The Barbary Pirates eg-4

by William Dietrich

  “Is that allowed?” Smith asked.

  “We’re not even allowed on this island,” Fulton replied.

  Aha. The altar was not made from a wooden table but a stone box, I saw. I stepped back. It was the length and width of a man. “There’s our sarcophagus.”

  “Where?” Cuvier asked.

  “It’s the altar. They hide it by covering it. Their altar is a grave, if you can believe that. Take the tabernacle off there and set it aside.”

  “I will not. I’d fry in hell.”

  “I thought you French revolutionaries don’t believe anymore.”

  “Didn’t. I went to the service at Notre Dame.”

  “Well, I’ll do it, then. I’m damned anyway, despite my reforms.” Feeling oddly queasy, I lifted the holy objects off the altar and placed them on the preparation table to one side. Surely God wouldn’t mind for a moment or two. Smith helped me fold the altar cloth—we tried to be careful—and we revealed a stone sarcophagus similar to the one cast into the signet ring. The lid overlapped the box. When I tugged, it seemed cemented in place.

  “I think we’d better pry,” I said.

  “You can’t be serious!” Cuvier wasn’t used to treasure hunting, which generally involves a fair amount of burglary, desecration, demolition, and dust.

  “The coin shows a man going in or out. I know it seems callous, but if we’ve got the right church we need to peek inside. If we hurry we’ll have it boxed up and things back in place in time for services.”

  “You’d better. I think there’s a crowd forming outside.” We could hear barks, voices, and bumps on the church door.

  “But how are we going to get the lid off?” Smith asked.

  I looked at Fulton. “Robert, you’re the one who pried that railing off the bridge.”

  He swallowed. “I had an oar.”

  “Those iron candle stands look sturdy enough to me.” I took out my tomahawk and began chipping at the joint between lid and box, heedless of the damage it was doing to the edge of my blade. “Fetch one and we’ll jam it in this crevice I’m making.” They hesitated. “Quickly, lads, we’ve come this far! Probably nothing to see but bones, and nothing wrong with that, is there? We’ll all be fossils soon enough.”

  So we hammered a wedge point into the junction between box and lid and used a sacred manoualia, the candle stand, as a lever and one of the stiff choir chairs as a fulcrum. I was sweating at the thought of what the locals would think if they stumbled in on us, but in for a penny, in for a pound. Someone started hammering on the church door. “Smith, take your blunderbuss into the narthex and discourage them.”

  “I don’t even know who I’m shooting at!”

  “Best not to ask, I’ve found. If they’re shooting at you, that’s identification enough.”

  “I feel like a grave robber,” Cuvier muttered.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, gentlemen, that’s exactly what we are.” The other three of us threw our weight on our pry bar, there was a cracking sound, and the lid shifted slightly.

  “Yes!” Fulton said.

  “Another heave, just enough to look!” With a grind and thump, we managed to shift the massive lid far enough to peer inside. It was dark, of course. “Fetch a candle!” Despite myself, I always get excited when I delve. I still mourned the lost treasure of the pyramid, and secretly hoped I might find another.

  Outside, there was a boom and crack as something crashed energetically against the church door.

  So I bent and pushed the candle inside, illuminating the interior of the sarcophagus.

  It was vacant as a trollop’s wink.

  And then Smith’s blunderbuss went off.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “They made a hole in the door and I had a look!” the Englishman cried . “There’s a crowd outside with scimitars and muskets!” He backed to reload. A chunk of the door had been knocked loose by an ax seeking to chop an opening, and Smith had fired through that. The chopping had stopped. We heard shouts and yells outside and then muzzles were pushed through and shots fired blindly. Thankfully, they thudded harmlessly into the stone. The door was too thick to break easily, and the church windows too high and small to easily climb into. Of course, that made them hard to climb out of, as well.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “More than in Venice or Paris.”

  “Who are they?”

  “How the devil should I know? I saw hoods, helmets, turbans, and scarves. You seem to make enemies with half the world, Ethan. Too many to fight for very long, at least. So what’s in the sarcophagus?”

