Biggles In the South Seas

by Captain W E Johns

  He expected no trouble in reaching the cove; his only

  fear was that the shark might still be there, a contingency 134

  he preferred not to contemplate. But again he was to -be disappointed, for just as they reached the cove a mop-head rounded a corner of the coral, the swimmer actually landing at the spot where Ginger had climbed up many times. It was one of Castanelli's crew. Why he had chosen to swim ashore and choose that particular place he did not know; he could only suppose that the fellow had suspected what they would do, and saw a way of putting himself in his master's good graces by out-flanking them. Ginger and Full Moon were just inside the tiny, semicircular cover when the native pulled himself ashore, and they could only crouch back into a depression in the coral trusting that they would not be seen. For a minute the native stood where he had come ashore, water dripping from his black body; then he let out a yell which made Ginger flinch. At first he thought that the native must have seen them, but when he made no move in their direction, and the shout was answered by another not far away, he realized that this was not so. The man was merely letting the others know where he was. Ginger prayed that he would go If he would disappear only for a minute or two, it would give them all the time they needed to reach their grotto refuge. The man did, in fact, move a few paces forward to the edge of the cove, but it was only to climb up on the highest point of coral from where he could command a view over the whole of it, and some distance beyond. And there he evidently intended to remain, while the others, spread out across the island, drove the quarry towards him. Or so he imagined. Ginger could hear their shouts as they drew nearer. He felt Full Moon reach for her knife, but he pressed her back, knowing that it was absolutely out of the question to get anywhere near the man without being seen. And if once they were seen the end was a foregone conclusion. So they remained where they were, Ginger hoping that the search would presently be abandoned, at least for the time being.

  A minute passed—five minutes—and then footsteps could be heard approaching. A second native appeared, followed shortly afterwards by Castanelli, conspicuous in a dirty suit of white ducks with a rifle under his arm. 'You no see?' he said to the waiting boy.

  'No see, boss.'

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  Castanelli sat down on the coral. 'They not far away,' he said confidently. 'We wait daylight.'

  Ginger's heart sank. Their luck seemed to be absolutely dead out, but there was nothing they could do about it. He had lost all count of time, one reason being that he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. The moon passed its zenith and begin to sink, and still they crouched in their narrow hiding-place. A deadly weariness began to creep over him. That some of the natives were still carrying on the search he knew, for he often heard them shouting to each other. The situation became one of those evil dreams that go on and on, repeating the same thing over and over again indefinitely. All the time Castanelli sat on the rock, smoking innumerable cigars. Ginger had never hated any one quite as much as he hated the smooth-tongued Corsican. He hated him so much that had he possessed a weapon he would have shot him and risked the consequences. At long last the moonlight began to fade. A lavender streak, swiftly turning to pink, flushed the eastern sky, and Ginger knew that discovery was now only a matter of minutes. He looked again at Castanelli still sitting on his selected seat; it was obvious that he had no intention of moving. He was, however, looking the other way, presumably watching the boys who were still carrying on with the search. One only remained with him, and he, too, was looking in the same direction. Ginger put his lips close to Full Moon's ear. 'We no stay,' he said. 'If Atanelli turns he see us plenty quick. We make for grotto.'

  Full Moon nodded to show that she understood.

  Slowly, for he was as stiff as a rod, Ginger moved from his cramped position, ready to bolt. Full Moon joined him, and in another moment they were both creeping silently towards the water. Half way, neither of the two men on the rock had turned. They were now only a few yards from their objective, and Ginger was just beginning to hope that luck was favouring them at last, and that they would reach the water undetected, when the Solomon Islander turned. There appeared to be no reason why he should. It was almost as if his instinct had warned him that something

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  was moving. He spoke swiftly,-touching Castanelli's arm, and then pointed to the fugitives.

