by Rex Stout
Chapter XIX.
AFLOAT.
As we ran swiftly, following the edge of the stream, the criescontinued, filling the cavern with racing echoes. They could notquicken our step; we were already straining every muscle as we boundedover the rock. Luckily, the way was clear, for in the darkness wecould see but a few feet ahead. Desiree's voice was sufficient guidefor us.
Finally we reached her. I don't know what I expected to see, butcertainly not that which met our eyes.
"Your spear!" cried Harry, dashing off to the right, away from thestream.
My spear was ready. I followed.
Desiree was standing exactly in the spot where we had left her,screaming at the top of her voice.
Around her, on every side, was a struggling, pushing mass of theanimals we had frightened away from the carcass of the reptile. Therewere hundreds of them packed tightly together, crowding toward her,some leaping on the backs of others, some trampled to the groundbeneath the feet of their fellows. They did not appear to be actuallyattacking her, but we could not see distinctly.
This we saw in a flash and an instant later had dashed forward into themass with whirling spears. It was a farce, rather than a fight.
We brought our spears down on the swarm of heads and backs without eventroubling to take aim. They pressed against our legs; we waded throughas though it were a current of water. Those we hit either fell or ran;they waited for no second blow.
Desiree had ceased her cries.
"They won't hurt you!" Harry had shouted. "Where's your spear?"
"Gone. They came on me before I had time to get it."
"Then kick 'em, push 'em--anything. They're nothing but pigs."
They had the senseless stubbornness of pigs, at least. They seemedabsolutely unable to realize that their presence was not desired tillthey actually felt the spear--utterly devoid even of instinct.
"So this is what you captured for us at the risk of your life!" Ishouted to Harry in disgust. "They haven't even sense enough tosqueal."
We finally reached Desiree's side and cleared a space round her. Butit took us another fifteen minutes of pushing and thrusting andindiscriminate massacre before we routed the brutes. When they diddecide to go they lost no time, but scampered away toward the waterwith a sliding, tumbling rush.
"Gad!" exclaimed Harry, resting on his spear. "And here's a prettyjob. Look at that! I wish they'd carry off the dead ones."
"Ugh! The nasty brutes! I was never so frightened in my life," saidDesiree.
"You frightened us, all right," Harry retorted. "Utterly fungoed. Inever ran so fast in my life. And all you had to do was shake yourspear at 'em and say boo! I thought it was the roommate of our friendwith the eyes."
"Have I been eating those things?" Desiree demanded.
Harry grinned.
"Yes, and that isn't all. You'll continue to eat 'em as long as I'mthe cook. Come on, Paul; it's a day's work."
We dragged the bodies down to the edge of the stream and tossed theminto the current, saving three or four for the replenishment of thelarder.
I then first tried my hand at the task of skinning and cleaning them,and by the time I had finished was thoroughly disgusted with it andmyself. Harry had become hardened to it; he whistled over the job asthough he had been born in a butcher's shop.
"I'd rather go hungry," I declared, washing my hands and arms in thecool water.
"Oh, sure," said Harry; "my efforts are never appreciated. I've fedyou up till you've finally graduated from the skeleton class, and youimmediately begin to criticize the table. I know now what it means torun a boarding-house. Why don't you change your hotel?"
By the time we had finished we were pretty well tired out, but Harrywouldn't hear of rest. I was eager myself for another look at the exitof that stream. So, again taking up our spears, we set out across thecavern, this time with Desiree between us. She swallowed Harry'sridicule of her fear and refused to stay behind.
Again we stood at the point where the stream left the cavern throughthe broad arch of a tunnel.
"There's a chance there," said Harry, turning to me. "It looks good."
"Yes, if we had a boat," I agreed. "But that's a ten-mile current, andprobably deep."
I waded out some twenty feet and was nearly swept beneath the surfaceas the water circled about my shoulders.
"We couldn't follow that on our feet," I declared, returning to theshore. "But it does look promising. At ten miles an hour we'd reachthe western slope in four hours. Four hours to sunshine--but it mightas well be four hundred. It's impossible."
We turned then and retraced our steps to our camp, if I may give it sodignified a title. I hated to give up the idea of following the bed ofthe stream, for it was certain that somewhere it found the surface ofthe earth, and I revolved in my brain every conceivable means to do so.The same thought was in Harry's mind, for he turned to me suddenly:
"If we only had something for stringers, I could make a raft that wouldcarry us to the Pacific and across it. The hide of that thing overyonder would be just the stuff, and we could get a piece as big as wewanted."
I shook my head.
"I thought of that. But we have absolutely nothing to hold it. Therewasn't a bone in his body; you know that."
But the idea was peculiarly tempting, and we spent an hour discussingit. Desiree was asleep on her pile of skins. We sat side by side onthe ground some distance away, talking in low tones.