  “Not a blessed thing,” Fulton said.

  “Ah. So we’re trapped in a Greek church on a bleak island at the edge of the Ottoman Empire for absolutely no reason at all?”

  “It appears so,” my inventor friend said.

  “Maybe we just got the wrong sarcophagus,” I tried.

  “I wish I’d stayed in London. My mother warned me about Paris.”

  Now a dull boom began to echo through the nave as whoever was outside began to slam some kind of ram against the door. The wood bulged with each strike, the bar beginning to crack.

  “Maybe there’s a back door,” I suggested. I could see the reflection of torches through the high, open windows.

  “If we go through it and outside we’ll be cut to pieces,” Cuvier said.

  “And you don’t think that will happen when they get in here?” Smith glanced up. “You can’t reach the ceiling as you did at the Palais, either.” The dome peaked thirty feet above our heads. “I think Gage has led us into a dead end.”

  “We can make a fight of it,” I said, sounding braver than I felt. “If it’s just peasants, they’ll back off.”

  “I saw uniforms. And enough cutlery for a palace kitchen.”

  “Ethan, if you give me a hand I think I can delay them when they come through that door.” Fulton hefted his bagpipe, and again I heard the curious slosh. “It’s the dragon I’ve been working on. It spits fire.”

  “Satan’s brew, Robert?”

  “It’s a twist on Greek fire, the ancient combustible. If it works, they’ll hesitate.”

  I thought frantically. “All right. We’ll start a conflagration, and then we’ll hide.”

  “Where?”

  “Cuvier, unlock a back door or tie the altar cloth to a high window to make it look like we’ve fled. Then we’ll secrete ourselves in the sarcophagus, and once they’ve run on by, we’ll escape by running the other way. It’s quite brilliant, really.”

  “You want to get in a tomb and close the lid?”

  “Just for a moment, to confuse them. Do you have a better idea?”

  There was a crash as the bar of the church door cracked through and splintered timbers heaved inward. We could see a boiling mass of men, some turbaned and some not, the glint of steel, and the flame of torches.

  “There’s no time!”

  “Yes there is!” cried Fulton. “Ethan, take up that candle stand there!” He was steady as a fireman as he aimed one of the pipes of his instrument at the disintegrating door, and I noticed he’d screwed on a tubular extension extending it three more feet. “Even a wolf learns not to touch a hot stove.” There was a technical grimness about him, a willingness to put deviltry to practical use, if it were for a good cause—or self-preservation.

  The bar finally burst entirely, the doors flying wide. Hooded, caped men like the crew we’d encountered in Venice pushed into the narthex of the church.

  “Now!” Fulton cried. “Hold the candle flame near the tip of my tube!”

  He squeezed his bag and instead of song, a jet of mist sprayed from his new nozzle. When I held the candle stand to put a flame into the stream, it ignited into a cone of fire that reached out like dragon’s breath. There was a whoosh as the flame flared out, licking at the broken door and igniting some of the Egyptian Rite minions pushing through.

  Men screamed, capes catching fire.

  Fulton aimed his pipe li
ke a fire hose and that’s what, I suppose, I should call it, since fire came from its tip instead of water. The bag shot liquid fire thirty feet, igniting the door, its frame, and several attackers. The mob heaved back in terror and confusion and collapsed into a tangle, companions beating at the flames. A preview for the wicked, I thought grimly. The fiery door temporarily protected us with a shield of flame and smoke. Shots came through the murk, bullets pinging.

  “Back into the nave!” the inventor cried. He carried the bag with him.

  We retreated to the main room of the church and slammed that door, piling psaltery chairs against it. Then we ran for the sanctuary. Cuvier had already sprung a side entrance as if we’d fled that way, and now we slammed shut the sanctuary gates, shoved the heavy sarcophagus lid to make a wider opening, and piled inside, dragging our weapons with us.

  “What about air?” the French savant asked.

  “Judging from my experience with my submarine, we have at least half an hour,” Fulton replied. “If they’re not gone, we’ll have to come out and surrender. But Ethan’s idiotic scheme is our only chance.”