  Out of the corner of his eye Ginger saw the Corsican reach for his rifle, and he waited for no more. Even as he made a dash for the water Full Moon passed him like a brown streak, but they were practically side by side as they went head first into the water. As he turned to follow Full Moon to the cave Ginger distinctly felt the sharp concussion of a bullet striking the surface. The next moment they were in deep water, swimming through a dim twilight, as the sun was not yet up. Ginger swam by feel as much as anything. Had he not been to the cave before he would never have found it, but he knew where it was, so he dragged himself in and struck out through the inky blackness. Gasping for breath he came to the surface inside the grotto, to find Full Moon waiting for him. They climbed out and sat on their customary ledge, where Full Moon produced a single coconut from under her arm, and again Ginger marvelled at her foresight and ability.

  There was just enough light in the grotto for them to see each other. Full Moon smiled, and Ginger smiled back, but in his heart he felt far from smiling. He knew that their escape could only be a brief respite. It was merely a matter of time before Castanelli's boys found the cave, and—well, he did not know what would happen then. He only knew that the Corsican would not go away and leave them there. Ì reckon we stay here long time,' remarked Full Moon philosophically, cracking one end of the nut against the coral.

  Ginger nodded. He said nothing, for the simple reason that he could think of nothing to say. Wondering what devilment Castanelli was devising, he sat and watched the water turn from grey to mauve, and from mauve to blue. Full Moon handed him a piece of coconut and he munched it mechanically, for he was too weary to be hungry. The girl drew her knife and laid it on the coral beside her. 'I cut Atanelli's throat bymeby,

  ' she announced casually. 'Maybe I eat him,' she added pensively as an afterthought. In his overwrought state, the picture of Full Moon eating the fat Corsican made Ginger laugh immoderately. The grotto echoed with his laughter.

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  `You no laugh that way,' scolded Full Moon sharply. `You laugh that way you get debildebil in head.'

  Ì shouldn't wonder at that,' returned Ginger, and for a while they remained silent. F OR nearly an hour—or what Ginger judged to be an hour—he and Full Moon sat on the ledge in the grotto, waiting for they knew not what. There was nothing they could do except wait. There was no sign or sound to indicate that their enemies were outside, but Ginger did not attempt to deceive himself. He knew that Castanelli would not leave the island while he and Full Moon were alive, so he waited with what patience he could muster for the Corsican's next move. That something would happen presently he was certain, but what it was he could not remotely imagine. He looked at Full Moon. She was sitting with her feet dangling within an inch or two of the water, apparently quite content, her simple mind oblivious to danger.

  Ginger was about to warn her to get higher on the ledge in case a shark or an octopus should seize her feet, for after his recent experiences these dangers were ever in his mind, when with hardly a ripple the water parted and a brown hand appeared. It closed round the girl's ankle. An instant later the mop head of one of Castanelli's islanders broke the surface.

  Full Moon, caught off her guard, was nearly pulled into

  the water at the islander's first tug, but by a convulsive twist 138

  of her body she managed to seize a piece of projecting coral and hang on to the ledge. The scream she gave reverberated through the cave.

  After the first shock of surprise had passed Ginger moved swiftly. He snatched up Full Moon's knife, and without the slightest hesitation drove it down with all the strength of his arm into the
brown shoulder. The hand released its grip on Full Moon's ankle immediately, and the native pushed himself clear of the ledge in a swirl of discoloured water. For a moment his right arm disappeared from sight; then it reappeared, gripping a knife. At the same time he made a rush for the ledge. Ginger saw that if the man once gained his objective their plight would be desperate indeed, and he ran forward with his own knife upraised to meet the attack.

  But the attack did not materialize. A lithe brown body slipped past him. It was Full Moon, with her arms raised above her head. In her hands she held a piece of coral rather larger than a coconut. The native saw his danger and, twisting away, prepared to dive, but before he could carry out his intention the coral came down on his head with a thud that made Ginger wince. The islander's body went limp, and then sank slowly in the blue water.

  `Me finish him pretty quick,' announced Full Moon, in tones of the greatest possible satisfaction.