Suddenly there was a loud splash in the stream, which was quite closeto us.
"By gad!" exclaimed Harry, springing to his feet. "Did you hear that?It sounded like--remember the fish we pulled in from the Inca's raft?"
"Which has nothing to do with this," I answered. "It's nothing but thewater-pigs. I've heard 'em a thousand times in the last few days. Andthe Lord knows we have enough of them."
But Harry protested that the splash was much too loud to have beencaused by any water-pig and waded into the stream to investigate. Irose to my feet and followed him leisurely, for no reason inparticular, but was suddenly startled by an excited cry from his lips:
"Paul--the spear! Quick! It's a whale!"
I ran as swiftly as I could to the shore and returned with our spears,but when I reached Harry he greeted me with an oath of disappointmentand the information that the "whale" had disappeared. He was greatlyexcited.
"I tell you he was twenty feet long! A big black devil, with a headlike a cow."
"You're sure it wasn't like a pig?" I asked skeptically.
Harry looked at me.
"I have drunk nothing but water for a month," he said dryly. "It was afish, and some fish."
"Well, there's probably more like him," I observed. "But they canwait. Come on and get some sleep, and then--we'll see."
Some hours afterward, having filled ourselves with sleep and food (Ihad decided, after mature deliberation, not to change my hotel), westarted out, armed with our spears. Desiree accompanied us. Harrytold her bluntly that she would be in the way, but she refused to staybehind.
We turned upstream, thinking our chances better in that direction thantoward the swifter current, and were surprised to find that the cavernwas much larger than any we had before seen. In something over a milewe had not yet reached the farther wall, for we walked at a brisk pacefor a quarter of an hour or more.
At this point the stream was considerably wider than it was below, andthere was very little current. Desiree stood on the bank while Harryand I waded out above our waists.
There was a long and weary wait before anything occurred. The waterwas cold, and my limbs became stiff and numb; I called to Harry that itwas useless to wait longer, and was turning toward the shore when therewas a sudden commotion in the water not far from where he stood.
I turned and saw Harry plunge forward with his spear.
"I've got him!" he yelled. "Come on!"
I went. But I soon saw that Harry didn't have him.
He had Harry.They were all of ten yards away from me, and by the time I reached thespot there was nothing to be seen but flying water thrashed into foamand fury.
I caught a glimpse of Harry being jerked through the air; he washolding on for dear life with both hands to the shaft of his spear.The water was over my head there; I was swimming with all the strengthI had.
"I've got him--through the belly," Harry gasped as I fought my waythrough the spray to his side. "His head! Find his head!"
I finally succeeded in getting my hand on Harry's spear-shaft nearwhere it entered the body of the fish; but the next instant it wasjerked from me, dragging me beneath the surface. I came up puffing andmade another try, but missed it by several feet.
Harry kept shouting: "His head! Get him in the head!"
For that I was saving my spear. But I could make nothing of eitherhead or tail as the immense fish leaped furiously about in the water,first this way, then that.
Once he came down exactly on top of me and carried me far under; I felthis slippery, smooth body glide over me, and the tail struck me a heavyblow in the face as it passed. Blinded and half choked, I fought myway back to the surface and saw that they had got fifty feet away.
I swam to them, breathing hard and nearly exhausted. The water foamedless furiously about them now. As I came near the fish leaped half outof the water and came down flat on his side; I saw his ugly black headpointed directly toward me.
"He's about gone!" Harry gasped.
He was still clinging to the spear.
I set myself firmly against the water and waited. Soon it partedviolently not ten feet in front of me, and again the head appeared; hewas coming straight for me. I could see the dull beady eyes on eitherside, and I let him have the spear right between them.
There was little force to the blow, but the fish himself furnishedthat; he was coming like lightning. I hurled my body aside with agreat effort and felt him sweep past me.
I turned to swim after them and heard Harry's great shout: "You gothim!"
By the time I reached him the fish had turned over on his back and wasfloating on the surface, motionless.
We had still to get him ashore, and, exhausted as we were, it was noeasy task. But there was very little current, and after half an hourof pulling and shoving we got him into shallow water, where we couldfind the bottom with our feet. Then it was easier. Desiree waded outto us and lent a hand, and in another ten minutes we had him high anddry on the rock.
He was even larger than I had thought. No wonder Harry had calledhim--or one like him--a whale. It was all of fifteen feet from hissnout to the tip of his tail. The skin was dead black on top andmottled irregularly on the belly.
As we sat sharpening the points of our spears on the rock, preparatoryto skinning him, Desiree stood regarding the fish with unqualifiedapproval. She turned to us:
"Well, I'd rather eat that than those other nasty things."
