“Do you go over dog-cur—or do I hurl you after your loot with one great tossing?”
Nicky wrenched himself free and leapt. He landed heavily on the further edge. The McKay jerked him to his feet and shook him.
“If you’ve got any more of that stuff you’d better get rid of it. You’ll be caught for certain if you lag behind—and gold weighs mighty heavy.”
“Don’t I know it,” Nicky panted, and obediently producing four more pieces from various pockets, he dropped them down the shaft.
Vladimir had crossed at a bound but clearing the gulf and the altercation with Nicky had lost them precious moments. As they started off they could all hear again that stealthy patter made by the herd that followed in their rear.
The going was harder than ever now since the gradient was still steeper but the McKay encouraged them as they ran by panting: “We’re safe from those brutes now. They’ll never be able to cross that chasm.”
“Won’t they?” Gasped Camilla a moment later. “They will—if they find that snag of rock—by which—I swung myself over.”
“Courage,” cried Lulluma in a low voice. “Have courage. We are not far now from the place where the tunnel is blocked—If we can only get through that.…”
Another hundred yards and they reached it. The roof had fallen in and a heap of great stones barred further progress.
“Show all your lights,” cried the McKay and he began to make a quick examination.
One large rock supported many others; there was a space beneath it but only a child could have wriggled through.
“That’s the fellow we’ve got to shift.” He said. “Then we can only pray to God that there are not others like it further on.”
“Will you use both bombs?” asked Axel.
“No, one should be enough to smash this up. If I keep the other it means one more chance of getting through.”
While the women held the lights the McKay placed the bomb and adjusted its detonator. The rest gathered all the scattered rocks they could lay their hands on and piled them round the opening to concentrate the force of the explosion.
“Now! back you go—all of you,” rapped out the McKay. “A hundred yards at least. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
They had scarcely covered the distance when he came racing towards them.
As he clutched at Sally a blinding flame leapt out of the darkness. There was a thunderous roar which echoed down the tunnel for minutes afterwards punctuated by the clink and thud of falling stones.
On the McKay’s word they dashed forward again. The big rock was shattered but its splintering had brought down all the smaller stuff from above and a great heap of debris now faced them.
Without a moment’s delay they attacked the barrier, hurling the loose metal behind them. The task seemed endless but after half an hour a hole eight feet deep had been made below the larger rocks which were still jammed above.
“You must be quick,” announced Lulluma tremulously. “The beast men were scared by the explosion, but they have recovered now and are crossing the chasm by the spur—one by one. I can hear their twittering as they mass on this side before advancing.”
The workers redoubled their efforts tearing their nails and fingers as they wrenched out the jagged stones. The McKay lay on his face passing back the loose shale while Vladimir performed prodigies in increasing the size of the opening so that their leader could work more freely.
“Be quick—be quick!” cried Lulluma. “The herd are coming!”
The McKay gave a yell of triumph almost at the same moment.
“I’m through”—he called. “I’m through if only I can shift this blasted lump next to my shoulders.”
Two terrible moments followed. They could hear the brutes now padding towards them, but Sally was terrified for the McKay. She feared that in moving the block he might bring down another fall of rock which would crush him.
“I’ve done it!” he shouted. “Down on your tummies—through you come.” Then the beast men were upon them.
Axel pushed Lulluma down into the hole as he turned with Vladimir and Nicky to face the attack. They still had their steel levers which they had taken from the bathysphere and they used them savagely as the white leprous faces showed up in the torchlight.
The McKay, with his shoulders thrust into the far end of the passage he had made, grabbed Lulluma’s hands and pulled her through, then Sally, then Camilla; Nicky abandoned the fight and wriggled in hard on Camilla’s heels. The five of them waited with pounding hearts for the others.
After a moment Axel’s head appeared and he held out his hand “Your gun” he gasped to the McKay “quick—give it me.”
Bozo’s pistol held three bullets, the part-reload that the McKay had kept in his pocket. He thrust it on Axel without a second’s delay and the Count squirmed back through the hole to the far side of the barrier where Vladimir was fighting for his life against the score of skinny clawlike hands that sought to drag him down.
There were three deafening reports, then silence. Almost immediately afterwards Axel appeared again and Vladimir after him. The shots had temporarily quelled the herd and enabled them to get away before the foul creatures recovered.
“We’ll remain here, knock them out one by one as they come through” muttered the McKay and he had hardly spoken when the first parrot-beaked brute thrust its narrow head through the opening.
Vladimir clove the head at a single blow, and it died without a whimper. The body was pulled back and another head appeared. They killed its owner too and a half dozen others that came after him. Then the attempts ceased but the clink and fall of rock could be heard from the side where the herd were gathered.
“They’re enlarging the opening so that five or six of them can come at us together.” said Axel. “We may slaughter half a hundred but they’ll wear us down before we can kill one tenth of them.”
“You’re right. We’d best block the hole this end as best we can—then go on.” the McKay responded. “It will take them some time to shift the whole barrier.”