  Ginger stared at her, for the casual way in which she treated life and death never failed to amaze him. In his heart he knew that he himself would have hesitated to do what she had done—deliberately kill the man. Even when he had struck with the knife he had chosen the man's shoulder as a target when he might have struck him in the head or throat. But Full Moon evidently had no such scruples. With a smile on her face she stood looking down at the body, now lying on the white sand at the bottom of the pool. In a way it pained Ginger to think that she was capable of such an act, although he realized that he had little cause for complaint. It was, he supposed, all a matter of environment. All the years of her life had been spent in danger, real and ever-pressing, so it was unlikely that she would be disturbed by the sight of death. Sandy had once told him that death was held to be a thing of no account in the Islands, where people took a pride in prepar139

  ing their own coffins and graves, prizing, them highly until such time as they fulfilled the purpose for which they were made.

  Ginger continued to stand on the ledge with his back to the wall, gazing down at the black figure asprawl on the bottom. He felt that he ought to dive in and pull the body up, but he dismissed the inclination. After all, he reasoned, the man had swum in to kill them, so what had happened had really been just retribution. The thing that concerned him most was the fact that the islander had discovered their retreat. Did those outside share that knowledge, he wondered, or had the man only just discovered the cave, and swum in to explore it?

  Full Moon took the knife from his hand. Looking to see why she wanted it he saw her prising off another large piece of coral, presumably for ammunition in case there should be another attack. She sang to herself in a queer minor key as she did so, from time to time glancing over her shoulder at the water. During such a glance her song came to an abrupt end, and she uttered a little cry.

  Ginger, following the direction of her eyes, thought for a moment that the islander had come to life; but the dead man still lay in the same place, and he realized that it was a second figure under the water, swimming strongly. It reached the dead man lying spreadeagled on the sand, and paused as if to examine the body. Full Moon stepped forward, with the piece of coral, which she had torn off, raised above her head. Ginger, too, stood ready. But the islander did not come up. Apparently he had learnt what he wanted to know, for after a glance towards the ledge he twisted like an eel and shot back into the cave. Ginger would have prevented this had it been possible, for he knew that the islander would be able to explain to Castanelli just where they had taken refuge; but he could do nothing.

  `They know where we are now,' he told Full Moon.

  `Maybe Atanelli come,' suggested the girl hopefully, balancing the lump of coral in her hand with eager anticipation.

  `Not he,' declared Ginger. 'He no come. He plenty afraid —send black boys.'

  Full Moon nodded. Aue,' she muttered. 'We kill black boys all same, eh?'

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  Ginger smiled in spite of himself. 'You blood-thirsty little wretch,' he admonished her.

  `No blood-thirsty—just kill, that's all, ' protested Full Moon. The minutes passed, but the islander did not reappear. Ginger would have given a lot to know what was going on outside. Whatever it was he would have preferred to know the worst But time went on and nothing happened. The pool was now a blaze of blue light, and he knew that it was broad daylight outside. As is usual in such cases, the inactivity frayed his nerves, but there was nothing he could do. He fell to wondering what Biggles was doing all this time, but conjecture did not help him. Full Moon, seeing him look often towards the cave, offered to swim through to find out what was happening in the cove, but he would not hear of it.

  `What Atanelli he do, you reckon?' she inquired cheerfully. Ì don't know, but you may be sure he is up to some devilment,' replied Ginger, wondering if, now that their whereabouts was known, Castanelli would try to dig down to them from the outside. 'I wish something would happen,' he added. 'This standing here doing nothing is awful.'

  His wish was speedily fulfilled. Hardly had the words left his lips when he was flung backwards by a violent explosion that rocked the entire grotto. Acrid fumes and coraldust filled the air, while the water surged over the ledge with such force that he was nearly swept away. Pieces of coral began dropping from the roof into the water, and it was obvious that the whole place might collapse at any moment. After her first scream of fear Full Moon clutched Ginger's arm. 'What Atanelli do?' she gasped.

  Ì'm afraid he is going to blow the place to pieces with dynamite,' replied Ginger, coughing as the fumes of the explosive reached his lungs. 'I suppose he has had to go to the schooner to get it; that's why there has been a delay,' he explained.

