Ruxton Farlow had practically committed himself to the power of these strangers. Not quite though. For he had taken the bow seat, and his loaded automatic was in his pocket still.

However, the position was not without considerable risk. He had expected to meet Vita. Instead he had been met by two men in uniform.

They were both in middle life, and burly specimens of the seafaring profession.

He had calculated the chances carefully before taking his final decision. Moreover he had closely appraised the men in charge of the boat. They were British. Of that he was certain. Nor were they men without education. On the whole he did not see that the balance lay very much in their favor if any treachery were contemplated.

"You are British," he said to the man in front of him, as the boat swung round head on to the gates of the cove and began to gather speed.

"Yes, sir. Served my time in the Navy--and had a billet elsewhere ever since."

"Since the war?"

"No, sir. Before the war."

"Where?"

The man faced round with a smile, while his comrade drove the little boat at a headlong pace through the racing waters.

"Where a good many of our Navy's cast-offs go, sir. In Germany."

CHAPTER VII

ON THE GREY NORTH SEA

Brief as was the interval between leaving the treacherous cove and the moment when Ruxton Farlow found himself surrounded by the tasteful luxury of the saloon of the long, low, strange-looking craft waiting just outside to receive him, it was not without many thrilling experiences.

To a man of less imagination the very few minutes in the petrol launch would have meant little more than a rather exciting experience. But for Ruxton they possessed a far deeper significance. Nor was the least the feeling that he had slammed-to the doors of the life behind him, bolted and barred and locked them, and--flung away the key.

That was the man. Sensitive to every mood that a.s.sailed him, yet urged on by an indomitable purpose, he had no more power to raise a hand to stay the tide of life upon which he was floating than he had to check the racing current which bore him beyond the threatening shoals of the Old Mill Cove.