  It was stuffed as a sausage inside, but the tomb was far bigger than the one I’d found in the City of Ghosts near the Holy Land—more the size of a horizontal closet than a coffin. We wrestled the heavy lid back over us, centering it as best we could, and cast ourselves into complete darkness. Then we waited, hoping they’d run by.

  Dim sounds through the stone.

  A crash—the nave door being forced opened. The faint sound of shouts and outrage. A closer clang from the sanctuary gate forced open, the pounding of boots on the floor, and then a rush as the side door was found opened.

  Silence.

  Had it worked?

  “There could be more who are waiting,” I whispered. “Let’s give it several minutes.”

  So we lay half atop each other, sweating, our weapons clenched, our breath hot and close. I was ready to have a peek when we heard more sounds, and froze. There was talking that came to us as the faintest murmur, and then an odd rattle.

  “Sounds like chain,” Cuvier whispered.

  Then a pounding, like something being driven into the wall or floor. More rattling, and the squeal of something being ratcheted tight.

  “What the devil?” asked Smith.

  Finally all was quiet again, and I waited warily, listening for the merest hint our enemies were standing by. But no, they’d gone. We were nearing the end of Fulton’s half hour, I guessed, and I didn’t want us swooning from lack of air.

  “Out we go then,” I whispered, “for better or worse.” Lying on our backs for leverage, we lifted arms and legs to push against the heavy stone lid to rotate it out of the way.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  “Harder!” I hissed. We grunted, pushing with all our might. All we heard was the clanking of metal link against metal link, chain grinding against stone.

  “No, hard this time!”

  It was as if the sarcophagus had been cemented shut.

  “Bloody hell. I think they’ve chained the lid down,” said Smith. “They’ve got us trapped and sealed, Ethan. They’re just waiting for us to suffocate.”

  “They can’t be that clever.”

  I pushed again. But we couldn’t get out.

  “Well, hang.”

  My plan had buried us alive.

  “Apparently we didn’t fool them,” I said unnecessarily, speaking aloud now under the assumption that they knew they’d caught us like insects in a bottle.

  “Apparently, this is the most damn fool thing we could have done,” amended Cuvier. “I thought we were in a race for some secret! They simply want to smother us?”

  “Maybe they already knew the crypt was empty,” said Fulton, with a trace of admittedly understandable bitterness. I think he was beginning to doubt my reputation as a gifted adventurer. “First you set our bordello on fire, Gage, then you get us arrested, then some paramour throws a grenade at the mere sight of you, and now you’ve condemned us to suffocation. Can anyone remind me again why we chose him as a guide to the Palais Royal?”

  “She wasn’t my paramour.” I felt more than a little defensive.

  “He was supposed to be an expert on trollops, too,” Cuvier said.

  “Maybe they just want to take the fight out of us,” said Smith. “Hullo!” He banged on the lid with the muzzle of his blunderbuss. “We surrender!”

  Nothing.

  So we all yelled and banged, to no more effect. It was as if they’d buried us and departed to have supper, Fulton’s liquid fire cruelly repaid. What is worse, burning or suffocation?

  “Maybe we could shoot our way out,” Smith suggested.

  “If you set that blunderbuss off in here the balls will bounce until they kill us all,” Fulton replied.

  “Well, it’s empty anyway. Fearfully hard to load when we’re packed in like this.”

  “Try not to set off Robert’s bagpipes, either,” Cuvier said. “I’d rather not roast as well. And I’m getting a cramp.”

  “Aye, Ethan, can you shift?” asked Smith. “We might as well die comfortable. What’s it like to smother anyway, Georges? You’re the zoologist.”

  “I assure you I haven’t tried it.”

  “I think it’s more insidious than painful,” Fulton theorized. “As our breath grows short, our brains will fog—that was my experience in tests aboard my submarine. Eventually we’ll lapse into unconsciousness and die. Not much different from falling asleep.”

  “Not such a bad way to go,” I said, trying to see the bright side.