  `What we do? You say?' questioned Full Moon plaintively.

  Ginger did not know what to do. To swim out through the cave would probably mean that they would be shot by Castanelli, who was doubtless waiting for their heads to ap141

  pear above the water. To remain where they were would invite the Corsican to fire another charge of dynamite and bury them for all eternity in the ruins of the grotto. The walls were already cracking. One more charge would certainly cause the whole place to fall in. Either way they were doomed, but of the two deaths Ginger preferred to remain where he was, if only to deny Castanelli the satisfaction of shooting him. 'We stay here,'

  he told Full Moon, instinctively crouching back against the wall. 'If we go out Atanelli shoot plenty quick.'

  `Me stay,' announced Full Moon philosophically.

  There was another nerve-racking period of waiting, but Ginger could now visualize fairly clearly what was going on outside. Castanelli would wait for a ,few minutes to see if they came out; when they did not appear, he would fire another stick of dynamite and throw it in the hole made by the first, which was somewhere over their heads. That would be the finish.

  Ginger put his arm through Full Moon's and leaned back against the wall to wait for the end. He had not long to wait. There was another violent explosion. The flash of it struck downwards through the grotto into the water, to be followed immediately by the splash of falling rock. Parts of the wall caved in. Then, with a loud crack, a large portion of the roof broke away and crashed down into the grotto. The daylight poured in, and it was blue no longer.

  So far no rocks had fallen on the narrow ledge on which Ginger and Full Moon crouched. Coughing, Ginger looked up through a cloud of smoke and coral dust at a hole nearly as large as a dining-room table that had appeared in the roof. Above it was the blue sky. For a moment or two there was no sign of life; then Castanelli's head appeared over the edge. A broad smile spread over his face when he saw the two shrinking figures on the ledge. '

  You come out,' he ordered.

  `We'll say here,' replied Ginger, wondering if he could throw Full Moon's knife accurately enough to hit the man whom he hated most on earth. The Corsican shrugged his shoulders. Quite calmly, as if it were a cigar, he took from his pocket another stick of dynamite with a short fuse attached, and a box of matches. 142


  He lit the fuse and raised the dynamite above his head. `You come out,' he ordered again.

  `No! ' shouted Ginger.

  There came a sound of distant shouting. Castanelli evidently heard it, for he looked round over his shoulder. When he turned his face back to the grotto the smile was no longer on it. Showing his teeth in a snarl of animal rage he hurled the stick of dynamite straight at Ginger. It sped through the air, leaving a trail of pale grey smoke behind it. Ginger watched it fascinated. He could see that even if it did not actually hit him it would fall on the ledge. His first inclination was to jump into the water, for there was no room to run. Then he saw that the dynamite would hit Full Moon, and his reaction was instinctive. Like a cricketer taking a catch he jumped forward and allowed the stick to fall into his hands. Instantly he hurled it back at the hole whence it came. There was no time to think, for as the dynamite showed for a moment against the blue sky there was a terrific explosion, and the next moment he was on his knees shielding his head from the falling debris. He dragged Full Moon towards him and did his best to protect her with his body. The air was full of smoke, and the noise of falling coral. Brushing the dust from his streaming eyes he tried to see what was happening. It was not easy, for the shape of the whole grotto had altered. Pieces of the wall, and the roof, were still falling, and as they fell into the water, blocking the cave, it rose accordingly, so that their ledge was awash. Ginger only saw these things vaguely, for in the horror of the moment it seemed as if the whole world was crumbling to pieces about them. He could still hear shouts outside, but he could see nobody, so he had no idea what was happening; but presently the smoke began to clear, and he could see more plainly what had happened to the grotto. Most of the roof had disappeared, so that he and Full Moon were, so to speak, at the bottom of a rough basin, the sides being composed of coral, some of which was cracked, and only needed a touch to bring it down. In fact, the whole place appeared likely to cave in at any moment. Of Castanelli there was no sign.