They did as he suggested, then marched up the hill again but their speed decreased in an alarming manner. Zakar had only cleared the tunnels as far as the point where he had met his death; from there on the whole floor was littered with masses of stones and rubble over which they stumbled, and in some places there were belts of debris shoulder high that could only be crossed by clambering on all fours.
These painful delays held a new menace, for where before they had been able easily to outdistance the herd by running, they could no longer do so. Once their pursuers were through the barrier the lead held by the hunted humans could not be increased again.
Another barrier reared itself up before them and their hearts almost stopped beating. For a second it looked as if they were finally trapped, but it was found that the stones did not quite reach the roof.
Lulluma had not spoken for an hour but, without her warning, they knew that their apparently implacable enemies were after them again. They could hear them slithering over the rocks behind and their horrid bird-like twitter.
The McKay scaled the new barrier and reported that they could get through under the roof as far as he could see. Utterly weary now the others hauled themselves up beside him and wriggled along over the sharp corners on their stomachs.
The blockage continued for fifty yards and downward-jutting rocks in the roof made the passage still more difficult. Before they had reached its further end they could smell the stench of the fish eaters entering it behind them.
Camilla dropped exhausted on the far side of the rocks. Vladimir picked her up, slung her over his shoulder and pushed on, leading now; Axel and Nicky were in the rear both sobbing for breath as they staggered up the steep stony uneven way.
Other passages began to branch off from the tunnel. They passed twenty openings in less than five minutes but Lulluma never hesitated, calling directions to Vladimir as she followed swiftly on his heels.
; “I can’t go on” yelled Nicky suddenly.
The McKay turned and flashed his torch upon him as he ran. His eyes were glaring, his face dead white and ghastly, his fair hair matted on his forehead.
“What the hell’s the matter with you man,” shouted the McKay. “Didn’t you unload all that gold as I told you to?”
“No” sobbed Nicky. “No—all I could—but—but the rest’s tied round my waist and legs—to—to distribute the weight. I’ve had no chance to—get—rid—of—it.”
Vladimir was carrying Camilla. Lulluma ran with set teeth just behind them. The McKay had Sally by the arm and was still thrusting her on although she was half fainting. Axel was nearly done himself and finding it a terrible effort to keep up with the party. None of them could help Nicky now.
He gave a despairing cry and pitched forward on his face—picked himself up and lurched on again—but he had lost a dozen yards, and the beast men, their feet hardened to these stony floors were close behind.
A wild burst of exultant gibbering came as Nicky fell again, the stench of rotting fish was all about him, and then they were tearing at him with their talons.
The others were so desperately pressed that they did not realise what had happened until it was too late to attempt his rescue. While the front ranks of the herd ripped him to pieces the other humans gained a momentarily increased lead, but Axel’s strength was failing.
Lulluma felt it instinctively and paused till he came up—then she flung out a hand to pull him forward.
“It’s not far now” she breathed “It’s not far now. We’ll do it unless we are stopped by another barrier.”
His breath came in choking sobs as he grabbed her hand and pressed it. “The chart of the mines—it weighs me down so. I’ll have to drop it.”
“What!—you took that?” she pulled up with a jerk. Her tone held indiscribable horror and reproach.
“Yes,” his voice was thick and rasping as he halted beside her. “In case we lost our way—I—went back to the temple for it—afterwards.”
Yet as he spoke he knew that he had not told all the truth. Even the slender chance that they might escape had filled him with an overwhelming desire to bring something back to the upper world which would definitely prove the existence of Atlantis. The chart of the mine galleries was composed of twelve sheets of heavy copper delicately hinged so that it could be spread out like a map and, engraved upon it, were countless directions and phrases inscribed with the utmost care in Atlantean hieroglyphics; that lost language which Doctor Tisch had so stoutly maintained was the root of both Egyptian and the Maya of Central America—linking them to their common parent.
Just as Nicky’s god had been Gold so Axel, through all his life, had worshipped Wisdom. The thought of needing the chart to find their way had been sufficient to excuse him to himself when he took it, because he did not know that Lulluma would prove so sure a guide, but now, as he faced her in the darkness, he knew that he would have told her that he meant to do so if he had not been impelled to the theft by a second motive.
“Give it to me” she said.
He pulled it from beneath his shirt where he had been carrying it and handed it to her.
A shout came from the McKay further up the passage. “Come on—what the hell are you two waiting for?”
“What—what are you going to do?” stammered Axel his heart contracting in a hideous fear.
“Take it back” she said simply. “I must. It is one of the sacred documents of the Temple.”
“You can’t,” he cried “You can’t. It’s too late—the herd will get you.”
“Come on!” yelled the McKay again his voice coming from a greater distance. “There’s daylight ahead—daylight.”
“I can” said Lulluma “I shall hide in one of these passages until the fisheaters have gone, I can travel more swiftly than they can and my senses will warn me if they are near. I must go back Axel.”
The herd were pelting up the hill. Their gibbering filled Axel’s ears, the stink of them was strong in his nostrils.
