Sign of the Green Arrow
Page 15
CHAPTER XV ADRIFT IN THE DEPTHS
All went well with Johnny on his undersea photographing trip until he hadreached the fifteen-hundred-foot level. Then he called in hisloud-speaker to Doris, who was directing the controls:
"Sorry, Doris. On that last, ten-foot shot, I made a double exposure.Hike me up a bit, will you, please?"
"O.K. Johnny," was the answer. To the men at the hoist she said: "Up tenfeet."
"Up ten feet," the men repeated.
Johnny waited for the rise. His floodlight was on. Some strange creatureswith amazing teeth, were passing, and he snapped his camera.
"Interesting place, down here," he thought. "Hate to stay down here allnight, though." His leg felt cramped. He tried to shift to a newposition, but at last gave it up. "No sort of place for an activeperson," he sighed. "Wonder why I don't go up a bit--I'd like to get thisover!"
"Hey, up there!" he called into the phone. "What's wrong?"
"Sorry, Johnny," Doris drawled. "Something's wrong with the hoist. Itwon't work. But they'll get it fixed pretty soon, I guess!"
Something wrong with the hoist! Johnny experienced a cold chill. Supposesomeone had been tampering with that hoist--had done something reallyserious? What then? You couldn't take hold of a fifteen-hundred-footsteel cable with a two-ton ball at the end of it, and haul it by handlike a fishline. Johnny realized all too keenly that his life depended onthat hoist.
"It could have been tampered with," he told himself. This was all tootrue. While the boat had been in the harbor it had not been any toocarefully guarded--and Johnny had been off duty one whole night! "Mightcost me dearly--that night!" he thought.
To ease his mind he began watching the passing show--fire-glowingshrimps--flying snails, and a host of other strange creatures. He snappedhis camera again and again.
"I say, up there," he exclaimed impatiently, "what's keeping us?"
"Sorry, Johnny. It's the hoist. We--"
Doris stopped suddenly. Johnny felt a shock--as if his cable had beenstruck by something hard and heavy. At the same instant the ball begandrifting away from the submerged wall of rock.
"Hey, there!" he called, in genuine alarm, "what's up now?"
There came no answer. He called again, and yet again. No answer. Hisheart began pounding madly.
"This won't do," he told himself, savagely. "Probably nothing--justnothing at all! It--"
Then came a second, jolting shock, and--ceasing to move in a circle--theball began drifting quite rapidly away from the rock and out to sea.
Johnny knew at once what had happened. One of the anchor cables holdingthe boat in place had been struck and broken.
"By that submarine!" he burst out savagely. Then as if it were right outthere in the water in front of him, he seemed to see the green arrow oflight, and to read:
"_We will strike_--at the earliest possible moment!"
"They have struck!" he thought. "The second cable has been broken by theadded strain--and we are drifting out to sea!"
He tried to think what this meant. The hoist was broken, so he could notbe pulled up. Out to sea some three or four miles were coral reefs andbeneath these, no doubt, a rocky wall. Moving at its present rate andstriking that wall, the steel ball might crack!
Only one cheery thought came to him at this moment. If the boat's smallmotor was strong enough to counteract the force of wind and current, hecould be held in one position until the hoist was repaired.
Even as he thought this, Doris came back on the air: "Awfully sorry,Johnny, but something has severed an anchor cable--and then the other onebroke! The hoist won't work. We'd have the motor going, but that, too,seems to have gone wrong. Keep your chin up, Johnny. We'll get you up outof there before it's--too late." Her voice faltered at the end.
Johnny found it impossible to utter a single word in reply.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime, Mildred still was following the signs of the green arrowtrail.
As she advanced, the trail grew steeper and rougher. She followed itbetween dark pines, where the shadows were like night, along a narrowledge to an abrupt descent into a low ravine.
More than once, as if contemplating retreat, she turned and looked back.But always, she went on.
At last, weary from climbing, she dropped down on a flat rock in theshade and dabbed at her damp cheeks with a white, red-borderedhandkerchief.
As she rested she turned her head quite suddenly to listen. All the usualsounds of the tropical wilderness--the call of monkeys, the shrillsquawks of parrots, the piercing screams of jungle birds--these all werefamiliar to her. But did she hear some strange sound--perhaps a humancall? Listening intently for a moment longer, she rose and journeyed on.
Some ten minutes later she paused once more. She had come to a spot wherethe trail led round a towering cliff. In an involuntary gesture of dismayher hand unclasped and she dropped her handkerchief. It fell unnoticedamong some large leaves--a bit of red and white amid the eternal gray andgreen of the jungle.
Summoning all her courage, Mildred proceeded along the rocky trail. Likea soldier she tramped straight on until, with a startled cry, she stoppedabruptly, on rounding a sharp turn in the path.
There, directly ahead, was the ancient castle that might once have been afortress or a prison. Standing before its door and staring intently ather, was a man with a rifle. Turning to flee, in complete panic--shefound herself facing another man, similarly armed.
A man in front of her, and one in back--a towering cliff above--aprecipice below. She was trapped.
* * * * * * * *
Darkness came to the Kennedy cottage, but no Mildred returned to join itsworried owner at his evening meal.
He ate alone and in silence. In silence he smoked his pipe on the verandauntil midnight. Then he went to the house of Pean, his head native.
"Pean," he said, "she has not returned. At three o'clock, unless I comeagain, tell Camean to make _wanga_ with the drums."
"Make _wanga_ at three. Can do," said Pean.