"Oh, that isn't what we want him for," said Harry, rubbing his fingeragainst the edge of his spear-point. "He's probably not fit to eat."
"Then why all this trouble?" asked Desiree.
"Dear lady, we expect to ride him home," said Harry, rising to his feet.
Then he explained our purpose, and you may believe that Desiree was themost excited of the lot as we ripped down the body of the fish fromtail to snout and began to peel off the tough skin.
"If you succeed you may choose the new hangings for my boudoir," shesaid, with an attempt at lightness not altogether successful.
"As for me," I declared, "I shall eat fish every day of my life out ofpure gratitude."
"You'll do it out of pure necessity," Harry put in, "if you don't getbusy."
It took us three hours of whacking and slashing and tearing to pull thefish to pieces, but we worked with a purpose and a will. When we hadfinished, this is what we had to show: A long strip of bone, fourinches thick and twelve feet long, and tough as hickory, from eitherside of which the smaller bones projected at right angles. They wereabout an inch in thickness and two inches apart. The lower end of thebackbone, near the tail, we had broken off.
We examined it and lifted it and bent it half double.
"Absolutely perfect!" Harry cried in jubilation. "Three more like thisand we'll sail down the coast to Callao."
"If we can get 'em," I observed. "But two would do. We could make ita triangle."
Harry looked at me.
"Paul, you're an absolute genius. But would it be big enough to holdus?"
We discussed that question on our way back to camp, whither we carriedthe backbone of our fish, together with some of the meat. Then, aftera hearty meal, we slept. After seven hours of the hardest kind of workwe were ready for it.
That was our program for the time that followed--time that stretchedinto many weary hours, for, once started, we worked feverishly, soimpatient had we become by dint of that faint glimmer of hope. We weregoing to try to build a raft, on which we were going to try to embarkon the stream, by which we were going to try to find our way out of themountain. The prospect made us positively hilarious, so slender is thethread by which hope jerks us about.
The first part of our task was the most strenuous. We waited and wadedround many hours before another fish appeared, and then he got awayfrom us. Another attempt was crowned with success after a hard fight.The second one was even larger than the first.
The next two were too small to be of use in the raft, but we saved themfor another purpose. Then, after another long search, lasting manyhours, we ran into half a dozen of them at once.
By that time we were fairly expert with our spears, besides havingdiscovered their vulnerable spot--the throat, just forward from thegills. To this day I don't know whether or not they were man-eaters.Their jaws were roomy and strong as those of any shark; but they neverclosed on us.
Thus we had four of the large backbones and two smaller ones. Next wewanted a covering, and for that purpose we visited the remains of thereptile which had first led us into the cavern.
Its hide was half an inch thick and tough as the toughest leather.There was no difficulty in loosening it, for by that time the flesh wasso decayed and sunken that it literally fell off. That job was theworst of all.
Time and again, after cutting away with the points of our spears--ouronly tools--until we could stand it no longer, we staggered off to thestream like drunken men, sick and faint with the sight and smell of themess.
But that, too, came to an end, and finally we marched off to the camp,which we had removed a half-mile upstream, dragging after us a piece ofthe hide about thirty feet long and half as wide. It was not as heavyas we had thought, which made it all the better for our purpose.
The remainder of our task, though tedious, was not unpleasant.
We first made the larger bones, which were to serve as the beams of ourraft, exactly the same length by filing off the ends of the longer oneswith rough bits of granite. I have said it was tedious. Then we filedoff each of the smaller bones projecting from the neural arch untilthey were of equal length.
They extended on either side about ten inches, which, allowing fourinches for the width of the larger bone and one inch for the covering,would make our raft slightly over a foot in depth.
To make the cylindrical column rigid, we bound each of the vertebrae tothe one in direct juxtaposition on either side firmly with strips ofhide, several hundred feet of which we had prepared.
This gave us four beams held straight and true, without any play ineither direction, with only a slight flexibility resulting from thecartilages within the center cord.
With these four beams we formed a square, placing them on their edges,end to end. At each corner of the square we lashed the ends togetherfirmly with strips of hide. It was both firm and flexible after we hadlashed the corners over and over with the strips, that there might beno play under the strain of the current.
Over this framework we stretched the large piece of hid
e so that theends met on top, near the middle. The bottom was thus absolutelywatertight. We folded the corners in and caught them up with stripsover the top. Then, with longer strips, we fastened up the sides,passing the strips back and forth across the top, from side to side,having first similarly secured the two ends. As a final precaution, wepassed broader strips around both top and bottom, lashing them togetherin the center of the top. And there was our raft, twelve feet square,over a foot deep, water-tight as a town drunkard, and weighing not morethan a hundred pounds. It has taken me two minutes to tell it; it tookus two weeks to do it.