He grabbed Lulluma by the shoulders and tried to thrust her in the direction the rest of the party had taken, but she slipped away from him.
The McKay was hollering, nearer again now. “Where in God’s name are you?”
Half stunned by distress Axel groped for Lulluma in the darkness. He caught a whisper.
“Axel. If I get back I shall never what you call marry again—bless you.”
Then she had gone, diving into one of those side passages which she could discern but he could not.
He sank down on the ground and there, a second later, the beam of the McKay’s torch found him.
“Lulluma’s gone—gone back to her people,” he gasped as the McKay hauled him to his feet by his coat collar.
With shrill cries of triumph the beast men launched themselves upon them but the McKay held the half conscious Axel under the armpit and was literally forcing him along as the herd clamoured at their heels. He knew now that daylight and safety lay ahead if only they could reach it.
Neither ever knew how they covered those last four hundred yards but in the latter part they were slipping and stumbling over seaweed.
Vladimir, carrying Love alone, had got Camilla up through a narrow gap in the rocks on to a long desolate shore lit by the afternoon sunshine.
Then he had dragged Sally out beside her. Now he returned into the entrance of the cave and grabbed Axel as he fell senseless.
The McKay scrambled up after them—then he turned and flung his last bomb into the opening. They heard the dull boom as the rocks lifted. The roof of the tunnel caved in and buried the first hundred of the beast men. The entrance of the passage seemed to tremble as though seen through a haze of heat then it dissolved into a mass of rocks, indistinguishable from those about it.
They had all reached the limit of endurance. Sally, Camilla and Axel sprawled senseless in a heap. Vladimir just witnessed the closing of the road that led downwards to Atlantis before his great legs gave way and he fell beside them.
For a moment the McKay stood there, his feet squarely planted, as he drank in the gentle breeze, the salt sea air, the blessed sunlight, then he pitched forward—unconscious but triumphant.
• • • • •
The following is an extract from a letter written some considerable time later by Count Axel Fersan on Pico Island to Mrs. N. A. McKay—in the United States of America:
Another season has passed and I am again compelled to abandon my search owing to the great gales which now sweep the beaches here.
You might well imagine that I know every yard of the desolate south and east coasts of Pico by this time, but when you and your beloved Captain come to stay with me next summer, as you have promised, you will appreciate the immense difficulty of my task.
The rocky promontories and innumerable coves all look so much alike that even I, who have spent so many weary months here, still find it hard to distinguish one from another except by continual checking on my map.
At times I utterly despair of ever finding the exact spot where we were picked up half dead by the crew of the fishing boat, and even that would be only a beginning since, in our delirium, we wandered, probably several miles, along the shore after the McKay blew in the entrance of the tunnel; but those black moods never last and I am already longing for our short winter to be over so that I can get down to my search again.
For the rest, owing to your splendid generosity, I live in epicurean comfort. The Roman Villa which you had built to my design is not large as you know but, now that its gardens provide a suitable setting, very beautiful.
The nine fruit trees which I grew from the stones we saved are doing well. They occupy a little sheltered court containing nothing else, just below my window. I tend them with a more devoted care than any horticulturist ever gave to a black tulip or a blue rose, since they are the only tangible thing remaining of our journey to Atlantis. When you are here they will be in blossom
and recall to you with startling vividness the beauty and the fragrance of my dear Lulluma.
You will be prepared, of course, for a very quiet time. There is hardly an educated person on the island but that suits me, since it eliminates the necessity for a tiresome exchange of visits and wasting time among people who would probably have little in common with myself. However, I do not lead a completely useless life as, owing once more to your generosity, I have been able to do much for the fisher folk along the coast.
They think me a little mad owing to my obsession with the foreshore but not entirely so. In fact they endeavour to ignore my eccentricity, with the natural politeness found among common people, and in all other ways have come to regard me as a sort of overlord.
Instead of carrying their disputes to the courts or resorting to private vengeance they have formed the habit of bringing them to me and accepting my decisions as a basis for settlement. In return I could always have as much free labour as I wished—if I needed it—and hardly a morning passes without a gift of fruit or vegetables being left at my door by someone to whom I have had the good fortune to be of assistance.
My last mail brought me one of those delightfully humorous effusions from Vladimir. He and his ‘so beautiful Princess’ beg me again to visit them in Bucharest in order to see my little godson but, great as is the temptation, I cannot bring myself to leave the island even for a month.
He tells me that plausible rogue Slinger is out of prison and that they met him a few weeks ago in Paris. When I am feeling very low I can still revive my sense of humour by thinking of Kate’s rage when he realised how completely he had been fooled by two young women. No wonder you were so scared of his return, and so certain that he would come back vowing vengeance immediately he discovered that neither the carefully thought out letter to your lawyer nor the signature to the will itself were in the Duchess da Solento-Ragina’s writing.
How infinitely wise you were my dear, after your first tragic marriage, to decide on changing identities with your cousin and how fortunate that you did so before Slinger came on the scene.
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