  “Then hold your breath first, idiot, so the rest of us have a few moments more,” Cuvier muttered. I don’t know if he was tiring of me just then, or was simply annoyed at the idea of him and me lying together for all eternity.

  “Do you really think they know the box is empty of any secrets or treasure?” Smith asked.

  “I’m guessing their plan is simply to kill us by waiting and then open it up again to look for themselves,” I said. “Rather efficient, really. I mean, we’re already buried, too. They don’t have to do any work at all.”

  “I’m full of admiration.”

  “We’d better stop talking to conserve our breath while I think,” I proposed.

  “And when is that phenomenon to commence, exactly?” Cuvier inquired. Then he began kicking at the stone lid and yelling things like “help” and “parley.”

  That did no good either and at last, exhausted, he lapsed into silence. We lay crammed in the dark, blind, helpless, and doomed. I wish I could report I had some kind of profound insight while buried alive, but frankly, nothing philosophical occurred except that, as the others had concluded, I was a damn fool. I was just glad my companions hadn’t thought to strangle me. And so we waited. And waited. And waited.

  Silence.

  It felt lonely.

  “Gentlemen, are you dead?” I finally ventured.

  “For God’s sake, Gage,” Smith groaned.

  “But I’m not dead, either. Isn’t that a curious phenomenon, Cuvier?”

  “Maybe we are dead,” Fulton said. “Maybe this is what death is like, especially after you’ve killed men in bitter violence. Maybe this is hell.”

  “No, there’s air coming in here,” I insisted. “Has to be. Not light, but air.”

  “What are you saying?” Smith asked.

  “That there’s some leak in this box. Feel with your hands to see if you can find it. Maybe there’s more to this sarcophagus than we initially realized.”

  We scrabbled with our fingers but could find nothing. I looked in vain for a crack of light, but since there was none, the air, if it really was coming in, had to be from the unlit below. “I think there’s a hollow under this box,” I insisted. “Put your noses down and sniff for better air.”

  “Gage…”

  “Wait,” said Cuvier. “It does seem fresher here at this end.”

  “Maybe we can dig,” Smith said. “Ethan, do you have you
r silly sword?”

  “It’s a rather elegant rapier.”

  “Let’s try scraping and prying with the thing.”

  Getting it clear of its scabbard wasn’t easy, given our tight packing. Then we had to twist it around to get the point to the head of the sarcophagus where Cuvier was breathing.

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry. If you angle it this way…”

  “Which way? I can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Don’t poke my bagpipes.”

  “Just hold still a moment. There we go, steady…aw. Careful, Georges, here comes the tip!”

  I began scraping the weapon at the joint between the sides of the sarcophagus and the floor, feeling above it with my fingers. Wait, was there a mark? I felt a diamond shape inscribed in the stone, small and shallow, but eerily recognizable. A diamond, or was it an overlapping compass and square, ancient symbol of Freemasonry? My, that fraternity got around! I stabbed at the stone beneath it, looking for an opening. Suddenly there was a click.

  And then, before I could cry warning, we were plunging into a void of utter blackness.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It was a miracle none of us were impaled by my sword. We hit a slope and slid in the dark, hardly knowing which way was up, weapons clattering, and Fulton’s theory about us having descended into hell seemed all too terrifyingly true. Yet at last we, sword, blunderbuss, longrifle, and bagpipes rolled to some kind of bottom—just how deep I never knew.

  There was air, dusty but breathable. And it was hot, just like an entryway to Hades.

  “Georges? William? Robert?”

  “It just gets worse and worse,” one of them groaned.

  “Is everyone still alive?”

  “How do we tell?”

  “Well, we’re here, I think. So the ring showed something after all. The sarcophagus wasn’t the treasure, it was only the trapdoor to it. All we have to do is keep our wits about us, discover whatever secrets are down here, and find a way back out.”

  “Our wits! We can’t see a thing.” I think it was Cuvier.

  “Ethan, we fell several seconds straight down before hitting that slope,” Fulton said. “I doubt we can climb back up to that tomb, and what good would it do us if we did?”