But we discovered immediately that the four beams on the sides and endswere not enough, for Desiree's weight alone caused the skin to sagclear through in the center, though we had stretched it as tightly aspossible. We were forced to unlash all the strips running from side toside and insert supports, made of smaller bones, across the middle eachway. These we reinforced on their ends with the thickest hide we couldfind, that they might not puncture the bottom. After that it wasfairly firm; though its sea-worthiness was not improved, it was mucheasier to navigate than it would have been before.
For oars we took the lower ends of the backbones of the two smallerfish and covered them with hide. They were about five feet long andquite heavy; but we intended to use them more for the purpose ofsteering than for propulsion. The current of the stream would attendto that for us.
Near the center of the raft we arranged a pile of the skins of thewater-pigs for Desiree; a seat by no means uncomfortable. The stripswhich ran back and forth across the top afforded a hold as securityagainst the tossing of the craft; but for her feet we arranged twoother strips to pass over her ankles what time she rested. This was anextreme precaution, for we did not expect the journey to be a long one.
Finally we loaded on our provisions--about thirty pounds of the meat ofthe fish and water-pigs, wrapping it securely in two or three of theskins and strapping them firmly to the top.
"And now," said I, testing the strips on the corners for the last time,"all we need is a name for her and a bottle of wine."
"And a homeward-bound pennant," put in Harry.
"The name is easy enough," said Desiree. "I hereby christen her Clartedu Soleil."
"Which means?" asked Harry, whose French came only in spots.
"Sunshine," I told him. "Presumably after the glorious King of theIncas, who calls himself the Child of the Sun. But it's a good name.May Heaven grant that it takes us there!"
"I think we ought to take more grub," said Harry--an observation whichhe had made not less than fifty times in the preceding fifty minutes.He received no support and grumbled to himself something about thehorrible waste of leaving so much behind.
Why it was I don't know, but we were fully persuaded that we were aboutto say good-by forever to this underground world and its dangers.Somehow, we had coaxed ourselves into the belief that success wascertain; it was as though we had seen the sunlight streaming in fromthe farther end of the arched tunnel into which the stream disappeared.There was an assurance about the words of each that strengthened thisfeeling in the others, and hope had shut out all thought of failure aswe prepared to launch our craft.
It took us some time to get it to the edge of the water, though it wasclose by, for we handled it with extreme care, that it might not betorn on the rocks. Altogether, with the provisions, it weighed closeto one hundred and fifty pounds.
We were by no means sure that the thing would carry us, and when oncewe had reached the water we forgot caution in our haste to try it. Weheld it at the edge while Desiree arranged herself on the pile ofskins. The spears lay across at her feet, strapped down for security.
Harry stepped across to the farther edge of the raft.
"Ready!" he called, and I shoved off, wading behind. When the waterwas up to my knees I climbed aboard and picked up my oar.
"By all the nine gods, look at her!" cried Harry in huge delight. "Shetakes about three inches! Man, she'd carry an army!"
"Allons!" cried Desiree, with gay laughter. "C'est Perfection!"
"Couldn't be better," I agreed; "but watch yourself, Hal. When we getinto the current things are going to begin to happen. If it weren'tfor the beastly darkness 'twould be easy enough. As it is, one littlerock the size of your head could send us to the bottom."
We were still near the bank, working our way out slowly. Harry and Ihad to maintain positions equidistant from the center in order to keepthe raft balanced; hence I had to push her out alone.
Considering her bulk, she answered to the oar very well.
Another five minutes and we were near the middle of the stream. Atthat point there was but little current and we drifted slowly. Harrywent to the bow, while I took up a position on the stern--if I may usesuch terms for such a craft--directly behind Desiree. We figured thatwe were then about a mile from the Point where the stream left thecavern.
Gradually, as the stream narrowed, the strength of the currentincreased. Still it was smooth, and the raft sailed along without atremor. Once or twice, caught by some trick of the current, she turnedhalf round, poking her nose ahead, but she soon righted herself.
The water began to curl up on the sides as we were carried more andmore swiftly onward, with a low murmur that was music to us. Thestream became so narrow that we could see the bank on either side,though dimly, and I knew we were approaching the exit.
I called to Harry: "Keep her off to the right as we make the turn!" andhe answered: "Aye, aye, sir!" with a wave of the hand. This, at least,was action with a purpose.
Another minute and we saw the arch directly ahead of us, round a bendin the stream. The strength of the current carried us toward the offbank, but we plied our oars desperately and well, and managed to keepfairly well in to the end of the curve.
We missed the wall of the tunnel--black, grim rock that would havedashed out our brains--by about ten feet, and were swept forward underthe arch, on our way--so we thought--to the land of sunshine.